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Comment by stewx | Hacker News Reader

Friendly reminder that trade deficits are not inherently bad. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/051515/pros-...

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This is deeply ideological, and wrong. You're using arguments levied at Trump years ago that applied to the US, a mostly services-based economy, and applying them to Germany.

Except Germany is a manufacturing- and export-based economy. Take that away, and you have a recipe for economic collapse.

Read the FT's article, which includes much more statements from politicians and economists. https://www.ft.com/content/6f325773-bf8a-4e28-9fc1-6bc986ee9... Use the Bypass Paywalls Clean extension if you need to.

Or, read what Stratfor (if you have a subscription) has been predicting for a decade now: Germany's slow decline, to be replaced as Europe's power center by Poland.

Germany was already facing a worker shortage and inflation. Now the government is discussing rationing gas allocated to German businesses. Beyond the ideological arguments, it's clear that this is going to be a crisis for Germany, and for all Eurozone economies; and their reactions will determine "how bad it gets". We are looking at a probable recession across Europe.

By the way, I warned months ago that sanctions against Russia would have a backfire effect: Russia is mostly unscathed, their oil and gas revenues are soaring; meanwhile Germany is talking about rationing. Sanctions don't work in an interconnected economy.

> This is deeply ideological, and wrong.

Ok so what is correct then? I’m not seeing the reason trade deficits are inherently bad anywhere in your comment.

Trade deficits are bad for an economy whose entire strength relies on exports.

edit: Germany's exports are 48% of GDP for context. And this trade deficit reflects increased import costs, which will hurt businesses since Germany is poor in raw resources. I.e., this is a problem for both the German government & German businesses, and for their whole economy.

Mark Blyth, who I find to be a cynical but entertaining economist, would say (paraphrasing):

  An export-based economy just means you let someone else consume the excess you produce.

In exchange, you receive an increment to an arbitrary number stored in a computer somewhere. This might be a reasonable model for a household, but governments can print money making the value of said number somewhat fluffy. In a sense, the US got away with QE (for as long as it did) because other countries exercised tight fiscal policy. In the aftermath of 2008, the ECB was as conservative as ever and Europe relied on American $'s for liquidity. Or another way of thinking of it: so long and thanks for all the BMW's :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Blyth

I'm a Blyth fan but you are missing out a critical component of the right to print money, which is that the US dollar is the reserve currency of the planet. The petro dollar (offshore) is not backed by the FDIC the onshore US dollar is.

The vast US military is arguably primarily to protect the right to print the world's currency. (The day Iraq started to sell oil in euros the US attacked it for example)

As Blyth knows and talks about the ECB is in dire straits versus the reserve currency dollar. The EU has a difficult road ahead having completely screwed up their energy policy and are now creating food shortages in Holland and elsewhere to add to the global inflation nightmare.

It's hard to tell if the US federal (it's not, it's private banks) reserve (they don't have any) are willfully incompetent or master tactical strategists...

Wait, what do you mean by food shortages in Holland, and especially ones caused by the EU?

https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-farmers-block-food-distribution-...

etc.

dutch farmers are spraying manure at the bureaucrats buildings

There's no food shortage at all. This is about farmers protesting future measures against global warming, which might partially shutdown livestock production.

My point was there will be food shortages once this EU directive gets enforced. Not necessarily in Holland but in their export markets

I was aware of that happening (though that not necessarily leading to significant food shortages), which is why I added the "especially ones caused by the EU". Though re-reading now I guess you weren't talking about energy policy there and instead refer to the Natura 2000 areas it selected (though not really recently)?

> The day Iraq started to sell oil in euros the US attacked it for example

This stupid meme needs to die.

Iraq's switch to the Euro was not some rogue act of defiance. It happened under the UN's Food for Oil-for-Food program and was authorised by the Security Council: https://www.un.org/depts/oip/background/chron.html

If it really was such a significant risk to the dollar hegemony, the US could have simply vetoed it. The switch happened in late 2000 but Iraq wasn't invaded till March 2003.

> US federal (it's not, it's private banks) reserve

Eye-roll.

Preceding the 'oil for food' historical fig leaf was the Iranian oil bourse, an attempt to get the petroeuro off the ground. That was headed off and nipped in the bud pretty fast by the petrodollar mercenaries...

The FR is a federal board 'overseeing' 12 private chartered regional banks. This contraption was organized in deep secrecy in 1910 at Jekyll Island as I expect you are aware.

> Or, read what Stratfor (if you have a subscription) has been predicting for a decade now: Germany's slow decline, to be replaced as Europe's power center by Poland.

The Polish GDP per capita is 30-40% lower than the German. Assuming it will ever happen, it will take decades for Poland to replace Germany.

And it‘s half Germany‘s heads as well.

German GDP is ~$3.8T to Poland's ~$600B, a roughly 6x difference. And there is hardly any trajectory change in the last 15 years, so color me skeptical Poland will overtake Germany economically anywhere in the next 50 years.

