Live data from Hacker News

The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

lynalden.com

81–90 of 367 posts

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened in part thanks to bain capital, those following the same business model of theivery, and the deregulation in the 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital Republican lawmakers and party members have been destroying America for generations. Goes back even further to 1971 when Nixon opened talks with the CCCP and then went there in 1972 cutting the ground out from beneath American workers. And now…

Confused about this illegal substances thing, can you elaborate?

[deleted]

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#82
>This article places an emphasis on where the bottlenecks and problems have been forming in the system, explains why a continued weak dollar over a 3-5 year period remains my base case, and shows why some of these growing pains seem to be leading to a new re-ordering of the global monetary system over this decade.

3-5 years isn't really saying much especially given that the US dollar does not have much movement, and that this is effectively the same as being bullish on the Euro and Pound and Yen, which are the biggest competing currencies. I do not see any reason why those currencies will see a sudden inflow. That last time that happened was in 2002-2008, but that was when there are much more interest in foreign assets , whereas today foreign assets are shunned in favor of domestic assets and tech. Pensions, hedge funds seek safe US assets such as investment-grade corporates bonds and treasury bonds, not riskier foreign assets.

I do not expect any sort of fraying of the US dollar as the global reserve currency system though.

Some of the conclusions the author draws are wrong or dubious, such as the purported inverse relationship between the US dollar and corporates profits. The dollar surged in 2014 but corporates profits did not fall.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#84
post #26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump was the first president in my lifetime to even admit gutting our manufacturing base is a problem. Neither Democrats nor establishment Republicans did anything but line up for their shockingly paltry share of the loot while mouthing platitudes about efficiency.

True, but he said he said that simply because Bernie did, and it played well against Hillary in the primaries. He didn’t do anything that actually slowed the loss of our manufacturing base while president.

> He didn’t do anything that actually slowed the loss of our manufacturing base while president.

Come on now. Say what you will about the effect of the tax changes on inequality, they're clearly designed to make it more attractive to do business in the US, e.g. lower corporate rates and allowing capital expenditures to be deducted immediately rather than amortized over a period of years. It's hard to argue that tariffs on goods from China don't make it less attractive to buy goods from China.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#85
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was one of the last tool makers in the US working for Molex. They spent years teaching the Chinese, the Chinese would disassemble all molds sent over to China and often break them, so my fathers team would have to fix / rebuild them. They spent years training the Chinese side-by-side in the US. In the end they still haven’t exactly caught up to the quality we had in the US. However, they now have 5x the too…

Without a very strong (and therefore expensive) social security net, “Letting people work for whatever wage they can achieve” is slavery. See 19th century Britain Germany still has a strong industrial base, without a race to the bottom and with strong unions. So it is possible :)

Do you think the 19th century is a good anecdote for what would happen nowadays? Setting minimum wage seems to create this standard that may do more harm than good. Increasing the 'standard' harms the 'middle-class' and this 'standard' may set the wages lower than entitled per job.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#86

"Instead of drawing down our gold reserves, however, we gradually draw down our domestic manufacturing base and it gets replaced piece-by-piece in foreign countries." To me, this is the money shot. I hadn't seen this expressed before and it makes perfect sense. I'm baffled that we (the US) caused this to happen to the US. I'm (unhappily) registered Republican but I argued vociferously to a Dem friend in 2000 that our…

> Even if this anecdote is untrue, the point remains valid...

I mean, I guess the point remains valid in that everyone can see that a lot of manufacturing has left the US in the past, I dunno, fifty years. But if you don't even know whether the anecdote you mention is true, why bring it up? Why comment at all?

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflating the dollar is probably the only way we're going to get out of the hole we're in, so that'd kill two bird with one stone.

Default is another option. Inflation hurts everybody. Cutting spending is the only way to start repairing the economy for the long term. Government consumes 31% of the fruit of our labor. Money that could be left in the hands of people to drive the economy.

The beauty of inflation is that it hurts you in direct proportion to how well off you are, and it can't be dodged (i.e. it's like a wealth tax, only actually achievable). We could drive inflation while also ameliorating a lot of the pain it would cause by implementing UBI (in fact, I'm pretty sure big deficit spending is the only way UBI will ever happen).

Defaulting would screw a lot of institutional pension investors, while a lot of the super-wealthy could just dodge into less vulnerable assets, potentially worsening wealth inequality.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#88
post #10

How much debt can we accumulate before entities stop buying our bonds and treasuries?

Everyone else is accumulating debt too. To escape a bear, you just need to run faster than everyone else not faster than the bear.

The only problem is the bear is tireless and insatiable. It will get everybody. Gotta kill the bear.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#89

"Instead of drawing down our gold reserves, however, we gradually draw down our domestic manufacturing base and it gets replaced piece-by-piece in foreign countries." To me, this is the money shot. I hadn't seen this expressed before and it makes perfect sense. I'm baffled that we (the US) caused this to happen to the US. I'm (unhappily) registered Republican but I argued vociferously to a Dem friend in 2000 that our…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the US does not need any factories, as it can print any amount of money and buy whatever it wants from any country has factories. Money talks. Or not?

It has enough military for safely making this again and again for tens of years at least.

Re: The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system

#90
The collapse of the dollars strength and rise of crypto being thought of as 'a store of wealth' may lead to the next financial revolution.

Imagine a world where etheruem has enough market cap where it's volatility decreases, smart contracts for services are wide spread, everyone works free-lance giving the economy a inherent conflict of interest problem that rockets innovation forward while at the same time of having the effect of directly capturing some of the wealth you create by charging on a 'free-lance' model.

No need for the dollar, but it does change the inventives built into the system and will have radical effects on globalism.

Post reply on HN