Peter Thiel NYT editorial 8/1/19:

Google helps China with military tech but not U.S.

"The flip side of China’s huge trade surplus has been America’s huge current account deficit. All of the dollars we send abroad that never get used to buy American goods have to go somewhere, and most go through New York’s money center banks on their way to buying financial assets. Since upsetting this imbalance is a threat to profits, Wall Street would prefer to cave on trade and keep Google’s stock price high while they’re at it.

But the banks’ experience of the last few decades of globalization has not been representative. The trade deficits that brought flows of money to Wall Street took jobs and bargaining power away from the median worker.

Wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. The difference between our post-1971 era of globalization and the post-1945 midcentury boom is a breakdown in the relationship between the parts and the whole: An archipelago of inward-looking, parochial places like Wall Street and Silicon Valley have done exceedingly well for themselves while their fellow citizens have been left behind in a stagnant economy."