The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

by Peter Zeihan

Machinery is where things get sketchy, and not simply because no one really puts machinery into a specific category for data collection. Germany is hands-down the world’s best because the German cultural penchant for anal-retentive precision is precisely what makes for good machinery. Unfortunately for the world, culture cannot be transferred. No matter how much cash is splurged on it. Just ask the Chinese, whose efforts to pirate German designs and mimic German output have consistently met with failure. This leads us to three outcomes. First, the United States will be okay. Mostly. While Americans aren’t as good at this sort of thing as Germans, Houstonians come reasonably close. Second, the Chinese industrial position is utterly screwed. Even if nothing else goes wrong, the Chinese are utterly dependent upon German machinery to maintain their entire industrial behemoth. Third, the world writ large will experience a technological slowdown. Without the Germans doggedly pushing the envelope for what good machinery looks like, expect technical advancement in the space—which is required to manufacture everything else—to stall.