Globalisation and corporatism

Understanding how populism attacks key pillars of commerce, and the impact on our pockets.

Post World War Two, the American led world order was built on the principle of promoting free trade and competition. The dominant entity of our economy, the corporation, flourished - specifically corporations that understood the economic value of globalisation and successfully tapped into it.

The end of the US dollar peg to gold in 1971, and the ensuing free floating exchange rates, tradable across borders (in 1979 for the UK), were building blocks of modern capitalism that allowed corporates to access capital, labour and trade goods across borders.

Populism today explicitly cite globalisation and corporatism as the cause of our woes, and vocalise policies that impact both. The Make America Great Again movement in the United States began this shift towards protectionism. In Europe the Brexit movement, partially reversed the free-trade and open borders with the European Union.

Politics is in a feverish state in many countries. This piece focuses on how the corporate and globalisation impact our lives, so that if and when their effects are reversed, due to the politics du jour, you know how it will impact you.

We are not blind to the legitimate criticisms of both (corporatism and globalism), but the trouble with reversing systems that make you (and generally everyone) better off, is that their reversal can also make you poorer. That of course feeds more populism, and a vicious cycle then becomes more probable: i.e. more poor policy, and more populism.

Why this matters?

For the past fifty years, we have lived in a globalised world, where the large corporation is at the centre of commercial activity. When one hears speeches by populist politicians you will hear of two villains - corporatists and globalists: other sobriquets may be ‘Davos man’, ‘WEF man’ and the ‘metropolitan elite’.

We agree with the populists that reforms are required. What reforms are the question. In an idealised world, democracies openly discuss woes, and calmly evolve to the next optimal iteration of governance - and so continue the improvements to institutions that led to the prosperity we broadly have today. That prosperity is concentrated, increasingly in fewer and fewer hands, and yet until recently famine (and relatedly, the resurgence of conflict) was largely confined to the history books. As always, it is the poorest in the world who suffer from catastrophes like famine - and so it is today, in Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and most recently Gaza.

In rich countries, there is a degradation in living standards that we attribute to the broader economic cycle, but populists right now are blaming a broad set of ills: globalisation, corporations, Islamism, Wokism and populists on the left, blame (laissez faire) capitalism, the elites and their corruption of our systems. Democracies are not feeling well. The wrong prognosis could result in the remedies that cause more damage, not less.

Attacks on corporations come from both the left or progressive side of politics, and the right, the conservative or neo-nationalist, side of politics: DEI, climate, but also some new nationalist ideas, that want to tax corporates for migrants they hire (Reform speech recently), and others want to foist education and training costs on corporates.

Who should we believe? The left, the right or ourselves

Where we differ from populists is not in the need for change, or action, but in their ideas: or lack of them. Rather, we buy into the thesis set out by Peter Turchin (interview here) and his team, that these populists simply represent different power centres, rather than benevolent advocates of positive change.

One of the best examples of this was when, hedge fund billionaire, Robert Mercer bankrolled the Trump campaign in 2016. Analysts see shifts in American politics since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. That and subsequent rulings removed virtually all limits on how much money corporations and nonprofit groups can spend on federal elections. Others point to changes in lobbying rules since the Reagan era.

And in the example of the 2016 campaign, Mercer switched his assets (Steve Bannon and Breitbart news and key personnel like Kelly-Ann Conway) from the Ted Cruz campaign to Trump, after the MAGA candidate won the Republican primary. This New Yorker article is a good summary, but there are many others that document this remarkable story.

Peter Turchin and his research team publish their findings in ‘End Times’, but the clues have been there for years, for those who follow politics. The current revolutionary elites do not introduce new ideas needed to help national and human progress, but rather seem to dust off old tribalist politics of religion, ethnicity and nationalism.

Manipulating the Overton Window?

The end destination of these counter-elites is unclear. Perhaps they do not know themselves. When you analyse revolutions, it is clear that there is an element of chance in the end outcome. Though, invariably the meanest and nastiest elements of the respective revolution seems to end up in charge: La Terror after the French Revolution, run by Maximillian Robespierre, Stalin triumphing over the Trostkyists in the Boleshevik Revolution, and even Hitler’s ascent through the Night of the Long Knives.

