Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon

wilsoniumite.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 697 posts

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

#81

Post by operation_moose »

tock wrote: post #64
newsclues wrote: post #2

Who do we expect will replace Americas global leadership and will they really be better for everyone?

Seems like the rest of the world is just signing new trade deals and continuing on as normal. I hope America returns to normalcy in the next election and everything settles down. Else it seems like back to the old multipolar world.

I don't see any way we're not heading back to the multipolar world. They've managed to burn almost all of the goodwill and soft power that took 80 years to accumulate in 373 days.

Even with a "return to normalcy", the trade and military agreements being forged are permanently diminishing America's influence. Especially given that we're never more than 4 years away from this happening again.

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

#82

Post by blargthorwars »

brador wrote: post #70

I keep seeing soon, sliding into, moving towards. USD Currency futures have already collapsed. World trade will move to (not a good idea) RMB or (mistakenly) crypto. Euro is the only real option left and it’s beautifully positioned in the center. Great leadership too.

[flagged]

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

#84

Post by torginus »

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 manages to lose that through a combination of credible competitors, and loss of goodwill - it's going to be in heaps of trouble.

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.

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.

All said, I think if the US continues down the political path it currently seems to be pursuing, 'this time it's different' actually will be.

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

#85

Post by johnnyanmac »

pembrook wrote: post #74

Some advice for those who are young: If every idiot (I'm including myself in this) on HN/Reddit/Youtube/Tiktok/mainstream news/etc. thinks we're in a bubble and is crazy pessimistic and thinks economic collapse is near...it means we're not actually in a bubble. When the bitter, frustrated pessimists on HN shift their tone to being neutral or even mildly optimistic, then I will start worrying. Because that will mean t…

>When the bitter, frustrated pessimists on HN shift their tone to being neutral or even mildly optimistic, then I will start worrying.

That seems to have happened around 2023 or so as people chose to laud over AI instead of understanding the underpinnings of society coming undone in real time.

So, should I be worried?

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

#86

Post by card_zero »

scotty79 wrote: post #5
wolvoleo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China probably. No I don't think it is better but at least their leadership is actually sane. Evil, but sane and predictable.

Even the evil adjective starts to look debatable in contrast to what current hegemony is doing on its way down. Apparently their worst offence so far was calmly outgrowing and out competing their peers while benefiting global consumers with he fruits of organized labor of their own society.

Stop getting Chinese territory under your fishing boats! Leave immediately for correct and healthy harmony! Fires water cannon

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

#87

Post by benrutter »

I feel like one of the following is true (and I don't know yet which is the case):

- I'm genuinely a lot more pessimistic than is accurate around what is and isn't a bubble - Bubbles are just slower to burst than I expect

Possibly some combination of both. But even ignoring AI which is relatively new, it seems "obvious" to me, that whatever value Bitcoin has, investment in the asset is detached completely from that value. I'd have expected to see Bitcoin crash a long, long time ago, and have been thinking it's "just around the corner" for years and year.

And yet, the bitcoin price as a whole, although it's dipped recently, and is clearly volatile, still remains something like 10x what it's value was 5 years ago[0].

[0] https://charts.bitbo.io/price/

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

#88

Post by mistersquid »

carabiner wrote: post #18

This is really obscured by the K-shaped growth, dual economy now. We've reached a stable pattern of a deep underclass serving the wealthy. We won't have a crash or "correction" because the entrenched top 5% has figured out a way extract value from everyone else indefinitely.

> This is really obscured by the K-shaped growth, dual economy now. We've reached a stable pattern of a deep underclass serving the wealthy. We won't have a crash or "correction" because the entrenched top 5% has figured out a way extract value from everyone else indefinitely.

Apologies for quoting all 3 sentences of parent, but the poorly-drawn conclusion depends on the full sequence of seemingly rational statements.

The context this sequence is missing is that approximately 70% of the US economy depends on consumer spending. [0][1] If the lower stroke of the K-economy diverges too much from the upper, the economy is going to grind to halt.

Consumer spending of the bottom 90% cannot (easily?) be replaced by the top 10%.

[0] https://govfacts.org/money/broader-economy/economic-indicato...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/11/23/nx-s1-5615222/consumer-spendi...

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

#89

Post by maxerickson »

lvl155 wrote: post #50

Software sector basically got cut in half just on Claude Code. You have to wonder what is next. I don’t think loss in economics is 1:1 with replacement so it’s not zero sum. Production doesn’t necessarily go up. In fact, net output is going to go down if you think about all the B2B lost too. Whoever comes into power next better start thinking about universal income fast. We are gonna get there sooner than expected.

Software productivity doubling would be a huge boon for the economy, not a drag.

Of course it's very disruptive for people that lose their jobs, but many of them will get similar new jobs, and the overall impact is higher output.

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

#90

Post by tonyedgecombe »

nodesocket wrote: post #71

I know HN always has its fair share of doomers, and generally the HN communities track record anecdotally regarding finance and the market is frankly terrible. Tesla (stock price wrong), Bitcoin (wrong), AI a huge dot com like bubble (wrong in my opinion - TBD though). I’m optimistic on the US. We could realistically print a 5 handle GDP, oil at rock bottom prices, lower federal income taxes this year. As far as Gold…

At this point I think Tesla could sell zero cars this year and their stock price would still be astronomical.
Post reply on HN