We're getting dangerously close to the Fed losing control of the yield curve. Look at the 2 year on Friday only going down marginally after the jobs report made everyone assume rate cuts were coming. If we get QE there is a chance it fails to lower rates and then we're cooked. The US right now feels like Japan in 1991. The 10 year at this level means all refinancing is expensive and the reasons for it being higher are numerous. Our anti free trade policies are reducing demand for dollars, big tech is issuing so much debt it's crowding them out, and Chinese holdings have been cut in half since peaking over a decade ago. There is a lot riding on that inflation report next week
Short rates didn’t fall much because private sector jobs increased and most experienced analysts assume the public losses were in education (summer). Labor force participation and employment for prime age is still near historical peaks. The economy is fine.
The market rallies because this shows the FED can likely pause on rate hikes for the interim, because they know, just like anyone else knows, that oil supply and prices and inflation from that cannot be controlled by monetary policy.
If you’re calling for 1991 Japan, you saying we’re about to enter a 30 year deflationary spiral??? Because we just climbed out of our own zero bound 4 years ago.
For financial assets and residential assets I do see long term deflation, how long that lasts depends on how we react. Economic growth is slowing down and debt has increased significantly across all sectors. I'm worried about the structural inflation from increased chip and memory costs. What analysts are you referring to that says the economy is fine?
We've had an explosion of debt creation since COVID including the worst economic bailout package in US history. All that debt is becoming a bigger problem as rates go up.
Yes, if you price things in raw $ and do not adjust for inflation, the numbers will always go up over time. That is a very neat discovery.
Now try changing the visualization in that first link to “as percentage of GDP” to see that only federal debt has meaningfully shifted up in the ~15 or so years post-GFC. Household and State & Local debt is actually down.
Debt to GDP ratio only means something if you are generating enough cash flow off the GDP to cover the debt servicing. Our cash flows have declined due to reckless tax cuts on corporations and increases in government spending at the same time. To make matters worse the increased spending is directly contributing to reducing GDP via mass deportation, aggressive policing, and antagonizing key allies. The debt still has to be paid regardless of the GDP ratio and it is getting more expensive to service.
I didn't see your other point about economic growth since I thought that was universally understood. Either way here you go:
Dude. I’m not a bot, an “it”, or a MAGA finance bro, I just know how to read. You can click on the exact same link you posted, but on the setting that correctly accounts for growth / inflation, to see that we are not facing a “debt explosion in all sectors”.
Im not making a political point in any way. I am trying to explain a basic, provable fact about today’s economy. This is the most ridiculous conversation I’ve had in a very long time.
You are now pivoting from your initial statement that debt is up massively across all sectors, to only talking about the federal government (not households, businesses, state & local government, etc) because debt is only up big for the federal government and you know it.
You being unable to get extremely basic facts right means this conversation isn’t really rooted in anything beyond than vibes and whatever latest headlines you’ve read on social media.
Cool story. I have provided many links and points, you have provided none. I only kept this conversation going so that others could clearly see the difference. Have a good one
Your own links disprove your statement. You are making the rudimentary error of not adjusting for inflation / growth. Simply click the single button that I pointed out to you.
There is only one sector (as defined by your links) that debt is up in.
I said prime age. Learn to read. Have you heard of the baby boomer generation? Have you heard they’re retiring in droves? Gtfo with your lazy analysis.
I mean Millennials have outnumbered Boomers since 2019 and CIVPART was still flat or declining during an entire decade of ZIRP... doesn't seem like an entirely lazy analysis
Stagflation is on its way but I don’t think high unemployment yet so it’s kind of a hybrid. Lots of people just left the workforce or downsized. Especially mothers with school aged children and those over 55. That destruction isn’t showing up in the numbers in a serious way yet but it’s been ongoing since 2020. The AI boom also isn’t yielding massive job cuts but that may happen all at once so the specter is hanging over everything. From my limited understanding businesses are finding the new AI paradigm shift is yielding massive inefficiencies while in China they are integrating it into the workforce as a tool instead of a human resource replacement. It will be interesting to see which philosophy works out the best for limiting social upheaval.
"the Fed under new Chair Kevin Warsh is moving to shrink its own balance sheet."
There is no way that continues for much longer imo. In the coming years they are going to have to ramp back up the printing press since the deficit is just so big now
I believe they've given up on that/pushed that idea to the max cause of Trump. Cause after him its gonna be hard to continue the cycle of good Santa bad santa...
Massive literacy issue happening, haven’t you read those stories about “kids” showing up to college and they can’t even do high school math… young people don’t read they just watch short videos which rewires their impulse controls.
If it takes that long to detonate. But they're still going to use the massive deficits they created as an excuse to deny Americans health care. While dumping more and more money into the military
The not so secret is to keep all workers financially poor, then leverage social media and general media to create strife and discord amongst themselves as a smokescreen. This prevents the general masses from realizing the exploitive wealthy are fucking us.
But back on topic. There is a huge parallel with the old speculative tulip mania. Look at Korea where retail traders are (double/triple) leveraged to the tits, your average Joe/jane talk about crypto and stocks in public on what to dog pile into, etc… while the largest (mag 7) companies are pulling an Enron by ‘investing’ into their ‘holding company’ with all the capex/opex losses and intra-company investing.
IMHO. The next two years are going to be rough with folks being laid off for their ai counterpart after being asked to train it. Then with no spenders due to layoffs, those companies will falter. Race to the bottom for anything consumption with a weak job market minus the wealthy
So I agree with most of what you said but I worry about the spending stress aspect. With the K shaped economy we’ve already seen that the top 10% already do 70% of the spending. I don’t know that it would realistically lead to stress anyway. What happens if the bottom half are left to rot and it still isn’t an issue for companies earnings?
Better yet, the police can disarm you and then execute you for having had a gun on you. And within hours the DOJ will refuse to investigate because you've already been deemed a terrorist!
I think my most recent, purely conspiratorial idea that I don't necessarily give credence to, is that the rural population was chosen by Republicans, not just because of their usually poor education, susceptibility to right wing propaganda etc, but because rural communities would do better in some form of collapse of the global food chain, as they still, to a degree, tend to have communities that could be self sufficient, or closer to it.
Couple that with their compliance with a particular brand of authority and you have loyal serfs ready to go to bat for you, J6th style, even when you're the ones who caused the chaos.
Nah its just theyre more likely to be religious and uneducated. Their voting power also outweighs their actual population. So you only have to convince 30% to get 50% of the power vs dems you have to convince 60% to get 50% of the power.
Those states have more national representation and electoral college voter per person.
Here's one on electoral votes
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/electoral-college-states-representation/
All states get two senators, regardless of population. Congress hasn't changed since they settled on the number of representatives per state in 1929, when the population was vastly different. Here's a breakdown of that.
This is just the first info I found looking a google, so I don't know the history of the sites and their backgrounds. Though it appears to be pretty accurate.
The gist is that by having these populations continually vote one way by ingraining it in their culture and catering a few niche topics that matter mostly to those people (usually culture-war nonsense, catering to the very specific type of Christianity prominent there, and things like promising to promote businesses that mostly prop up just these areas) you only need less than half the votes to win the majority nation-wide. It's a big part of why the handful of swing states often decide elections and majorities.
Many of these states are also heavily gerrymandered to the point that it can require something like 60% of citizens to vote Democrat in order to have a 50/50 representation within the state.
So the entire system is tilted towards rural power. Its just gotten more obscene as time goes on. Technically the senate was to give the low population states a balance of power and the house give high population states one. An example is you need to win 10 million votes to be a senator in cali. But around 200K to be one in wyoming. One represents 40 million people. One 0.6 million. Yet they have the same power. How much easier is it to convince 200K people of something than 10 million.
the house was capped with 435 reps. If it had followed the old rules there would be around 1500 reps and basically never held by republicans due to higher populations leaning dem.
So uncapping the house would rebalance the power so suddenly rurals cant over power the the entire usa population with their 30% of the vote. They would have to come to the table for any and all votes vs just denying everything forever.
Then all they'll have to do is pay us with loaves of bread and bottled water to keep working the fields... Elon is right, money wont be a thing in the future.
That wont last forever though. I fear you're right but by prolonging the inevitable the oligarchs are going to make the backslide worse. Once people's needs aren't met we revert back to the animals we are.
> The not so secret is to keep all workers financially poor
This applies to business owners and supervisors as well. I've had a handful of bosses practically jumping for joy when another employee shows up in a $50k truck, or has yet another baby on the way. Because they retain control of said employee.
They love it when you're in a position where you can't say no, and the only way out is another job (where they can sabotage your efforts if a prospective employer calls).
If you're financially secure, it means you can tell them to fuck off in front of everyone. Bonus points if it's a small business and their operations depend on you.
This is so spot on, and it’s why I’ve told my sister over the years (bookkeeper and thus somewhat job flexible) to not share potentially compromising financial details in the workplace (like your lease situation, family/pet health, etc).
The $50k truck though, sigh, that’s a great example of a trap.
Except they've been printing money for 20 years, and with tech and globalization, everything has been deflationary besides housing, health care and education. (Education is losing value now because people are realizing that universities won't be able to gatekeep knowledge so much in the AI era.) So what's left other than to print money to match deflation? I believe the leaders have drunk the kool-aid and are willing to inflate and spend us into the singularity, believing power beyond money awaits them.
Universities don't so much gatekeep as validate knowledge. The really scary thing about the idea of AI replacing higher learning is that it can be easily manipulated to change the prevailing narrative on a whim. History can be rewritten and made up by just adding a few new rules into the AI; instead of having to convince a whole lot of people and/or burn a whole lot of books.
A few backroom deals get made and suddenly AI will confidently tell you Hitler was a socialist and nothing bad happened on January 6th.
> universities won't be able to gatekeep knowledge so much in the AI era
They don't, the knowledge is freely accessible.
But the "good" universities sure gatekeep their networking. That's what lets their grads earn millions, not what they learn. You could learn similar stuff at a college, or even on the internet.
ultimate goal is to bring every US citizen to their knees and pay them with a loaf of bread and water so we continue to plow their fields.. making money obsolete
> I think that we are heading head-on into a financial catastrophe.
Once the petro-dollar is gone, which looks like it's gonna happen sooner rather than later thanks to this Administration, the US won't be able to run the defict it has historically run.
It's deflationary according to whom? The last time I checked it's driving the price up for everything from tech and electronics and everything that uses energy, chips and cloud based services
If it was how come everything is more expensive? Salaries are basically stagnant. Even when they increase it doesn't match the cost of living- so the only thing "deflationary" are middle class salaries and wages.
It's more deflationary in China where most physical labor happens. Here our labor is increasingly abstract, and abstract labor can go away at the drop of a hat without any change in material circumstances. We still make multiples of what people in other countries make - as long as it's easy to make 10x what someone in China makes you're not going to see the deflationary effects, because you're so far removed from the actual minimum unit cost of labor (even slaves, the cost exists.)
Technology in production doesn't drive down costs, but efficiency in production might. New technology is usually more efficient, but new technology is also usually purpose-built. What we're talking about here is a magical "this tool can do any job you assign it" tech, which has fulfilled its purpose masterfully in some areas and been shoved awkwardly into others.
Nobody is actually entirely sure of the real price of it yet either, beyond the incidentals being astronomical already and destroying computer hardware prices globally. But there's trillions tied into it making it the biggest bet in human history. The drugged-up executives making this wager on everyone's behalf do not inspire confidence for me, personally.
I was making the point that technology is not the same thing as efficiency. It is absolutely possible to get the wrong tech or implementation for a job and lower productivity if you're not meticulous about planning.
>Who implements new technology in production if not to drive down cost?
Someone who has been sold on an idea without waiting for data to back it up. There's a lot of AI FOMO out there among executives.
> If it was how come everything is more expensive.
Because for the moment, people are using plentiful debt to be able to continue to afford their current lifestyle. Eventually that's going to run out as well.
But, they can afford it. Because they have access to debt. Because the system doesn't care where the money came from when the transaction is being processed. As long as the money changes hands at the agreed-upon price, the deflationary impact is deferred. Now, that's going to be an absolute disaster in a couple years when everyone is tapped out and all those deflationary pricing signals that should have been hitting gradually come ashore all at once like a tsunami because one guy's default forces the next guy's rate to get that much higher to offset the losses. It's going to be very interesting to watch companies try to collect a trillion dollars in unsecured debt.
Eventually the musical chairs game that we call debt will stop and there's maybe a handful of seats. The piper is playing his tune and when it stops he'll be asking for payment.
This is not true at all. Technological advances are deflationary when they cause productivity gains among the workforce. That is not inherently true of technological advances.
Additionally, AI points towards a deflationary effect on labor prices. So yea, even technology provides a net efficiency gain overall that does not mean an equitable distribution of those gains.
If you need an example look at social media and target advertising. The prices of ads is lower yes, but that is also being used by corporations to price their products higher.
In theory, tech should lead to lower prices. In America, that will probably happen but it’s not a straight line to the conclusion
people don't realize deflation here means unemployment & would be catastrophic.