The Overton Window (defined here), is the range of politically acceptable discussion. The best example of this shifting effect was of course the debate in the UK on Brexit. At no juncture in the pre-Brexit debates did any party seriously advocate for a ‘no-deal Brexit’, but in the aftermath of the referendum the true position of many Brexiteers was clear: a real Brexit meant a no-deal Brexit.

And we have no problem with a ‘no-deal Brexit’, but the trouble, if the path is spelt out clearly to the public, and they chose to engage in the long transformation it entails.

It is the dishonesty in the process that is impacting politics - there is a growing distrust, both in the establishment, but also in this new, opaque (for we do not know who the funders are), opposition or revolution. Voters now tolerate and expect to be lied to. And that is unhealthy.

Today that Overton Window is being nudged further. Efforts to move the UK further away from the EU are focused on human rights rules, subject to the ECHR. The argument goes, that these cross-jurisdictional agreements impinge on British sovereignty: they do, like all other cross-border agreements. The urgent need for absolute rights, with no cross-border alignment, is one of the formats of the neo-nationalism we are seeing around the world.

What is the populists’ end destination?

Our base position is that the current populists lack, or haven’t openly set out, a concise and consistent economic model that will improve progress from here. Brexit was about ‘retaking control’ but the attempts to change Britain beyond leaving the EU have floundered. The Truss premiership, in our mind the most serious attempt at a ‘no-deal Brexit’, ultimately failed under the stress of the financial markets.

In a very Turchinian paradigm, you have to see the world for the different powerful interests: whether states, corporate lobbies or high-net wealth individuals, that fund and support these movements. There are of course entrenched powerful interests that advocate for the status quo.

Power naturally concentrates over time. However, in the ideal democratic process, the wealthy and powerful are forced to improve the way the world is managed, due to other competing powerful interests. So in a positive world, these powerful interests provide better vision to the existing one in order to woo voters and citizens.

E.g. the United States rose to power, by offering the world a more benign form of empire, than Britain’s. And it had to compete with the Soviet bloc, and offer a better vision that communism (contemporaneously a more challenging task than we may believe with the benefit of hindsight).

The troubling aspect of today’s politics is the lack of big ideas subject to debate: rather we are regurgitating old ideas, like anti-capitalism, neo-nationalism, Islamism (that comes in the form of Islamophohia), wokism, feminism, transgenderism and even neo-Imperialism.

The result is that we do not know what the end destination is for the populists of various brands. It is plausible, due to the randomness of revolution, that they are not clear on this question themselves, and there is plenty of evidence of that.

The era of corporatists and globalists

For fifty years or so the world has had policies that promoted global trade and globalisation, and the vehicles for that economy have been corporations. In fact, the companies that are currently global household names, are the winners of that era: i.e. who tapped into globalisation - American Express, Coca Cola, the survivors of the 70s - a disproportionate number of the Nifty Fifty (a stock selection once deemed a bubble, but who were actually the winners - see article here).

There is a separate lesson there,  which is that if this is a turning point, then you need to choose your employer with care - there is no guarantee that you will have a job for life, as most employers may go extinct at times that are as transformative as these we live in.

So if you understand that our post World War Two world is built for the corporate, then it follows that a corporation needs four things: people, capital, and markets for goods and services.

It is no coincidence that the four pillars of the European Union are also the essential characteristics of a global economy built around the corporation. The combination of capital and labour is the essence of a corporation. The EU guarantees their free movement. Goods and services are what a corporation creates. Again their free movement is a foundational aspect of the EU’s four pillars. Whist the EU is the most advanced framework for collecting these ideas within what is a supranational (not national) entity. 

If one is fortunate enough to work for a multinational corporation, this is observable when moving  for work across borders: the process is nearly frictionless. For employees of multinationals everything is addressed: from visas to home movers, and even services that settle your family into their new country, with advice on schools to residences. 

The EU has taken this experience, once only applicable to those at the top of their field, and applied it to all its citizens, and more importantly its faster growing smaller companies. Now a start up in Berlin can access talent across the union, and sell its goods and services, across the region too: in essence it puts the small business and the corporate Goliath on the same footing.

There are accusations of corruption, and we do not suggest that the EU is immune to this age old vice, but simply that its structure of the four free movements disproportionately benefits smaller businesses, for whom frictions of doing business have a more material impact on their profit and even viability. 

