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PaperclipPerfector  21d ago (text post)   33281 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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Not disastrous for whom?

I want a multipolar world with localized industry and national preference, hell I want it even more local than that if possible. So far it's a home run of everything I've ever dreamed of. Europe is seriously considering its local defense industry and in talks to trade favorably with China against the US, which still sounds unbelievable when I say it out loud.

Yeah businesses that only exist because of free trade are not going to survive, but what did y'all think the collapse of Globalism meant? vibes? papers? essays?

Europe is seriously considering its local defense industry and in talks to trade favorably with China against the US

I get the first half, but why do you think the second half is a good thing?

Anglos in general and Americans in particular are enemies of Europe and its geopolitical interests by necessity because a unified Europe would make their thalassocracy irrelevant. They have to prevent Europe unifying at all costs, the EU, NATO and other such atlanticisms were created specifically and deliberately for this purpose.

In purely geopolitical terms, it is therefore better for Europe to ally with China than America.

I do so love Americans and their Republic and I do so loathe Communism, but if Europe wants to have even the slightest chance to be powerful again, it has to rid itself of American influence and an isolationist America is the only way this can happen realistically.

I see, thanks for explaining.

Even if you want that, the change in tariffs from one day to another is just staggering here. Say what you will about stupid, counterproductive left-wing economics (which I'm certainly not a fan of!), but they almost always make sure that they don't rock the boat too much in the short term at least (Corona aside).

Look I hate shocks as much as anyone. There's some discussion to be had about how gradual things like this can even be done, but my main annoyance is that people are acting like this is insane on the face of it when it's merely a dubious implementation of something that the people in power don't like.

Given a certain level of risk dubious implementations can be insane. Who Trump is and how he acts cannot help but color the whole thing.

I'll try out an experimental new vacuum cleaner from a sketchy salesman. I'd be significantly more skeptical if he offered me a revolutionary new surgery. It would be insane of him to even offer.

"People in power" here being "people who have a 401k and buy things."

I feel it might be useful here to remind you that only 30% of the US population actively participates in a 401k.

I understand that pretty much everyone is a stock holder one way or another these days, but you may be overestimating what the median person directly has to lose in a crash. And how that compares to people who own assets that aren't home equity.

In 2022 nearly 60% of American households had some stock market exposure, with a median of 50k and a mean of 480k invested. Tanking the S&P is well into the territory of materially hurting the median voter.

What do you think the word "directly" means? And why do you think I added it in that sentence?

I'm well aware most US retirement funds are invested in the S&P500.

If you acknowledge that the median American has stock market exposure, I'm not sure what there really is to argue about.

Only a minority of people are on defined benefit pension plans that are perhaps what you, as a European, envision when you think about retirement funds.

Most people are on defined contribution plans, whether that's a 401k, IRA, 403b, or some employer invested plan, are "directly" affected by the market tanking because they have no guaranteed payouts. The payouts are simply what the market provides. None of those people are gonna want to hear about how their positions taking a shit is OK because it's not "direct" exposure under some gerrymandered definition.

I understand all this. But I think you underestimate the psychological effect of holding investments yourself versus having somebody else do it for you.

People will setup these kinds of products and not even look at or understand the report sheets they get through the mail. Especially if we're talking about retirement plans, that kind of thing is always behind some boring layer of bureaucracy. And it's retirement so it's always far away in your mind until it isn't.

I distinctly remember that in 2009 when the market crashed, many people I talked to took an attitude of "fuck them rich fat cats" despite me knowing for a fact that they were invested in products like the ones you describe.

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you may be overestimating what the median person directly has to lose in a crash.

Their job? Clearly America forgot their lesson from Smoot-Hawley and people will have to endure double digit unemployment again to remember it. If we're lucky this one might put Republicans out of power for twenty years again.

Well that probably won't happen but largely because Trump will probably climb part way down at some stage.

Smoot-Hawley was not the problem, the Fed was the problem. Smoot-Hawley didn't even get passed under the year after the great crash, and the slow recovery was due to deflation and monetary policy, not tariffs.

Well that and the fact that central banks have been so laser focused on making sure a depression never happens since the 30s that people don't even think it's possible anymore.

Yeah businesses that only exist because of free trade are not going to survive

That's essentially all of them.