While transistors, chips, & parts have become cheaper, computers, phones, cars, planes all cost more, as does electricity & costs to run homes. So no, technology has not been deflationary
A.I. is inflationary initially, with all the massive investments in data centres driving up prices of everything.
Subsequently, there will be massive job losses leading to demand destruction, economic collapse and that’s deflationary, just at the same timing when tech advances start their inherent deflationary price trend
You bought into some Ark BS. Robots have been deflating manufacturing costs for a decade now. Though the large majority of that happens in China. It’s already priced in the current inflation expectations. There’s no magical general AI revolution on the horizon. No robotics company has demonstrated even 5% of a working general physical AI.
deflation is worse than inflation in the economy. Deflation = financial crisis like 08 or Depression in 30's. Housing price drops in 08 weren't a good thing.
Remember 'I love inflation!'. He wants to print his way out so the debt's real value shrinks, and there's been talk in the crypto community that he's been exploring that not as a rug pull cash grab (well, also that).
His plan is to switch the US onto a new currency which he has total control over, and only give it to his loyalists and backers. So you'll have a great-recession, but only for Democrats and the GOP will laugh at your suffering.
The UFC event where he paid them mostly in his own crypto was a test run for that, to see where push back came from.. there was none.
It's not just speculation, there have been quotes hinting at this strategy popping up from time to time, and the Trump admin are certainly not acting as if they are even slightly worried about the ballooning debt (his plan is to bankrupt the USA, and then re-set as he has done many times with his own finances).
That is the issue though. I made a posting some days back hinting at a historic comparison for Germany. The underlying situation is partly the exact same and one solution left is expansion. Getting your hands on more resources to exploit instead of importing them. Dont know many who would throw their territory voluntarily though, so there is that.
Conclusion: You have a Department of War and no longer a Department of Defence. Guess why...
P.S. This was the hint I gave in that other context, but it applies here too if you keep FIAT money rules in mind:
>^(Both the) ^(initially unsound, and later criminal, monetary policy) ^(and the) ^(intertwining of the economy, the state and the party) ^(led, even before the outbreak of war, to) ^(an enormous public deficit)^(, which the state attempted to address through regulatory coercive measures and the creation of unbacked money by the Reichsbank, including through third-party companies.) ^(The need to finance intensified the pressure to expand)^(, leading, in the course of the war, to the systematic exploitation of the resources of the conquered territories through plunder, forced labour, occupation levies and requisitioning.)
Yeah, I’ve always wondered this. Been hoping for some economic disaster to unseat Trump, but it’ll just get passed on down the road. If Dems get elected, no doubt they’ll be blamed for it.
The US has an insane amount of wealth. Resources in physical assets, land, properties, companies, etc. wealth in gold, and so forth. We could be individually broke and poor as dirt, but as a nation, the wealth and value will still be around for a bit.
Tin foil hat time….so trump, one of the loudest, whiniest, not my fault, greediest sob to every have leadership of the country screams about Fort Knox gold and how he is now fully president and has a bunch of yes men working for him in the agencies and administration, raised hell about the gold earlier and...
…is quiet right now about the gold.
This f’r trump loves his gold. It’s his literally trademark with his first initial's color and his living area is plastered with it even if fake paint gold…
…and he is quiet now?
Let’s be honest. His family net worth ballooning in 2025/2026 isn’t because the presidents salary is that good. And his foreign connections and money laundering / crypto would make it easy to obfuscate transactions, or move that money outside of US eyes.
So why did trump go dark over the gold? If anything, more than ever with financial instability and countries moving away from the dollar and shoring up physical gold assets.
We really do want to know what’s (still left) in Fort Knox if you will.
/tinfoil hat off.
Basically the looting and profiting of our country is happening right under very noses right now.
The printing of money is determined mostly by interest rates. If the interest rates are low there will be more new money and now that it is higher there will be less.
Once inflation comes down and interest rates, then more money will continue to enter the economy. That is one of the primary roles of interest rates, to control the money supply.
There is a school of thinking that fed chairs are put in their position to execute specific priorities. Could Kevin Warsh be put into the role in order to end this tremendous run that has ended with unsustainable deficits
How did a claim that entirely misrepresented how debt and the feds balance sheet works get to 561?
The debt is purchased by primary dealers. The fed is forbidden from purchasing on the primary market. Fed balance sheet has no relationship to the deficit or debt.
> The fed is forbidden from purchasing on the primary market
Nowhere did I says anything counter to that
> Fed balance sheet has no relationship to the deficit or debt.
Sure my dude, whatever you say lolz. At a minimum lower bonds yields potentially allow a government more room to run big deficits, it may not be a direct relationship but there is a relationship
To be fair, the Fed’s balance sheet is insane at the moment.
It isn’t unreasonable for Warsh to want to deleverage the Fed. The question is if the American economy with its unconscionable deficit spending will allow for it.
which is why tariffs, trade wars, & starting a war w/ oil king Iran spiking oil was beyond idiotic. As USD demand wains, treasury rates go up. The only reason the US can borrow indefinitely & print money is b/c USD is world currency. If that ever falls off, the US will join UK as superpower has been
Over the last 20 years, the percentage of oil purchased in US dollars has gone from 90%-95% to 80%. The unquestionable trust in the US dollar is certainly gone, but it's still the best option around. If it continues to decline until it is merely one of a handful of good options, the US is in trouble.
Republicans suck at fiscal responsibility. Reagan. Bush. W Bush. Trump. Each has exploded US debt worse than anyone before them.
The real issue is social security and Medicare spending. They could stop all discretionary spending and spend it all on entitlements and they’d still have to borrow
US won't decline in a managed way like the UK as it has nothing to slowly "give back" and become its core self. It will be an implosion. So the US won't become like the UK, probably more like russia where the economy just no longer works.
"Russia ranks first globally with an estimated $75 trillion in natural resources, while the United States ranks second at $45 trillion." Didn't stop the Russian economy.
Your original premise is that the US will become what the UK is now, as a superpower "has been". I will try and condense what my short comment was getting at, but I appreciate there is a lot more/factors to it than I can share even in a longer comment.
On the superpower side: The UK was only ever (and very arguably as many historians don't think it EVER was iaw the concepts/requirements to be a superpower as superpower is a post WW2 concept) a superpower due to defeating its imperial rivals (French and Dutch) at war. A lot of Americans hold this idea the UK/Britian was a superpower during the US war of independence to WW2 when this wasn't the case. Britain had no equal roughly 1815-1915.
Britains power was therefore tied to its empire and was able to shrink back to being the 5th richest nation on earth through a long process of independence.
The US became the worlds superpower through economic means only. It did not defeat its rivals like the British did in war, it does not have a large Empire it can slowly withdraw from and re-start trading outside its empire. Hence when the US looses its status as a superpower, it will be due to its economy collapsing. We are already seeing most countries loosing the US as its main trading partner https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1irkqrz/global_trade_dominance_us_vs_china_2000_2024/ and the US is in increasingly unsustainable amounts of debt.
Russia is the comparator I chose as it was also a Superpower where it was the economy that it became its un-doing, similar to what will happen to the US. I'm well aware they were communist, but like the US will, they ran out of money with nobody capable of bailing them out.
The crazy thing is the only way to really fix this would be massive tax increases and a massive cut to the defence budget, complete overhaul of social security (moving to a Canadian pension model), and for good measure probably a change to healthcare to move to a single payer model. Basically all are the third, fourth and fifth rail of American politics.
There is literally no path to a balanced budget in the next 20 years.
Unfortunately governments are famously bad at running industry.
edit: LOL I am being downvoted for saying government is bad at running industry. Give me a single example of a profitable entity that is wholly owned by the government. I have driven a car from an east german government owned car plant, it was... special.
One of the most significant opportunities to cut spending — more so than even reducing the defense budget — is nixing tax breaks and credits than disproportionately benefit the wealthy. I’m thinking things like mortgage interest deductions.
I'd go so far as to nix spending tax dollars on contractors and moving government needs in-house. A lot of the spending waste goes to contractors that are over charging. It wouldn't be the first time we have done this and many of us have living memories of family who benefited from such programs.
You’d need things like taxing employee health benefits, removing ACA subsidies or preferential rates on capital gains – huge political lifts on any one.
Ya we are talking about 6 trillion in spending vs 4 trillion in taxes/revenues. People literally don’t understand the financial scale of the issue. There like isn’t enough profit and disposable income the tax 2 trillion. American society would basically have to completely transform to a completely different structure to balance the budget at this point. And somehow avoid a global economic catastrophe while getting there.
A good start would be to cut the requested $1.5 trillion DOD budget down to $500 billion. It's absolutely insane to request such a large budget when we're $40 trillion in debt.
And you can make the rest up by completely rolling back the Trump and Bush tax cuts so we go back to Clinton era rates. Throw in a billionaire tax and you get pretty close to balancing the budget.
Both sides just playing hot potatoe with the deficit. I’m completely against republicans but it’s not like democrats are trying to balance it either.
The funny thing is republicans making it an absolutely massive talking point every election. Then when they get elected you never hear about it again. You say something about student loan forginess and it’s always “where is the money” then they try to pass a budget with 400 billion dollar increase in defense. It’s absolutely ludicrous.
America is in such poor shape economically, but somehow we get focused on transgenders reading to children.
Dont know about today, but I remember Canadian banks' profits being more than the Canadian government's deficit. There are other ways to balance a national budget.
We produce more than we used to. By a lot. Society is much more richer than it used to be. As its always been since the beginning of civilizations, its a question of who gets the products of human industry. Used to be settled by violence, we "somewhat" evolved. We can argue about "consequences", but the fact remains its a choice we make. How we redistribute wealth.
Uncap the payroll tax, raise the estate tax to Clinton levels, eliminate the stepped up basis loophole, reform Medicare drug payments, repeal the OBBB, repeal most of the Trump tax cuts, and cut military spending back to 2024 levels.
Even better: roll back all of the 21st century tax cuts and go back to Clinton era rates. And cut military spending more than that, aim for $500 billion. In the era of drone warfare we don't need to be spending nearly as much.
The U.S. welfare system is much less burdensome per capita than the European model is.
Uncapping the payroll tax, swapping the cola to chained CPI, and allowing the trust fund to diversify literally fixes the problem with social security.
Medicare is a slightly harder fix but we have already started the hardest part (actually letting Medicare negotiate prices)
I don’t disagree….. But that economic model of not worrying about the deficit and debt level as long as the economy is growing and the worldwide GDP is generally growing along with steady population increases may not be a viable assumption in 20 years or so. And there also comes a point where you can’t work on the margins of the interest on debt every year and its % of the federal budget.
Post WW2 everyone understood that the war had to paid for. They sucked it up and paid high taxes until the war debt was paid. Then the politicians realized they they could spend more and tax less. Nobody had to buy war bonds for Vietnam Iraq ot Afghanistan. Foreign governments and banks had to keep buying our debt. The jig is about up.
He's not only speed running a violent midterm loss but also a absolutely terrible election for republicans in two years. Republicans by all metrics shouldn't have a majority or presidency for a decade after Trump destroys them lmao.
Edit: yes republicans have been able to escape bullshit presidency's before but I don't think people realize how bad this one is.
Republicans are going to go down as the most impressive case study on how to amass power while doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.
They destroy everything they touch. Out debt and deficit is driven almost entirely by their actions. They have ruined families. Ruined relationships. Ruined communities. Ruined entertainment. Ruined fun. Ruined happiness. Ruin. Ruin. Ruin.
And yet they win. And win. And win. How? They run on responsibile spending and job creation, yet the polar opposite follows every time. They run on smaller government and against "communism" and expanded executive power and are taking a stake in private companies.
Everything that they run on, they do the opposite, leave ruin in their tracks, and yet somehow got more people to say "I am more miserable than ever, my kids don't talk to me, my town is shrinking, and I guess I want more of this because the wealthy New Yorker on TV told me I do."
It's why free quality education, a free press and equality before the law are cornerstones of good democracies (in the UK the idea of legal aid was seen as important as free healthcare). In the US in recent years all three have been undermined significantly.
That statement looks to be global.
Conservatives everywhere are lost for what to do. The desire for wealth concentration have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, so what now?
Media capture. The slowest half of the US doesn't fact check any information they get, so they live in an alternate reality fed to them by Fox News and other billionaire-owned media.
See I don’t see this ruining them because Americans care more about memes and optics than actual bills. They now know they can lie about anything they want and at least 1/3 of all Americans will believe and support those lies… Democrats aren’t winning people they are losing people too, both sides are heavily fractured. And we know the republicans are far better at being the minority party than democrats. I think 2028 will be a flip back to red cause democrats will allow themselves to be obstructed by republicans and will accomplish nothing even if they win back both houses. The democrats don’t have the will power to do anything of substance and people at the top are refusing to step aside.
