Comment by daft_pink

Comment by daft_pink 2 days ago

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I think the government is laser focused on reducing regulations, reducing energy costs, reducing interest rates, a weaker dollar that makes exports better, minimizing taxes. Technological innovation is increasing overall productivity. There are definite headwinds like upward pressure on labor by reducing the worker population, stagnating population growth, undertainty, tarriffs, a weaker dollar increasing inflation.

There’s the looming threat of geopolitical world war that has been overhanging the world since the combination of the pandemic isolating different countries and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s really a mixed bag, but it’s not clear to me that we are headed into a total economic crash as the government is definitely focused on doing a lot of good things for the economy, but also is creating lots of different headwinds.

rurp 2 days ago

Hold on there, they have been very explicitly doing the opposite of reducing energy costs. The administration has been aggressively trying to cancel all sorts of energy projects, even projects that have almost been completed. At the same time they've been encouraging as much data center build out as possible. Lowering supply and increasing demand is hardly going to reduce energy costs.

They have managed to significantly lower expectations for global economic growth which brings down energy costs, but that's hardly a sane way to accomplish that goal.

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  • daft_pink 2 days ago

    I think it's a little bit more nuanced than what you say and that they generally are trying to increase energy supply while withdrawing from using heavy government subsidies or extensive regulations to pick the winners and losers.

    From a demand side, they aren't looking to restrict demand, but want to have ample supply to meet the demand.

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    • Nevermark 2 days ago

      If that was true they would have let incentives for new energy infrastructure (which can be net positive, given energy is a national level concern), draw down in a way that didn't disrupt/destroy existing investment.

      You can alter forward looking policy sensibly in a day. But you can't redline years of cooperative investment on the same day without destroying tremendous value (of the kind you claim to be working toward), credibility and trust.

      I am baffled that performative flailing gets interpreted as progress, with such thin narratives.

      The deeply counterproductive actions taken ostensibly to increase US investment in manufacturing are more of the same.

      The destruction of valuable US research and capabilities, in the name of fiscal responsibility, only to continue fiscal irresponsibility is more of the same.

      The destruction of diplomatic and defense alliances and influence, in the name of being stronger, is more of the same.

      The private masked army roaming cities, harassing people with low relevance to their purported purpose, in the name of making the country safer: more of the same.

      They all involve some truth, and then loud damaging counterproductive execution. Unless loud chaos is value.

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    • mastax a day ago

      Withdrawing permits for in construction offshore wind projects, and forcing utilities to keep operating coal plants they want to shut down is picking winners and losers.

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donmcronald 2 days ago

The thing I don’t get is that IMO Americans have a higher standard of living due to demand for the dollar. Being a net importer means they make less and the countries they’re importing from make more. Money = labor = people working, so people in other countries are working harder than Americans to benefit Americans with a higher standard of living.

It’s like a roofer working for a contractor that’s a millionaire and the contractor is upset because he’s paying the roofer while having a higher standard of living because of the profit made off the roofer’s labor.

No one is working for that rich contractor if his money is worthless. Isn’t a weaker dollar for America a disaster? The world works to serve America right now because of the dollar. Life’s going to be tough when America has to “get a job” and start earning their keep with real productivity contributions, isn’t it?

Maybe I’m just dumb, but all I can see is a massive drop in the average standard of living if the US maintains their current trajectory. It might even be too late already.

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  • bayarearefugee 2 days ago

    > Isn’t a weaker dollar for America a disaster?

    For the majority of average Americans trying to scrape by and save enough for a dignified retirement, yes.

    For the ultra wealthy, no. A weak dollar leads to an asset firesale to prop up their wealth even further.

    The ultra wealthy have captured the US government completely.

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  • yatopifo 2 days ago

    You assume that these economic policies are dictated by some sort of common good. The reality is that most policies are dictated by corporations and are designed to benefit their shareholders and not the average american. In addition, the US is now pivoting towards authoritarianism which implies future policies will be determined mainly by a tight group of people who are going to use them as a means of enriching themselves.

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  • pixl97 2 days ago

    >massive drop in the average standard of living if the US maintains their current trajectory.

    Very rich people control the narrative in the US and get poor people to repeat their claims. Hence where we get statements like this from.

    >“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

    The thing is the billionaires/trillionaires don't care as long as they get more power. They'll eat the goose that lays the golden eggs.

    You see a ton of this with Trump voters like my grandma that are getting screwed over with medicare changes and live in some kind of grand delusion that Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do in cutting benefits, and yet somehow it's all the democrats fault (???).

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CoastalCoder 2 days ago

I'd be interested to hear your idea in more detail (e.g., policy statements, metrics, etc.)

My read of the last year is that the current government's goals and outcomes are somewhat different, but I could be wrong.

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shmeeed 2 days ago

>I think the government is laser focused

I'd rather say it's hell-bent. It doesn't look like a laser focus to me... or maybe it's just all disco ball reflections dizzying me, and there is indeed a laser focus somewhere I just can't quite pinpoint.

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