The fact that this all happened by choice is really something.
It's like witnessing a self-decapitation.
It's like witnessing a self-decapitation.
People always exaggerate the impact of geopolitical things, because it feels like the biggest thing ever, especially when you're relatively young. But in reality we're always onto nonsense after nonsense. Countries have the wisdom and view to appreciate this, and so respond to geopolitical stuff (in action, not rhetoric) far more gradually than people do. They're certainly not going to just dump all their dollar reserves because of a single misguided war or even misguided president, or they'd have been gone long ago.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency#Global_curren...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system#Nixon_sho...
Don't take my word for it. Listen to Mark Carney at Davos.
This is the main reason that things are different. Most presidents were reasonable in their hegemony, and Trump's naked aggression makes everyone to hedge against US.
And the competence of departments is crucial for the well functioning of the country, services high and low. (Diplomacy, war, and education to electricity and roads).
In my view it's both that the State Department, for example, is less competent than before, and that the administration is less likely to listen to the experts and Department officers than before.
(I'm not american.)
And as you go back you can see that our more contemporary actions are just echoes of the past anyhow. Vietnam was also started on a complete and malicious lie. [1] That lie then led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, practically bankrupted the country (playing a major role in the events of 1971), left the country more divided than ever, and concluded with us running away from Vietnam with our tail tucked.
We didn't start the fire. It just always feels so different in the present because you don't know how things are going to turn out, so there's always the possibility that this time it might be something extraordinary as opposed to just this perpetual and never-ending self-crippling.
> That had short to mid-term positive impacts and long-term catastrophic ones, as is the typical strategy in modern times.
Is the catastrophe still coming from the 70s to now? 50 years later? This is the most repeated quip that makes no sense. Same with companies, everyone just repeats "omg they only care about short term" and then years after years the company trots on.
But I guess it's easy to say since the defense is "oh just wait". As if the online commenter is able to see N+1 moves more than whoever they comment about, but that person just simply cannot. Like come on.
Many of those issues started out fairly small and had a rather small impact relative to the initial benefits of 'financial liberty', but those benefits faded fairly rapidly, while the consequences not only remain, but continue to grow. It turns out that free money is rather expensive.
If you look at the achievements and progress that was being made in the 60s in the US in practically every domain, and then you showed them what 60 years in the future awaited for them, the most common response, outside of digital gizmos, would probably be 'what went wrong?'
They don’t care if American supremacy is lost or if the dollar crashes or if the national debt becomes a crisis. As long as they have their wealth. The public is being decapitated, not them.
Single party media outlets like News Corp, Sinclair, Euronews, and so many others have broken that system entirely.
My test to see if someone is a shill/moron is to simply ask them to say one obvious bad thing about "their side." If they cannot, it becomes clear that they are not worth listening to.
It turns out that progressives are just as easily fooled as any other group, by a slick turn of phrase. For example, "Genocide Joe."
I once thought my group was more thoughtful. But, it turns out that ALL of us are easily programmed meat machines.
Voted for Obama, he totally messed up with Russia and Crimea.
I could go on, and on. I believe that the only -ism I can believe in is fallibilism.
And most traditional news is conservative now.
The idea that the mainstream media was ever leftest was always wrong, but these days its absolutely laughable and yet a lot of people still parrot this like it is the truth.
You have to take account of warring internal factions.
No because it's relative. If people around you get weak then you get more powerful automatically. If you get more powerful and people around you also get more powerful then you are in the same situation.
So if power is what you want you destroy others at the same time as building your power. What trump is doing is logical. He isn't living in china or russia. he doesn't care if they get stronger. he cares if people around get weaker relative to him and cronies who are in on it. and that works
this is what trump is doing: selling America short
US voters were so worried that South America would come to them, that they have become the worst of South America.
This all sounds incredibly hand wavey "oh, they just do things that benefit themselves but tank the US economy".
From what I've seen all the oligarchs in the US got rich when the economy was doing well.
Do you have a specific example of someone who got rich by "tanking the US economy"?
Even most dictatorships don't "have a dictator". They have a "great leader" that coincidentally gets voted in again and again, for whom constitutions are amended, and who happens to have his own "revolutionary" irregular militias, not-so-secret police grabbing people on the streets in plainclothes (or worse), a subservient parliament rubber-stamping decrees, etc etc.
Even without some of that, the "unitary executive" theory, as implemented by George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump, is effectively a temporary dictatorship in all but name.
> all the oligarchs in the US got rich when the economy was doing well.
You can make bank when things go bad. Look up the European currency crisis of the 90s, when folks like Soros amassed their billions. Or the few who got 2008 right.
Whoever is betting with incredible timing on Trump's unexpected policy shifts, every other week, is definitely not getting poorer. And when the economy tanks, assets get cheap - which is great if you have accumulated cash.
A very few select oligarchs got rich during the European currency crisis - and anybody oligarchs got hammered.