I hate to say it but I just dont this having any real effect on the republicans base. They got in, they all got rich, they wil leave the Dems to clean on the mess, they will successful blame the Dems for all the problems, and they will be reelected campaigning on all these things
Because the democrats have gone so far left the republicans appear to be the better option. If the democrats could just dial the lgbtqi+ (used to be lgb not that long ago) and pretend to care more about American citizens than immigrants they would win in a landslide
"Hmm, the Republican policies are all objectively bad for me, but a Trans person tied someone for 5th place in a swimming competition and Democrats aren't calling to kill all of them. Guess I better vote against my own intetests"
The fuck kind of revisionist history is this? It has quite literally always been LGBT since LGBT issues ever became part of the public consciousness a half century ago.
They don't need to dial any of that back, they just need to stop taking the bait and making that a focal point of any conversation.
But I agree otherwise. Talk about the debt, deficit, and look people in the eye when they explain why their kids are leaving their small towns for bigger cities, why they never see their grandkids anymore, and why they are never coming back.
Do you actually believe this? Really think about Harris campaign. Did she have a single ad about transgenders? Or did republicans create insane attack ads about hypotheticals
You watch too much Fox News. The only ones running headlines about trans people are right wing media outlets to make you THINK that’s what the left prioritizes. The left prioritizes EVERYONE. That’s what socialism means. It’s about basic human rights and not keeping everyone suffering so the rich can get richer (that’s what conservatism means).
Conservatives are the elevating pedophiles and getting votes for it.
Conservatives are the cause of the focus on trans identity, they need 'villains' for their voters to hate.
The Dems haven't elevated their defense of LGBTQ rights much at all, Republicans have just hyper-focused on and viciously attacked a tiny minority that can't defend itself, which forces Dems (who aren't terrible people) to defend them because it's the right thing to do.
This is absolutely a calculated move from the right and your dumbass fell straight for it. Republicans pick a fringe minority group (like trans people), attack them and thereby force Dems to defend them, and then exaggerate their defense to make it seem ridiculous.
They are. Trans rights are hardly central to major Dem platforms. Republicans just hammer it constantly in attack ads and that creates the perception that it's all Dems care about, but there's nothing Dems can do about that other than publicly abandon the LGBTQ population or focus on education so people can learn to see through such simple propaganda.
LOL have you seen the average maga voter? They’ll be blaming Obama Biden and Hillary’s emails for another 20 years. They’ll don’t give a crap about blatant corruption or pedophilia, but if Obama wears a tan suit he’s a communist that wants to take what you don’t have LFMAO.
20 years of destroying education and trapping people with debt and children created the perfect melting people of morons.
If they were stupid enough to fall for it from Trump, potentially the most transparently lying corrupt grifter in all of human history, they'll be stupid enough to fall for the same lies from the next guy too.
That was gonna be my comment too. My parents are those maga and they’ve been out of education for 35 years now and they’re some of the few that went to college.
I don't believe its entirely the Democrats fault. It's the dark money leading the political system into serving their needs instead of the needs of the people. After all big money contributes to both parties and own Justices like Clarence Thomas
Every social media site has a conservative bias built in. Every network has a conservative bias except maybe MSNOW. Some are openly fascist like Fox. Every newspaper has a conservative bias except maybe a few.
People are getting right-wing slop pumped into their pockets via their smartphones and social media apps.
But yeah, it's the fault of Democrats for not having the backing of the billionaires who own all of our media.
Fucking thank you. Every time I hear something like "Dems suck at messaging," I just want to tear my hair out.
Dems put out TONS of messaging and a lot of it is clever, forceful, and competent. But none of it gets amplified at all because the media is entirely owned by Republican billionaires.
Create a blank email. Use that to create an account on Twitter. Go see where the algorithm takes you. Do the same for Instagram and Facebook. Hell, throw in Youtube as well and TikTok.
The algorithms immediately show you right-wing content. I know this because I did this myself as a test. I got Ben Shapiro videos on the FIRST PAGE when I created a generic Youtube account.
i have some extra google accounts and clicked though. I see fairly balanced, from conservative to mainstream media. Maybe you are stuck in a bubble where you think reddit it down the middle.
you are also overemphasizing who owns these sites. The algo are developed by a team trying to maximize engagement. Musk is not sitting there telling devs want to make sure shows up.
they control every branch of govt in the US. trump himself has been failing upwards for his entire political career.
their biggest goals arent to represent the people, change society, or even leave legacies. above all, they want power and money, and theyve been pretty successful at getting those two things.
they might be incompetent as leaders and representatives, but thats not even why theyre there.
theyre achieving their goals. the problem isnt that theyre bad at representing their constituents or running the nation (which may well be the case). the problem is those arent even their goals.
same as i said to the other guy: its not that theyre too stupid (even though many of them are). its that they dont care about leading. theyre in it for their own gain: power and money. i wish the biggest thing they were guilty of was stupidity. a stupid person can do better with some effort. a selfish person doesnt care to do good at all.
Dems are not impotent. Their changes are just gradual and nuanced, they're not sexy revolutions that get broadcasted by the billionaires who own all of our media. Our government is also set up to greatly favor Republicans and it's much, much easier to break shit and tear shit down than it is to build it.
Cutting taxes irresponsibly can be done with a simple majority via reconciliation. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure requires new revenue sources, which requires a supermajority. Etc.
That's fair. It would be establishment democrats who will try to impeach him for a phone call instead of the war crimes, fraud, grifting, vandalism, unilateralism, insider trading.
Democrats successfully impeached Trump twice. Its the cowardly GOP that wouldn't convict him. McConnell could have found a couple of more GOP votes for convection during the last impeachment and we would have never had to deal directly with Trump again.
Yeah, I read a day or so ago how a quote from someone on the DNC saying they needed to have a "war" against the progressive wing of the party. I don't follow their organization that closely, but it sure seems like the old guard would rather have circular firing squads than loosen their grip on power.
They will have a multi-part plan to attempt to retain power.
- cancel midterms due to “national emergency”
- throw voters off the voting rolls
- intimidate voters at the booths
- rig the vote count
- invalidate the results
- block the vote ratification
- insurrection
I don't think Dems did a good job on the last election I have a firmer belief that the meme of Donald Trump esque candidates is going the way of the dodo bird. No offense to the 🦤
Voters remembrance usually wanes of quickly, so after a rather short time without a full turn-over, which is technically impossible without some harsh cuts, everyone will again blame the sitting government.
Republicans will be lucky if they lose in two years, because whomever wins that election is going to have a debt albatross around their neck that will destroy their brand for decades to come. The electorate will stupidly go back to the Republicans in a stupid nostalgic move to get back to the "good old days" of 2026.
Trump serves Putin. He is destroying America on purpose. The GOP is so desperate to stay in power, they have joined with the only people who will have them, the ultra-rich, and the christo-fascists (racist faux-christians) who want to push their--I hesitate to use the word "values"--on the rest of us. After several decades of this, the GOP is so infiltrated with christofascist uneducated/miseducated people, it's now a Cold Civil War.
After Bush it should have been 10.yrars in the wilderness. But the TEA party brought them back in just two years.
This is a party with a remarkable ability to reinvent itself. That is in spite of the fact that their primary goal never changes, further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor.
After Bush it should have been 10.yrars in the wilderness. But the TEA party brought them back in just two years.
This is a party with a remarkable ability to reinvent itself. That is in spite of the fact that their primary goal never changes, further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor.
I agree with you to an extent. I would say that the party is going to have an absolutely abysmal time trying to not be the MAGA party anymore and I doubt it'll self correct
Republicans needn’t worry about getting elected. Voters on average are probably becoming even less informed about the root causes of their economic woes.
No they are heading for a massive loss in the mid terms and have fucked up the economy so bad that it might help them in the next election because their voter base is so dumb they will be able to tell them the recession is the Dems faults because they have been in charge for two years. Don't forget a big chunk of republicans thinks 2008 was Obamas fault because he was the one dealing with it.
Unfortunately 2028 will be a toss up for Dems at best because they will most likely have the House but things will continue to backslide for the median wage earner. Anyone’s game.
Republicans losing down ballot including in red district such as mar a lago. The very real possibility of Talarico being elected. Etc like me hold your hand and walk you through the rest?
Then everyone gets mad when the next president can’t fix everything, or can’t fix it fast enough, then we punish them by re-electing republicans who then break everything again.
Exactly, the fact that Republicans took back the house in 2010 after tanking the economy and getting us into 2 disastrous wars says it all. It pretty much killed Obama's ability to make meaningful changes and it's insane how quickly people were willing to give Republicans a 2nd chance.
He'll leave it to the next president. They'll have to clean up the country's debt financing and lead social security reform.
I mean, it really should be congress' job to do that stuff, since they control the budget. But they can't put two brain cells together to solve anything.
They're just leaving a huge steaming heap for when Dems take over, so the Republicans can focus on federal spending and the debt and constantly complain about how Dems are spending us into ruin.
Difference is Dems don't make it a tent pole issue every time the Republicans are in office. When Dems control Congress or the WH it's all Republicans fukking talk about.
Please read some history, both Clinton and Obama made huge reductions in the deficit, although I think that may have been a mistake. Biden also was making progress, but now it’s back out of control.
My goodness….if the next regime change in America wants to make the effort, and not continue to extend and pretend (doubt), the mess they are going to uncover will be extinct-event level.
Yellin had the excuse of a pandemic that was obviously short lived. Bessent's excuse is effectively about a man made disaster that might last for decades.
So if I am not mistaken those 1.4 trillion should be the exact amount that covers the deficit for the current period, which has only been 9 month so far, correct? So there is 3 months to go and some 300-400 billion more to add to all of this
You know I'd like to read a headline, just once, that someone used complicated financial engineering to help people. Like feed people or build housing or reduce healthcare costs or something. Every time I read a headline about financial engineering or some kind of fancy financial mechanism, it's because it's hurting people.
Maybe good news doesn't sell and I should read some articles about how farmers are protecting themselves against inconsistent prices with financial engineering, but so far It's just people losing homes and hiding deficits and billionaires spending the value of their illiquid stock in a way that they never pay taxes.
U.S. mortgage rates average roughly 6.5% to 7% for a 30-year fixed loan, while eurozone rates average lower at around 3.4%, though European countries vary widely from ~2% in Malta to nearly 4% in Germany and rely heavily on variable or shorter fixed terms.
Our homes are considerably more affordable though. Last I checked, a shack in a moderately sized German city is 9-11x the average German's annual wage.
For some. But it’s much more selective AND the resulting pay is lower in every industry. If you can’t affordably cover a “good education “ in America, very little chance you’re qualifying for any higher education in most of the EU.
I agree but you have to remember billionaires don't care about the ordinary person unless it affects their bottom line. If they could impoverish us so they could make more money they would. Imperialism, slavery, indentured servitude and the company store comes to mind
Bessent is a thieving, money laundering, lying evil doer imo. It was not legal to send Argentine 40 billion to his old Soros hedge fund buddies down there. 😡
> The T-bills offer Washington, now, a rare opportunity to borrow money for the cheap.
This is the whole story? Wow, what a sensationalized headline. Its extremely normal to borrow on the short end of the curve when you expect rates to fall.
Why on this sub is it okay to pay post a paywalled article ? But it's required to write a thesis to request a non paywalled copy? Can this be pinned, to save my thumbs each time ?
Who calls longer dated treasuries coupons? Short ones are usually referred to as bills and longer duration ones as bonds. Treasury bonds (2 years and longer) all pay coupons. Treasury bills do not.
tryexceptifnot1try | 16 days ago
We're getting dangerously close to the Fed losing control of the yield curve. Look at the 2 year on Friday only going down marginally after the jobs report made everyone assume rate cuts were coming. If we get QE there is a chance it fails to lower rates and then we're cooked. The US right now feels like Japan in 1991. The 10 year at this level means all refinancing is expensive and the reasons for it being higher are numerous. Our anti free trade policies are reducing demand for dollars, big tech is issuing so much debt it's crowding them out, and Chinese holdings have been cut in half since peaking over a decade ago. There is a lot riding on that inflation report next week
belovedkid | 16 days ago
Short rates didn’t fall much because private sector jobs increased and most experienced analysts assume the public losses were in education (summer). Labor force participation and employment for prime age is still near historical peaks. The economy is fine.
The market rallies because this shows the FED can likely pause on rate hikes for the interim, because they know, just like anyone else knows, that oil supply and prices and inflation from that cannot be controlled by monetary policy.
If you’re calling for 1991 Japan, you saying we’re about to enter a 30 year deflationary spiral??? Because we just climbed out of our own zero bound 4 years ago.
tryexceptifnot1try | 16 days ago
For financial assets and residential assets I do see long term deflation, how long that lasts depends on how we react. Economic growth is slowing down and debt has increased significantly across all sectors. I'm worried about the structural inflation from increased chip and memory costs. What analysts are you referring to that says the economy is fine?
goatzlaf | 16 days ago
>Economic growth is slowing down
>Debt has increased significantly across all sectors
Citation very much needed on both of these.
tryexceptifnot1try | 16 days ago
Here's all the major debt groups: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/z1/nonfinancial_debt/chart/
Here's FINRA margin debt: https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/key-topics/margin-accounts/margin-statistics
Auto loan: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/debt-balance-auto-loans
Credit cards: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/debt-balance-credit-cards
We've had an explosion of debt creation since COVID including the worst economic bailout package in US history. All that debt is becoming a bigger problem as rates go up.
goatzlaf | 16 days ago
Yes, if you price things in raw $ and do not adjust for inflation, the numbers will always go up over time. That is a very neat discovery.