In neo-liberal theory, the small corporation and the individual are essential pillars of progress: it is because they innovate and act, that the system adapts. Individual choices, their actions both as consumers and providers (through small businesses and individual employment) drive change.

The fairer a system is for individuals and small businesses, the better it is suited to adapt to change, force competition and collectively remain ahead. Those are the principles that lead to our collective thought leaders deriding first Soviet Communism and today Chinese Communism (or the projection of China in the West, that predominantly Western critics deride). That at least was the mantra for the past five decades - but it is changing. 

Corporate Exports, competitiveness, the currency and inflation

A country is a sovereign entity, with borders, its own currency, and citizens. In today’s system, currencies are free floating. The value is determined by supply and demand. Foreigners could want British Pounds to buy our land (property) or invest here (by bonds and shares). Similarly, British savers in todays globalised world invest abroad. That exchange is captured in our Capital Account (see wiki). However, just as important, or more important is trade (which in turn impacts employment) and that is represented in the Current Account (see wiki) - the account that captures the sale of goods and services we produce, and the purchase of goods and services from abroad.

Most of the goods and services we import and export are by large corporations. I.e those within the eight thousand businesses in the UK that employ over 250 people, of which a minority, likely with over a thousand employees, will dominate exports. The reason for that is that we operate in a hyper-competitive world.

Diageo, through scale, automation and reach produces its goods cheaper than most other drinks companies in the world. Similarly Volkswagen, Toyota, Nestle and the list goes on. The companies that make up the top listed equity indices (S&P, FTSE, Dow, Dax, etc) dominate world trade - they sell the most goods, at the cheapest price. They also employ a disproportionate number of employees, including some of the most highly paid employees.

When you go to Costa Coffee for a break, you may think you are at an Italian style cafe from the branding, but it was purchased by Coca Cola in 2019. Innocent, the producers of healthy, bottled, fruit smoothies, was acquired by Coca Cola in 2013. It doesn’t stop there: behind the plethora of brands on your supermarket shelves are just a few large corporations - it is argued, we have an illusion of choice.

This is the cycle - small companies grow new ideas and brands, and big companies make them efficient and scale them, across the country and across borders. Another way to look at this is through the eyes of the family owned French vintner. Each family who owns a vineyard in France could easily sell it to an owner of the luxury drinks brands for at least twice the price. The corporate conglomerate would induct it into their more efficient platforms, and deliver it into seamless sales pipelines, extracting much more value (or less friction).

When family owned vintners choose to maintain their traditional, small business approach, it has an opportunity cost. Many choose to accept that for their passion of keeping the wine business in the family, but there is a cost to not selling to the efficient machine that is the major corporation.

The same applies to the idea of ‘growing your own vegetables’ - it may be a pleasant hobby, that delivers organic, healthy food, but if you account for your time properly, it may be the most expensive meal you eat that week (including at some moderately priced restaurants).

We live in a world where everything we consume is delivered in the most efficient way in human history: mass produced in the most effective location (based on laws, land prices, workforces, etc), and shipped around the world - invariably, by a large corporation.

Smaller companies and individuals

And so where do smaller companies fit into this economy. In the fairytale of economic unicorns, these small businesses are the creative sparks that blossom - a tale that uses cliches of tech minnows that came do dominate the world. Reality is more mundane. The vast majority of small businesses provide domestic services - dry cleaners, plumbers, electricians, contractors, and so on. Of the UK’s five million odd businesses, four million are self employed / one person businesses. That is why the average revenues of the one person companies is circa £70,000.

Over the past fifty years, advances in technology has created the ultra-successful niche: hedge funds are an example in finance. With fewer than a hundred employees, these investment vehicles can manage billions of dollars, and earn tens of millions in fees.

As technology blossomed, we now see everything from the one person ‘influencer’ to the internet shipping entrepreneurs. Entire new, smaller, eco-systems of e-commerce led business, is delivering the promise of capitalism - an adaptive eco-system that evolves and delivers better solutions. Sam Altman, and other Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts, believe it is possible in the coming decade, with the leverage of AI, that there will be businesses that turnover a billion dollars with just three employees.

With access to a large market, such as the United States or the European Union, small businesses have advantages - without the additional bureaucracy of export red tape, they can sell to a bigger market. Their creative advantage can blossom - for that is the only advantage a small business truly has: owners with a vested interest in innovation and performance - they think about it day and night, whilst most employees go home, and unwind. Beyond that they struggle against bigger organisations.

