nopie
1mo ago
Not staged, it is real.
Obviously, many things said in anger now, can and will be taken back. Don't take them too seriously. But the fight is real.
nopie
1mo ago
In such situation the US would indeed just print the money to save itself from bankruptcy causing immense inflation. It will cause worldwide financial crisis. It is possible that the GDP for many countries will fall by 50% or even more.
That will not be good neither for the US, nor the world peace. Possible some other countries will arise more arise more powerful, especially China, Russia or Iran. The countries who have learned to become more resilient due to constant sanctions.
nopie
2mo ago
I think it is obvious now that he has a mild form of dementia.
Scott Alexander wouldn't accept that Biden was senile but it was clear to me early on. It is not professional to diagnose people online, but from the other hand it has to be done for political persons who could cause a lot of harm.
Biden could function because he was surrounded by reasonable people. It does not appear to be the case with Trump. Trump should be removed from the office for reasons of mental incapacity.
nopie
1mo ago
To me it seems that if you have to pay 10% on interest payments for the debt, you could easily reduce spending by 10% and not to pay this interest payment and be in the same situation. Obviously, that would cause short term pain but long term benefits.
I personally can easily spend 4-5 years at college and/or training and live frugally to get better job or whatever. Everybody can.
nopie
2mo ago
To me this sounds a specious reasoning. People with dementia often continue doing the same things that there doing in their lives and have internalized them. Even with half-rotten brain some patterns are so strong that they can do those things quite well. It is just that they loose a plot how it relates to the reality.
Trump is famous for his deflecting and highly confusing talk. He has done it whole life and it has brought him success. He can still do it, it just doesn't relate to anything real anymore. He is on autopilot to throw the interviewer off. Too bad that it doesn't make any sense. But people are used to Trump not making any sense therefore they don't notice any difference.
I used to listen to Trump and previously he made all sense. It was just people found a fault with his manners and way of speaking that they criticized him unduly for things that he actually didn't meant too. The classic example is that Trump encouraged drinking bleach. He didn't, he only said something expressing wishes to find a scientific way to disinfect lungs from pathogens with UV light or some other method. Which is actually what the science to actively trying to do (it is a hard problem, no good solutions so far). Accusations of him were completely unjust, tribally driven. If you discarded this mentality and tried to be neutral, you could easily see that.
But now what he says is mostly rubbish. Or maybe you are right that his goal simply is not to achieve anything but troll us all. Which could also be a sign of dementia because he was trolling people all his life and has internalized that behaviour. But at least he had some goals before. Now only trolling remains.
nopie
1mo ago
My view is slightly different. Sometimes debt is good, you would buy a house on mortgage, for example. But the current debt is purely for buying trinkets, not good. The US is also a very strong economy, the best in the world. Some more debt is not going to bankrupt it. However, excess debt can reduce growth. The fact that the US was growing faster than other developed countries, is no reason to limit this potential. Therefore this debt should be eliminated as it would allow the US to grow even faster.
Now, Musk wants more growth. Everything depends on it. It is a long game he is playing, some moves might be wrong, but it all makes sense.
nopie
2mo ago
Biden should have been removed. I am just saying that even though he wasn't, it didn't seem to be so bad because people who actually made the policy on his behalf were reasonable. Not great but competent.
Maybe the same expectation was with Trump. It doesn't matter how crazy he is if the administration is reasonable. No one believed that absurd tariffs will get implemented etc. In a way, the problem is not with Trump but that he is surrounded by people who are not competent.
nopie
1mo ago
I am sorry, I had seen this usage in some writings and thought that it is a standard English. But I am not a native speaker and make a ton of mistakes in every sentence.
nopie
1mo ago
You probably are better with numbers and can provide better estimates. Tyler Cowen has analytical blog post about this issue: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/06/claims-about-debt-and-productivity-growth.html
My understanding is that it is a time to become “fiscally responsible”, i.e., try to cut expenses. The current growth is not enough to stop interest payments to skyrocket.
To be sure, I was saying how I would act and it would be a similar tantrum like what Elon does. But I am no politician nor a successful man and I don't know if Elon's actions will be ultimately victorious or destructive. The later is more likely. But his track record shows the opposite. Obviously, we don't understand the world well enough to predict the outcome. But from what we know, the world has a potential of unlimited growth. We are in a different era now, the humanity in all of its history was static, with no growth or very little growth over centuries, but then something changed and rapid growth appeared. It started with the industrial revolution and the world has never been the same since.
Musk vs Trump is the new world vs the old one. The new world will win for sure but expect many battles.
What? You interpret what I said in the worst way. What about a different interpretation – the US reduces borrowing. The borrowing is only a small part of the budget which means that by small reduction, let's say 10%, you could even not only stop borrowing but also pay off some of the debt (the numbers are as example only), and in 5 or 10 years, the US has no debt at all or very insignificant one.
As apposed to in 20 years the US debt is 100% or 200% of the GDP and interest payments comprise 20% of the GDP.
nopie
2mo ago
It is stupid. Trade deficit is basically about buying things on credit. Not good in itself, but it doesn't mean that you are buying bad things. Americans buy that stuff because they really like it. It is a good deal.
Now you could argue that going deeper into debt is problematic. You buy too much cheap staff from Walmart with the credit card? What can you do? Maybe stop buying (austerity policy, increase of taxes) or get a better paying job.
Growth supporters suggest the second but maybe sometimes the first is also needed.