Now try changing the visualization in that first link to “as percentage of GDP” to see that only federal debt has meaningfully shifted up in the ~15 or so years post-GFC. Household and State & Local debt is actually down.
tryexceptifnot1try | 16 days ago
Debt to GDP ratio only means something if you are generating enough cash flow off the GDP to cover the debt servicing. Our cash flows have declined due to reckless tax cuts on corporations and increases in government spending at the same time. To make matters worse the increased spending is directly contributing to reducing GDP via mass deportation, aggressive policing, and antagonizing key allies. The debt still has to be paid regardless of the GDP ratio and it is getting more expensive to service.
I didn't see your other point about economic growth since I thought that was universally understood. Either way here you go:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
Micronoodles | 15 days ago
Pretty sure the account replying to you with unfounded argument is a bot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
tryexceptifnot1try | 15 days ago
It seems to talk like grok but I know a MAGA finance bro who argues the same way. Whatever at least people have a bunch of good links
goatzlaf | 15 days ago
Dude. I’m not a bot, an “it”, or a MAGA finance bro, I just know how to read. You can click on the exact same link you posted, but on the setting that correctly accounts for growth / inflation, to see that we are not facing a “debt explosion in all sectors”.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/z1/nonfinancial_debt/chart/#units:percent-of-gdp
Im not making a political point in any way. I am trying to explain a basic, provable fact about today’s economy. This is the most ridiculous conversation I’ve had in a very long time.
goatzlaf | 16 days ago
You are now pivoting from your initial statement that debt is up massively across all sectors, to only talking about the federal government (not households, businesses, state & local government, etc) because debt is only up big for the federal government and you know it.
You being unable to get extremely basic facts right means this conversation isn’t really rooted in anything beyond than vibes and whatever latest headlines you’ve read on social media.
tryexceptifnot1try | 15 days ago
Cool story. I have provided many links and points, you have provided none. I only kept this conversation going so that others could clearly see the difference. Have a good one
goatzlaf | 15 days ago
Your own links disprove your statement. You are making the rudimentary error of not adjusting for inflation / growth. Simply click the single button that I pointed out to you.
There is only one sector (as defined by your links) that debt is up in.
belovedkid | 16 days ago
Denominator blindness is epidemic on Reddit.
Flat_Championship_74 | 16 days ago
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART Lmao
belovedkid | 16 days ago
I said prime age. Learn to read. Have you heard of the baby boomer generation? Have you heard they’re retiring in droves? Gtfo with your lazy analysis.
_le_slap | 16 days ago
I mean Millennials have outnumbered Boomers since 2019 and CIVPART was still flat or declining during an entire decade of ZIRP... doesn't seem like an entirely lazy analysis
abcean | 15 days ago
> Labor force participation
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/
Unless you just meant labor force participation for prime age?
twenty_three_three | 15 days ago
>most experienced analysts assume the public losses were in education (summer).
Are you one of those 'experienced' analysts that doesnt even account for seasonal adjustments?
AnnualFault7473 | 16 days ago
Stagflation is on its way but I don’t think high unemployment yet so it’s kind of a hybrid. Lots of people just left the workforce or downsized. Especially mothers with school aged children and those over 55. That destruction isn’t showing up in the numbers in a serious way yet but it’s been ongoing since 2020. The AI boom also isn’t yielding massive job cuts but that may happen all at once so the specter is hanging over everything. From my limited understanding businesses are finding the new AI paradigm shift is yielding massive inefficiencies while in China they are integrating it into the workforce as a tool instead of a human resource replacement. It will be interesting to see which philosophy works out the best for limiting social upheaval.
morbie5 | 16 days ago
"the Fed under new Chair Kevin Warsh is moving to shrink its own balance sheet."
There is no way that continues for much longer imo. In the coming years they are going to have to ramp back up the printing press since the deficit is just so big now
Gods_ShadowMTG | 16 days ago
my guess is it won't take years
Ok_Lettuce_7939 | 16 days ago
Perfect bomb to leave for Democrats.
_jump_yossarian | 16 days ago
Then Cons can blame Dems for not cleaning up trump's mess fast enough.
BmacSOS | 16 days ago
Every time
Exotic_Release2979 | 16 days ago
It’s worked for a very long time.
crowcawer | 16 days ago
The war is over May 2028 unless there is a radical shift in the meantime.
Exotic_Release2979 | 16 days ago
Why May?
peterpetrol | 16 days ago
Early enough for a victory lap to goose the polls
Exotic_Release2979 | 16 days ago
Aha.
dpzdpz | 15 days ago
In case you missed it
mortgagepants | 16 days ago
time for bad santa ;(
whiteranger36 | 16 days ago
I believe they've given up on that/pushed that idea to the max cause of Trump. Cause after him its gonna be hard to continue the cycle of good Santa bad santa...
mortgagepants | 16 days ago
the stupidity of my fellow countrymen is a fecund and renewable resource.
you can tell conservatives that black people eat cats and dogs and they will believe it, no matter what.
420_69_Fake_Account | 15 days ago
Massive literacy issue happening, haven’t you read those stories about “kids” showing up to college and they can’t even do high school math… young people don’t read they just watch short videos which rewires their impulse controls.
mortgagepants | 15 days ago
i don't read those stories because i can't read
kronicpimpin | 16 days ago
Biden’s**
Edit: /s
tots4scott | 16 days ago
Uhoh, looks like someone got triggered because their faultless god was mentioned negatively...
kronicpimpin | 16 days ago
Lol no. That was sarcasm because the conservatives always find a way to blame Biden
_jump_yossarian | 16 days ago
What mess did Biden leave trump?
kronicpimpin | 16 days ago
Sorry I was being sarcastic because conservatives will blame Biden for everything
whiteranger36 | 16 days ago
In that case, should've used Obama
kronicpimpin | 15 days ago
They’re all commies here to destroy America! /s
ebfortin | 16 days ago
Why do you think the Dems will ever come back to power? They fuck the constitution daily and all of a sudden they would submit to elections results?
Edit: They being the fascists in power.
anitadykshyt | 16 days ago
Yeah people keep acting as if they aren't living in a dictatorship
railbeast | 16 days ago
I have a bet going on this one, if I win I don't want to be in the country afterwards.
Zenside | 15 days ago
If they refuse to abdicate, treat them like a violent occupying power. Death is preferrable to whatever fucked up fantasy they have imagined.
OK_x86 | 16 days ago
If it takes that long to detonate. But they're still going to use the massive deficits they created as an excuse to deny Americans health care. While dumping more and more money into the military
Independent-Ad2443 | 16 days ago
Two Santa’s meme at work:
https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
in4life | 16 days ago
Hot potato
Prize_Compote_207 | 15 days ago
It will ramp up in November. We all know why.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
I think that we are heading head-on into a financial catastrophe.
FortheredditLOLz | 16 days ago
The not so secret is to keep all workers financially poor, then leverage social media and general media to create strife and discord amongst themselves as a smokescreen. This prevents the general masses from realizing the exploitive wealthy are fucking us.
But back on topic. There is a huge parallel with the old speculative tulip mania. Look at Korea where retail traders are (double/triple) leveraged to the tits, your average Joe/jane talk about crypto and stocks in public on what to dog pile into, etc… while the largest (mag 7) companies are pulling an Enron by ‘investing’ into their ‘holding company’ with all the capex/opex losses and intra-company investing.
IMHO. The next two years are going to be rough with folks being laid off for their ai counterpart after being asked to train it. Then with no spenders due to layoffs, those companies will falter. Race to the bottom for anything consumption with a weak job market minus the wealthy
arkansaslax | 16 days ago
So I agree with most of what you said but I worry about the spending stress aspect. With the K shaped economy we’ve already seen that the top 10% already do 70% of the spending. I don’t know that it would realistically lead to stress anyway. What happens if the bottom half are left to rot and it still isn’t an issue for companies earnings?
nixed9 | 16 days ago
That’s literally the plan.
flbnah | 16 days ago
> What happens if the bottom half are left to rot and it still isn’t an issue for companies earnings?
We use surveillance, secret police, constitutional violations to keep the plebs in line and complete our transformation into South Africa, naturally
TacosAreJustice | 16 days ago
Going to be interesting to see what happens when all the gun nuts realize they’ve been hoodwinked.
crispydukes | 16 days ago
They won’t. It’ll be their boogeymen forever
GroatExpectorations | 16 days ago
Most of the gun nuts are happy to be violated as long as people they don’t like get plowed under, this goes back to before Nat Turner
probabletrump | 16 days ago
In the US the police can execute you just for having a gun on you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alex_Pretti
Spirited_Suspect2908 | 16 days ago
Better yet, the police can disarm you and then execute you for having had a gun on you. And within hours the DOJ will refuse to investigate because you've already been deemed a terrorist!
tomtomclubthumb | 15 days ago
If you've made it clear you're a racist or misogynist then they absolutely won't.
AddanDeith | 16 days ago
I think my most recent, purely conspiratorial idea that I don't necessarily give credence to, is that the rural population was chosen by Republicans, not just because of their usually poor education, susceptibility to right wing propaganda etc, but because rural communities would do better in some form of collapse of the global food chain, as they still, to a degree, tend to have communities that could be self sufficient, or closer to it.
Couple that with their compliance with a particular brand of authority and you have loyal serfs ready to go to bat for you, J6th style, even when you're the ones who caused the chaos.
HumorAccomplished611 | 16 days ago
Nah its just theyre more likely to be religious and uneducated. Their voting power also outweighs their actual population. So you only have to convince 30% to get 50% of the power vs dems you have to convince 60% to get 50% of the power.
SWC8181 | 16 days ago
I’m not being snarky, maybe just never thought about that, but can you explain that to me better.
OrphanAxis | 16 days ago
Those states have more national representation and electoral college voter per person.
Here's one on electoral votes https://usafacts.org/visualizations/electoral-college-states-representation/
All states get two senators, regardless of population. Congress hasn't changed since they settled on the number of representatives per state in 1929, when the population was vastly different. Here's a breakdown of that.
https://www.thegreenpapers.com/Census10/FedRep.phtml
This is just the first info I found looking a google, so I don't know the history of the sites and their backgrounds. Though it appears to be pretty accurate.
The gist is that by having these populations continually vote one way by ingraining it in their culture and catering a few niche topics that matter mostly to those people (usually culture-war nonsense, catering to the very specific type of Christianity prominent there, and things like promising to promote businesses that mostly prop up just these areas) you only need less than half the votes to win the majority nation-wide. It's a big part of why the handful of swing states often decide elections and majorities.
Many of these states are also heavily gerrymandered to the point that it can require something like 60% of citizens to vote Democrat in order to have a 50/50 representation within the state.
HumorAccomplished611 | 15 days ago
So the entire system is tilted towards rural power. Its just gotten more obscene as time goes on. Technically the senate was to give the low population states a balance of power and the house give high population states one. An example is you need to win 10 million votes to be a senator in cali. But around 200K to be one in wyoming. One represents 40 million people. One 0.6 million. Yet they have the same power. How much easier is it to convince 200K people of something than 10 million.
the house was capped with 435 reps. If it had followed the old rules there would be around 1500 reps and basically never held by republicans due to higher populations leaning dem.
So uncapping the house would rebalance the power so suddenly rurals cant over power the the entire usa population with their 30% of the vote. They would have to come to the table for any and all votes vs just denying everything forever.
BadAtExisting | 16 days ago
As long as they get to keep their guns they won’t care. Guns are American’s pacifiers
0o0o0o0o0o0z | 16 days ago
> What happens if the bottom half are left to rot and it still isn’t an issue for companies earnings?
That's when the "company store" model kicks in...
lost_horizons | 16 days ago
Violence happens. People don’t just lie down and die. And the voice of the ignored is called a riot, to paraphrase MLKjr.
FortheredditLOLz | 16 days ago
Not an issue. Priced in. Already happening......
Particular_Pain_9373 | 16 days ago
Then all they'll have to do is pay us with loaves of bread and bottled water to keep working the fields... Elon is right, money wont be a thing in the future.
JoJackthewonderskunk | 16 days ago
That wont last forever though. I fear you're right but by prolonging the inevitable the oligarchs are going to make the backslide worse. Once people's needs aren't met we revert back to the animals we are.
GREG_FABBOTT | 16 days ago
> The not so secret is to keep all workers financially poor
This applies to business owners and supervisors as well. I've had a handful of bosses practically jumping for joy when another employee shows up in a $50k truck, or has yet another baby on the way. Because they retain control of said employee.
They love it when you're in a position where you can't say no, and the only way out is another job (where they can sabotage your efforts if a prospective employer calls).
If you're financially secure, it means you can tell them to fuck off in front of everyone. Bonus points if it's a small business and their operations depend on you.
FourScoreAndSept | 16 days ago
This is so spot on, and it’s why I’ve told my sister over the years (bookkeeper and thus somewhat job flexible) to not share potentially compromising financial details in the workplace (like your lease situation, family/pet health, etc).
