Since WW2, economic growth in the west was impressive. "Productivity gains" is the magic word.

At the same time, Government, Corporate and Private dept has skyrocketed.

Some people are starting to wonder how much of this economic growth is owed to productivity gains and how much is owed to an exploding global credit volume?

Could it be, that our "financial well being" is based on something that at some time in the future will be called "the greatest Ponzi Scheme" there ever was?

The current debt levels in the US are unsustainable. And there is no denying the US became the world's largest economy because of free trade and globalization, not the opposite.

1 hour ago, swissie said:

Since WW2, economic growth in the west was impressive. "Productivity gains" is the magic word.

At the same time, Government, Corporate and Private dept has skyrocketed.

Some people are starting to wonder how much of this economic growth is owed to productivity gains and how much is owed to an exploding global credit volume?

Could it be, that our "financial well being" is based on something that at some time in the future will be called "the greatest Ponzi Scheme" there ever was?

The debt is in the west is out of control due to the social welfare states. No one has the courage to address it.

48 minutes ago, TedG said:

The debt is in the west is out of control due to the social welfare states. No one has the courage to address it.

I am politically rather left of the centre. But to a certain degree, I must agree. Welfare, in my view shold be limited to people that have truly fallen on hard times.

The welfare djungle. In Germany (for example) having fallen on hard times, one needs to adress 4 different government agencies to secure "housing and food".

The fundamental problem plaging "western democracies". If you want to be "re-elected" you must disperse "Presents".

To industrial tycoons as well as to people having fallen on hard times. Just as long as they can walk to the nearest voting booth.

In the end, the distribution of "presents" is the Achilles Heel of modern democracy.

16 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The current debt levels in the US are unsustainable. And there is no denying the US became the world's largest economy because of free trade and globalization, not the opposite.

Actually, wasn't it already the world's biggest economy before globalization and free trade? I'm not denying that Americans may have benefitted from that but that's not the same thing.

2 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

Actually, wasn't it already the world's biggest economy before globalization and free trade? I'm not denying that Americans may have benefitted from that but that's not the same thing.

Perhaps but there's no doubt that free trade has contributed dramatically to the growth of the US economy, and yes free trade was always there to some extent, even prior to World War II.

Only absolute morons and goombas try to shut down free trade and globalization, due to a stunning lack of understanding about how global ecosystems work.

17 hours ago, swissie said:

I am politically rather left of the centre. But to a certain degree, I must agree. Welfare, in my view shold be limited to people that have truly fallen on hard times.

The welfare djungle. In Germany (for example) having fallen on hard times, one needs to adress 4 different government agencies to secure "housing and food".

The fundamental problem plaging "western democracies". If you want to be "re-elected" you must disperse "Presents".

To industrial tycoons as well as to people having fallen on hard times. Just as long as they can walk to the nearest voting booth.

In the end, the distribution of "presents" is the Achilles Heel of modern democracy.

Import foreigners

Give them $

Votes for life

Slave system

Economic prosperity comes from tariffs!

Taxing American consumers is fun and easy, like winning trade wars.

We all gonna be $billionaires.

Unfortunately, a dozen eggs will cost $2 billion.

The president said on social media Friday night that he signed an executive order enabling him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world.

“It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately,” Trump said on Truth Social.

https://apnews.com/live/supreme-court-tariff-ruling-updates

When a President goes through the White House door
Does what he says he'll do
We'll all be drinkin' that free Bubble Up
And eatin' that rainbow stew

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

Perhaps but there's no doubt that free trade has contributed dramatically to the growth of the US economy, and yes free trade was always there to some extent, even prior to World War II.

Only absolute morons and goombas try to shut down free trade and globalization, due to a stunning lack of understanding about how global ecosystems work.

Free trade has to work both ways. Or it's not really free trade, is it?

49 minutes ago, impulse said:

Free trade has to work both ways. Or it's not really free trade, is it?

There was a reason not many people brought Russian cars in the West. Yes, they were cheap, but they were crap. Russia could make loads of crappy Ladas, but we aren't competing with them to make crappy Ladas.

