It’s actually even worse than just taxpayers paying businesses: Since the US doesn’t have the tax revenue to pay the businesses, it will need to take out more debt to pay them. So the taxpayers will not only pay the businesses, but they will also pay interest. (That is, if you believe that the US will be able to stabilize its debt before defaulting. At the rate we’re going, with the looter class taking US government funds, the US will end up defaulting before taxpayers have a chance to pay down the debt. To be clear, a default would be far more painful than the austerity required to stabilize the debt.)
To be clear, a default would be far more painful than the austerity required to stabilize the debt.)
Hard disagree. The debt is already unpayable, and austerity cuts the kind of investment that creates economic activity, like schools and infrastructure. And our schools and bridges are already collapsing
And it’s not just national debt that has become unpayable… We have levels of debt that can’t be repaid at all levels. It’s a big part of why everything is becoming unaffordable
This is part of the collapse of an empire. It’s happened before. There’s three ways out of it. The first is a jubilee, a one time general forgiveness of all debt (unlikely). The second is a revolution and reorganization where we don’t acknowledge prior debt
The most likely path forward is hyperinflation, where the majority of debt is shrunk by devaluation of the currency
No amount of austerity will get us out of this hole… The purpose of austerity is to extract wealth through opening outside investment and suppressing economic development. It’s purpose is to keep countries on a debt treadmill indefinitely
What you said is true for most countries. But the US dollar is used by countries to pay each other. So most countries have some dollars, and a few - mainly the UK and Japan - have massive stockpiles. They won’t like any reduction in the value of the dollar. I read an article that recently, the Japanese shorted US AI companies, driving their valuations down, as punishment for something else Trump did. Such ‘trade wars’ could escalate if the dollar hyperinflates.
Do you have a source where I could read more about this? I tried looking all of this up and the only articles I found contradict the original comment about taking loans to repay tariffs and that putting tariff revenue into a sovereign wealth fund was proposed but never happened.
It’s actually even worse than just taxpayers paying businesses: Since the US doesn’t have the tax revenue to pay the businesses, it will need to take out more debt to pay them. So the taxpayers will not only pay the businesses, but they will also pay interest. (That is, if you believe that the US will be able to stabilize its debt before defaulting. At the rate we’re going, with the looter class taking US government funds, the US will end up defaulting before taxpayers have a chance to pay down the debt. To be clear, a default would be far more painful than the austerity required to stabilize the debt.)
Hard disagree. The debt is already unpayable, and austerity cuts the kind of investment that creates economic activity, like schools and infrastructure. And our schools and bridges are already collapsing
And it’s not just national debt that has become unpayable… We have levels of debt that can’t be repaid at all levels. It’s a big part of why everything is becoming unaffordable
This is part of the collapse of an empire. It’s happened before. There’s three ways out of it. The first is a jubilee, a one time general forgiveness of all debt (unlikely). The second is a revolution and reorganization where we don’t acknowledge prior debt
The most likely path forward is hyperinflation, where the majority of debt is shrunk by devaluation of the currency
No amount of austerity will get us out of this hole… The purpose of austerity is to extract wealth through opening outside investment and suppressing economic development. It’s purpose is to keep countries on a debt treadmill indefinitely
What you said is true for most countries. But the US dollar is used by countries to pay each other. So most countries have some dollars, and a few - mainly the UK and Japan - have massive stockpiles. They won’t like any reduction in the value of the dollar. I read an article that recently, the Japanese shorted US AI companies, driving their valuations down, as punishment for something else Trump did. Such ‘trade wars’ could escalate if the dollar hyperinflates.
Forgive me for not understanding as I’m not from the US, but what happened to the funds from the collected tariffs?
They go to Trump’s sovereign wealth fund which he uses to give his allies cushy government contracts.
Do you have a source where I could read more about this? I tried looking all of this up and the only articles I found contradict the original comment about taking loans to repay tariffs and that putting tariff revenue into a sovereign wealth fund was proposed but never happened.
Edit: further reading shows neither is factual.
Probably spent on ICE