US debt is now $37trn – should we be worried?
President Trump's budget bill will add to the US debt pile but is there a limit to how much the rest of the world will lend Uncle Sam?
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Yes.
Edit: Replaced USD to EUR with USD Index for clarification
United States doesn’t buy USD using Euro, they do it with adding account balances on computers.
90% of the strength of the USD comes from global savings and investments.
When national debt increases, the bond market is incentivized. The bond and stock markets have an inverse relationship, creating a bear market for investors, and deflating the USD internationally.
Deflating USD internationally is good for exports though and that seems to be in line with what Trump is promising, no?
Sure, if we’d already have shifted to a manufacturing economy. We’re still substantially dependent on imports. A weaker dollar means more expensive goods for consumers, on top of the import tariffs.
We’re still substantially dependent on imports.
Don't forget the low unemployment rate combined with deportations.
Trump expecting magical manufacturing elves to appear in magical workshops and start making toys for Xmas.
With all of the current layoffs in logistics, there will be plenty of skilled and unskilled employees looking for work.
Sure, just saying that it’s not black and white. Economics and fiscal policy have been drenched in political ideologies but they’re just tools. Some people might think that if they had well paying manufacturing jobs they’d be afford to buy that expensive domestically produced stuff. American fiscal policy since the 70s has thrown people in manufacturing under the bus (under the guidance of both parties) so it’s natural there’d be some knee-jerk reaction in form of Trump eventually.
There are very few small businesses in manufacturing. Creating jobs in unskilled labor is far from helpful to our working class. Most of the prosperity from such a shift will go to corporations and shareholders, while the increased cost of imported goods falls squarely on the working class.
Even if it ‘works,’ it doesn’t work for 95% of us.
Dunno, the most prosperous time for the US was when it was manufacturing things. Probably has something to do with 90% tax rate on the wealthiest though too. Either way, neoliberalism taught people that they can only count on themselves so if some people voted against status quo it could have been that things weren’t that good for them.
Yup. It absolutely does have to do with the taxation of the wealthy. We were also leading manufacturing in the late 19th century, when the Robber Barons owned everything while the working class suffered.
That’s one part of the equation. The other is that for a currency to be viable for global trade you have to kill your domestic production, British Empire did something similar around 1840 (although it was agriculture then). There may yet be some unexpected benefits to US downscaling from a global power to a regional one. Whomever steps up to take this role will face similar dilemmas and compromises that those empires had to.