The theory of comparative advantage demolishes the case for tariffs by showing that trade is not about who is absolutely better at producing everything, but about who is relatively more efficient at particular things. Even if one country is more productive across the board, both countries gain when each specializes in what it sacrifices least to produce and then trades. Tariffs obstruct this natural division of labour, forcing resources into less efficient uses, raising prices for consumers, and shrinking total wealth. In trying to “protect” domestic industry, tariffs simply compel a nation to divert labour and capital away from its areas of greatest relative strength — making the country poorer in order to appear more self-sufficient.

Take syringe needles. Essential to healthcare. They have to be cheap to make. American companies make billions of them in factories in China at a price hospitals/patients want to pay for them, and the American company has a viable busines making needles, and can pay returns to shareholders. Not particularly a labour intensive process, but the factory can be built quickly. Since tariffs were imposed, at least one American company has announced it no longer has a viable business in making syringe needles. Even with plants in China, the margins are too tight. The specialist tooling needed meant they can't simply move production to somewhere like Vietnam. Straightaway they sacked 10% of their US workforce, mostly the people who earnt a living warehousing billions of Chinese syringe needles. The company thinks, maybe in 5-10 years, they will be able to establish a US manufacturing capability. Given they essentially don't have a business anymore, and there are plenty of alternative suppliers for syringe needles, few expect they will be around in 5 years time.

The US doesn't need t be good at producing 2 cent syringe needles. What it's good at is producing $8 million MRI scanners. It needs its best engineers and scientists to be designing and developing cutting edge medtech, not merely copying essentially 80 year old designs.

If you genuinely believe in the superiority of Western democracies over authoritarian communist regimes, you'd have no issue in having faith of the power of individualism influencing innovation. An exception are the car makers, who deserve to go under. For the last 20 years, they have been designing cars worse and worse. The latest wheeze is designing a wet belt engine where the cam belt literally dissolves in the oil its bathed, leading to frequent engine failures at 40-50k miles, reminiscent of how long an engine lasted in the 1950s. If the Chinese cars appear now to be so "good", its because the legacy brands have been taking their customers for a ride, and producing increasingly substandard cars. Now they are crying about it.

2 hours ago, Roadsternut said:

There was a reason not many people brought Russian cars in the West. Yes, they were cheap, but they were crap. Russia could make loads of crappy Ladas, but we aren't competing with them to make crappy Ladas.

The theory of comparative advantage demolishes the case for tariffs by showing that trade is not about who is absolutely better at producing everything, but about who is relatively more efficient at particular things. Even if one country is more productive across the board, both countries gain when each specializes in what it sacrifices least to produce and then trades. Tariffs obstruct this natural division of labour, forcing resources into less efficient uses, raising prices for consumers, and shrinking total wealth. In trying to “protect” domestic industry, tariffs simply compel a nation to divert labour and capital away from its areas of greatest relative strength — making the country poorer in order to appear more self-sufficient.

Take syringe needles. Essential to healthcare. They have to be cheap to make. American companies make billions of them in factories in China at a price hospitals/patients want to pay for them, and the American company has a viable busines making needles, and can pay returns to shareholders. Not particularly a labour intensive process, but the factory can be built quickly. Since tariffs were imposed, at least one American company has announced it no longer has a viable business in making syringe needles. Even with plants in China, the margins are too tight. The specialist tooling needed meant they can't simply move production to somewhere like Vietnam. Straightaway they sacked 10% of their US workforce, mostly the people who earnt a living warehousing billions of Chinese syringe needles. The company thinks, maybe in 5-10 years, they will be able to establish a US manufacturing capability. Given they essentially don't have a business anymore, and there are plenty of alternative suppliers for syringe needles, few expect they will be around in 5 years time.

The US doesn't need t be good at producing 2 cent syringe needles. What it's good at is producing $8 million MRI scanners. It needs its best engineers and scientists to be designing and developing cutting edge medtech, not merely copying essentially 80 year old designs.