The $50k truck though, sigh, that’s a great example of a trap.
Significant-Arm-6050 | 16 days ago
This gives way too much credit to these people when the reality is they just don’t know what they’re doing
take_five | 16 days ago
Except they've been printing money for 20 years, and with tech and globalization, everything has been deflationary besides housing, health care and education. (Education is losing value now because people are realizing that universities won't be able to gatekeep knowledge so much in the AI era.) So what's left other than to print money to match deflation? I believe the leaders have drunk the kool-aid and are willing to inflate and spend us into the singularity, believing power beyond money awaits them.
ClashM | 16 days ago
Universities don't so much gatekeep as validate knowledge. The really scary thing about the idea of AI replacing higher learning is that it can be easily manipulated to change the prevailing narrative on a whim. History can be rewritten and made up by just adding a few new rules into the AI; instead of having to convince a whole lot of people and/or burn a whole lot of books.
A few backroom deals get made and suddenly AI will confidently tell you Hitler was a socialist and nothing bad happened on January 6th.
CandylandRepublic | 15 days ago
> universities won't be able to gatekeep knowledge so much in the AI era
They don't, the knowledge is freely accessible.
But the "good" universities sure gatekeep their networking. That's what lets their grads earn millions, not what they learn. You could learn similar stuff at a college, or even on the internet.
TheProfessional9 | 16 days ago
Their goal has always been to inflate their way out of this
Particular_Pain_9373 | 16 days ago
ultimate goal is to bring every US citizen to their knees and pay them with a loaf of bread and water so we continue to plow their fields.. making money obsolete
0o0o0o0o0o0z | 16 days ago
> I think that we are heading head-on into a financial catastrophe.
Once the petro-dollar is gone, which looks like it's gonna happen sooner rather than later thanks to this Administration, the US won't be able to run the defict it has historically run.
CautiousOptimism09 | 16 days ago
Republicans really do love hitting the money printer
DiskSalt4643 | 16 days ago
Its like that scene in Big Fish now where the teller goes into the vault snd has to admit that the bank has no money.
Muted_Tone2026 | 16 days ago
Ai and robots are deflationary. Workers are being fired to justify lower rates; jobs that robots and ai took.
We will have to enact a tax on electricity or something to tax the services robots provides as they continue to replace workers.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
It's deflationary according to whom? The last time I checked it's driving the price up for everything from tech and electronics and everything that uses energy, chips and cloud based services
humanist72781 | 16 days ago
Technological advances are inherently deflationary
Anonybibbs | 16 days ago
Someone should tell AI that.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
If it was how come everything is more expensive? Salaries are basically stagnant. Even when they increase it doesn't match the cost of living- so the only thing "deflationary" are middle class salaries and wages.
FlyingBishop | 16 days ago
It's more deflationary in China where most physical labor happens. Here our labor is increasingly abstract, and abstract labor can go away at the drop of a hat without any change in material circumstances. We still make multiples of what people in other countries make - as long as it's easy to make 10x what someone in China makes you're not going to see the deflationary effects, because you're so far removed from the actual minimum unit cost of labor (even slaves, the cost exists.)
ishtar_the_move | 16 days ago
Jesus Christ.. In an econ sub no less. Are people really arguing technology in production isn't driving down cost?
wabladoobz | 16 days ago
If a technology (or set of) is/are the ultimate monopolization and price fixing enabler is it actually inflationary?
ClashM | 16 days ago
Technology in production doesn't drive down costs, but efficiency in production might. New technology is usually more efficient, but new technology is also usually purpose-built. What we're talking about here is a magical "this tool can do any job you assign it" tech, which has fulfilled its purpose masterfully in some areas and been shoved awkwardly into others.
Nobody is actually entirely sure of the real price of it yet either, beyond the incidentals being astronomical already and destroying computer hardware prices globally. But there's trillions tied into it making it the biggest bet in human history. The drugged-up executives making this wager on everyone's behalf do not inspire confidence for me, personally.
ishtar_the_move | 16 days ago
> Technology in production doesn't drive down costs, but efficiency in production might.
How is that not the same as driving down cost? Who implements new technology in production if not to drive down cost?
ClashM | 16 days ago
I was making the point that technology is not the same thing as efficiency. It is absolutely possible to get the wrong tech or implementation for a job and lower productivity if you're not meticulous about planning.
>Who implements new technology in production if not to drive down cost?
Someone who has been sold on an idea without waiting for data to back it up. There's a lot of AI FOMO out there among executives.
Sherm | 16 days ago
> If it was how come everything is more expensive.
Because for the moment, people are using plentiful debt to be able to continue to afford their current lifestyle. Eventually that's going to run out as well.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
People have to use debit because they can't afford it. That is anything but deflationary
Sherm | 16 days ago
But, they can afford it. Because they have access to debt. Because the system doesn't care where the money came from when the transaction is being processed. As long as the money changes hands at the agreed-upon price, the deflationary impact is deferred. Now, that's going to be an absolute disaster in a couple years when everyone is tapped out and all those deflationary pricing signals that should have been hitting gradually come ashore all at once like a tsunami because one guy's default forces the next guy's rate to get that much higher to offset the losses. It's going to be very interesting to watch companies try to collect a trillion dollars in unsecured debt.
sleeplessinreno | 16 days ago
Eventually the musical chairs game that we call debt will stop and there's maybe a handful of seats. The piper is playing his tune and when it stops he'll be asking for payment.
lost_horizons | 16 days ago
But ALL of our money in this fiat system IS debt. It’s all credit.
RatRaceUnderdog | 16 days ago
This is not true at all. Technological advances are deflationary when they cause productivity gains among the workforce. That is not inherently true of technological advances.
Additionally, AI points towards a deflationary effect on labor prices. So yea, even technology provides a net efficiency gain overall that does not mean an equitable distribution of those gains.
If you need an example look at social media and target advertising. The prices of ads is lower yes, but that is also being used by corporations to price their products higher.
In theory, tech should lead to lower prices. In America, that will probably happen but it’s not a straight line to the conclusion
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
people don't realize deflation here means unemployment & would be catastrophic.
While transistors, chips, & parts have become cheaper, computers, phones, cars, planes all cost more, as does electricity & costs to run homes. So no, technology has not been deflationary
PurpleReign123 | 16 days ago
Both of you are correct.
A.I. is inflationary initially, with all the massive investments in data centres driving up prices of everything.
Subsequently, there will be massive job losses leading to demand destruction, economic collapse and that’s deflationary, just at the same timing when tech advances start their inherent deflationary price trend
eptesicusfuscus | 16 days ago
Why not assume that jobs just change and are augmented by ai but that the overall marketplace continues to support the current employment rate?
Or why not assume job creation occurs because we develop new, desirable products that require both ai and human labor at an accelerating rate?
Muted_Tone2026 | 16 days ago
Kevin warsh, and jobs report. Ai taking jobs have allowed us to maintain interest rates amid large spending associated with data center builds.
eptesicusfuscus | 16 days ago
How'd you come to this conclusion? I've not heard anything like it before
catchy_phrase76 | 16 days ago
Workers are also being brought back, but I that is far quieter. Also not in the same number coming back as fired.
I'm not saying AI will not end some jobs. More that it will be similar to automation.
AI CEOs depend on money coming in, so they state lofty inflammatory things to stoke the fire.
I hope your electricity tax doesn't hit us regular people, but I assume that's who it will truly be targeted at...
RockyCreamNHotSauce | 16 days ago
You bought into some Ark BS. Robots have been deflating manufacturing costs for a decade now. Though the large majority of that happens in China. It’s already priced in the current inflation expectations. There’s no magical general AI revolution on the horizon. No robotics company has demonstrated even 5% of a working general physical AI.
MammothUnique4147 | 16 days ago
Workers in the Philippines, not here in the US.
"I'm sorry I made a mistake I'm still learning" isn't coming for anyone's job anytime soon.
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
deflation is worse than inflation in the economy. Deflation = financial crisis like 08 or Depression in 30's. Housing price drops in 08 weren't a good thing.
iamnerdyquiteoften | 16 days ago
Zimbabwe style or worse ?
Eudaimonics | 15 days ago
Won’t have any choice but to greatly raise taxes on the top 20%.
To think, the billionaires could have just paid a little more to fund Medicare for all and better infrastructure and still had relatively low taxes.
Instead, they got too greedy, funded the MAGA machine and will have to live with the consequences.
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
final chapter on America?
roamingandy | 16 days ago
I think Trump is planning for that.
Remember 'I love inflation!'. He wants to print his way out so the debt's real value shrinks, and there's been talk in the crypto community that he's been exploring that not as a rug pull cash grab (well, also that).
His plan is to switch the US onto a new currency which he has total control over, and only give it to his loyalists and backers. So you'll have a great-recession, but only for Democrats and the GOP will laugh at your suffering.
The UFC event where he paid them mostly in his own crypto was a test run for that, to see where push back came from.. there was none.
It's not just speculation, there have been quotes hinting at this strategy popping up from time to time, and the Trump admin are certainly not acting as if they are even slightly worried about the ballooning debt (his plan is to bankrupt the USA, and then re-set as he has done many times with his own finances).
Just_Candle_315 | 16 days ago
Could they try.... not starting wars with other countries?
CliftonForce | 16 days ago
Notice the MAGA narrative of " Iran has been attacking us for 47 years. We just finally started fighting back."
Sadly_NotAPlatypus | 16 days ago
Very 1984. Love that for us.
anti-torque | 16 days ago
More like 1979.
toolkitxx | 16 days ago
That is the issue though. I made a posting some days back hinting at a historic comparison for Germany. The underlying situation is partly the exact same and one solution left is expansion. Getting your hands on more resources to exploit instead of importing them. Dont know many who would throw their territory voluntarily though, so there is that.
Conclusion: You have a Department of War and no longer a Department of Defence. Guess why...
P.S. This was the hint I gave in that other context, but it applies here too if you keep FIAT money rules in mind:
>^(Both the) ^(initially unsound, and later criminal, monetary policy) ^(and the) ^(intertwining of the economy, the state and the party) ^(led, even before the outbreak of war, to) ^(an enormous public deficit)^(, which the state attempted to address through regulatory coercive measures and the creation of unbacked money by the Reichsbank, including through third-party companies.) ^(The need to finance intensified the pressure to expand)^(, leading, in the course of the war, to the systematic exploitation of the resources of the conquered territories through plunder, forced labour, occupation levies and requisitioning.)
NetZeroSun | 16 days ago
It almost sounds like rigging the system to personally profit now, and leave angry voters to yell at the Democrats to do something in the future.
Financial-Barnacle79 | 16 days ago
Yeah, I’ve always wondered this. Been hoping for some economic disaster to unseat Trump, but it’ll just get passed on down the road. If Dems get elected, no doubt they’ll be blamed for it.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
The GOP did it with the 2008 financial crisis. They did it with the pandemic and they will do it now.
NetZeroSun | 16 days ago
The US has an insane amount of wealth. Resources in physical assets, land, properties, companies, etc. wealth in gold, and so forth. We could be individually broke and poor as dirt, but as a nation, the wealth and value will still be around for a bit.
Tin foil hat time….so trump, one of the loudest, whiniest, not my fault, greediest sob to every have leadership of the country screams about Fort Knox gold and how he is now fully president and has a bunch of yes men working for him in the agencies and administration, raised hell about the gold earlier and...
…is quiet right now about the gold.
This f’r trump loves his gold. It’s his literally trademark with his first initial's color and his living area is plastered with it even if fake paint gold…
…and he is quiet now?
Let’s be honest. His family net worth ballooning in 2025/2026 isn’t because the presidents salary is that good. And his foreign connections and money laundering / crypto would make it easy to obfuscate transactions, or move that money outside of US eyes.
So why did trump go dark over the gold? If anything, more than ever with financial instability and countries moving away from the dollar and shoring up physical gold assets.
We really do want to know what’s (still left) in Fort Knox if you will.
/tinfoil hat off.
Basically the looting and profiting of our country is happening right under very noses right now.
findingmike | 16 days ago
Of course they will. All bad outcomes are planned for next year when the Dems take power in Congress.
morbie5 | 16 days ago
If that is the plan it'll fail imo. The public won't blame the party that holds congress, they'll blame the party that holds the presidency
Particular-Mark-5771 | 16 days ago
The very reason to call it the Trump Deficient.
EatsRats | 16 days ago
Inflate the debt away…sigh
Prestigious_Load1699 | 15 days ago
What happened to good old low inflation and fiscal responsibility?
Worth-Wonder-7386 | 16 days ago
The printing of money is determined mostly by interest rates. If the interest rates are low there will be more new money and now that it is higher there will be less.
