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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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The Liz Truss case is not particularly unusual for third-world countries - it is just that the post-Brexit UK is the only first-world country to be stupid enough to elect a government that is stupid enough to do what Truss did.

There are a number of relevant differences between the UK and US that mean the punishment for Truss' mini-budget was much faster than it would be for a similarly stupid US government:

  1. The US dollar is the global reserve currency, so it is less likely that a Liz Truss level of stupid would tank the dollar the way the actual Liz Truss tanked the pound.

  2. The US is a less open economy than the UK (mostly because big countries are more self-sufficient than small ones, not for any policy reason) so the impact of a falling dollar on Americans' cost of living is less than the impact of a falling pound on Brit's cost of living.

  3. British mortgages are much less likely to be long-term fixed rates, so the increase in interest rates has a much more immediate impact on household budgets than it would in the US.