If you genuinely believe in the superiority of Western democracies over authoritarian communist regimes, you'd have no issue in having faith of the power of individualism influencing innovation. An exception are the car makers, who deserve to go under. For the last 20 years, they have been designing cars worse and worse. The latest wheeze is designing a wet belt engine where the cam belt literally dissolves in the oil its bathed, leading to frequent engine failures at 40-50k miles, reminiscent of how long an engine lasted in the 1950s. If the Chinese cars appear now to be so "good", its because the legacy brands have been taking their customers for a ride, and producing increasingly substandard cars. Now they are crying about it.

One of the problems that people have with understanding imports is that the majority of goods imported are what is called intermediate inputs. Like car parts. This is a relatively late large scale development. So most people still think of completed goods like washing machines or lawnmowers or whatever when they think of imports.

Anyway, here's a link to an article from the rightwing magazine National Review. Which explains why trade deficits aren't in and of themselves a bad thing:

https://archive.ph/d10dI

https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/02/trump-was-always-wrong-about-the-trade-deficit/

13 hours ago, impulse said:

Free trade has to work both ways. Or it's not really free trade, is it?

Tit for Tat and vengeance is only productive when it benefits he who is exacting the vengeance, however in Trump's case the vengeance is punishing America, and punishing American consumers and farmers, so it's just a great example of how destructive personal vendettas can be, and how incredibly unproductive and ignorant his policies.

9 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

One of the problems that people have with understanding imports is that the majority of goods imported are what is called intermediate inputs. Like car parts. This is a relatively late large scale development. So most people still think of completed goods like washing machines or lawnmowers or whatever when they think of imports.

Anyway, here's a link to an article from the rightwing magazine National Review. Which explains why trade deficits aren't in and of themselves a bad thing:

https://archive.ph/d10dI

https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/02/trump-was-always-wrong-about-the-trade-deficit/

Unfortunately they are grossly misunderstood by ignorant morons who have never bothered to read a book or a paper on the issue of trade.

On 2/21/2026 at 1:31 AM, swissie said:

I am politically rather left of the centre. But to a certain degree, I must agree. Welfare, in my view shold be limited to people that have truly fallen on hard times.

The welfare djungle. In Germany (for example) having fallen on hard times, one needs to adress 4 different government agencies to secure "housing and food".

The fundamental problem plaging "western democracies". If you want to be "re-elected" you must disperse "Presents".

To industrial tycoons as well as to people having fallen on hard times. Just as long as they can walk to the nearest voting booth.

In the end, the distribution of "presents" is the Achilles Heel of modern democracy.

A recipient of welfare should be able to prove that they're incapable of work, and if they are capable of work they should be put to work by the state in exchange for the benefits the state provided. That could eliminate high paying positions such as road construction crews by using welfare recipients as a huge pool of labor. You're unwilling to work and yet you're capable, sorry no more assistance.

On 2/21/2026 at 1:31 AM, swissie said:

The fundamental problem plaging "western democracies". If you want to be "re-elected" you must disperse "Presents".

Which is why real problems like climate change and termination of previous hand outs are not being addressed.

5 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

A recipient of welfare should be able to prove that they're incapable of work, and if they are capable of work they should be put to work by the state in exchange for the benefits the state provided. That could eliminate high paying positions such as road construction crews by using welfare recipients as a huge pool of labor. You're unwilling to work and yet you're capable, sorry no more assistance.

That would also require providing workers employed by big companies with a living wage.

The welfare gap is the main, underlying issue.

2 minutes ago, stevenl said:

That would also require providing workers employed by big companies with a living wage.

The welfare gap is the main, underlying issue.

Well I think you brought up a good point, welfare is not the chief underlying issue, corporate agreed is. They are both huge problems.

12 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

A recipient of welfare should be able to prove that they're incapable of work, and if they are capable of work they should be put to work by the state in exchange for the benefits the state provided. That could eliminate high paying positions such as road construction crews by using welfare recipients as a huge pool of labor. You're unwilling to work and yet you're capable, sorry no more assistance.

