Bond rout starting to sound market alarm bells

There are several things at play.

1) Trump is playing a storyline. The Market place of ideas in America has one side which is under a monopoly. It sets its own prices, decides what information enters and exits, decides what the market SHOULD look like. It manages half the voting population.

This is why “Trump does what he says” resonated. Previous lawmakers played the role on TV, but in back room deals, acted as if reality mattered.

Trump does not. He will continue to not do so, and the ideas sold in the market place that supports him, will continue to sell ideas to support it. Even if they don’t make logical sense.

It’s like science fiction, reality doesn’t matter.

Without addressing the information asymmetry, no democracy can function. No decisions can be made.

This is the nicest way I can put it to people, without being blunt. This has been the work of decades, reaching all the way back to watergate.

2) Jobs are being lost to automation faster than they are lost to outsourcing. China is the last country that will raise its standard of living through manufacturing. India has to pivot to services, to have a hope of doing anything. All of this is human capital intensive.

3) Wealth inequality is the problem - and frankly, if you have money to spare you are simply going to buy assets. This will be bought from people who are increasingly affected by cost of living issues, and have to sell their assets. This means taxes

4) If Americans want a snowballs chance in hell, there need to be special elections around the country in 2025, to take control of congress. Republican senators and congressfolk are threatened by the voting base if they break with Trump, which they wont anyway. The checks and balances are broken, see point 1.

You cannot win in a broken market place. You cannot fix a marketplace of ideas with government power, because that breaks the principle of Free speech. If you are a government who IS in power because of market place monopolies, these rules do not apply to you.

Trump is serious about devaluing the dollar. The only reason he may not, is because the viewers/storyline suggest he shouldn’t.

I will regret making this post, because of the comments it will generate. It is general enough for a million holes to be poked in it. Sure. This is an outline, that covers most of the pieces that are on the board.

There's also the simple fact that there are an awful lot of countries other than the US for China to export to, and some of them are busy looking for new suppliers (especially since lots of "made in the USA" products have tariffs on their constituent parts). And China is much better equipped to change manufacturing priorities, and directionally the shift would be up the value chain....

> What are the theatres where the US is supposed to be able to put on a strong showing? It doesn't seem to be Europe, they've got war on their doorstep and if anyone thinks the US is helping they should reflect on their reasoning

I think you have this backwards: the US was helping considerably, and then got taken over by pro-Russian conspiracy theorists.

But the bond stuff isn't "tribute" or nationalism; remember, it's being made by private sector investors, not national governments. Fairly straightforward calculation: which way is the exchange rate expected to move? Interest rate? Risk of default?

Up till now the US offered moderate interest rates, favourable direction of exchange rate movement, and imperceptible risk of default. There's still no reason to default other than madness and a desire to strap on the suicide vest and become Argentina.

The weird thing is how conservatives get to play both the "federal government is inherently evil" and "look at all the stuff we're doing with our power over the federal government" cards at the same time, often for the same events.

> dollar that encourages more and more consumption

Under consumerist capitalism, more consumption is generally considered to be a good thing. See all the people complaining about the price of eggs under Biden. I wonder how they're doing.

The tariffs mean that Americans will be able to afford less stuff. That's the stated objective: buy more expensive American goods rather than cheaper imports. It remains to be seen how a country which got started around a riot against import taxes is going to handle this.