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The Dollar Is Dead

mathmeetsmoney.substack.com

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Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#181

Post by UltraSane »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #68
UltraSane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden is competent and chooses competent people. Trump is NOT competent and hire incompetent people and fires competent people.

The debate performance says otherwise

Trump and Biden are BOTH way WAY too old and senile to be president. I really don't understand how Trump supporters can complain that Biden is senile when Trump doesn't remember major things he did during his first term. 60 should be the max age to run for President considering how important and stressful it is.

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#182

Post by rssoconnor »

827a wrote: post #96
saubeidl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot depends on whether the US keeps being an unreliable actor and thus a pain to deal with. If there's enough pain, it'll outweigh the pain of switching.

People read FUD articles like this then start ignoring any common sense, including even their own senses, because apparently the world must be ending and we're all going to die. There's no pain. What pain is anyone (except a couple dictators under sanctions) feeling? Almost every major currency has lost value relative to the US Dollar over the past 10 years. Not just, like, a little bit. Like, a lot a bit. The Indian…

Huh? The CAD/USD exchange rate is exactly where I remember it being 30 years ago.

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#183

Post by herval »

stego-tech wrote: post #159
herval wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone NOT know that? Devaluing the dollar is literally the key item on the current president’s financial agenda, as they’ve explained repeatedly

Listening to my fellow Americans? Lots of them either don’t know that’s the policy, don’t know the consequences of such a policy, or want it because they believe it’ll harm their enemies.

How can someone not know, at this point? You can literally just google “mar a lago accord”, this stuff has been widely discussed across mainstream media and social media (including the likes of r/conservative and even the whitehouse site! eg https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-...)

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#184

Post by stock_toaster »

nostromo wrote: post #101
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "overspending." There is only undertaxing. The debt is literally just the accumulated difference between spending and taxation. If extreme wealth was taxed, the debt would be zero. The point isn't even to "pay for spending" but to enforce a functional social contract, and to limit the political and democratic distortions created by extreme inequality. "Markets" should not have a veto on policy in a democr…

Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same: the rich move their wealth somewhere else and you end up breaking even or even reducing your tax revenue. France: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-7... UK: https://obr.uk/box/effect-of-the-additional-rate-of-income-t... Sweden: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/seimAEJ17wealth.pdf It's interesting to note…

> Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same: the rich move their wealth somewhere else and you end up breaking even or even reducing your tax revenue.

Why can't they tax something that _cant_ be moved elsewhere, like property ownership?

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#186

Post by stego-tech »

herval wrote: post #183
stego-tech wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listening to my fellow Americans? Lots of them either don’t know that’s the policy, don’t know the consequences of such a policy, or want it because they believe it’ll harm their enemies.

How can someone not know, at this point? You can literally just google “mar a lago accord”, this stuff has been widely discussed across mainstream media and social media (including the likes of r/conservative and even the whitehouse site! eg https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-... )

We assume people think similarly to us, but the reality is that we're the outliers in a lot of ways. It's why I occasionally insert myself into the Lion's Den on HN when I see someone smart espousing known bullshit, lest their SME be confused as authority on whatever they're screeding about.

Having watched colleagues spend every waking moment on their breaks digest literal propaganda as truth? Watching relatives so dosed up on misinformation by cable outlets that they only exist within that specific fantasy and never reality?

It's depressingly, distressingly common.

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#187

Post by dh2022 »

A post claiming that the dollar is dead without mentioning Trifflin’s dilemma [0] is not a serious post.

A post claiming the dollar is dead without explaining why a large freely traded currency backed by a large economy (I.e the Euro) did not take the dollar’s place is even less serious.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#188

Post by stego-tech »

marcosdumay wrote: post #147
nostromo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same: the rich move their wealth somewhere else and you end up breaking even or even reducing your tax revenue. France: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/31/france-drops-7... UK: https://obr.uk/box/effect-of-the-additional-rate-of-income-t... Sweden: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/seimAEJ17wealth.pdf It's interesting to note…

Your links are 2 about speculation on how business will react, and one real paper that discovers that rich people lie more to avoid taxes when your tax rate increases. Nothing at all supports that "the rich move their wealth somewhere else"

That's because, as a singular planetary species, that story is a myth. The rich only maintain wealth by exploiting people against each other, thus deterring actions against the rich who likely caused the issue in the first place.

Lack of housing because it's a profitable investment class that rises in value due to lack of supply? Obviously it's the fault of NIMBYs alone and not political policy pushed by lobbying groups.

Healthcare too expensive? Totally not the fault of private equity bleeding care networks dry and public health insurance companies denying coverage to fund share buybacks and CEO raises, so it must be nurses striking for pay or the government for paying too little on Medicare.

The point is that if enough rich countries said "fuck this shit, pay up and fuck off out of politics forever", the rich can't leave. They're stuck here, on Earth, with the poors. That's not going to change anytime soon, so the only thing stopping these countries from reigning the issue in is cowardice.

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#189

Post by ponector »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78
Workaccount2 wrote: post #29

The country is getting forced by markets into realizing pain for overspending, and only congress can manage this pain. Manage the pain, not remove it is key here. Manage it. Conrgess is totally inept and ridiculously politicized, so it's unlikely they will do anything except make the problem worse. That leaves only the natural fall out of refusing to acknowledge a financial injury before going out on the field to pla…

There is no "overspending." There is only undertaxing. The debt is literally just the accumulated difference between spending and taxation. If extreme wealth was taxed, the debt would be zero. The point isn't even to "pay for spending" but to enforce a functional social contract, and to limit the political and democratic distortions created by extreme inequality. "Markets" should not have a veto on policy in a democr…

>> If extreme wealth was taxed, the debt would be zero

With current level of debt it does not matter. Taxes should be rised for everyone if huge cuts in expenses are not done.

Re: The Dollar Is Dead

#190

Post by lvl155 »

bootsmann wrote: post #176
lvl155 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lost 15% because Trump is undermining the US? What’s there to explain? Does US still have its military? Yes. Do you think currencies stay completely stagnant over even one week? It’s driven by a myriad of market forces.

Yes thats the point I was trying to make. The strength of the USD derives itself in large parts from the fundamental trust markets have in US institutions not from the strength of its military.

I know what you’re saying but it’s not some fiat blind trust. There’s a big reason why the US can print with impunity. EUR cannot, even though people may trust EU more over the near-term. It’s all tied to military.
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