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Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

wilsoniumite.com

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

#161
post #9

No one will ever get the timing right, but if you see the fundamental flaws of the economy, you know a crash is going to come. There were a lot of people who predicted the housing crash, not the timing but the crash. There are several signs that this is happening and the one no one is talking about is gold and silver prices. Don’t worry about the timing, you’ll never get the timing right, just worry about the fundame…

Keep in mind that not only did people predict the housing crash, some were certain houses would be sold for pennies on the dollar.

I bought a short sale distressed town house in 2009 for 40% lower than its peak price, and many people told me it was a terrible decision because if I just waited long enough, I'd buy it for a fraction of the price.

I think prices went a bit lower in 2010, but then I gained about 400k in equity over the next 10 years and sold it.

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

#162

Some sort of an AI crash / bubble bursting is expected to be honest - now if that will take the rest of the US economy as well.... debatable. Any strong opinions on this?

I'm not an expert, my knowledge is just from reading around a lot, but I think there's some stats that would suggest the US is particularly exposed: - At points, AI investment has actually seen more spending that US consumer spending[0], there's some debate on this[1] but if true, that leads to a narrative of the US being 'propped up' by AI investment. - US GDP growth was strong last year, but behind quite a lot of o…

On (1): Might be useful to separate investment flows from the rest of US's economic activity.

AI investment is propping up capital flows, the GDP statistic, and responsible for most of the gains on SPX, but its still a small fraction of the economy.

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

#163
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (like I'm sure many others) predicted it in 2007 and hedged against it by getting a 10 year fixed mortgage at then-current rates on the basis that rates would go sky high as they had in earlier recessions in the UK. They plummeted to next-to-zero, and in addition to the injury I had to endure the insult of the people who hadn't seen it coming gloating about their low standard variable rates. Ofc I clearly didn't ha…

Why you could not refinance when the rates went to 0%? In the US a lot of people did that in 2009/2010 and then again during COVID

Refinancing and loans work differently outside of the U.S. what I don't remember is exactly how. If I recall, you can't refinance without paying

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

#165

Maybe simultaneous with the crash of the Chinese economy, which was predicted for 40 years now

I don't understand why people expect the Chinese economy to crash - they can basically make everything, a lot of which is internationally competitive, they can trade for the resources they don't have with the goods that they do - with basically the whole world dependent on them. They have a huge internal base of poor people, and lifting them to a middle class level will alone fuel domestic demand for years to come. T…

> Their biggest problem[…]

is demographic in nature. https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2024/

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

#166

Last 2 reported quarters have 3.8% and 4.4% gdp growth. Next report is end of february. So it's minimum 4 months away at earliest. Stock markets are at 10 year peaks. Unemployment is a little bit high at 4.5%. Inflation is a little bit high at 2.7% US government debt is very high at 125% PMIs are strong across the board. Also in context, trillions in declared new investments in the usa. Probably trillions more in und…

Is this the case with all bubbles? Might be a naive question

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

#167
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…

>demand is still there today

Not all demand the same. There are broadly 2 types of USD buyers

1. price insensitive: sovereign banks, who buys for liquidity/storage

2. price sensitive: hedge funds, private buyer who buys returns

Type 1 buyers are bailing out of treasury. Type 1 are marginal buyers, the close auction regardless or rate, this keeps rates low -> debt servicing low. They artificially depress yield to non market rates, without them rate go up because you have more price sensitive buyers who buy for returns. This increases borrowing costs, hence US debt repayment rising massively.

Type 1 buyers, i.e. US allies (and historically even adversaries) soaked up treasuries are now de-dollarizing / buying gold in lieu of _more_ USD. Type 1s underpin the "privilege" part of exorbitant privilege. The more they de-dollarize the more dollars become exorbitant, aka debt like everyone else. Type1, sovereign held 60% of USD to 40% in last 5 years. This large part of why interest tripled and debt servicing went from 350B to 1T in 5 years. Type1s exit to 20% in another 5 years and maybe interest goes to 5%, debt servicing 2T+. It's the difference between 10%/20%/30% debt servicing as % of federal revenue.

This not to mention USD reserve ticking down at 1% per year means meaningful changes in our lifetimes, and velocity may increase with developments like Saudi no longer locking oil to dollar. Less USD as % of global reserve = more network effects of alternate payment = increased potential velocity of USD reserve drop. This doesn't mean other currencies pickup all slack, i.e. central banks seem to be going in gold / commodities with no counter party risk for new storage. The net result is USD will still be around, in large volumes, but the cost/debt to sustain the system will be "normalized" while US budget is historically is built around USD debt being privileged. AKA difference between borrowing money from family vs payday loans.

>Nearly all commodities are still priced in USD

PRICED as in benchmarked in USD, but =/= USD is being spent to settle them. There's a fuckload of commodities where PRC alone buys 30/40/50%+ of global production, and while quoted in USD, increasingly settled in rmb/CIPS, bilateral currencies, BRI infra or other swaps mechanisms that bypasses USD. This one of the largest source of dedollarization - PRC went from single digit % to plurality of cross-border settlements in RMB/non USD. Though this is just very recent leading indicator that USD is functionally circumventable.

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

#168

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.…

>I think the government is laser focused

I'd rather say it's hell-bent. It doesn't look like a laser focus to me... or maybe it's just all disco ball reflections dizzying me, and there is indeed a laser focus somewhere I just can't quite pinpoint.

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