Currently, China is giving the US real physical goods in exchange for paper IOUs denominated in USD which China then mostly just holds on to. If the US stops this trade, China can insulate its economy by continuing to manufacture the same products and either use them domestically or dump them in a hole in the ground if necessary.
This whole tariff narrative is based on upside down thinking where obtaining material goods somehow constitutes a liability. Are we really that far detached from reality that these memes have legs? I guess so!
Yearning to go back to some idyllic past when there was more scarcity is not going to save us, rather it's just going to destroy our own country. The only way forward is positive government action to mitigate the corrosive economic effects of abundance, especially the fast-forwarded abundance from having the world reserve currency.
The government has been dropping the ball on doing anything to meaningfully address this for the past several decades - instead being beholden to the disingenuous calls for "fiscal responsibility" of "fiscal conservatism", which have resulted in anything but responsible or conservative behavior. Rather the same new money has all still been created - it has just been handed to banks to create asset bubbles rather than being used purposefully to mitigate the economic damage.
This whole tariff narrative is based on upside down thinking where obtaining material goods somehow constitutes a liability. Are we really that far detached from reality that these memes have legs? I guess so!
Yearning to go back to some idyllic past when there was more scarcity is not going to save us, rather it's just going to destroy our own country. The only way forward is positive government action to mitigate the corrosive economic effects of abundance, especially the fast-forwarded abundance from having the world reserve currency.
The government has been dropping the ball on doing anything to meaningfully address this for the past several decades - instead being beholden to the disingenuous calls for "fiscal responsibility" of "fiscal conservatism", which have resulted in anything but responsible or conservative behavior. Rather the same new money has all still been created - it has just been handed to banks to create asset bubbles rather than being used purposefully to mitigate the economic damage.