> “I am not sure that I think the reserve currency is actually good for the United States of America. I think there is a good argument that reserve currency status is akin to coal in Appalachia — it’s a resource curse, right? It allows your consumers to consume very cheaply. Right? That’s been the story of the American economy for the last 15 or so years, even before that, is we can just borrow, basically in an unlimited way, because we have the reserve currency.”
That's not anything like what "resource curse" means. It mostly describes the phenomenon where states primarily based around crude resource extraction neglect advanced industries that make things out of resources because they don't need to bother with manufacturing capacity as long as they can just keep exporting whatever expensive rocks are under their land. It works great until they run out of expensive rocks and their economy crashes because without expensive rocks they have nothing going for them. The United States was already running its economy on advanced manufacturing and services, until Trump got it into his head that he can make coal come back by wishing really hard and Vance went along with it.
Remember everyone, Vance is what passes for a smart Republican these days. You're looking at the peak of the mountain, the rest of them are even worse.
I want people to pay more for a Honda. Privately owned motor vehicles, and the infrastructure they require, place a huge burden on society. It's fair for people to pay more.
Yes, I know I've taken your topic off on a wild tangent.
I was psyched to see someone actually put employment numbers behind manufacturing decline in the US! I see that, especially the more recent "China Shock" decline held up as a major, earth shaking event. And I am sure that, for the individual people impacted, it was. But it was also fewer than 5 million jobs lost in a country of ~285 million. I know they were geographically concentrated and that negative local multiplier effects took place etc. But it's still true that it's just not that many people and any other talk of upending major political and economic policies for ~1.5% of the population would sound silly if you said it that way.
Heh, on the dollar and its priviledge: One need only look at the funding and borrowing constraints even most
in re "Vance thinks that this is bad. He would like you to pay $10,000 for a Japanese car. Why? Because he thinks it would make you buy American and because he thinks it would make foreigners buy American (because our currency would be weaker)."
Being involved in international trade I would observe that American firms are largely complete shit at exporting - almost zero international markets understanding, almost zero sense that they need to make an effort (kinda makes on think actually of Ming-to-Qing China era closed-offness - may be a Big Country disease), and regularly have trade financing ideas that seem rooted in 1965 concepts, practices. Not all US firms certainly, the big sophisticates no, but compare Middle America Mid Sized firm to a German Mittelstander or a French mid-sized exporter etc (never mind Asia) and the lack of sophistication or engagement is stark (of course big domestic economy). I would predect really 1970s style stagnation.
Of course another observation is the degree to which Vance and even most Americans are utterly blind to non-physical goods trade where US runs (a likely very significantly undercounted) surplus with the world. Now I am by prediliction and business a hard assets guy (financing ren energy and industrial electrification plays) so I have long been frustrated the 90s-2000s over priviledging in disourse etc with IT / immaterial world but it's damn bonkers and dumb to ignore or undercut the services and immaterial goods. Atavism, focusing on an archaic vision rooted in 1955 (idealised).
The whole JD Vance producerism economy thing is downstream of the generally-postliberal idea that the main reason things are bad ("things are bad") is because society is not sufficiently set up to serve as a crucible of moral reckoning — i.e. sufficiently to reward things some sort of ruling class has decided is good, and punish things some sort of ruling class has decided is bad. Leaving aside the question of what specific actual problems this solves (are people really running around today having lower quality of life because they are just sitting around seething that all the bad people aren't getting punished hard enough?), it also showcases a fundamentally outcome-agnostic model of politics, government, and participation in society.
Sadly, the median outcome of 230 Dem seats, is well within the range that allows Republicans to steal the election by putting up spurious disputes then seating their own candidates. If Dems win 250, the only option for Trump is to annul the election, or cancel it in anticipation. Unless anti-Trump sentiment turns into rejection of all Republicans, US democracy is doomed.
