ENTIRE ECONOMY OF THE WESTERN BLOC IS BASED ON FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Everything is made in CHINA these days, except: microprocessors, software, a few internet giants, some pharmaceutical products, Big Oil products and the all-important military hardware and the defense production industry.
Aside from these, the entire economy of the WESTERN bloc is based on financial institutions, the investment banks like: JPMORGAN CHASE, CITIGROUP, BANK OF AMERICA, WELLS FARGO, AND GOLDMAN SACHS (IN THE UNITED STATES), BNP PARIBAS AND AXA GROUP (IN FRANCE), DEUTSCHE BANK AND ALLIANZ GROUP (GERMANY), BARCLAYS AND HSBC (UK).
IT IS EASY TO BUILD AND DISMANTLE AN ECONOMY BASED ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
We need to understand the implications. It takes time to build a manufacturing base, but it is relatively easy to build and dismantle an economy based on financial services. What if TAMIM BIN HAMMAD AL-THANI (the ruler of QATAR) decides tomorrow to withdraw his shares from BARCLAYS and put them in some Organization of the Islamic Conference-sponsored bank, in line with Sharia? What if all the Sheikhs of the GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) withdraw their petro-dollars from the WESTERN financial institutions? Can the fragile financial-services based WESTERN economies sustain such a blow?
We need to look for comparative advantages and disadvantages here. If the vulnerable WESTERN economy is its biggest weakness, what are its biggest strengths? The biggest strength of the WESTERN bloc is its military might. Got to give credit to the WEST: they did which nobody else in the world had the courage to do; they privatized their defense production industry. And as we know, privately-owned companies are more innovative, inventive and in this particular case, lethal. But having power is one thing; and using that power to achieve certain desirable goals is another.
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