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I always thought that this tariff stuff is about restraining American consumerism first and coerce export oriented countries. Also, this obsession over the imp

by mrtksn 9mo ago

I always thought that this tariff stuff is about restraining American consumerism first and coerce export oriented countries. Also, this obsession over the importance of accessing US consumers feels ridiculous. If Americans aren't buying then it means more stuff for everyone else. EU/China etc. sends actual things to US and US sends back dollars that are created out of thin air. It must be a restructuring pain more than anything since US doesn't actually export much goods. With the proliferation of cheap and available solar energy the trade with US can halt, endure the pain of restructuring came out of the other side with using the produced goods domestically instead of sending them to US and replace the US services with domestic ones. Then US can produce their things that they consume and have 350M market for the US companies instead of 7B. It almost looks like Trump is Pushing for US irrelevance, its vey strange. Why would US be looking to abandone such an advantageous position? The people in the rest of the world are working their asses off, breathing toxic air just to obtain dollars.

gostsamo 9mo ago
The issue is that the EU and China are not structured to rely on internal consumption. We just cannot buy everything we produce. Fixing that would require years of carefully managed policies and at least for the EU, I've lost confidence that the national governments can work well-enough together to manage such a project. The rest of the world is in a similar situation, so it will be fun times until things settle, hopefully, not on a lower equilibrium.
- mrtksn 9mo ago
  Why someone needs to consume the stuff produced?
  - gostsamo 9mo ago
    For the unfortunate necessity to pay the producer and for the consumer to get the benefit of the produce whether tangible or perceived.
    - mrtksn 9mo ago
      See the core issue is that you get US dollars in exchange, which is of infinite supply but still happens to have value due to the reserve currency status. You send your stuff to US, you get the dollars and pay your suppliers etc but they don’t send that dollar to US to get something they want because US doesn’t actually produce that many stuff. So you should be able to augment the US, pay the producers with your imaginary dollars you put in the books for example. Sure that will be fraud but it is fraud only because you are not US. However that’s not the point, the point is that you don’t actually need US, you need to figure out a financial instrument that fulfills the role of US and that must be possible.

by mrtksn 9mo ago

gostsamo 9mo ago

The issue is that the EU and China are not structured to rely on internal consumption. We just cannot buy everything we produce. Fixing that would require years of carefully managed policies and at least for the EU, I've lost confidence that the national governments can work well-enough together to manage such a project. The rest of the world is in a similar situation, so it will be fun times until things settle, hopefully, not on a lower equilibrium.

mrtksn 9mo ago
Why someone needs to consume the stuff produced?
- gostsamo 9mo ago
  For the unfortunate necessity to pay the producer and for the consumer to get the benefit of the produce whether tangible or perceived.
  - mrtksn 9mo ago
    See the core issue is that you get US dollars in exchange, which is of infinite supply but still happens to have value due to the reserve currency status. You send your stuff to US, you get the dollars and pay your suppliers etc but they don’t send that dollar to US to get something they want because US doesn’t actually produce that many stuff. So you should be able to augment the US, pay the producers with your imaginary dollars you put in the books for example. Sure that will be fraud but it is fraud only because you are not US. However that’s not the point, the point is that you don’t actually need US, you need to figure out a financial instrument that fulfills the role of US and that must be possible.