It seems great until those imaginary numbers become worthless overnight.
Then you might have a bit of an "oh shit" moment as you realize that the industrial ecosystem required to substitute those imports would take a decade and a half to build even if your money were worth something, which it now isnt.
Lots of countries collapse due to overreliance on foreign imports. Argentina never recovered from its peak in the 1920s - it just kept bouncing from crisis to crisis. This is looking like an increasingly plausible outcome for the US.
Why would they become worthless? The entire world is forever beholden to Microsoft Windows, Office, AWS, X, iOS, Google Play, whether people like it or not. People have made free or cheaper or local or better alternatives and they have never succeeded at dethroning these
I don’t think they’re as beholden as you think. If those companies went down, a balkanization of tech would probably emerge, with regional preferences. Probably would spur innovation and consumers would quickly adapt.
For sure! All you gotta do is the thing every developing economy on the planet has been attempting and failing to do which is escape the middle income trap.
The US is unique in its vision to step backwards into the middle income trap amongst the rest of 'em.
> forever beholden to Microsoft Windows, Office, AWS, X, iOS, Google Play,
There is one country that is very much not as beholden as everyone else. Even if everyone calls it a "PPT", it's quite often going to come from WPS.
Though the state of Linux support for things like WeChat/Com is... Not great. But there been a uptick in inquiries about Linux support for a system in the last 2 months so something's lit a fire under some posteriors recently.
I was talking about the US as a reserve currency. That's what is driving the deficit and how the US has been exchanging bits on a screen for free stuff for the last ~50 years or so.
It would collapse in value overnight if there were a run on the dollar (treasury holdings were sold off). Then hyperinflation would set in and import dependence would become existential.
I really don't think discussion of complex topics should be reductively reduced to snarky xkcd comics that aren't even right.
Current account deficit already accounts for both goods & services. From a more formal perspective, deficts aren't neccessairly bad if they're being routed into productive investments at home, as with many developing countries needing to import machinery, but if it's being used to fund consumption, and it's persistent, then it's considered by many (including the IMF) to be unsustainable on the long term, and highly unstable on the short term.
The current account deficit can be also expressed as the gap between investment and savings, of which must be financed by a combination of private and public debt to external investment, of which around 50% comes from the ever-growing US Gov debt. You're basically going into debt to finance your consumption, and it's a big reason why the US credit ratings have been going down this decade. You won't fix the debt without addressing the deficit, and can you really count for growth to exceed the interest forever? When the black swan comes, then it's gonna hurt alot more than it needs to be.
Current Account Balance = Trade Balance + Net Income + Net Transfers = Savings - Investment. As trade balance is usually the largest part of the current account, a trade deficit is usually the current account deficit, which means savings is less than investment. The difference between the two, aka the deficit thus must bridged via foreign financing, of which 50% is done by the US Gov via IOUs such as treasuries. So there is a relation between the gov debt and overall debt, in the Twin Deficits Hypothesis.
Makes me think of Future Shock a little? We've known that cultural and technological change has been accelerating for decades, though. I suppose the question is if there's been an inflection point even in that.
I agree, let’s say they competed in home entertainment. A category so broad that Netflix themselves considered any potential option a household member had at the couch as competition. That includes video game consoles, cable boxes, other streaming apps, etc. Hypothetically: Would you say Netflix is such a competitor with Nintendo that we shouldn’t accept their investing partners criticism of Nintendo if they had a monopoly?
I feel like this is broad enough to make most social interactions lying - if someone asks how you're doing and you say "good" and don't immediately vent about issues, you're trying to create a different impression, and so on?
in many polite circumstances people don't want to hear a truth, they want things to go smoothly and easily.
>I feel like this is broad enough to make most social interactions lying
They... kinda are tho. We even have a term specifically for that: "white lie."
Sometimes, like in your "how are you?" example, various patterns of white lie ossify into social protocol where both participants are saying things they don't literally mean, but both participants know the game.
You've probably heard of cases where anglosphere people go traveling, ask people how they are (or use any of our other non-literal pleasantries), and are surprised when a real answer is given.
White lies are a necessary wrong; we just shouldn't turn them into a "modus operandi" at a company. Indeed I cannot wrap my brain around how white lies managed to turn into a social protocol in the Anglosphere. Dishonesty encoded in the most basic forms of verbal interaction. In comparison, when I say "good day" in my own language, it's truly not far-fetched that I do wish you a good day, when I'm greeting you.
> if someone asks how you're doing and you say "good" and don't immediately vent about issues, you're trying to create a different impression, and so on?
This is exactly how many people outside of US feel when they observe the customary American greeting exchange of "How are you?" / "I'm fine, thanks." when it's patently obvious that the person asking doesn't actually expect any other response even though the person responding is obviously not fine.
Like, we get that this is a cultural thing and that it would be wrong to ascribe some profound meaning to such individual interactions. At the same time, it does make the overall culture look bad when that sort of thing is expected and even enforced.
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