How do the oligarchs decide? Do they meet in secret?
if American political system allows President to do that and allows such President to be elected, than such system deserves to die.
America has produced 70 times more stock market wealth if you look only at companies created within the last 50 years than the EU. And this is not all paper wealth. If you look at technological sophistication, whether that's frontier AI models, leading-edge pharmaceutical drugs, total amount of compute, or the space industry, the U.S. has grown its lead over the EU over the last 50 years.
It's because the EU has largely fixated itself on reducing wealth inequality by punishing those who succeed. It's safety-maximalist approach to private industrial action has also hamstringed industry — see Germany closing all 17 of its nuclear power plants. The US doesn't really need to do much except not sabotage itself to maintain its lead. Like in all nations, laissez-faire (French for "leave it alone") allows the private sector to do the rest.
It's actually because America pivoted[1] from manufacturing to higher-margin services (financial, tech[2]), and generations of American Diplomats had negotiated trade deals that ensure American services are never shut-out or hobbled in most countries. American companies won't look so special,or be nearly as profitable, once they lose their default status that allow them to siphon money from all over the globe -including Europe
1. https://americanbusinesshistory.org/2022-updated-largest-com...
2. Silicon valley caught lightning in a bottle. Other American locales repeatedly tried and failed to replicate it - so it rules out American legislative attitudes as the vital ingredient.
The fact that the tech industry concentrated in Silicon Valley is simply due to network effects. Regardless of which locale became the Schelling point for U.S.-based technology companies, that locale would have succeeded, because of the national economic policy it operated inside of.
The US policy is about to become a lot more robust and a lot less laissez-faire. Over the decades, the public image of tech CEOs has switched from benign, awkward but genius dorks, to out-of-control bond villains.
There's a tech backlash happening in the US, if you've been paying attention, and legislators follow the voter zeitgeist.
They sell close to 0. Europe made a conscious decision to not limit the reach of the infinite margin US companies.
The deal was we buy your fancy services and expensive war toys, but you keep us safe.
America forgot its obligation. Hence the deal is off.
Now VW is making war machines and Airbus is building AI infra.
Sure, full-blown protectionism everywhere would make the world including the US poorer (less specialization, less division of labor), but it would also harm EU exports, as the US is the EU's biggest importer, and moreover it wouldn't change the factors behind the growing US-EU gap. US-EU trade policies with each other are basically the same. The difference is internal, and mostly comes down to the US just not sabotaging the private sector as much.
Europe could put same tariffs on USA services and the margins in USA will disappear
It's like you see but ignore what the other poster said. Europe allowed US services to grow, but it can stop them too. Same way China does.
Funny how you write about 50% market share being USA, when the other poster writes about the other part. That might dissappear.
Anyway, I wasn't making a point about recent developments. I was talking about more long-term trends showing that why the US has outpaced EU in economic growth.
Now im not saying everything is bad, but it sure feels like a lot of the US economy is a Lamborgini shell stuck on the body of a Ford Focus and we think we are winning because most people haven't noticed yet and the profit margins are higher than ever. Europe sure ain't perfect, they got plenty of problems, but their problems are more like worrying about percentage points in the future, while in the US the worry is whether our economy is going to provide for people at all not in the top 25% long-term. And an angry and unsatisfied mass of lower class people is a recipe for upheaval with everyone on top relying on that not happening.
Now, looking only at the statistics, there are certainly some things European countries are doing better than the U.S. But based on my research so far, which admittedly isn't enough for a full understanding, my tentative conclusion is that almost all of those things don't seem related to economic policy. They seem more related to things like urban planning, for example more pedestrian- and bike-friendly cities.
In terms of work and wages, U.S. wages are substantially higher than wages in most European countries. And I'm not just talking about longer hours. I mean the compensation per hour is significantly higher.
EU Europe average per-capita income ≈ $30,500
United States per-capita income ≈ $68,000
Also, there are other measurements like inequality, healthcare cost, social securities...
2) Germany lost nuclear power plants due to russia sponsored interference
The same russia that supported Brexit
And before you get too excited, this "news" from the World Gold Council. A consortium of gold mining corporations. Clearly it's a pump article "have you bought gold yet? everyone else is! why not you!?!?"
Are you saying that the price of gold just spontaneously went up?
From over hear it seems like the age of Pax Americana is over, and gold at ~$4,600 is one of the results.
Ofc those with an incentive of higher priced gold will tell to buy gold. Only time will tell if they were right.
It's not like we've suddenly found new and exciting uses for gold though. The reason the price has gone up is because the demand for it has gone up, and the reason why demand has gone up is because people want an alternative to U.S bonds. A bunch of pump articles wouldn't be enough to lead to a 3x price increase.
That makes no sense since the amount held in US bonds is not that different.
The only change is that the gold that people held has gone up in value.
It's not different than holding Google and Apple stock, and when Apple stock goes up people say "oh, it's because people don't want Google stock". That's not true at all.
And why is it worth 3x?
But S&P500 is not?