Once inflation comes down and interest rates, then more money will continue to enter the economy. That is one of the primary roles of interest rates, to control the money supply.
morbie5 | 16 days ago
The fed can increase their balance sheet aka 'print money' to bring rates down
Worth-Wonder-7386 | 16 days ago
But that might cause more inflation. It depends how the rest of the economy responds.
morbie5 | 16 days ago
> But that might cause more inflation
Correct
EnigmaSpore | 16 days ago
In the coming years? They turned the money printer back on already back in jan 2024. They’ve been printing hard ever since
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2
Open-Dot-9994 | 16 days ago
There is a school of thinking that fed chairs are put in their position to execute specific priorities. Could Kevin Warsh be put into the role in order to end this tremendous run that has ended with unsustainable deficits
AcceptableCrew224 | 16 days ago
At what point does the deficit become untenable? Do devalue the dollar or declare insolvency
Spirited-Lawyer-8281 | 16 days ago
How do everyday workers deal with this. Take paycheck and immediately convert to gold and silver?
No-Computer7653 | 16 days ago
How did a claim that entirely misrepresented how debt and the feds balance sheet works get to 561?
The debt is purchased by primary dealers. The fed is forbidden from purchasing on the primary market. Fed balance sheet has no relationship to the deficit or debt.
morbie5 | 16 days ago
I made said comment.
> The fed is forbidden from purchasing on the primary market
Nowhere did I says anything counter to that
> Fed balance sheet has no relationship to the deficit or debt.
Sure my dude, whatever you say lolz. At a minimum lower bonds yields potentially allow a government more room to run big deficits, it may not be a direct relationship but there is a relationship
Prestigious_Load1699 | 15 days ago
To be fair, the Fed’s balance sheet is insane at the moment.
It isn’t unreasonable for Warsh to want to deleverage the Fed. The question is if the American economy with its unconscionable deficit spending will allow for it.
We are in a bad spot.
Ok_Eagle_3079 | 16 days ago
And Japan/China are selling bonds and not buying them
morbie5 | 16 days ago
Japan is only selling a moderate amount
andrew303710 | 16 days ago
Because we bailed out the yen in exchange for them not selling a bunch.
YakResident_3069 | 16 days ago
Kicking the can. I'd hardly call that bailing out the yen from a structural long term perspective. Where is the yen after a week? Two weeks?
morbie5 | 16 days ago
Which they willingly participated in
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
which is why tariffs, trade wars, & starting a war w/ oil king Iran spiking oil was beyond idiotic. As USD demand wains, treasury rates go up. The only reason the US can borrow indefinitely & print money is b/c USD is world currency. If that ever falls off, the US will join UK as superpower has been
MrYdobon | 16 days ago
Over the last 20 years, the percentage of oil purchased in US dollars has gone from 90%-95% to 80%. The unquestionable trust in the US dollar is certainly gone, but it's still the best option around. If it continues to decline until it is merely one of a handful of good options, the US is in trouble.
Republicans suck at fiscal responsibility. Reagan. Bush. W Bush. Trump. Each has exploded US debt worse than anyone before them.
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
the only way to balance budget is to raise taxes & cut spending. Neither party willing to do both
Randomfactoid42 | 16 days ago
The voters won’t allow either party to do both cut spending and raise taxes.
Prestigious_Load1699 | 15 days ago
I don’t think either party will let one of those happen.
shit-shit-shit-shit- | 15 days ago
The real issue is social security and Medicare spending. They could stop all discretionary spending and spend it all on entitlements and they’d still have to borrow
sum_dude44 | 15 days ago
they need to end the SS deduction limits
Dry_Weekend_3044 | 15 days ago
For social security wouldn't uncapping the income tax and raising the rate a bit make it solvent.
b_vitamin | 15 days ago
They will sell us out to the highest like they did in the 1980’s.
geneel | 16 days ago
Wanes
AlternativeNose1 | 16 days ago
US won't decline in a managed way like the UK as it has nothing to slowly "give back" and become its core self. It will be an implosion. So the US won't become like the UK, probably more like russia where the economy just no longer works.
sum_dude44 | 16 days ago
US has too many natural resources to completely collapse outside civil war (which I don't think happens in our lifetime)
AlternativeNose1 | 16 days ago
"Russia ranks first globally with an estimated $75 trillion in natural resources, while the United States ranks second at $45 trillion." Didn't stop the Russian economy.
sum_dude44 | 15 days ago
you do realize Russia was a communist hellhole for most of the 20th century right? US had a 100 year head start & still has free elections
AlternativeNose1 | 15 days ago
Your original premise is that the US will become what the UK is now, as a superpower "has been". I will try and condense what my short comment was getting at, but I appreciate there is a lot more/factors to it than I can share even in a longer comment.
On the superpower side: The UK was only ever (and very arguably as many historians don't think it EVER was iaw the concepts/requirements to be a superpower as superpower is a post WW2 concept) a superpower due to defeating its imperial rivals (French and Dutch) at war. A lot of Americans hold this idea the UK/Britian was a superpower during the US war of independence to WW2 when this wasn't the case. Britain had no equal roughly 1815-1915.
Britains power was therefore tied to its empire and was able to shrink back to being the 5th richest nation on earth through a long process of independence.
The US became the worlds superpower through economic means only. It did not defeat its rivals like the British did in war, it does not have a large Empire it can slowly withdraw from and re-start trading outside its empire. Hence when the US looses its status as a superpower, it will be due to its economy collapsing. We are already seeing most countries loosing the US as its main trading partner https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1irkqrz/global_trade_dominance_us_vs_china_2000_2024/ and the US is in increasingly unsustainable amounts of debt.
Russia is the comparator I chose as it was also a Superpower where it was the economy that it became its un-doing, similar to what will happen to the US. I'm well aware they were communist, but like the US will, they ran out of money with nobody capable of bailing them out.
Bman4k1 | 16 days ago
The crazy thing is the only way to really fix this would be massive tax increases and a massive cut to the defence budget, complete overhaul of social security (moving to a Canadian pension model), and for good measure probably a change to healthcare to move to a single payer model. Basically all are the third, fourth and fifth rail of American politics.
There is literally no path to a balanced budget in the next 20 years.
Notyomamasthrowaway | 16 days ago
No path? The rich took it all. We take it back.
findingmike | 16 days ago
To be fair, that is probably done by raising taxes which he did mention.
McMillionEnterprises | 16 days ago
Or by nationalizing industry and confiscating wealth.
borderlineidiot | 16 days ago
Unfortunately governments are famously bad at running industry.
edit: LOL I am being downvoted for saying government is bad at running industry. Give me a single example of a profitable entity that is wholly owned by the government. I have driven a car from an east german government owned car plant, it was... special.
_le_slap | 16 days ago
Seems like the alternative is just as bleak
avx775 | 16 days ago
If you increased taxes by a trillion we are still in a deficit. You need to cut spending and raise taxes.
Michaelprunka | 16 days ago
One of the most significant opportunities to cut spending — more so than even reducing the defense budget — is nixing tax breaks and credits than disproportionately benefit the wealthy. I’m thinking things like mortgage interest deductions.
sleeplessinreno | 16 days ago
I'd go so far as to nix spending tax dollars on contractors and moving government needs in-house. A lot of the spending waste goes to contractors that are over charging. It wouldn't be the first time we have done this and many of us have living memories of family who benefited from such programs.
avx775 | 16 days ago
Pennies big dawg. Pennies man. Mortgage interest… you aren’t making a dent.
Michaelprunka | 16 days ago
Yes, not with mortgage interest deductions alone. All deductions, however, represent a larger expenditure annually than even defense.
alzer9 | 16 days ago
You’d need things like taxing employee health benefits, removing ACA subsidies or preferential rates on capital gains – huge political lifts on any one.
McMillionEnterprises | 16 days ago
Or just moving to single payer healthcare and tax businesses and individuals the amount they currently pay towards healthcare.
Overtons_Window | 16 days ago
How is closing a mortgage interest deduction a form of cutting spending?
Michaelprunka | 16 days ago
Yeah, I worded that incorrectly. I meant shrinking the deficit.
Bman4k1 | 16 days ago
Ya we are talking about 6 trillion in spending vs 4 trillion in taxes/revenues. People literally don’t understand the financial scale of the issue. There like isn’t enough profit and disposable income the tax 2 trillion. American society would basically have to completely transform to a completely different structure to balance the budget at this point. And somehow avoid a global economic catastrophe while getting there.
andrew303710 | 16 days ago
A good start would be to cut the requested $1.5 trillion DOD budget down to $500 billion. It's absolutely insane to request such a large budget when we're $40 trillion in debt.
And you can make the rest up by completely rolling back the Trump and Bush tax cuts so we go back to Clinton era rates. Throw in a billionaire tax and you get pretty close to balancing the budget.
lost_horizons | 16 days ago
Agreed
Tax capital gains a bit more too.
And raise the social security cap while you’re at it, that’s a bit of a separate issue but also not that hard to fix.
cluberti | 15 days ago
Clinton rates? For long-term health and recovery we should consider rolling back to the Eisenhower rates, prior to the Revenue Act of 1964.
avx775 | 16 days ago
Both sides just playing hot potatoe with the deficit. I’m completely against republicans but it’s not like democrats are trying to balance it either.
The funny thing is republicans making it an absolutely massive talking point every election. Then when they get elected you never hear about it again. You say something about student loan forginess and it’s always “where is the money” then they try to pass a budget with 400 billion dollar increase in defense. It’s absolutely ludicrous.
America is in such poor shape economically, but somehow we get focused on transgenders reading to children.
PlatypusOld257 | 16 days ago
Much of this deficit was caused by tax cuts more so then spending.
Ecstatic_Ad_8994 | 15 days ago
spending 22% of GDP at the federal level doesn't seem like an impossibility to me.
Express_Spirit_3350 | 16 days ago
Dont know about today, but I remember Canadian banks' profits being more than the Canadian government's deficit. There are other ways to balance a national budget.
We produce more than we used to. By a lot. Society is much more richer than it used to be. As its always been since the beginning of civilizations, its a question of who gets the products of human industry. Used to be settled by violence, we "somewhat" evolved. We can argue about "consequences", but the fact remains its a choice we make. How we redistribute wealth.
Primsun | 16 days ago
People failing to realize we are simply undertaxing and over isssuing debt to the same people.
Foreign holdings of U.S. debt is mostly flat. Mostly an internal wealth tranfer, with interest.
FallenMeringue | 16 days ago
Sure there is.
Uncap the payroll tax, raise the estate tax to Clinton levels, eliminate the stepped up basis loophole, reform Medicare drug payments, repeal the OBBB, repeal most of the Trump tax cuts, and cut military spending back to 2024 levels.
andrew303710 | 16 days ago
Even better: roll back all of the 21st century tax cuts and go back to Clinton era rates. And cut military spending more than that, aim for $500 billion. In the era of drone warfare we don't need to be spending nearly as much.
FallenMeringue | 16 days ago
The bush cuts weren’t outrageous I would start with the Trump cuts and the estate tax and go from there.
Plus the adjustment of the payroll tax will be pretty equivalent to the bush cuts
NewSlang45 | 15 days ago
The problem already existed before the Trump cuts and the estate tax barely moves the needle. This idea barely does anything.
FallenMeringue | 15 days ago
Reversing the OBBB and TCJA literally eliminated trillions in cuts
NewSlang45 | 15 days ago
All those multi-trillion dollar figures were measured over 10 years.
FallenMeringue | 15 days ago
All budget figures are typically reflected on 10 year costs other than the deficit
AlternativeNorth6613 | 16 days ago
You have to cut social security too, and medicare spending will eat up the entire budget in ~10 years.
FallenMeringue | 16 days ago
Not if you uncap the payroll tax. That and switching the cola to chained cpi get you like 95% of the way to a sustainable trust fund
AlternativeNorth6613 | 16 days ago
More like 75%.
I like
(1) Raise age to 69 and index to life expectancy.
(2) Index COLA to chained CPI.
(3) Eliminate tax max with benefit credit for additional payments.
That gets over 100% of the way there.
FallenMeringue | 16 days ago
Raising the age will lead to a youth revolt
You have to fix it within the fund.
You can get the last few points by letting it buy the s+p
Primsun | 16 days ago
If foreign debt holdings is mostly flat, that means Americans are funding the debt funding the deficit...
Clearly we can afford it if we tax it.
Prestigious_Load1699 | 15 days ago
To be honest, America will probably have to do what all the welfare states of Europe do:
Implement a nationwide VAT.
FallenMeringue | 15 days ago
Not really…
The U.S. welfare system is much less burdensome per capita than the European model is.
Uncapping the payroll tax, swapping the cola to chained CPI, and allowing the trust fund to diversify literally fixes the problem with social security.
Medicare is a slightly harder fix but we have already started the hardest part (actually letting Medicare negotiate prices)
Prestigious_Load1699 | 15 days ago
I doubt that we can fix a $2T deficit without some source of new revenue.
FallenMeringue | 15 days ago
Alexa: what is uncapping the payroll tax if not new revenue
Hussar223 | 16 days ago
balancing the budget and how big the deficit is, is frankly completely irrelevant.
the only question is how that debt is going to be restructured, delayed, haircuts etc etc.
you cant pay it off, thats pretty obvious.
