Notices by John Quiggin (johnquiggin@aus.social)

The reaction to Trump's $5000 bribe shows that the US is not a serious country https://substack.com/home/post/p-215321844

SpaceX IPO confirms my view that US is one big grift. Financial sector (Wall Street, hypersclerlers, crypto, Big 4 accounting, credit ratings), politlical system, military, society fraudulent from top to bottom. Must break one day, but who can say when.

Stunned that anyone could report on a study of declining birth rates after 2007 and not mention the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, followed by a decade of painfully slow recovery. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/us/iphone-birthrate-decline-studies.html

Trump has avoided the Thucydides Trap by engineering a US decline so rapid and obvious that China doesn’t need a war to establish its status as the #1 superpower.

@dalias @foolishowl @krans @theeclecticdyslexic @datenwolf @aeva

Australian Bureau of Statistics and other statistical agencies have data on employment by sector and occupation. Fnancial and business services sector well under 20 per cent and not all bullshit (we need savings banks, for example). Food and fibre, manufacturing, tranpsort, construction, wholesale and retail trade, health, education, most human services are real.

@dalias @foolishowl @krans @theeclecticdyslexic @datenwolf @aeva

Most work is problematic but the proportion that could be dispensed with by getting rid of capitalism is closer to 20 per cent than 80 per cent.

A four-day working week is eminently feasible, although it will require a struggle. After that, there will be real choices between free time and things most of us actually value.

At least, that's what I've come up with from looking reasonably hard at the numbers.

@foolishowl @krans @theeclecticdyslexic @dalias @datenwolf @aeva

But also, most of our life projects fail, most of our relationships don't deliver on the original hopes, and so on. We have to make the best of what life deals us.

US is always presented as greatest military power, and that’s true as regards global reach of carrier battle groups.

But in terms of non-nuclear land war, Europe (EU+UK+Ukraine) has more troops, more tanks, more artillery shell production and massively more drone capacity than US.

Now Maduro is Trump’s problem, the opposition has been thrown under the bus and the regime is carrying on business as usual. Another decapitation strike is unlikely to work, and (as I’ve argued many times in the context of Taiwan) a seaborne invasion will fail.

On the face of it, the Venezuelan regime has played Trump for a sucker. The details are murky but it appears that now-acting president Rodriguez convinced Rubio that she would accept a US take-over and that the US was given the location of Maduro (and his wife).

2050 net zero off the agenda thanks to EV tax

https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/ev-tax-plan-could-punish-drivers

A "dog bites man" story from the #NYTimes. Apparently, most AI investment is taking place in rich countries. As opposed to investment in housing, car factories, coffee shops etc ? AI isn't creating the divide between Haves and Have-Nots, it's reflecting it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/23/technology/ai-computing-global-divide.html

Thinking about the chance of a return to democracy in the US, I have stopped thinking in terms of Republicans vs Democrats. The Trump-Musk brawl and the beginning of “investigations” into Biden has crystallised two thoughts for me
1/3

The US Presidency is now a source of essentially unlimited wealth for its holder.
Conversely, being a domestic enemy of the US President (in particular, a hostile ex-president) now risks financial ruin and possibly much worse.
2/3

The train I'm in just crossed the border from Spain into France. No announcement and I expect no one else noticed the moment. Freedom to disregard borders is a huge boon to those who have it. Many don't and many more are losing it.

What do Republican voters want? Fascism https://substack.com/profile/129542333-john-quiggin/note/c-101031332?

"World leaders must cater to Trump’s vanity to get what they need."

This is a dopey conclusion, akin to saying that the way to get a 2-year old to behave is to give them sweets. Starmer and Macron did their best, and within days Vance was slagging them off

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/04/lessons-from-the-trump-zelensky-confrontation/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921
1/2

The only point of efforts to bring Trump on board with peace plans that don't involve surrender to Putin is to make it clear that Trump/Putin are responsible for the failure of those efforts
2/2

An important error in this piece, and in lots of estimates of the force required to stop Putin. Russia isn't "producing 1500 tanks a year". Most of that number are refurbished T-62s that may be up to 60 years old. Ukraine has already destroyed Russias front-line army

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/five-minutes-to-midnight-new-look-america-sets-clock-ticking-for-europe-20250228-p5lfu2.html

@fu More precisely, paused for 30 days.