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You're missing the third thing we pay with: T-bills. We literally print money. That's it. We didn't give up anything we own. We didn't give up anything we made.
by epistasis 28d ago
You're missing the third thing we pay with: T-bills. We literally print money. That's it. We didn't give up anything we own. We didn't give up anything we made. We printed money, because there needs to be enough currency to represent the ever growing wealth of the world and the world has chosen the US dollar as the reserve currency, to the great benefit of the US.
- smallmancontrov 26d agoYou're missing that the T-bills are replacing exports (including services) that would otherwise have had to happen to support the imports, and that the latter employs people while the former doesn't. The benefit is to the US in aggregate but is a detriment to most US citizens, since most US citizens get their money primarily from working rather than from owning assets. But for the minority of people who mostly get their money from owning assets, this is brilliant, I agree.