Bman4k1 | 16 days ago
I don’t disagree….. But that economic model of not worrying about the deficit and debt level as long as the economy is growing and the worldwide GDP is generally growing along with steady population increases may not be a viable assumption in 20 years or so. And there also comes a point where you can’t work on the margins of the interest on debt every year and its % of the federal budget.
beached89 | 16 days ago
we used to have a 90% top tax bracket. We need to go back to that. And mega corps do not pay nearly enough.
sceptic_47 | 16 days ago
Post WW2 everyone understood that the war had to paid for. They sucked it up and paid high taxes until the war debt was paid. Then the politicians realized they they could spend more and tax less. Nobody had to buy war bonds for Vietnam Iraq ot Afghanistan. Foreign governments and banks had to keep buying our debt. The jig is about up.
beached89 | 15 days ago
But we dont understand today that the high debt needs to be paid? our debt today is just as high as post WW2
Picks6x | 16 days ago
He's not only speed running a violent midterm loss but also a absolutely terrible election for republicans in two years. Republicans by all metrics shouldn't have a majority or presidency for a decade after Trump destroys them lmao.
Edit: yes republicans have been able to escape bullshit presidency's before but I don't think people realize how bad this one is.
boeings_door_plug | 16 days ago
Republicans are going to go down as the most impressive case study on how to amass power while doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.
They destroy everything they touch. Out debt and deficit is driven almost entirely by their actions. They have ruined families. Ruined relationships. Ruined communities. Ruined entertainment. Ruined fun. Ruined happiness. Ruin. Ruin. Ruin.
And yet they win. And win. And win. How? They run on responsibile spending and job creation, yet the polar opposite follows every time. They run on smaller government and against "communism" and expanded executive power and are taking a stake in private companies.
Everything that they run on, they do the opposite, leave ruin in their tracks, and yet somehow got more people to say "I am more miserable than ever, my kids don't talk to me, my town is shrinking, and I guess I want more of this because the wealthy New Yorker on TV told me I do."
Accomplished_Comb601 | 16 days ago
Yes but the transgenders.
gingerfreddy | 16 days ago
Excellent point. Add on offshore windmills bad, as a treat! /s
avx775 | 16 days ago
It’s because Americans are dumb. Like that’s really the simple answer. People can’t do math and read.
AntDogFan | 16 days ago
It's why free quality education, a free press and equality before the law are cornerstones of good democracies (in the UK the idea of legal aid was seen as important as free healthcare). In the US in recent years all three have been undermined significantly.
Ninevehenian | 16 days ago
That statement looks to be global. Conservatives everywhere are lost for what to do. The desire for wealth concentration have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, so what now?
-Accession- | 16 days ago
War. Exactly like the 20th century.
SmoothWD40 | 16 days ago
I think one of the biggest things is control of the means of propaganda.
Robot_Basilisk | 16 days ago
Media capture. The slowest half of the US doesn't fact check any information they get, so they live in an alternate reality fed to them by Fox News and other billionaire-owned media.
BoppityBop2 | 16 days ago
That is quite common in the world, there are literal government still standing despite obliterating their economies
-bad_neighbor- | 15 days ago
See I don’t see this ruining them because Americans care more about memes and optics than actual bills. They now know they can lie about anything they want and at least 1/3 of all Americans will believe and support those lies… Democrats aren’t winning people they are losing people too, both sides are heavily fractured. And we know the republicans are far better at being the minority party than democrats. I think 2028 will be a flip back to red cause democrats will allow themselves to be obstructed by republicans and will accomplish nothing even if they win back both houses. The democrats don’t have the will power to do anything of substance and people at the top are refusing to step aside.
I hate to say it but I just dont this having any real effect on the republicans base. They got in, they all got rich, they wil leave the Dems to clean on the mess, they will successful blame the Dems for all the problems, and they will be reelected campaigning on all these things
highoops5 | 16 days ago
Because the democrats have gone so far left the republicans appear to be the better option. If the democrats could just dial the lgbtqi+ (used to be lgb not that long ago) and pretend to care more about American citizens than immigrants they would win in a landslide
UnderaZiaSun | 16 days ago
More like the republicans have gone so far to the right they’ve given some people the impression that centrist dems are far left.
Active-Ad-2527 | 16 days ago
"Hmm, the Republican policies are all objectively bad for me, but a Trans person tied someone for 5th place in a swimming competition and Democrats aren't calling to kill all of them. Guess I better vote against my own intetests"
M-F-W | 16 days ago
I won’t go too deep here but I recommend reading the history of Marsha P. Johnson. I’ll just say the “T” was always there and leave it at that.
eoliveira23 | 16 days ago
If they did, the goalposts would just move to something else. Get a grip
Anonybibbs | 16 days ago
>(used to be lgb not that long ago)
The fuck kind of revisionist history is this? It has quite literally always been LGBT since LGBT issues ever became part of the public consciousness a half century ago.
dust4ngel | 16 days ago
also… are acronyms really the issue here?
Anonybibbs | 16 days ago
No, not at all, obviously, but the previous comment about how it used to "LGB" is such a ridiculously blatant falsehood, I just had to say something.
Overtons_Window | 16 days ago
Oh please. Obama wasn't even in favor of gay marriage in 2008, and only officially endorsed the idea in 2012.
Anonybibbs | 16 days ago
Um yeah, so? What does that have to do with LGBT always being LGBT?
highoops5 | 15 days ago
Google is free. Try it. Quite LITERALLY hasn’t always been lgbt
OnlyHalfBrilliant | 16 days ago
Funny how in most countries the Democrats would be considered a center-right party.
But they did indeed lose sight of the people when they embraced neo-liberalism and made corporations and the wealthy the groups they chose to appease.
Honestly the only politicians I hear talking about lgbtq(etc) are Republicans.
Limp-Plantain3824 | 16 days ago
What difference does that make. US elections aren’t held in “most countries” so other spectrums are irrelevant.
avx775 | 16 days ago
It is relevant because believe it or not we are all human beings.
boeings_door_plug | 16 days ago
They don't need to dial any of that back, they just need to stop taking the bait and making that a focal point of any conversation.
But I agree otherwise. Talk about the debt, deficit, and look people in the eye when they explain why their kids are leaving their small towns for bigger cities, why they never see their grandkids anymore, and why they are never coming back.
Ninevehenian | 16 days ago
They were demonised for health care during Obama, conservatives would lynch them if they tried to make their lives better, you know this.
HistoricalSherbert92 | 16 days ago
Come on, all your political landscape has shifted right, and the right side is shifting faster.
DasFunke | 16 days ago
It’s the opposite. Formerly conservative republicans are now centrists.
avx775 | 16 days ago
Do you actually believe this? Really think about Harris campaign. Did she have a single ad about transgenders? Or did republicans create insane attack ads about hypotheticals
sci3nc3isc00l | 16 days ago
You watch too much Fox News. The only ones running headlines about trans people are right wing media outlets to make you THINK that’s what the left prioritizes. The left prioritizes EVERYONE. That’s what socialism means. It’s about basic human rights and not keeping everyone suffering so the rich can get richer (that’s what conservatism means).
TestedTrapking | 16 days ago
As a non American I think of the Democrats as “how can the Americans even call this left?”
Republicans are the ones that shifted tooo far right
KarmaticArmageddon | 16 days ago
"Maybe we shouldn't discriminate against people?"
"WHY HAVE YOU GONE SO FAR LEFT" — Morons, like you
dust4ngel | 16 days ago
> If the democrats could just dial the lgbtqi+
if the democrats just make reeducation camps for the gays, voters won’t have to vote MAGA to get their gay reeducation camps
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
This is very true.
The elevation of lgbt has hurt Dems more than anything else
It’s the right thing to do morally
It’s been suicide at the voting booth
Ninevehenian | 16 days ago
Conservatives are the elevating pedophiles and getting votes for it. Conservatives are the cause of the focus on trans identity, they need 'villains' for their voters to hate.
KarmaticArmageddon | 16 days ago
The Dems haven't elevated their defense of LGBTQ rights much at all, Republicans have just hyper-focused on and viciously attacked a tiny minority that can't defend itself, which forces Dems (who aren't terrible people) to defend them because it's the right thing to do.
This is absolutely a calculated move from the right and your dumbass fell straight for it. Republicans pick a fringe minority group (like trans people), attack them and thereby force Dems to defend them, and then exaggerate their defense to make it seem ridiculous.
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
I’m an ally. And have never voted R in my life.
Dems should be more strategic in their messaging around these issues.
KarmaticArmageddon | 16 days ago
They are. Trans rights are hardly central to major Dem platforms. Republicans just hammer it constantly in attack ads and that creates the perception that it's all Dems care about, but there's nothing Dems can do about that other than publicly abandon the LGBTQ population or focus on education so people can learn to see through such simple propaganda.
TheGracefulCrane | 16 days ago
People thought the same thing after bush and two years later the repubs had congress back
guten_pranken | 16 days ago
LOL have you seen the average maga voter? They’ll be blaming Obama Biden and Hillary’s emails for another 20 years. They’ll don’t give a crap about blatant corruption or pedophilia, but if Obama wears a tan suit he’s a communist that wants to take what you don’t have LFMAO.
20 years of destroying education and trapping people with debt and children created the perfect melting people of morons.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
Most of them are boomers I don't seem them lasting much longer especially a decade from now
awakenDeepBlue | 16 days ago
It was Gen X that broke for Trump.
BoppityBop2 | 16 days ago
Even Genz started breaking for Trump
Picks6x | 16 days ago
And got lied to and are now livid about it. Hence trumps approval rating
TheArmchairSkeptic | 16 days ago
If they were stupid enough to fall for it from Trump, potentially the most transparently lying corrupt grifter in all of human history, they'll be stupid enough to fall for the same lies from the next guy too.
_le_slap | 16 days ago
Press X to doubt
IANALbutIAMAcat | 16 days ago
That was gonna be my comment too. My parents are those maga and they’ve been out of education for 35 years now and they’re some of the few that went to college.
clone9786 | 15 days ago
Gen X has become the new boomers
SomewhatInnocuous | 16 days ago
Good luck with that. Seriously.
I'm betting between gerrymandering and fiddling with the election itself we're in for the effective end of America's democratic experiment.
wiseduckling | 16 days ago
Also the Democrats can fuck up the easiest wins.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
I don't believe its entirely the Democrats fault. It's the dark money leading the political system into serving their needs instead of the needs of the people. After all big money contributes to both parties and own Justices like Clarence Thomas
ballmermurland | 16 days ago
Every social media site has a conservative bias built in. Every network has a conservative bias except maybe MSNOW. Some are openly fascist like Fox. Every newspaper has a conservative bias except maybe a few.
People are getting right-wing slop pumped into their pockets via their smartphones and social media apps.
But yeah, it's the fault of Democrats for not having the backing of the billionaires who own all of our media.
Overtons_Window | 16 days ago
> Every social media site has a conservative bias built in
You realize you're on Reddit, right?
KarmaticArmageddon | 16 days ago
Fucking thank you. Every time I hear something like "Dems suck at messaging," I just want to tear my hair out.
Dems put out TONS of messaging and a lot of it is clever, forceful, and competent. But none of it gets amplified at all because the media is entirely owned by Republican billionaires.
jnordwick | 15 days ago
> Every social media site has a conservative bias built in.
wow. absolutely delusional.
ballmermurland | 15 days ago
The CEOs of Amazon, Meta and Twitter sat behind Trump at his inauguration. Barron Trump is on the board of TikTok.
That's probably what? 90% of social media market share?
jnordwick | 15 days ago
So? The content is overwhelmingly left leaning.
ballmermurland | 15 days ago
Create a blank email. Use that to create an account on Twitter. Go see where the algorithm takes you. Do the same for Instagram and Facebook. Hell, throw in Youtube as well and TikTok.
The algorithms immediately show you right-wing content. I know this because I did this myself as a test. I got Ben Shapiro videos on the FIRST PAGE when I created a generic Youtube account.
jnordwick | 15 days ago
i have some extra google accounts and clicked though. I see fairly balanced, from conservative to mainstream media. Maybe you are stuck in a bubble where you think reddit it down the middle.
you are also overemphasizing who owns these sites. The algo are developed by a team trying to maximize engagement. Musk is not sitting there telling devs want to make sure shows up.
anon-187101 | 16 days ago
repubs are incompetent
dems are impotent
snowdenn | 16 days ago
repubs are ~~incompetent~~ corrupt. theyve been pretty competent, unfortunately.
dems are def weak.
anon-187101 | 16 days ago
everything repubs touch turns to shit,
so not sure what you're talking abt...
snowdenn | 16 days ago
they control every branch of govt in the US. trump himself has been failing upwards for his entire political career.
their biggest goals arent to represent the people, change society, or even leave legacies. above all, they want power and money, and theyve been pretty successful at getting those two things.
they might be incompetent as leaders and representatives, but thats not even why theyre there.
theyre achieving their goals. the problem isnt that theyre bad at representing their constituents or running the nation (which may well be the case). the problem is those arent even their goals.
if anything, i wish they were more incompetent.
