>To steelman it, the US has a far lower dependence on trade as a percentage of GDP
The US being the centre of trade is basically the entire foundation of its GDP. It is the reason the US $ is the global reserve. It is the reason the world holds t-bills. It's the reason silicon valley is in San Francisco and the centre of the music and movie industry is in LA. It's the reason the financial capital of the world is in NY. It's why science revolves...revolved...around the US.
If you're living in the richest large country in the world, it's worth contemplating why that is. Is it US exceptionalism? No, it's that the US came out relative untouched from two world wars that seriously harmed most of the world, so it become basically the central hub. The geographically-safe, still wealthy friendly power.
That is all dissolving at an astonishing pace, and the reality will be a harsh one. Like the other post said, the US isn't going to suddenly be poor, but instead it's just going to be an endless drain as the world reorients.
And I mean you can say "oh well we'll do without!", and...okay? I guess it's just the new minimalist world!
As to the "the US will be harmed less than others", while I actually believe the US will be one of the hardest hit countries of all, because most of the US economy relies upon an illusion, it's a silly self-comfort anyways because the US is the cause of all of this. It's like salting the land and then gloating because your crops weren't grow well anyways.
That may have been the design case, but the reason it is now is just TINA. No other currency can absorb the volumes necessary. Let's go over the alternatives:
- Euro - has less than half the volume of the US. A possible contender, but remember each member state does get to dictate its own printing rules, so the
- Yen - one tenth the reserve volume, but pegged to a country that has been in several "lost" decades.
- Yuan - country has massive capital controls and you could get completely fucked if the government fears revolt and lets people move their money out of china. And yet, international reserves are LESS than the CAD.
> it's worth contemplating why that is. Is it US exceptionalism? No, it's that the US came out relative untouched from two world wars that seriously harmed most of the world, so it become basically the central hub.
I think you've got the causal arrow wrong on this. The US is geographically well situated. It touches both oceans, and has a huge gap between it and most of the rest of the world. It's ~energy independent, and has robust agricultural center. That's why it was untouched from both world wars and that's why it became the central hub of commerce in the postwar era. The US can afford to fuck up a lot of domestic and international policy and still generally speaking not worry about existential threats.
>I think you've got the causal arrow wrong on this.
My point was precisely that the US benefitted by geographical happenstance. Not sure how I got this wrong.
Regarding existential threats, nuclear proliferation is going to go through its worst period in human history. We are going to end this decade with a number of new nuclear bomb participants, and it's a profoundly obvious, inevitable outcome of the current US administration's myopic policies. And with that the probability that some American cities become glassed keeps spiralling ever upwards.
Not really. At least in terms of oil, the majority of what’s extracted cannot be refined in the US because all of the refineries were built for non-shale oil. Basically all of the oil gets sent abroad to be refined and then sent back.
Why this isn’t talked about more, especially under the context of “drill baby drill”, I don’t understand. If anything the slogan should be “refine, baby, refine”
yep thats why i put "~". youre absolutely correct but also in a pinch the us could fast track getting dirty athabasca sands oil in and mixing it with shale to get something more ingestable by our plant.
i would not be surprised if being ready for such a scenario + knowlege of shale reserve limitations is why those plants aren't kicked over so long as the trannsshipment for refining doesnt remain cost prohibitive.
The US being the centre of trade is basically the entire foundation of its GDP. It is the reason the US $ is the global reserve. It is the reason the world holds t-bills. It's the reason silicon valley is in San Francisco and the centre of the music and movie industry is in LA. It's the reason the financial capital of the world is in NY. It's why science revolves...revolved...around the US.
If you're living in the richest large country in the world, it's worth contemplating why that is. Is it US exceptionalism? No, it's that the US came out relative untouched from two world wars that seriously harmed most of the world, so it become basically the central hub. The geographically-safe, still wealthy friendly power.
That is all dissolving at an astonishing pace, and the reality will be a harsh one. Like the other post said, the US isn't going to suddenly be poor, but instead it's just going to be an endless drain as the world reorients.
And I mean you can say "oh well we'll do without!", and...okay? I guess it's just the new minimalist world!
As to the "the US will be harmed less than others", while I actually believe the US will be one of the hardest hit countries of all, because most of the US economy relies upon an illusion, it's a silly self-comfort anyways because the US is the cause of all of this. It's like salting the land and then gloating because your crops weren't grow well anyways.