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Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

wilsoniumite.com

461–470 of 697 posts

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

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 abr…

I, a foreign entity, have sold something to an american and now have 10 dollars and zero treasuries. I purchase a treasury. I have zero product, zero dollars and one treasury. At some point in future i have zero product, maybe 12 dollars and zero treasuries. Presumably i now either repeat the cycle or use my winnings to spend on us output. GP’s version checks out, your assertion about dollars staying abroad doesnt tr…

> Presumably i now either repeat the cycle

Most of the time this is exactly (foreign or not) institutions do.

Think about it, if the 10-dollar treasury is due and you got your money back, the US debt will go down by 10 dollars. However, in our reality, the total amount of US debt almost never goes down.

Of course some interest will be used in other ways, like spending on the US goods or staying as cash to provide liquidity. But at the end of the day, the most popular way to spend the money got from due treasuries is... to buy more treasuries.

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

#462
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.

I acknowledge that the 20th century was marked by much bloodshed, but this wasn't limited to the world wars and it continues violently into the 21st century.

If the world is governed by rules, why does the United States maintain a considerable number of military bases around the world, far exceeding the total number of military bases of all other countries combined?

Why is the American military budget so much higher than the combined military budgets of all other countries?

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

#463

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…

>Trump has no ability to admit mistakes even to himself Whatever happened to 'TACO'

Aesop's fox and "sour" grapes.

He chickens out, but can't admit to himself that this is what happened.

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

#465
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm less and less inclined to believe in capitalism and money as a concept - we've long past moved the concept of money as universal barter, and into strange and speculative theories about how things ought to be valued, with the most valuable things either emerging from immediately unclear value propositions (impossibly valued companies, high-paid jobs that seemingly dont contribute to society) or artifici…

Much of the difference in the BYD cost is accounted for by a 27% tariff on the cars, transport and increased costs for warranty and compliance certification costs, as well as likely subsidies in the domestic market. Of those, you’ll see that only transport costs are a function of “capitalism” the rest is government.

If that were true, Euro and US models would cost the same in China as they do in Europe - after all they dont have import tariffs, and all the stuff you listed - but they're priced in accordance to the local market. As for subsidies, afaik the only difference between how the Chinese do them and the EU does them, is in China, the manufacturer receives them rather than the customer afaik.

But I didn't want to get heavily into cars - its a clear and omnipresent feature of modern economics that things cost different amount of money between economic blocks in ways that's not explainiable by the fundamental cost of goods and services rendered. And not only economic blocks - prices of existing concrete (like an apartment that is just there, and been there) goods can increase wildly over time - which in industrial terms would mean society getting less efficient.

I think it's an important thing to discuss, considering the current system's mandate to lead is based entirely around its ability to bring prosperity to the people.

If it's objectively outperformed by other systems, perhaps the system has to at least face the pressure change or be replaced.

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

#466

> Here’s the current price of silver. Not shown on the chart (and which couldn't have been predicted at the time of writing) is today's crash of almost 30% in that price. Speculative bubbles happen. The narrative of people losing faith in currency made no sense, because that should pump the prices of durable commodities as well, if not instead of precious metals.

Once the supreme court decision about Trump went out, I took all of my investments and put into a savings account. When a dip happens, I simply take 10% of the money, buy the dip, then sell when the price hits pre dip. So far Ive netted significantly more than any of my peers that actually do investing.

You have explained well how you are determining the point to sell. But how do you determine that "the dip" is now?

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

#467
> It feels as though all we need is a spark. And yet, many sparks seem to have come and gone. Big market moves, in stocks or yields, that have recovered

Yes, in a five year span we've had three 20% drawdowns in the stock market that have all recovered which is unprecedented. IMO, anyone who thinks we're going to crash and have a lost decade is not looking at the bigger picture. The Federal Reserve exists to allow the government to spend as much as possible by:

- Making sure that as many people are employed as possible for as long as possible (tax base)

- Making sure that prices keep going up and that the government can borrow below the rate of inflation (so they can spend even more and manage the debt)

What this means is that people need to work to keep up, and that asset prices will continue to go up as people try to protect their wealth from inflation. The government also takes a cut from that via capital gains tax. Regardless, there is simply too much "free money" going around for the outlook to be bearish, IMO. I'm investing across my 401(k), Roth IRA, and brokerage accounts as usual with a little more focus on exposure to international funds this year in my retirement accounts.

You should always take bearish outlooks with a grain of salt especially if they don't put their money where their mouth is and show their positions. Bears don't tend to make a lot of money over the long term: https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/does-market-timing-work

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

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has played by different rules, might makes right, in the western hemisphere for a long time. Screwing around with Greenland shit, on the other hand, seems riskier.

In practice the US could already do whatever it wanted in Greenland/Canada etc. The options for the motivation behind the theatrics I see. 1. Instill fear in the vassals->support for militarization rises there->they become more useable as proxies against RF/China 2. Just another Trump silliness

1. Could also be called Miller silliness

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

#470

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…

> The looming US debt is also a great question - a lot of economists have argued that since most US debt is good. 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. You got it wrong (I'm sure most economists don't get it wrong and you just misread/misquote). USD is…

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