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The tariffs alone would be enough to cause a recession. It's not just that they're large (even 10% is large by modern standards) it's mostly that they're so chaotic. I've read that most businesses are avoiding hiring, avoiding any expenditures they can, and just waiting to see what happens. Seeing what happens means keeping cash on hand, which means a drop in GDP. The numbers might have been juiced a bit by people making big orders and trying to get them done before the tariffs come into full effect, but once that's done the pain is going to be much more visible.
In addition to the tariffs, there's the firing of federal workers. There are about 3 million in the US, and even if only a fraction have been fired so far, I would bet the rest are cutting back on unnecessary expenses and building up a cash reserve in case they get canned. This will ripple through the economy too.
And then there's the ICE stuff. People with green cards getting deported for exercising their first amendment rights, scientists being refused entry for a post they made on social media in their home countries, Canadian, German and British people being thrown in an ICE detention facility because of a minor paperwork mix-up. This is going to make tourists and business visitors much less willing to take a chance and visit the US, but this won't hit until later. Big tourist season is the summer, and so the lack of business won't show up yet. And some conferences were too close to cancel, but conferences for later in the year might be moved or cancelled.
And there's the invasion threats against Canada and Greenland, and the tariff wars against Canada and Mexico, and the refusal to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia. The biggest visitors to the US were Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans, and all of them are going to be avoiding the country now. And, not just avoiding the country. People are trying to avoid buying US goods and services.
In addition, there are treasuries. Many are held by Japan and China. Even just acting purely rationally, they see the chaos in the US and know the US might not be able to pay its bills, or it might choose not to pay them. The risk has gone up. If they aren't being purely rational and self-interested, they also know that they can hurt the US by dumping treasuries, so they're doing that.
And then there are the scientists leaving the US, or choosing not to come. And there are potential international students who see how risky it is for anybody who isn't white, male and christian. This sort of thing might take decades, but it's going to hurt the US the most. So many of the world's most talented people have come to the US and started businesses, but that is definitely going to slow down now.
Even if Trump were impeached and removed, and all his changes were undone with apologies, there has been some permanent damage done to the US by the MAGA majority. But, since it is a majority, since the MAGAs control the supreme court, the senate, the house and the presidency, there's going to be a lot more damage done before there's even a hint of a stabilization, let alone a recovery.
I think any rational investor is going to get their money out of the US, and the slight recovery the S&P 500 has seen in the last week is going to be dwarfed by the crash over the next few years.
I agree with most of this. However I think there are additional elements that make prediction challenging.
First, if the US undergoes any kind of revolution in the next five years, the cultural effects you mentioned could by overwritten by more recent events. I realize this sounds improbable, but the transition from the New Deal era to global neolibralism was a revolution. "The Reagan Revolution" was an actual economic and social revolution. And we're overdue for another.
Second, both the markets and the real economy were in an unsustainable condition before Trump. The pursuit of endless growth, the disruption of climate breakdown, the end of the US' monopolar hegemony, and the return of extreme wealth inequality in the US made the status quo impossible to simply maintain. Big changes were coming even without Trump.
I maintain some optimism. I think anti trust regulation, climate-based financial regulation, and an embrace of market socialism could render the last three months to be the last gasps of the old order instead of another point in what has been a decline decades in the making. But it depends what happens next.
Unfortunately, revolutions are frequently bloody. I think Europe's more gradual change post WWII has meant the future is arriving more smoothly there, with less disruption.
I suspect that if the US survives, people will look at 1950-2025 as a kind of golden age, despite all the societal problems. The US really had things easy. It was virtually the only advanced economy to come out of WWII intact. Every other country had to rebuild. For the first 20ish years, regulations from the Great Depression lingered, so unions were strong and taxes were high. All of that meant that you had families where a plumber could buy a house for a family with 4 kids even if his wife didn't work.
Since the 70s, a lot of worker protections have vanished. High taxes on the ultra-rich have disappeared. But, the US has still had the benefit of having the Reserve Currency of the world. That has allowed the US to easily run big deficits, which has allowed growth that other countries couldn't match.
I get the impression that the time of the US dollar being the world's reserve currency are coming to an end. In addition, US companies and universities have been places that the best and the brightest wanted to go. That also seems to be coming to an end.
So, when the dust settles, if the US does manage to transition to a more socialist country with a better safety net, it's still going to be rough for people. They're used to 75 years of having benefits that most countries don't get. Probably a better social safety net and a greater equality in wealth will make up for that. But, it could be that people who were alive at this time will look back at a time when the US was the hub of the world and miss that.
