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Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

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Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#151

Post by bayarearefugee »

donmcronald wrote: post #143
daft_pink wrote: post #136

I think the government is laser focused on reducing regulations, reducing energy costs, reducing interest rates, a weaker dollar that makes exports better, minimizing taxes. Technological innovation is increasing overall productivity. There are definite headwinds like upward pressure on labor by reducing the worker population, stagnating population growth, undertainty, tarriffs, a weaker dollar increasing inflation.…

The thing I don’t get is that IMO Americans have a higher standard of living due to demand for the dollar. Being a net importer means they make less and the countries they’re importing from make more. Money = labor = people working, so people in other countries are working harder than Americans to benefit Americans with a higher standard of living. It’s like a roofer working for a contractor that’s a millionaire and…

> Isn’t a weaker dollar for America a disaster?

For the majority of average Americans trying to scrape by and save enough for a dignified retirement, yes.

For the ultra wealthy, no. A weak dollar leads to an asset firesale to prop up their wealth even further.

The ultra wealthy have captured the US government completely.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#152

Post by SllX »

torginus wrote: post #84

I feel like there's some credibility to 'this time it's different' The US economy depends on the country's position of world hegemon - the US dollar is the world's main reserve currency, the US enforces international order and trade rules via its military strength, it dominates technology and culture through 'US defaultism'. I dont think AI even factors in to this. The US economy is priced for global reach - if it ma…

> Should the US become an unfriendly power to the rest of the western world, it will find the demand for its currency plummeting, which I don't want to outline is a big issue.

Right now this is much more of a maybe, possibly, eventually, over a long enough time horizon.

As of the end of 2025, USD still made up 57% of foreign reserves vs 20% for the Euro and 3% for the Chinese renminbi. Nearly all commodities are still priced in USD and about 50% of trade invoicing is done in dollars, closer to 60% if you exclude the Eurozone. USD also makes up about 60% of SWIFT transactions.

So the demand is still there today and de-dollarization is not really a thing in aggregate as of January 2026, despite all of the events of the past year or so.

So if this time is different, I’m not seeing it yet.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#153

Post by yatopifo »

donmcronald wrote: post #143
daft_pink wrote: post #136

I think the government is laser focused on reducing regulations, reducing energy costs, reducing interest rates, a weaker dollar that makes exports better, minimizing taxes. Technological innovation is increasing overall productivity. There are definite headwinds like upward pressure on labor by reducing the worker population, stagnating population growth, undertainty, tarriffs, a weaker dollar increasing inflation.…

The thing I don’t get is that IMO Americans have a higher standard of living due to demand for the dollar. Being a net importer means they make less and the countries they’re importing from make more. Money = labor = people working, so people in other countries are working harder than Americans to benefit Americans with a higher standard of living. It’s like a roofer working for a contractor that’s a millionaire and…

You assume that these economic policies are dictated by some sort of common good. The reality is that most policies are dictated by corporations and are designed to benefit their shareholders and not the average american. In addition, the US is now pivoting towards authoritarianism which implies future policies will be determined mainly by a tight group of people who are going to use them as a means of enriching themselves.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#154

Post by rurp »

daft_pink wrote: post #136

I think the government is laser focused on reducing regulations, reducing energy costs, reducing interest rates, a weaker dollar that makes exports better, minimizing taxes. Technological innovation is increasing overall productivity. There are definite headwinds like upward pressure on labor by reducing the worker population, stagnating population growth, undertainty, tarriffs, a weaker dollar increasing inflation.…

Hold on there, they have been very explicitly doing the opposite of reducing energy costs. The administration has been aggressively trying to cancel all sorts of energy projects, even projects that have almost been completed. At the same time they've been encouraging as much data center build out as possible. Lowering supply and increasing demand is hardly going to reduce energy costs.

They have managed to significantly lower expectations for global economic growth which brings down energy costs, but that's hardly a sane way to accomplish that goal.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#155

Post by asacrowflies »

daft_pink wrote: post #136

I think the government is laser focused on reducing regulations, reducing energy costs, reducing interest rates, a weaker dollar that makes exports better, minimizing taxes. Technological innovation is increasing overall productivity. There are definite headwinds like upward pressure on labor by reducing the worker population, stagnating population growth, undertainty, tarriffs, a weaker dollar increasing inflation.…

The username daft is appropriate

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#156

Post by [deleted] »

pixl97 wrote: post #150
donmcronald wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I don’t get is that IMO Americans have a higher standard of living due to demand for the dollar. Being a net importer means they make less and the countries they’re importing from make more. Money = labor = people working, so people in other countries are working harder than Americans to benefit Americans with a higher standard of living. It’s like a roofer working for a contractor that’s a millionaire and…

>massive drop in the average standard of living if the US maintains their current trajectory. Very rich people control the narrative in the US and get poor people to repeat their claims. Hence where we get statements like this from. >“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The thin…

[deleted]

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#157

Post by g947o »

FrancisMoodie wrote: post #110
maxerickson wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software productivity doubling would be a huge boon for the economy, not a drag. Of course it's very disruptive for people that lose their jobs, but many of them will get similar new jobs, and the overall impact is higher output.

If all companies fire 50% of their engineers, how will anybody find similar new jobs? In an ideal world software productivity doubling WOULD be a huge boon for the economy IF companies used the increased productivity of their engineers as a way to manage tech debt, R&D and other issues that were put in the backlog because historically there were no resources for this. In reality all companies look at increased produc…

> If all companies fire 50% of their engineers, how will anybody find similar new jobs?

Why would CEOs care?

Or put it another way, if you were a CEO, would you care?

Politicians at least would pretend to care.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#158

Post by bayarearefugee »

torginus wrote: post #84

I feel like there's some credibility to 'this time it's different' The US economy depends on the country's position of world hegemon - the US dollar is the world's main reserve currency, the US enforces international order and trade rules via its military strength, it dominates technology and culture through 'US defaultism'. I dont think AI even factors in to this. The US economy is priced for global reach - if it ma…

> 'this time it's different'

I remember reading this a lot in 2000-2001 and 2007-2008

That said, overall I sort of agree with your assessment except for having any optimism that the US changes course.

The current looming problems with the US economy are almost entirely unforced errors of the Trump administration (they could have done basically nothing and taken credit for the Biden soft landing and economic growth) but they aren't going to course correct.

Trump has no ability to admit mistakes even to himself and he's now surrounded by lots of people who stand to enrich themselves from the chaos even as the average American is harmed greatly.

Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

#159

Post by vdupras »

qnpnpmqppnp wrote: post #144
vdupras wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All time high if denominated in USD. YoY, stocks have been increasing in value as fast as USD is losing to CHF. Regardless of whether gold and silver jumps are a pump and dump, stocks, in "real" value, are at most flat.

Well it's an all time high in EUR as well for instance. I haven't checked for CHF or other currency one may cherry-pick, but in any case it wouldn't change my point: even if it was slightly below an all time high, it's not currently crashing.

I'm not the one who made the "it's crashing now" claim and I do agree that from a certain point of view, it might be seen as a stretch.

However, what I'm claiming is that "all time high" is also quite a stretch. Pretty much all nations have been printing money pretty intensely, so fiat is not a solid anchor to derive "actual value", but CHF might be among those that are less printed, so I chose it.

Even if we chose EUR, EURUSD wins YoY over S&P 500, hence, "stocks are flat". Sure, in the case of EUR, optics are fuzzier and you might pick a point or index showing a small increase over EURUSD, but I don't think it's strong enough to beat the general point, especially if your counter point is "stocks are at an all time high".

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