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Yup Heard an interesting analysis by a Bloomberg Radio guest, running down the advantages/disadvantages between US and China. They came out mostly balanced, bu

by toss1 1y ago

Yup Heard an interesting analysis by a Bloomberg Radio guest, running down the advantages/disadvantages between US and China. They came out mostly balanced, but the big imbalance is the population. The US population is a LOT less tolerant of disruption, and the Chinese population is more tolerant, and less informed, e.g., no one there even knows the rates are ~145%. I'm inclined to agree. I see the US population as fully and multi-generationally accustomed to the luxury of comfortable living with a decent safety net. When things start to get really hard, the US population will get rapidly un-governable, while the Chinese will be both more ignorant, more controlled, and more willing to take some suffering for the country's good, while the US has been all about "ME" for quite a while.

throwawaymaths 1y ago
Nah, the US has gone through plenty of crazy social shifts without totally collapsing. Since the civil war, historically, difficulty tends to galvanize the US public (for better or worse). You'll have to do a better job explaining why this time is different, that isn't just "vibes". American culture is full of inherent contradictions in individual/social balance. The biggest one recently is identity politics, and the swing to and from this movement is indicative of how malleable the US relationship with individualism is.
- azinman2 1y ago
  What’s different is the US is wayyyyy richer and more comfortable than any time previously in history, or at least was until recently (in terms of PPP of the avg person). When you grow up in those conditions, it’s like you’re the kid of a rich person who made all the money, and you now feel entitled to it without any of the work it took to get here, and without experiencing the pain without it or the lessons learned along the way. Instead you start to complain that you can’t do XYZ (buy a home, have a family, pay for healthcare), but because you didn’t create these conditions or experience life before, you just blame others without any of the tools to correct it for yourself.
  - toss1 1y ago
    >>When you grow up in those conditions, it’s like you’re the kid of a rich person who made all the money, and you now feel entitled to it without any of the work it took to get here, and without experiencing the pain without it or the lessons learned along the way. Instead you start to complain that you can’t do XYZ (buy a home, have a family, pay for healthcare), but because you didn’t create these conditions or experience life before, you just blame others without any of the tools to correct it for yourself. THIS! A nation of (predominantly) spoiled brats is not Sparta.
maxerickson 1y ago
You think the US population, on average, knows what the tariff rate with China is?
- toss1 1y ago
  On average? Maybe not. But that is not the point; it's the massive info imbalance between US vs China population I would bet, of the US 48% who read above a 6th-grade level, at least 2/3 of them know the rate is well over 100%. The analyst's point is that even the literate in China do NOT know the rates because they have been systematically suppressed by the govt., so the info is simply not available (except to those few who have a reliable hole in the Great Firewall), so the Chinese population is already more controlled.
no_wizard 1y ago
>I see the US population as fully and multi-generationally accustomed to the luxury of comfortable living with a decent safety net. What gives you this idea, at all? Our safety net is non existent in this country. The fact is most people in the US feel squeezed, thats why Trump was able to win with his America First attitude to begin with.
- toss1 1y ago
  Sure, maybe she's wrong and the US population is actually hardened, tough, and patriotic enough to get over their divisions and unite to support tariffs. I'm looking at it from a general historic perspective. Just look back 100 years. Of course the safety net could be a lot better and the GINI coefficient is awful, but there still has never been more wealth floating about the general population. When the people complaining loudest about their situation are having boat parades, driving $75K pickup trucks with aftermarket mods, and getting their news on 75" TVs, and their biggest complaint driving their vote is the price of eggs due to an avian flu pandemic, they are definitely comfortable. When that changes in a matter of weeks, we'll see what happens. I just found the analyst's observations valuable and worth sharing.
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    >Of course the safety net could be a lot better and the GINI coefficient is awful, but there still has never been more wealth floating about the general population. When the people complaining loudest about their situation are having boat parades, driving $75K pickup trucks with aftermarket mods, and getting their news on 75" TVs, and their biggest complaint driving their vote is the price of eggs due to an avian flu pandemic, they are definitely comfortable. This isn't reflective of the median reality for most people. Simply put, the strata divide is growing even though there is a lot of wealth in US society, it is spread incredibly unevenly. The US isn't well prepared to handle a trade war, never mind that this trade war is really cover for a class war because big businesses felt labor made too many gains from late 2020 through early 2023
    - toss1 1y ago

