Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

The major takeaway from the 'Princes of Yen' by Richard Werner is about how Japan soared from a destroyed country to an economic powerhouse, before being brought down by the bankers at the BOJ, ostensibly to change the system from a 'state backed economy' to a US-styled one. Ditto with the Asian tigers in Thailand, S Korea etc.

Such managed-economies have failed miserably in many other places - notably in India. China seems to be following the path of its neighbors, however.

On a meta-level, I don't see what the big deal is TBH - whatever floats ones boat eh ? The argument about 'unfairness' is a bit of a joke, since it is well known that there are very deep (albeit hidden) connections/interests b/w state and corporations in Western nations.

The problem is that as you get richer and move up the value chain, you start requiring industry that is more creative, or entirely new creative industries. When creativity is required state backing is horrible at picking winners. And then those industrial champions are now sucking up a lot of the capital within a country.

Eventually the champions become slow and sluggish. But they’re too big to fail; as an extreme example, Samsung’s revenues are 17% of South Korean GDP, to say nothing of their suppliers.