Live data from Hacker News

Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

wilsoniumite.com

381–390 of 697 posts

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

#381
post #377
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules based order is mostly a fabrication of recent history. Perhaps between the fall of the Soviet Union, China becoming more open, and the general peace and prosperity it seemed like it existed. Politics between countries has always been around interests. Countries have no interest in giving up their sovereignty. They may pretend to respect these "rules" when it suits them and then ignore them when it doesn't.…

Incorrect. The rules based order was first attempted after the first world war and then created after the second one. These are lessen that have been bought with blood. Lots of blood. Megaliters of it. The incredible stupidity of throwing that away is absolutely disgusting.

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

"The nature of the LIO, as well as its very existence, has been debated by scholars."

Nobody is throwing anything away and that thing you think they're throwing away didn't really exist.

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

#383
post #252
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

But cares about something that has zero effect on them? Trans? How many of them know a single trans person? Like somehow that's a huge thing for Trump voters but a crashing economy is not?

Crashing the economy? In the past year the S&P 500 rose 14%, unemployment is at 4.4%, and inflation is around 2.7%. There are many things to criticize Trump for but the economy has not actually crashed.

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

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly very few people were buying at 120 which is why it fell back to 85. It's a highly volatile commodity. Commodities markets go through booms and busts all the time and you never even hear about most of them.

My bad. I placed a small buy at around $120, afterward it immediately tanked. Sorry folks!

For clarity: that is sarcasm.

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

#385

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…

[deleted]

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

#386
Median house price / median income is at an all-time high for the US.[1] But what that means is that the rest of the country has caught up to California's overpriced housing. Hence the call for a 50-year mortgage. Still, looks a lot like the 2008 housing bubble.

[1] https://www.longtermtrends.com/home-price-median-annual-inco...

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> '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) b…

Still, he'll be gone one day and I am going to be all in on that day. It'll all be hockey-sticks from that moment on.

He'll be gone. The trust in the US won't come back. If your constitution and political system allow such a moron to wreak so much havoc in such a little time, why would we ever trust you again?

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

#388

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…

> It's mostly in forms of treasuries purchased in USD that pay in USD - this means the indebtedness creates a huge amount of dollars abroad that foreigners have to then spend on US services, driving demand.

Strangely enough, this is exactly the opposite of how it works. The dollars abroad tend to stay abroad, as either a more stable alternative to local currencies, or a reserve currency. Likewise, treasuries held abroad tend to stay there as reserves. This is how the US is able to run both a huge debt, and a huge trade deficit. If the dollars were being repatriated, the trade deficit would close, and the influx of money would cause hotter inflation. Same with treasuries, yields would spike as demand fell.

There are lots of second order effects there, good and bad, but, basically, those dollars not coming home has funded America for quite some time.

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

#389
post #152

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 stil…

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

Compare those numbers to 5 years ago. Remember, this is the timescale of a country, not a beagle. America has run on the strength of the dollar for decades, and the symptoms of that collapsing are likely to play out over decades.

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

#390
post #377
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules based order is mostly a fabrication of recent history. Perhaps between the fall of the Soviet Union, China becoming more open, and the general peace and prosperity it seemed like it existed. Politics between countries has always been around interests. Countries have no interest in giving up their sovereignty. They may pretend to respect these "rules" when it suits them and then ignore them when it doesn't.…

Incorrect. The rules based order was first attempted after the first world war and then created after the second one. These are lessen that have been bought with blood. Lots of blood. Megaliters of it. The incredible stupidity of throwing that away is absolutely disgusting.

The "rules-based international order" was a fiction popularized by US policy makers who wanted to quietly substitute it for international law, so they could violate said laws, while still vaguely gesturing at moral authority.
Post reply on HN