> “I am not sure that I think the reserve currency is actually good for the United States of America. I think there is a good argument that reserve currency status is akin to coal in Appalachia — it’s a resource curse, right? It allows your consumers to consume very cheaply. Right? That’s been the story of the American economy for the last 15 or so years, even before that, is we can just borrow, basically in an unlimited way, because we have the reserve currency.”
That's not anything like what "resource curse" means. It mostly describes the phenomenon where states primarily based around crude resource extraction neglect advanced industries that make things out of resources because they don't need to bother with manufacturing capacity as long as they can just keep exporting whatever expensive rocks are under their land. It works great until they run out of expensive rocks and their economy crashes because without expensive rocks they have nothing going for them. The United States was already running its economy on advanced manufacturing and services, until Trump got it into his head that he can make coal come back by wishing really hard and Vance went along with it.
Remember everyone, Vance is what passes for a smart Republican these days. You're looking at the peak of the mountain, the rest of them are even worse.
I want people to pay more for a Honda. Privately owned motor vehicles, and the infrastructure they require, place a huge burden on society. It's fair for people to pay more.
Yes, I know I've taken your topic off on a wild tangent.
Idealogical anti-carism is tedious Lefty greeny play at Don Quixote. Give it a fucking rest.
(and no, I don't myself like cars and hate even driving, but boring tedious virtue signaling is boring and tedious)
I was psyched to see someone actually put employment numbers behind manufacturing decline in the US! I see that, especially the more recent "China Shock" decline held up as a major, earth shaking event. And I am sure that, for the individual people impacted, it was. But it was also fewer than 5 million jobs lost in a country of ~285 million. I know they were geographically concentrated and that negative local multiplier effects took place etc. But it's still true that it's just not that many people and any other talk of upending major political and economic policies for ~1.5% of the population would sound silly if you said it that way.
Heh, on the dollar and its priviledge: One need only look at the funding and borrowing constraints even most
in re "Vance thinks that this is bad. He would like you to pay $10,000 for a Japanese car. Why? Because he thinks it would make you buy American and because he thinks it would make foreigners buy American (because our currency would be weaker)."
Being involved in international trade I would observe that American firms are largely complete shit at exporting - almost zero international markets understanding, almost zero sense that they need to make an effort (kinda makes on think actually of Ming-to-Qing China era closed-offness - may be a Big Country disease), and regularly have trade financing ideas that seem rooted in 1965 concepts, practices. Not all US firms certainly, the big sophisticates no, but compare Middle America Mid Sized firm to a German Mittelstander or a French mid-sized exporter etc (never mind Asia) and the lack of sophistication or engagement is stark (of course big domestic economy). I would predect really 1970s style stagnation.
Of course another observation is the degree to which Vance and even most Americans are utterly blind to non-physical goods trade where US runs (a likely very significantly undercounted) surplus with the world. Now I am by prediliction and business a hard assets guy (financing ren energy and industrial electrification plays) so I have long been frustrated the 90s-2000s over priviledging in disourse etc with IT / immaterial world but it's damn bonkers and dumb to ignore or undercut the services and immaterial goods. Atavism, focusing on an archaic vision rooted in 1955 (idealised).
The whole JD Vance producerism economy thing is downstream of the generally-postliberal idea that the main reason things are bad ("things are bad") is because society is not sufficiently set up to serve as a crucible of moral reckoning — i.e. sufficiently to reward things some sort of ruling class has decided is good, and punish things some sort of ruling class has decided is bad. Leaving aside the question of what specific actual problems this solves (are people really running around today having lower quality of life because they are just sitting around seething that all the bad people aren't getting punished hard enough?), it also showcases a fundamentally outcome-agnostic model of politics, government, and participation in society.
Sadly, the median outcome of 230 Dem seats, is well within the range that allows Republicans to steal the election by putting up spurious disputes then seating their own candidates. If Dems win 250, the only option for Trump is to annul the election, or cancel it in anticipation. Unless anti-Trump sentiment turns into rejection of all Republicans, US democracy is doomed.