Germany'd GDP per capita could be halved much faster

I think what you're referring more concretely is the difference between Balance of trade vs. Balance of payments, the latter being the addition of tertiary/financial sector.

For an export driven economy like Japan, Germany or China - balance of trade could be bad. How big is the German software & banking industry to offset some of this default in the long haul?

> Or, read what Stratfor (if you have a subscription) has been predicting for a decade now: Germany's slow decline, to be replaced as Europe's power center by Poland.

As a Pole, I cannot help but laugh at that. Why would that ever be the case?

Feel free to read Stratfor's site (I named an extension that allows full free access) or George Friedman's "The Next 100 Years" book.

Stratfor employs many ex-US-intelligence-agency people who use the same geopolitical analysis methods for a corporate audience (though without classified data) and their views are a close approximation of the thinking of the US's intelligence community; in that sense, they are significant.

Friedman sometimes has some interesting takes but is often dramatically and laughably wrong. I would hesitate to take much of what they say as having much predictive accuracy at all.

They do state it with an air of authority and "high caliber top secret intelligence" but still laughable.

> close approximation of the thinking of the US's intelligence community; in that sense, they are significant

Which means in that sense it will be very likely ridicously wrong?!

If you post nonsense replies you are just disincentivizing anyone thoughtful from posting here.

To reply (though you were perfectly capable of this thought yourself):

Obviously; but it gives us a frame to understand geopolitical behavior by the US as it happens, and before it happens.

Edward Gibbon described “secret intrigues of the palace” (palace intrigue) as “those trifling but decisive causes which so often influence the fate of empires.” Stratfor is the Pentagon's palace intrigue (several steps removed).

If you've ever read Stratfor you know they expect, and plan for, the disintegration of Russia and China into smaller republics; and you can tell I don't believe in that.

It is merely an indication that the US likely now sees Germany as a second-rate ally, irrelevant to its geopolitical future; and therefore doesn't care about the sanctions' effect on Germany. That is the only reason I brought it up.

Well, "Fuck the EU", as Nuland famously proclaimed 8 years ago in Ukraine. As it stands, EU is being consistently and thoroughly fucked .

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

Just like simply eating at a McDonalds once doesn’t make me an expert on Burgers. . .

Similarly, holding the passport of a country doesn’t automatically make someone a geopolitical expert

I mean no offense at all, I’ve simply observed way too many instances of online discourse beginning with “as a citizen of ____” to establish credibility in areas that don’t really benefit from citizenship.

I kind of agree with you in a way: saying Poland will overtake Germany is as laughable as saying Canada will overtake the US as the economic leader in north America. You don't even need to be Canadian to know how ridiculous of a claim this is.

In my reading, the point of 'as a Pole' is to say 'look I bear no ill will towards Poles, I want the best for Poland as much as the next citizen', it's not claiming authority, it's disclaiming bias against.

> to be replaced as Europe's power center by Poland

Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half.

Poland has had an anemic demography for years (1.38 child per woman in 2021, the lowest in Eastern Europe after Ukraine and Moldova), a massive brain (and workforce more generally) drain since the fall of the Eastern Block.

Its GDP per capita is even 30% lower than Czech Republic and less than a third of German's GDP.

German's economy is going to face troubles, but Poland isn't even remotely close to taking any kind of economic leadership. And it won't happen until Poland fixes their natality issue (and even then, it would take them another fifty years).

>Except Germany is a manufacturing- and export-based economy. Take that away, and you have a recipe for economic collapse.

Yes, it is a recipe for collapse because imbalanced trade is inherently unsustainable.

it’s an unhealthy habit to endorse a very complicated topic by referring to an introductory website . that’s a flimsier approach than most religions even

1. Trade deficits are inherently bad

2. Trade deficits are not inherently bad

Which claim sounds more “flimsy”?

It would be better to articulate the gist of an on-topic thought in the confines of a HN post, rather than sending people off to go read something. If something in the article is wrong, let's address that exact thing in the comment. If you have understood your own beliefs well and can articulate them, then you can make great impact on a thread that way.

"Just read this link" on a complex and controversial topic may be comparable to "Just read this religious tract".

> "Just read this link" on a complex and controversial topic may be comparable to "Just read this religious tract".

That’s a ridiculous and unhinged comparison.

Economics in general is more akin to religion than it is to science. Seems pretty hinged to me

Incoherent response. tonymet (OP) protested that it was a “complicated topic”, not that economics itself is bunk. In fact saying that it is a complicated topic implies that one should respect the field.

You can’t arbitrarily denigrate one side of the argument because economics is a religion when both sides take it as a given that economics is a rational field of study.

> Friendly reminder that trade deficits are not inherently bad.

Whether trade deficits are good, or bad depends on your monetary policy.

In case of Germany, it was definitely bad after them having such low interest rates for so long.

It was Germany's pride — it's manufacturing industry which took damage from low rates the most.

That is completely wrong. Germany exports by indebting other nations and the only way to further indebt other nations is by lending to them at even lower interest rates.

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