If the UK did completely leave the EU, it would be worse for smaller businesses that are exporters and that sell to consumers. I.e. our smaller companies would have further frictions against bigger companies, and so it is harder to be a small business that exports. The frictions of trade impact a small company disproportionately - that would make the economy less dynamic. Small companies are more likely to innovate, but imposing trade frictions impact them disproportionately.

We have not yet completely left the EU, but are rather are simply an incremental step away with greater trade frictions. However, if we imagine for a moment that we do completely leave the EU, then our economy would likely need to look like those of other similar sized, successful countries outside the EU - Japan, South Korea, and perhaps a handful of others. Those countries have national champions that dominate exports, and then smaller companies that provide domestic services.

E-commerce entrepreneurs that can, via cross border digital agreements, reach global consumers may be protected. However, those caveats aside, it is clear how frictionless trading benefits the smaller companies, not the larger ones.

And so the further the UK moves from the single market of the European Union, the more our future will look a lot more like other similar sized economies that are outside of such sovereign and trading bloc. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan - these are economies with national champions that compete on a global stage. Small businesses serve the domestic market.

The contribution of the corporation

Whether large or small, corporation taxes, in proportion to their revenues, contribute less to the economy than individuals and small businesses. That is because they are able to manage their taxes more deftly, booking profits in optimal jurisdictions.

Smart countries try to draw corporations to their jurisdictions. A corporation is the best at what it does in the world, and so pays well, requires skilled labour and develops the labour force further. When they fail to innovate and improve they go bust - or like the last great extinction event of the 1970s, corporations that fail to keep up with change disappear. And new ones arise and grow in their place.

Smaller corporations have less flexibility in structuring their taxes. This is another reason to encourage smaller corporations - they pay a disproportionate amount of taxes in proportion to their revenues, and they have an asymmetric capacity to grow.

We draw corporations to our jurisdiction because they employ the most high value employees. 10% of income taxpayers pay over 60% of income tax (link). That is disproportionately likely to come from corporations, as most small business owners have more effective mechanisms to draw funds.

And the corporation links to directly to wealth and economic welfare: it is the best at what it does in the world, it pays some direct taxes (the bigger the corporate, proportionally the less this is), but the indirect taxes, via employees and other expenditure is very material.

Political decisions drive domestic costs or frictions

Introducing various types of protectionist, economic friction (or indirect fees) is low hanging fruit for populists. These are measures that are popular, but the costs are borne by someone other than the taxpayer.

The degree of ‘friction’ or ‘cost’ that these small businesses charge is a political choice. When we cut the number of plumbers who can work in the UK, we protect UK plumbers, but that costs UK consumers more.

The best exemplar is the London black taxi - a union, with strict barriers to entry, that protect its members. Mini cabs by contrast have to charge VAT and pay congestion charges - all political choices to protect black cabs, that ultimately cost the consumer - i.e. it is an indirect tax that is charged by that protected sector. If you wish to increase nurses wages, then simply create domestic barriers, like a UK certificate that is difficult to attain and you immediately protect nurses.

Of course the taxpayer and consumer will pay for that ‘protection’. We can protect domestic labour, as we did when we left the EU and so reduced the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for EU labour (plumbing, building, etc), but that ‘friction’ / protection barrier will create a cost for others in the economy via prices (or in the NHS and public services) taxes. Or of course, as the right wishes, we could simply cut public services.

Various proposals are being considered including increasing taxes on corporates with foreign workers and schemes to make corporations pay for worker training. These are other populist tools to foist economic friction on entities other than the taxpayer.

The goal could be to develop something like the Swiss economy. Various measures are taken to ensure domestic workers are ‘protected’ and receive high wages, whilst foreign workers are sought for high value sectors and corporations. The number of high value or skilled workers needed depends on the deficit delivered by the domestic education system, and so you get on to another topic that is important to a large section of the voting public: immigration. However, there is more to building an economy like Switzerland than a handful of populist measures.

Britain’s post GFC recovery

And so once you understand these relationships, the consequences of political decisions on your income is easier to comprehend. Britain is a highly competitive economy, with relatively good infrastructure and very high standards of law. This makes it somewhat resilient to poor policies.