Trump suggest a different way. Put a tax on cheap Walmart stuff, even so much tax, so that you would quit your well paying job and start making all these Walmart things yourself. It will make you poorer because Chinese provide this stuff by paying their workers less. You will lose your salary in your high tech job and instead will get paid much less in some factory. And nobody outside the US will buy the stuff you make because initially it will be of low quality. It takes many years to learn to manufacture quality things. The learning curve is real.
Tariffs were used 100 years ago and abandoned like we abandoned ineffective treatments in medicine. Some poor countries still use them because they are so bad at collected tax that tariffs is the only way they manage to finance government.
nopie
1mo ago
In all those cases I was totally on Musk's side. Lockdowns were terrible and now even Scott Alexander quotes studies that they didn't do anything, only destroyed economy even more and increased mental problems of people. This is where both democrats and republicans dropped the ball on science.
Elon deserved at least some recognition for EVs.
Elon's transkid? The UK banned puberty blockers for a reason. It turns out that most “transkids” stop being “trans” by reaching adulthood, but if they are given puberty blockers, then it is almost 100% guaranteed that they will continue this transpath. Not good outcome at all and only the most ideology obsessed people cannot see why this is a problem.
The only thing I don't like about Musk is his over promises, for example, selling self-driving cars (was promised to be ready in 2024)? Clearly a fantasy although the idea to develop them is good. Of course, sometimes I don't like his talk (calling some a pedo etc.). But that is not important in the great scheme of things.
nopie
2mo ago
I can understand that some say nothing against Trump because of loyalty. But allowing tariffs destroying economy? That is borderline to treason against the USA. Most likely they are not competent and don't even understand that.
nopie
1mo ago
Yes. When I hear “fiscally responsible” on news I have no idea what it means. I just tried to offer a better phrasing that could resonate with people. If something wasn't clear, now I have provided interpretation above: https://www.themotte.org/post/2015/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/332917?context=8#context
Thank you. That was exactly my thought. In my formative years I learned English from writings by Indians. I am well aware that many expressions I learned from them are unfortunately archaic or used only in India and not in the standard British or American English. I try to avoid them but it is not always easy in a second (actually my third) language.
nopie
1mo ago
Not true. There have been times when printing money was correct policy, for example, after big crises of 2008.
nopie
1mo ago
Inflate? It doesn't work mathematically. Sorry, you are not making any sense.
It doesn't get worse.
Before invasion in February 2022 certain western leaders offered Zelensky a ride. Basically they told him not to resist to save human lives. The reality was that Ukrainians would have resisted anyway but most probably would have lost. It would have led to terrible retributions from Russia. Think about Bucha multiplied hundreds of times.
Obviously, we cannot with 100% confidence say what would have happened but the idea is that Zelensky saved a lot of lives. Now pacifists are angry with him that he didn't save all lives. A lot of Ukrainians still perished and still dying on the battlefield.
It is a very hard concept for many to accept.
P.S. Unrelated to the war, but the same unwillingness to accept that some deaths will happen anyway let to higher mortality during covid pandemic. Still majority haven't accepted that despite clear data that Sweden fared best of all. They had about the same mortality from covid that the UK or any other western country and yet their excess mortality was practically zero whereas it was very high in the US. Why? The secret was to tolerate some deaths from covid as inevitable. There was no need to call Tegnel a nazi like some politicians did it hastily.
Trump doesn't even remember that Biden had dementia. Biden wasn't just incompetent, he was clearly senile. It was the only reason why Trump got elected.
Now Trump comparing himself with Biden (saying that he is better, of course) is funny because that way he acknowledges that he is in the same boat, i.e., both with dementia.
I can almost hear him boasting – I have the best dementia, it is great, you wouldn't know how great it is... But he didn't because he couldn't remember that word.
nopie
2mo ago
Imagine you knew in advance that covid restrictions would get introduced all around the world in 2020. Would you predict that the stock market goes down? Of course, you would.
I happen to believe that these restrictions were mostly unnecessary and due to overreaction. But at least covid was real to elderly and risk groups. Increased mortality among them was real due to covid (but also from misapplied restrictions).
Even if covid wasn't real and it was all Chinese hoax the same restrictions would have caused stock market to drop.
Tariffs are exactly like that. If you knew in advance that such tariffs would get implemented, you could bet safely that the stock market is going to react very negatively. That they are introduced to imaginary problem, doesn't change their effects.
Eventually people will have enough and will remove Trump from office and it will recover. I predict that Elon Musk will come out as a winner despite all his mistakes because he seems to be the one disagreeing with Trump (by openly stating that he wishes for zero tariffs between Europe). His loyalty to free market will be rewarded in long term even if we don't see how it could happen now.
nopie
2mo ago
Some still believe that general tarifs apart from specific cases could be a reasonable policy, not great but somewhat reasonable.
I see them as if the hospital director decides that some medicines are too expensive and have many side-effects and suggests replacing them with some complementary medicine (such as homeopathy or any other alternative treatment without evidence base). Trump or his handlers basing his idea about tarifs on 100 year old use cases is exactly like that.
In some third world countries the medical system still uses such treatments. In India it was common for politicians to say that they want to improve healthcare but also dedicate more funds for Ayurveda. It is a total waste of money though and can harm by denying people effective treatments. Poor countries are poor because of corruption and incompetence of leaders.
Any such hospital director in the western country however would be swiftly fired or let to retire. It would be too obvious that he is no longer competent. Otherwise the staff would revolt.
Trump is offering homeopathy to treat cancer. He has lost his plot.
I don't know why people are so upset. Trump was awful, Elon tried to use him for his purposes, it failed, so he is now against him. There is no point for Elon not to be against Trump now. It all seems totally normal to me, that's how I would act in his place.
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