They should be trying to convince people it is something they want rather than forcing it on people. Alas that would mean making a product people want and Im not sure they are there.
> Pretty straightforward really. You combine Brazil's history of monetary stability, with Russia's respect for property rights, India's domestic tranquility, China's financial transparency, and South Africa's investment opportunities - and hey presto, you've got a new global money
Of course more countries may enrol in the system, but that dilutes the influence of the five namesake nations of BRICS.
But then you have to choose an actual currency(s) to do transactions in, so will you trust them to be stable? Or perhaps go with a 'theoretical' currency likes Keynes' bancor?
It is interesting to see who will get there first. China seems to be right on target with their schedule, but the US is being more ambitious, this also looks a bit more fragile on execution.
I long suspect Blue Origin will be the first US based to touch down as Starship is just too complicated to get it done in the next 2-3 years, but that doesnt mean even the 2028 landing is assured.
Space exploration had been fairly low key for decades but the last decade has been something to see.
Maybe my date calculations are off, but I think the people that landed on the moon on July 20, 1969 got there first. According to my calculations, if China lands people on the moon in 2030, that will be approximately 61 years later. The people that got there 61 years earlier can be reasonably said to have gotten there first.
Oddly enough, the same country also accomplished the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth landing on the moon by humans. So if all goes well, China can be extremely triumphant with their highly anticipated seventh place trophy.
Neither the current space race nor the cold-war era space race have anything to do with planting a flag in a history book. They are geopolitical dick measuring contests of contemporary power.
The current question isn't "is it possible?", it is "who can pull it off today?"
The people from 61 years ago are either extremely old or dead. Of the other three-quarters of the world population born after December 19, 1972, none have made it there; it will be a first for them.
No I'm poking fun at the defensive reflex of Americans to get very upset at the notion anyone else will go to the moon. Because in context, who will get their first is the relevant question again because no one has the capability anymore.
It was perfectly clear in context that the OP was talking about the new space race where the question is which modern superpower will get there first. It's just hilarious that so many Americans immediately begin talking about how really they got their truly first, in an effort to pretend they couldn't understand and change the question to one which doesn't hurt their ego.
The America which landed on the moon in the 1960s is dead and buried. And the America which said it's going to land on the moon again hasn't done it yet and it's not clear that it can.
I think GP was referring to the fact that the United States is made up of former colonies of Great Britain, but that was such a long time ago, I don't see how it matters for the moon landing.
It’s a neo-leftist international model that divides everyone into colonizer and colonized nations without particular regard for history or reality. The former are bad and powerful. The latter weak and victims.
It offers no predictions, policy prescriptions beyond railing and an infinity of excuses for justifying pretty much anything for the latter and against the former, down to subgroups within each nation.
Correct. Conquered or colonized in 1720 [1]. A century before the British colonized China with almost the same model (small garrison, literal Mandarin in charge). Put another way, the British controlled Hong Kong for longer than China has Tibet.
The coloniser-colonised model works in the New World. It’s silly outside it as a general model. (And it misfires completely when comparing America and China. Both were colonies. Both have colonized and hegemonised.)
Indeed, the 13 colonies that formed the United States in 1776 were a colony of Great Britain up to that point, but what does that have to do with the moon landing? In the 1960s, neither country was a colony of any other country.
But regardless, I will congratulate China wholeheartedly on its 7th place, if and when that happens.
I am sure about that, the Chinese want to land men on the moon so they feel they caught up with the US and Russia, and as pointless as it is it has some kind effect on their national pride. It does involve some risks but compared to landing people on Mars the risks pale in comparison.
Watch China’s announcements year to year and you’ll see their plans do change. Long March 9 has gone through enough design iterations that I wouldn’t even call it the same rocket anymore
I have said for a long time that if housing was cheaper, that is a good start to getting other thing under control. It gives folks a target to hit for stability. Once a bit more stable, it frees up opportunities to address other issues.
I say this as a home owner, let the market crash, I dont care what my house is valued as it is an asset not an investment.
I’ll be honest and say that while I agree, I’d be one of those who’d get significantly burned financially if this were to happen. Having made significant lifestyle cuts to eventually get our foot in the door and now dealing with one of us being laid off (100% due to the current administration), devaluing housing would essentially lock us into where we currently live for the rest of our lives and prevent us from moving to a lower cost of living area near retirement (which was part of our original financial planning). Combined with the fact that our generation is unlikely to see social security as a viable pillar of support (ex: retirement age requirements increasing), I want to support the idea but I have yet to see a solution that won’t burn the population of people like myself. To support this would be to offer ourselves up as sacrifices and that is something I don’t think I could ask of someone. If someone could crack that nut and have a “soft landing” for those who are going to get screwed, then I think there’s a fighting chance that we solve this before it all becomes untenable.
(Edit: To clarify, when I hear devaluing housing, I’m interpreting that as an enormous price decrease. The impact to us is that we wouldn’t be able to sell our house for anywhere near the cost we paid for it. We didn’t buy as it as an asset but we also didn’t plan for it to become a huge loss that could have instead gone into retirement savings.)
The problem is most people won't take that attitude. For most homeowners, the home is the largest asset.
This is a Catch 22 for elected officials. We must reduce housing costs dramatically if we do so, we will devalue significant assets of a large number of active voters and political contributors.
I'd love to see some ideas on how to pull this off, because we need them.
The home is the largest asset, but the one you're living in. I personally agree with the other guy, I'd happily support a housing market crash, artificially induced if needed.
However, it's more nuanced. I can support risking that my house gets less worth than my mortgage, because I consider the probability of not being able to pay off my mortgage very low. I am guessing that people who feel less secure financially do see a house as a last-resort asset, even at the price of their children not being able to afford a home. And that's the root cause that should be fixed with policy I think.
There are a few things I wish we'd do in the US. We could not allow foreign investors to buy up properties in the US to use as short term rentals (airbnb) when they could instead be purchased by Americans and filled with families. We could also increase vacancy taxes to help encourage property owners to fill the millions of empty homes found all over the country. We could also decrease the wealth gap so that more Americans have enough money that they don't have to wait until they are 40 years old to buy their first starter house. (https://nypost.com/2025/11/05/real-estate/median-age-of-firs...)
It could be similar to when China kicked out a lot of non-domestic players. They even had a nickname for it. From the link below.
Fengkou fēng kǒu 风口
n. wind tunnel; an area or sector where, for a period of time, all investors want to invest in.
Everyone stands a chance to fly when there is favorable wind blowing from behind.