by toss1 1y ago

throwawaymaths 1y ago

Nah, the US has gone through plenty of crazy social shifts without totally collapsing. Since the civil war, historically, difficulty tends to galvanize the US public (for better or worse). You'll have to do a better job explaining why this time is different, that isn't just "vibes". American culture is full of inherent contradictions in individual/social balance. The biggest one recently is identity politics, and the swing to and from this movement is indicative of how malleable the US relationship with individualism is.

azinman2 1y ago
What’s different is the US is wayyyyy richer and more comfortable than any time previously in history, or at least was until recently (in terms of PPP of the avg person). When you grow up in those conditions, it’s like you’re the kid of a rich person who made all the money, and you now feel entitled to it without any of the work it took to get here, and without experiencing the pain without it or the lessons learned along the way. Instead you start to complain that you can’t do XYZ (buy a home, have a family, pay for healthcare), but because you didn’t create these conditions or experience life before, you just blame others without any of the tools to correct it for yourself.
- toss1 1y ago
  >>When you grow up in those conditions, it’s like you’re the kid of a rich person who made all the money, and you now feel entitled to it without any of the work it took to get here, and without experiencing the pain without it or the lessons learned along the way. Instead you start to complain that you can’t do XYZ (buy a home, have a family, pay for healthcare), but because you didn’t create these conditions or experience life before, you just blame others without any of the tools to correct it for yourself. THIS! A nation of (predominantly) spoiled brats is not Sparta.

maxerickson 1y ago

You think the US population, on average, knows what the tariff rate with China is?

toss1 1y ago
On average? Maybe not. But that is not the point; it's the massive info imbalance between US vs China population I would bet, of the US 48% who read above a 6th-grade level, at least 2/3 of them know the rate is well over 100%. The analyst's point is that even the literate in China do NOT know the rates because they have been systematically suppressed by the govt., so the info is simply not available (except to those few who have a reliable hole in the Great Firewall), so the Chinese population is already more controlled.

no_wizard 1y ago

>I see the US population as fully and multi-generationally accustomed to the luxury of comfortable living with a decent safety net. What gives you this idea, at all? Our safety net is non existent in this country. The fact is most people in the US feel squeezed, thats why Trump was able to win with his America First attitude to begin with.

toss1 1y ago
Sure, maybe she's wrong and the US population is actually hardened, tough, and patriotic enough to get over their divisions and unite to support tariffs. I'm looking at it from a general historic perspective. Just look back 100 years. Of course the safety net could be a lot better and the GINI coefficient is awful, but there still has never been more wealth floating about the general population. When the people complaining loudest about their situation are having boat parades, driving $75K pickup trucks with aftermarket mods, and getting their news on 75" TVs, and their biggest complaint driving their vote is the price of eggs due to an avian flu pandemic, they are definitely comfortable. When that changes in a matter of weeks, we'll see what happens. I just found the analyst's observations valuable and worth sharing.
- no_wizard 1y ago
  >Of course the safety net could be a lot better and the GINI coefficient is awful, but there still has never been more wealth floating about the general population. When the people complaining loudest about their situation are having boat parades, driving $75K pickup trucks with aftermarket mods, and getting their news on 75" TVs, and their biggest complaint driving their vote is the price of eggs due to an avian flu pandemic, they are definitely comfortable. This isn't reflective of the median reality for most people. Simply put, the strata divide is growing even though there is a lot of wealth in US society, it is spread incredibly unevenly. The US isn't well prepared to handle a trade war, never mind that this trade war is really cover for a class war because big businesses felt labor made too many gains from late 2020 through early 2023
  - toss1 1y ago