Things that blow my mind: For years after the Plaza accord the Japanese invested crazily in domestic real estate and stocks. When the Soviet Union broke up ppl forreal believed a democratic Russia would superpower up again after a bit of shock therapy. Everybody…Chinese and American…just kinda assumed it was on this path to liberalization that wasn’t going to end until what…2012? It’s so important to grab an accurate snapshot of what ppl thought at the time. Otherwise it’s easy to fall into a narrative where one side is trying to snooker the other where big momentous decisions are often just YOLO’d into with the ultimate winner and loser hand-in-hand, both blissfully innocent of the outcome.