British_Rover | 16 days ago
Republicans are too stupid to lead and Democrats are too weak is something I have been saying for over a decade.
snowdenn | 16 days ago
same as i said to the other guy: its not that theyre too stupid (even though many of them are). its that they dont care about leading. theyre in it for their own gain: power and money. i wish the biggest thing they were guilty of was stupidity. a stupid person can do better with some effort. a selfish person doesnt care to do good at all.
anon-187101 | 16 days ago
it's true,
and that's not to say that there aren't weak repubs and stupid dems (there are),
but, as a general rule, the statement holds
KarmaticArmageddon | 16 days ago
Dems are not impotent. Their changes are just gradual and nuanced, they're not sexy revolutions that get broadcasted by the billionaires who own all of our media. Our government is also set up to greatly favor Republicans and it's much, much easier to break shit and tear shit down than it is to build it.
Cutting taxes irresponsibly can be done with a simple majority via reconciliation. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure requires new revenue sources, which requires a supermajority. Etc.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
That's fair. It would be establishment democrats who will try to impeach him for a phone call instead of the war crimes, fraud, grifting, vandalism, unilateralism, insider trading.
boeings_door_plug | 16 days ago
>try to impeach
They successfully did. Twice.
British_Rover | 16 days ago
Democrats successfully impeached Trump twice. Its the cowardly GOP that wouldn't convict him. McConnell could have found a couple of more GOP votes for convection during the last impeachment and we would have never had to deal directly with Trump again.
SomewhatInnocuous | 16 days ago
Yeah, I read a day or so ago how a quote from someone on the DNC saying they needed to have a "war" against the progressive wing of the party. I don't follow their organization that closely, but it sure seems like the old guard would rather have circular firing squads than loosen their grip on power.
Harbinger2001 | 16 days ago
They will have a multi-part plan to attempt to retain power.
- cancel midterms due to “national emergency”
- throw voters off the voting rolls
- intimidate voters at the booths
- rig the vote count
- invalidate the results
- block the vote ratification
- insurrection
homer_lives | 16 days ago
This is correct.
Red-eleven | 16 days ago
I’m sad to say this is what I think too.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
The gerrymandering has already happened and it hasn't worked for them. That's how insanely unpopular maga republicans are
SomewhatInnocuous | 16 days ago
Hasn't worked for them? Where did you come up with that? They control both houses of congress.
madeapizza | 16 days ago
What do you mean “filling with the election itself?” Are you an election denier?
SomewhatInnocuous | 16 days ago
By no means - yet. Let's wait and see how the federal government inserts itself into the coming election. And that's fiddling, not filling.
OnlyHalfBrilliant | 16 days ago
He's probably referring to Elon's "vote counting computers" and numerous ongoing efforts to impede people from voting.
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
That won’t happen. If Dems get power they will have a slim majority and won’t get enough done fast enough for voters to see the results.
Fox News will distract and anger the idiot masses about culture wars and we will repeat the cycle of the last 100 years
Maxpowr9 | 16 days ago
Dems politicians refuse to understand that incrementalism doesn't work anymore. Be bold or get voted out.
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
If you don’t have the seats you can’t be bold.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
Boomers won't live forever and Gen Z is over it
MajinBuu619 | 16 days ago
Boomers will leave it to their children who will then become fiscally conservative. It’s a cycle.
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
Check the stats on the last election.
Men under 30 are as bad as most over 50.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
I don't think Dems did a good job on the last election I have a firmer belief that the meme of Donald Trump esque candidates is going the way of the dodo bird. No offense to the 🦤
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
The Dems aren’t the problem
The American people are (at least 35-40% of them. And another 10-15% that are ok with it
Fantastic_Matter_137 | 16 days ago
It should never have been close
The Dems should have been able to put a rock on the ballot and win
Ultra-Pulse | 16 days ago
They will blame it on the left and get away with it.
thrilsika | 16 days ago
True. It's not difficult as well. People are already primed to accept to accept that narrative.
Hey maybe A.I. will fix things /s
zeolus123 | 16 days ago
Yeah they were doomed when he won in 2024 lol.
WyseOne | 16 days ago
America will double down on stupid and elect someone like Tucker Carlson
toolkitxx | 16 days ago
Voters remembrance usually wanes of quickly, so after a rather short time without a full turn-over, which is technically impossible without some harsh cuts, everyone will again blame the sitting government.
findingmike | 16 days ago
Republicans will blame all of this on Dems when they take control of Congress.
xcbsmith | 16 days ago
Republicans will be lucky if they lose in two years, because whomever wins that election is going to have a debt albatross around their neck that will destroy their brand for decades to come. The electorate will stupidly go back to the Republicans in a stupid nostalgic move to get back to the "good old days" of 2026.
redheadedandbold | 16 days ago
Trump serves Putin. He is destroying America on purpose. The GOP is so desperate to stay in power, they have joined with the only people who will have them, the ultra-rich, and the christo-fascists (racist faux-christians) who want to push their--I hesitate to use the word "values"--on the rest of us. After several decades of this, the GOP is so infiltrated with christofascist uneducated/miseducated people, it's now a Cold Civil War.
NoForm5443 | 16 days ago
From your mouth to the ears of God.
My trust in the American people is in negative numbers now
just-here-for--porn_ | 16 days ago
After Bush it should have been 10.yrars in the wilderness. But the TEA party brought them back in just two years.
This is a party with a remarkable ability to reinvent itself. That is in spite of the fact that their primary goal never changes, further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor.
just-here-for--porn_ | 16 days ago
After Bush it should have been 10.yrars in the wilderness. But the TEA party brought them back in just two years.
This is a party with a remarkable ability to reinvent itself. That is in spite of the fact that their primary goal never changes, further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor.
Picks6x | 16 days ago
I agree with you to an extent. I would say that the party is going to have an absolutely abysmal time trying to not be the MAGA party anymore and I doubt it'll self correct
Moral-Relativity | 16 days ago
Republicans needn’t worry about getting elected. Voters on average are probably becoming even less informed about the root causes of their economic woes.
roamingandy | 16 days ago
..but what happens when they win, easily, despite any polling showing that votes were going heavily in the opposite direction?
They prob won't allow polling though.
heanbangerfacerip2 | 15 days ago
No they are heading for a massive loss in the mid terms and have fucked up the economy so bad that it might help them in the next election because their voter base is so dumb they will be able to tell them the recession is the Dems faults because they have been in charge for two years. Don't forget a big chunk of republicans thinks 2008 was Obamas fault because he was the one dealing with it.
EdLesliesBarber | 15 days ago
Unfortunately 2028 will be a toss up for Dems at best because they will most likely have the House but things will continue to backslide for the median wage earner. Anyone’s game.
Limp-Plantain3824 | 16 days ago
What “metrics” are those?
Picks6x | 16 days ago
Republicans losing down ballot including in red district such as mar a lago. The very real possibility of Talarico being elected. Etc like me hold your hand and walk you through the rest?
Opinionsare | 16 days ago
Scott Bessent has created an enormous amount of debt to blame on the Democrats should they win both house of Congress in the Mid-terms.
The Republicans will abruptly change directions and become fiscal hawks.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
It explains one reason why Trump wants to lower the interest rates. But he is going to leave the mess that is creating to whomever follows him.
Pristine-Ad983 | 16 days ago
That's what he always does. Once he lines his pockets others have to clean up his mess.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
It is Trump's modus operandi isn't it?
YaThatAintRight | 16 days ago
GOP as a whole
rawkguitar | 16 days ago
Then everyone gets mad when the next president can’t fix everything, or can’t fix it fast enough, then we punish them by re-electing republicans who then break everything again.
Rinse. Repeat. Ad nauseam.
andrew303710 | 16 days ago
Exactly, the fact that Republicans took back the house in 2010 after tanking the economy and getting us into 2 disastrous wars says it all. It pretty much killed Obama's ability to make meaningful changes and it's insane how quickly people were willing to give Republicans a 2nd chance.
Dangerous_Junket_773 | 16 days ago
He'll leave it to the next president. They'll have to clean up the country's debt financing and lead social security reform.
I mean, it really should be congress' job to do that stuff, since they control the budget. But they can't put two brain cells together to solve anything.
SawNickYouth | 16 days ago
They're just leaving a huge steaming heap for when Dems take over, so the Republicans can focus on federal spending and the debt and constantly complain about how Dems are spending us into ruin.
LillianWigglewater | 16 days ago
> complain about how Dems are spending us into ruin.
Well they are too. Neither side seems to give a damn about balancing the budget.
SawNickYouth | 16 days ago
Difference is Dems don't make it a tent pole issue every time the Republicans are in office. When Dems control Congress or the WH it's all Republicans fukking talk about.
lasttosseroni | 16 days ago
Please read some history, both Clinton and Obama made huge reductions in the deficit, although I think that may have been a mistake. Biden also was making progress, but now it’s back out of control.
061826heart | 16 days ago
My goodness….if the next regime change in America wants to make the effort, and not continue to extend and pretend (doubt), the mess they are going to uncover will be extinct-event level.
Shame shame shame….
Maxpowr9 | 16 days ago
Democrats won't be bold with the radical changes needed, and will get voted out just as quickly as they got voted in.
xcbsmith | 16 days ago
Yellin had the excuse of a pandemic that was obviously short lived. Bessent's excuse is effectively about a man made disaster that might last for decades.
AlternativeNorth6613 | 16 days ago
The voters don't want spending cuts. Medicare, social security, etc. are politically impossible to touch.
xcbsmith | 15 days ago
That's not the man made disaster.
toolkitxx | 16 days ago
So if I am not mistaken those 1.4 trillion should be the exact amount that covers the deficit for the current period, which has only been 9 month so far, correct? So there is 3 months to go and some 300-400 billion more to add to all of this
jambarama | 16 days ago
You know I'd like to read a headline, just once, that someone used complicated financial engineering to help people. Like feed people or build housing or reduce healthcare costs or something. Every time I read a headline about financial engineering or some kind of fancy financial mechanism, it's because it's hurting people.
Maybe good news doesn't sell and I should read some articles about how farmers are protecting themselves against inconsistent prices with financial engineering, but so far It's just people losing homes and hiding deficits and billionaires spending the value of their illiquid stock in a way that they never pay taxes.
StandardAd7812 | 16 days ago
Good news doesn't sell.
Hedging does allow stability in income at least on a seasonal level.
Mortgage back bonds have made borrowing to buy a home less expensive.
Etc.
Soft_Walrus_3605 | 16 days ago
> Good news doesn't sell.
What about those "Hitler Dead" newspapers during WWII?
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
Our mortgage rates are 2 percentage points above other developed countries
StandardAd7812 | 16 days ago
Other countries have MBs?
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
U.S. mortgage rates average roughly 6.5% to 7% for a 30-year fixed loan, while eurozone rates average lower at around 3.4%, though European countries vary widely from ~2% in Malta to nearly 4% in Germany and rely heavily on variable or shorter fixed terms.
_le_slap | 16 days ago
Our homes are considerably more affordable though. Last I checked, a shack in a moderately sized German city is 9-11x the average German's annual wage.
Edit: undercount... ooff
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
I don't know about your finances but 400 grand plus isn't my idea of affordable
_le_slap | 16 days ago
Affordability is relative. US homes hover around 4-6x the household American income. Europe would make you weep.
It made me weep and I make good money in the US...
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
They do get alot of things we don't get here like a higher quality education.
EdLesliesBarber | 15 days ago
For some. But it’s much more selective AND the resulting pay is lower in every industry. If you can’t affordably cover a “good education “ in America, very little chance you’re qualifying for any higher education in most of the EU.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
I agree but you have to remember billionaires don't care about the ordinary person unless it affects their bottom line. If they could impoverish us so they could make more money they would. Imperialism, slavery, indentured servitude and the company store comes to mind
flyswithdragons | 16 days ago
Bessent is a thieving, money laundering, lying evil doer imo. It was not legal to send Argentine 40 billion to his old Soros hedge fund buddies down there. 😡
ImANoobAtLife7 | 15 days ago
Just remember, they're actively stealing from the younger generations.
While also shaming them for not "making it".
I'd say more but I don't want to lose my Palantir social credit score.
jnordwick | 16 days ago
> The T-bills offer Washington, now, a rare opportunity to borrow money for the cheap.
This is the whole story? Wow, what a sensationalized headline. Its extremely normal to borrow on the short end of the curve when you expect rates to fall.
I don't see the problem.
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
Because inflation isn't going to allow it. It's already being gamed to keep them steady.
jnordwick | 16 days ago
My point was this is a very normal thing. Trying to scare people by calling ti "financial engineering" is dumb. Fortune is a rag anyways.
oncwonk | 16 days ago
Why on this sub is it okay to pay post a paywalled article ? But it's required to write a thesis to request a non paywalled copy? Can this be pinned, to save my thumbs each time ?
[OP] One-Emu-1103 | 16 days ago
I can read it without a paywall. Try clearing your browsers cookies and cache choosing all time for the time frame and see if that resolves the issue
Wasatchian | 16 days ago
Who calls longer dated treasuries coupons? Short ones are usually referred to as bills and longer duration ones as bonds. Treasury bonds (2 years and longer) all pay coupons. Treasury bills do not.