I’m not seeing anyone point at monetary/trade policy here. Every western government is running the same playbook of loose monetary policy and (at least in aggre

I’m not seeing anyone point at monetary/trade policy here. Every western government is running the same playbook of loose monetary policy and (at least in aggregate across the monetary unions) large structural trade deficits. We buy manufactured trinkets, and what do those countries do with the money, when we’re not offering enough goods and services to balance the trade? Some of it goes to eg US treasuries, but presumably, because we’re running inflationary monetary policy, a lot of it goes to buying assets, like property and companies. (I would dig up a foreign investment balance chart, but the gist is that the US went from investing in everyone else/buying up everyone else’s assets to the opposite happening). We’ve basically been living well above our means for quite a while, paying with the wealth we’d stored up, and now our assets are getting bid up past the point where much of our populations can afford it.