No, it's not. We're talking about businesses with razor-thin profit margins and manufacturing chains spread over three continents - losing these and producing no home-grown alternatives might be a disaster but at worst removing global free trade takes us back to 1940 not 1440.

razor-thin profit margins

Well I never knew 'more excess profits for producers and higher prices for consumers' was high on the list of Trump priorities. Surprised that slogan never made it on the campaign trail.

On the face of it, yes:

Tiny profits -> lowest possible price for consumers -> GOOD

which is why it's been economic dogma for decades. However, 'tiny profit margins' is another way of saying that 'your business will go into the red if a butterfly sneezes'. Your profit margin is slack, it's robustness, it's the ability to invest without leveraging yourself to the hilt, and of course it's the ability to pay your workers more than Chinese peasants. Huge amounts of foundational innovation come from places like Apple, Bell Labs, Xerox where they had the money to try out new things.

I'm not saying that Trumpian economics is definitely a great idea, I'm just not yet convinced it's a bad one.

Your profit margin is slack, it's robustness, it's the ability to invest without leveraging yourself to the hilt, and of course it's the ability to pay your workers more than Chinese peasants.

It is not the last, because the cost of paying your workers comes out before your profit is calculated.

Precisely. If you have a very thin profit margin when you are (indirectly) employing Chinese peasants, you will have a negative profit margin if you start employing people who want higher wages. If you have a larger profit margin, then you can have more costs and still have some profit left over.

Not 1940. 1930. If we get to the modern 1940-equivalent we'll have bigger problems, like global thermonuclear war.

We're talking about businesses with razor-thin profit margins and manufacturing chains spread over three continents

Ah, so pretty much any manufacturing company.

Yes, modern manufacturing is hyper-optimised and very fragile. I think this fact is well understood.

The fundamental debate is whether this fragility + low cost + slow drain of skill is more or less desirable than trying to keep manufacturing at home, and whether the latter is possible at any decent standard.

It's hyper-optimized but it doesn't seem all that fragile seeing as we have shocks ALL THE TIME and things keep working.

You have a point. The lack of reply is because I'm thinking about it.

I think that's overstating it, but yes most of the West's economy (in value terms) is configured for a free trade world, anybody paying attention during Covid knows this.

This is precisely the state of affairs that Trump wants undone.

Whether he has the balls to crash the American economy for years to make this transition happen remains to be seen, but it's definitely not impossible given that America has a large supply of ressources and energy.

Whether he has the balls to crash the American economy for years to make this transition happen

Isn't it more likely that even if he did have the balls to do this, he is simply liquidated sometime between then and now? I can't imagine all the powers that be and all the money involved just sitting back and letting him burn it all down just for the benefit of his own need to watch things burn.

President Vance is too much of a black box. President Johnson probably really does scare the cathedral for social-issues reasons. I think by the time we have an assassin getting that far as to put Rubio in power(and the cathedral can live with Rubio), it's an unprecedented situation that nobody knows what'll happen, so the cathedral won't do it.

That's the beauty of it: they already tried and that's how he got elected.

Not saying Trump is immune to bullets from well funded assassins, as opposed to the D team we got last time, but don't underestimate the ideological commitment of a second term president. Trump doesn't need to convince anybody anymore except congress insofar as it matters.

That's the beauty of it: they already tried and that's how he got elected.

No, I mean by someone who is actually capable of killing him. Think more the pratorians finally being done with a particularly insane emperor than a random assassin. This is something that is only going to be able to happen once as I imagine the second Trump is dead/out of office, Congress is taking away the president's tariff powers forever.

Edited to clarify.

For whom? Anyone who relies on the global economy for their livelihoods, which is approximately everyone on earth. Trump doesn't need to care about the wellbeing of foreigners of course, but I'm not sure how Juche thought with American characteristics will produce the desired results of Trump and his team

Do you really want me to introduce you to mercantilist economic theory? I know it's grown out of favor in the West but China is so in love with it that major Chinese economists all love to cite Friedrich List.

And no it doesn't really have much to do with Juche. Trump hasn't nationalized the means of production just yet.

Mercantilism as it was pursued - and it did not improve prosperity or any metric you care to measure - relied somewhat on colonialism. The colonial nations could tariff away as long as they could go and directly secure the materials they needed from conquered nations.

I think Trump thinks that the US has enough ressources that he doesn't need the rest of the world, or at least doesn't need them enough to allow unfavorable deals.

I don't know if he's right because modern supply chains are insanely complicated, but for the basics the US is covered: food, energy, raw materials.

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