by greenavocado | 2025-05-21 02:14:54+00:00
The mental gymnastics here to justify the dollar's reserve status and trade deficits as some kind of genius economic strategy are incredible.

First off, this ridiculous notion that the US "gets products and services enabling residents to live beyond their means" is classic ivory tower cope. Yeah, tell that to the average American worker whose real wages have been stagnant for DECADES while housing, healthcare, and education costs have gone full rocket ship. We're not living large - we're drowning in debt while our industrial base gets hollowed out and our cities rot. But sure, keep telling yourself those cheap plastic crap from China is some kind of economic superpower move.

And this nonsense about "imaginary numbers" - spare me. Try telling the Chinese worker breaking their back in a Foxconn factory that their labor is being exchanged for "imaginary" dollars when those same dollars buy real commodities on global markets. The only thing imaginary here is your understanding of how actual wealth transfer works. The Fed's money printer goes BRRR, Wall Street gets bailouts, and the working class gets hollowed-out towns and opioid epidemics.

This whole "trade deficit is fine because we export dollars" nonsense is cope. We get to print monopoly money and trade it for real goods sounds great until you realize it's turned the US into a hollowed-out consumerist wasteland. Our manufacturing base? Gutted. Middle class wages? Stagnant for decades. But hey, at least Wall Street gets to play financialization games with all those dollars floating around overseas, right? The petrodollar cope is particularly hilarious. "Oh but the USD is backed by oil and military power!" Yeah, how's that working out now that the BRICS nations are openly trading in local currencies? Saudi Arabia taking yuan for oil? Russia and China settling trade in rubles and yuan? The entire Global South is laughing at your "reserve currency" while they quietly build alternative financial systems. But sure, keep telling yourself that 1971 was some genius move rather than the beginning of the greatest wealth transfer scheme in human history.

Spare me the "political influence" argument. You know what else gives you influence? Actually MAKING things. The US used to be the arsenal of democracy because we had real industrial capacity. Now we're the ATM of the world. Sure, everyone takes our dollars, but they're laughing at us behind our backs while they build actual industries. China takes our funny money, build world-class infrastructure and tech, while we get... what? A service economy of Uber drivers and baristas? The MMT shills in this thread claiming deficits don't matter are smoking crack. Yeah, it's all fun and games until the music stops. The dollar's dominance isn't some natural law. It's propped up by petrodollar recycling and military bases in 800 countries. But guess what? The BRICS are building alternatives as we speak, and when the world finds a way to ditch the dollar, the inflation tsunami will make the 70s look like a picnic.

And don't even get me started on the "but manufacturing doesn't pay well" cope. Oh yeah, because working at Amazon warehouses or DoorDashing is such a step up from union factory jobs that could support a family on one income? The deindustrialization of America was the greatest wealth transfer from working people to corporate elites in history, dressed up as "free trade." The 1971 Nixon Shock was the original sin that decoupled money from reality. Since then it's been one giant debt orgy where the rich get richer by financial engineering while the country's real productive capacity withers. But sure, keep telling yourself that running perpetual trade deficits while offshoring our industrial base is "sustainable" because we have the money printer.

China now owns our supply chains, controls key industries, and is busy strong arming its way to global dominance. Walmart shelves full of $2 plastic junk don’t make up for the collapse of skilled labor wages. Go tell a factory worker in Ohio that his job loss was worth it because iPhone assembly got outsourced to Foxconn. The "cheap goods" argument is cope for elites who profit from globalization while real wages stagnate for decades.

The average American gets screwed by this system with stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, and a crumbling infrastructure while the elites jet around on private planes bought with Fed-printed junk money. The dollar's reserve status isn't a privilege. It's a curse that's let us paper over our decline with debt instead of making tough choices. Confidence in the dollar is not an infinitely sustainable glitch. When the world finally gets sick of funding our deficits, the reckoning will make 2008 look like a picnic. No fiat currency survives its own abuse. When the reckoning comes, it won't be the bankers and politicians who suffer.

The reality is brutally simple. Decoupling from gold removed all discipline from the system. Politicians could spend without consequence, financiers could gamble with abandon, and the productive economy got outsourced to slave-labor nations while we became a nation of paper-pushers and baristas. Now we're staring down the barrel of $35 trillion in debt, supply chains we don't control, and a currency that's one crisis away from a Venezuela-style collapse. But yeah sure, keep telling yourself everything's fine because some Keynesian academics drew you a pretty graph. The Romans probably had similar debates while their denarius turned to trash and the barbarians gathered at the gates.