My father and me

When my father was the age I am now, when he read the newspaper, he knew he'd seen it all before. He was 20 years younger when the US put a couple of men on the moon, so that was old, and new attempts to do stuff in space were all old (and not that impressive). The new wars were like wars he'd seen before, and likewise the inflation, the recessions, & etc..

Now, when I read the newspapers, I don't recognise anything.

After WWII, the US produced more than 50% of World GDP. The animated short film, "Meet King Joe", made in 1949, was about the typical US factory worker. The film starts with the question: "Doesn't the factory owner get $millions while the worker gets wages that are barely enough to live on?" The answer (back then) was, 'NO!' The factory worker with all the machines was immensely productive, so he earned quite a large salary, 100 times as much as a Chinese coolie. That was then, when taxes on income more than 5 times the average US income were 91%; with state income taxes (and most business headquarters were in places like New York with 10% state income tax on incomes more than 5 times the average) amounted to 101%, so management could not pay themselves more than 5 times the average US income, so a lot of "King Joe's" production went to "King Joe". The Chinese coolie did everything manually, so he was only 1% as productive as "King Joe" and only earned 1% as much.

That was 1949. Now, rich Americans earn thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of times as much as average Americans. And most workers are not factory workers with their productivity multiplied hundreds of times by the machines they operate, so they don't produce that much, and the rich get most of what they produce.

Back in 1970, the top GDP countries were the US, then the USSR, then Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Canada. The USSR didn't associate nor trade much with the West, and the other 7 countries formed the G7 with most of the world's GDP.

The typical Chinese person dreamed of a bicycle, but knew that dream would probably never come true. The US produced some oil, but almost every adult American had a car, so the US bought much of the oil the Middle East could produce. China had few cars, didn't need much oil, couldn't afford much oil, and so had little impact on the oil market.

Saudi and the US were firmly locked in a strategic embrace: the US desperately needed Saudi oil, and Saudi desperately needed US cash and protection.

When the Ayatollah took over Iran, the US imposed a strict blockade, and the Iranian economy fell by more than 50%. No one dared buy Iranian oil in violation of the US blockade. The US could shoot down an Iranian airliner with more than 2000 passengers and Iran could do nothing.

That was then.

Today, most Chinese have cars. The PRC are the biggest oil importer in the world (and Bharat/India now have enough cars to be a major oil consumer, but nothing like the PRC).

So, in 2021, a huge fleet of oil tankers and some destroyers arrived at the Iranian oil port and loaded with Iranian oil, then, protected by the PLAN, all the oil tankers made it back to the PRC. The Iranian economy has grown rapidly since 2021.

The three biggest economies by GDP are now: 1) the PRC; 2) the US; and 3) Bharat.

So when the PRC went to Saudi and Iran and said, 'Make peace,' both meekly said,'Yes, sir.'

And after I saw the US do all it could to avoid WWIII, now I see the US doing everything it can to start WWIII to preserve US hegemony.

It's a world I've never seen before, and I'm not sure if it's better or worse (of course, if the US starts WWIII, that'll be a lot worse than anything I've ever seen).