That said with underfunding, all of the tangible (transport, health, etc) and intangible (law, and access to courts) infrastructure are being eroded. Further, there is likely a tipping point at which Britain is not an attractive destination for large corporations, and so politicians should beware of too much populism.

Britain has an open, if politically controversial (on the right wing of politics), immigration policy, to allow corporations to access external talent. That immigration policy is a major issue in contemporary politics and the impending elections, but as set out above, people are a part of the corporate landscape.

It can draw on a wider pool of global talent, because English is the Lingua Franca (the global language of our age), however the downside is that the domestic population have more global competition, than populations of non-English speaking nations.

We have a separate piece that breaks down the issue of immigration, and specifically why rich countries are struggling to contain it: Switzerland is the best exemplar of a direct democracy (many decisions at referenda), that consistently votes against immigration, but the number of immigrants keeps growing. Part of that is due to the EU, but a large part is not.

Incomes in the UK generally stagnated following the Great Financial Crisis. We think the reason for this is based on the model set out above: (a) a global trend in commodities, (b) the implosion of the banking sector post GFC, and (c) political uncertainty since Brexit.

The above charts courtesy of the FT (link) demonstrates how the GFC was particularly bad for Britain. Banking was a disproportionately large contributor to the UK, both directly and indirectly (via the vendors who serviced banking - accountants, lawyers, landlords, etc). With Brexit, and the EU’s policy of key banking roles being based on the continent, we see not just the movement of current jobs (and the indirect economy), but also the loss of future skill: i.e. the graduates hired for these skilled posts will be in Frankfurt, Paris and Madrid - the knowledge and skills will move there for the future.

To substitute this effect, the UK needs to replace banking and other industries with new ones. Being a dynamic and open economy that has been happening. The UK has become a hub for tech, biotech and a number of other innovative industries. However, for entrepreneurs and conglomerates to make plans, they need certainty about the direction of travel.

Contrary to fears about Brexit, the impact on the UK will not be some cataclysmic immediate collapse, but rather a slow long bleed, until we replace impacted sectors by new growth sectors that create high paying jobs. It will also depend upon the certainty we can provide - with the ‘right’ of politics still pushing for the UK to leave the EU fully (‘no deal Brexit’) we may see more uncertainty ahead, but likely not for the next decade (as Labour looks likely to bring us back closer to the EU).

Populist solutions to wage stagnation

In the meantime, this stagnation that Britain suffers from (due to economic cycles, the GFC and Brexit) will have populists promoting proposals.

On the left the minimum wage and the universal basic income are ideas that we have seen over the past decade. As we can see since its introduction, the minimum wage has been steadily rising in the UK

The Resolution Foundation has it as one of the highest in the world (link here). From a political perspective that is not surprising. It is a change that is populist - it does not impact taxpayers, and benefits the most people. The burden falls upon business, the entity that will pay those wages.

This of course is simply a different form of friction. Large corporations will be able to bear it. Some like the supermarket chains will address it with increasing automation - from Tescos to Waitrose, customers are doing more of their own checkouts. The lobby of most high street banks now have a fraction of the employees they used to, as more people self-serve. It will be smaller businesses, like cafes and restaurants that will bear the most burden.

Countries need corporations

And so a successful country in the modern globalised world, is one that often has world leading corporations residing within it. Until the Great Financial Crisis, for the United Kingdom, that was financial behemoths. Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and virtually every developed country in the world has a selection of world class corporations. The United States and China have a plethora.

The reason is that these entities thrive in a competitive market place. It is not possible for an individual to produce chocolate cheaper than Nestle, or to produce soap cheaper than Unilever. In fact there is an argument that we are in an oligopolistic world - when you browse a supermarket for drinks you will be hard pressed to drink brands that are not owned by Diageo. It is not just in technology that start ups eventually face the ‘offer they cannot refuse’ - new drinks brands, chocolates, sauces, organic soaps, all end up selling to one of these global behemoths.

Being a home for these institutions has two benefits. The first is that they pay corporation tax. The second is that they hire people, who pay income tax, and indirectly other taxes. Finally, the domestic economy grows as it provides services to this high value workforce.