I get the sentiment, but I think it's possible we might miss the benefits you're describing less than you think.
For the average American, the biggest manifestation of what you're describing was cheap electronics, trucks, and suburban developments. These kinds of benefits are a poor salve for the alienation and atomization that now besets us. We have been trained to try and fill the holes in our lives with crap while losing more and more of the time and security that affords actual contentedness.
I think a generation raised knowing and trusting their neighbors, able to walk to school and bike to work and possibly go home for lunch, where they can eat some veggies grown in a community garden on an apartment roof might not feel like they've lost all that much just because they can't buy an exercise machine they never use for $99 at a Black Friday sale.
There's a reason a lot of "poorer" countries greatly outpace is in satisfaction and quality of life surveys.
I don't think Americans are going to know what they'll miss until it's gone.
I'm assuming you're American. If so, have you ever lived outside the USA? I've lived in multiple countries on a few continents, including some time in the US, so I know what it's like to be in the "hub of the world" vs somewhere else.
Yeah, the US has social problems, there's too much materialism, produce is widely available, but often shipped from very far away, public transit sucks, and so-on. I get you. But, the US is also the place where things happen first. For example, most new gadgets are available first in the US. Most new Internet services are available in the US first. Other parts of the world might have to wait years for things to show up, sometimes they never do. I remember how absolutely shocking it was when Spotify was available outside the US before it was available inside the US, because 99.9% of everything else shows up in the US first.
And yeah, the exercise machine that you never use was $99 at a Black Friday sale. But, the cheapest that machine will ever be in say Spain is the equivalent of $200 or so, because it's "made" in the US (or at least that's where the company that owns the IP is based) and it has to be imported into other countries and there are additional fees, etc.
This isn't just about gadgets though. The US healthcare system is awful, but many medicines are available in the US years before they show up other places. Part of this is that drug companies can make so much more money in the US. But, another important part is that often the best scientists and engineers migrate to the US and they're the ones inventing and patenting these things. If you're someone who needs a certain medicine, it can be frustrating to watch people in the US getting treated years before it's available to you.
Then there's media. Everyone knows how Hollywood is the main source of movies for the entire world, and most other media is similar. But, it's not just that. For example, Americans don't really care about football / futbol / soccer. But, the US market is so important that European clubs mostly travel to the US in the summer for events and tours. Every other continent would love to have these teams visit because almost every other country is nuts about football, but year after year it's a trip to the US because that's where the money is. It's gotten so bad that the Copa America, the South American football championship has twice been hosted in the US in the last decade, despite it being the championship for an entirely different continent.
And, yeah, Hollywood. It's where all the best performers go. Shitt's Creek was a massive hit in multiple countries, and it was a Canadian production using a Canadian cast. But, Eugene Levy was the honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades, he mostly lives in LA. Catherine O'Hara was named honorary mayor of Brentwood, Los Angeles where she mostly lives. It's the same with most of the cast (not that they're all honorary mayors of their adopted home towns, just that they live in the US). Virtually every major Canadian director (Cronenberg, Cameron, Villeneuve) is based out of LA. It's the same with most prominent actors and directors from most other countries. If they don't live full time in the US, they at least maintain a home in LA and live there part time.
Even American sports, despite only being played in the US, tend to pull in the best athletes from other countries. There are NBA players from Germany, NFL players from Cameroon, MLB players from Australia. These are countries where the sport doesn't even exist, and yet they're drawn to the big paydays in the US.
The best analogy I can make is that the US currently has a gravitational field that attracts things there. It's sometimes mild, but often it's strong (especially with singers and actors). Once things end up in that gravitational field, the main audience or main market becomes the US. Americans tend not to notice this because they're at the center of that gravitational field, and it just looks like everything happens to be near them. You have to live outside the US to watch things constantly flowing to the US, and to see how sometimes you have to fight against gravity to get them back.
Again, I think the effect you're describing is real, but it's also pretty gated in a lot of ways.
We have a lot of treatments first, but also widespread medical bankruptcy. A lot of people lack access to basic necessities.
I'm other words, I don't think someone running out of insulin gives as Schitt's Creek...
I was so focused on the tarrifs this week that I forgot about the actual fucking threats of war against close allies 🤦
That's what they hope would happen.
The close allies didn't forget, trust me.