Companies matter to currencies and so inflation

Further, being exporters, corporate activity feeds into inflation. During Liz Truss stint as Prime Minister, the Pound crashed. We need a longer piece on this issue, but in our opinion it crashed because markets believed Liz Truss planned to implement a ‘no deal Brexit’. As subsequent interviews tell us, she was in an ‘incredible hurry’ and the plans she set out were for a ‘free trading’ Britain, backed by no-deal Brexiteers, like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage. I.e. she was going to captain HMS Britannia towards the destination of being a Singapore-on-Thames or more likely, a similar sized economy like Japan or South Korea: wealthy states out side a bloc like the EU.

As described above, that is a perfectly legitimate destination, but getting their would require a painful, perhaps multi-decade, restructuring of the economy, away from one tied to the EU, to one independent of the EU.

That means current companies would need to change course; some may be unviable and new ones would in time be created or inducted in. However, in the meantime Britain’s industries would suffer, and so would our exports, and for that the Pound would have to be cheaper.

In 2007 the Pound bought two US Dollars. At the trough of the Truss interlude, it bought just one. That is a halving of the buying power and savings of Britons - we import most of what we eat and everything else. The impact on inflation of goods (bought from foreign countries using a weak currency) would be sizeable.

Of course, with a dynamic economy, with good laws, and the free flow of capital & people, access to resources (land, food, etc), a new eco-system will grow. However, that restructuring of the economy takes time and will be painful. The cheaper currency will help in that process.

Further, one would need to be confident that Britain would be able to re-establish new competitive industries in the new landscape - that is not a given. Truss’ plan had plenty of ideas. The Free-ports (like this one in the Humber), allow manufacturing to circumvent UK customs (imports and exports come to zones outside UK customs). She had plans to dramatically expand housing supply, which would relieve a stranglehold on the UK economy, amongst other good ideas.

However, the fall of the Pound, the markets were telling us that this would be a painful and uncertain transition. That chapter in the UK is informative for those around the world. If your politicians try to restructure your economy away from the globalised one, then expect it to be challenging.

Summary of the corporation, globalisation and us

The vehicle for contemporary progress is the corporation. It is the central entity that has driven economics really since its inception. The criticisms of the right and the left are often founded on legitimate concerns, but like many revolutionaries can be damaging. And changes need to be made, but transparent, considered changes: not populist, political changes that induct in new sources of power, whose interests are not transparent.

However, if the neo-nationalist movement succeeds it could undermine global trade, and so induce inflation (either through trade rivalry, or worse through conflict). Market mishaps like the one we saw under Prime Minister Liz Truss could be more common.

Incomes generated by our modern economies are disproportionately from corporations. The EU’s four freedoms (people, capital, goods and services) is a blueprint of policies that benefit the corporation. These policies more or less pervade the world of modern capitalism. With that, over the past fifty years, we have seen the most productive economic systems in human history - that reduces inflation and the cost of living. Unravelling that means the reverse.

Where to from here?

There are two major directions of travel today. The first is that of the established interests: trying to maintain the status quo, deal with the economic trough (of commodity cycles). Initiatives like the ‘Green New Deal’, ‘Build Back Better’ and other planned projects to resuscitate demand, by directing it to sustainability goals.

Western powers are trying to manage the rise of China, and other emerging powers, and the San Fransisco meeting between Xi and Biden showed one path - ‘Cooperation, Competition and Containment’ (Brookings Institute piece here). Think tanks unveiled this five years ago, but the Biden administration announced it in the last six months.

The anti-globalists revolutionaries have more dramatic plans. They want to withdraw from global agreements, move to more protectionist measures, and begin unravelling the era of global trade. That is most certainly inflationary, and it is hard to see how that does also not increase conflict (which is even more inflationary). The Pound crash during the Truss interlude in the UK is an example of markets informing us of the effects of damaging trade: i.e. these restructurings of economies can be done, but they are also painful.

Essentially, all production becomes less efficient - companies that built cars in China can’t sell them here and vice versa. We need to have more ‘resilience’ - the key word you may see in policy papers - essentially it is a precursor to at the very least an economic cold war, if not worse.

The goal of this article has been to demonstrate to those who were not aware of it, how since World War Two our economics and production has been built in the principles of global trade, largely through the vehicle of the corporation. There are two paths being mapped out: that by the globalists, which involves large new projects, to substitute for demand lost by the economic cycle. The other by nationalists who want to use the economic cycle to push a new more independent, and de-linked, agenda.

Once you understand that and how it works, it is more straight forward to understand political changes being proposed and implemented over the next decade and the implications for you.