I agree. Roosevelt showed us how it's done. He put millions to work for infra-structure projects. We still profit from those infra-structure projects today.

In other words: Able bodied persons will be put to productive work, instead of having them sit at home doing nothing.

Welfare costs are spiralling out of control. In order to maintain a welfare concept, we need to rethink the concept. Otherwise it will become "unaffordable".

On 2/21/2026 at 12:14 PM, Harrisfan said:

Import foreigners

Give them $

Votes for life

Slave system

That might be your country, but in the US, the vast majority of migrants are gainfully employed. They work hard and are not part of the Epstein Class. Perhaps not so surprisingly, most pay a higher rate of income tax than US billionaires.

Also, this silly claim that undocumented migrants vote is absurd. Perhaps you'll put that 137 IQ (sic) to work and find solid data on undocumented workers voting.

Total world debt is now $346,000,000,000,000.

There are maybe 8.5 billion humans, including children and non-working elderly.

Total debt per human being is thus about $41,000 per person, working or not.

I'm going to guess that isn't sustainable.

1 hour ago, Wingate said:

Total world debt is now $346,000,000,000,000.

There are maybe 8.5 billion humans, including children and non-working elderly.

Total debt per human being is thus about $41,000 per person, working or not.

I'm going to guess that isn't sustainable.

I completely agree and I would guess that the US will be the first domino to fall, in the upcoming major economic collapse.

It's coming, it's unavoidable, and it's just a question of when and to what extent. If I had to put numbers on it I would say the the Dow will drop to under 6,000, housing prices in American will drop by at least 70%, and an enormous amount of paper fortunes will be lost. Unemployment at 35%. Maybe. It's going to be a bloodbath and it's been coming for a long time, they've just been pushing it down the road. Almost everything about the current economy in America is unsustainable.

And once that happens we will see major anarchy, thousands of corporate CEOs and leaders assassinated, and watching hard working, honest, middle class people losing all hope for their future will not be pretty.

On 2/23/2026 at 3:13 AM, Wingate said:

Total world debt is now $346,000,000,000,000.

There are maybe 8.5 billion humans, including children and non-working elderly.

Total debt per human being is thus about $41,000 per person, working or not.

I'm going to guess that isn't sustainable.

Indeed, simply "unsutainable". The facts and the numbers are on the table.

But, as I mentioned, as long as polititians only think in terms of 4 year re-election cycles, it's strictly: "After me it's the deluge".

On 2/23/2026 at 4:42 AM, spidermike007 said:

I completely agree and I would guess that the US will be the first domino to fall, in the upcoming major economic collapse.

It's coming, it's unavoidable, and it's just a question of when and to what extent. If I had to put numbers on it I would say the the Dow will drop to under 6,000, housing prices in American will drop by at least 70%, and an enormous amount of paper fortunes will be lost. Unemployment at 35%. Maybe. It's going to be a bloodbath and it's been coming for a long time, they've just been pushing it down the road. Almost everything about the current economy in America is unsustainable.

And once that happens we will see major anarchy, thousands of corporate CEOs and leaders assassinated, and watching hard working, honest, middle class people losing all hope for their future will not be pretty.

They will live in "gated communities" (already happening). Private armies protecting their shrunken world.

But, every "fortress" will eventually run out of water/food.

Like an old Indian Chief in the North-East said to the invadors a long time ago: "You can have money, but you can't eat it".

i think it will be branded as theft from not yet born generations,

and will trigger an indignation of "no taxation without representation"

feeling, expressed by urinating on our graves

On 2/20/2026 at 11:38 PM, swissie said:

Since WW2, economic growth in the west was impressive. "Productivity gains" is the magic word.

At the same time, Government, Corporate and Private dept has skyrocketed.

Some people are starting to wonder how much of this economic growth is owed to productivity gains and how much is owed to an exploding global credit volume?

Could it be, that our "financial well being" is based on something that at some time in the future will be called "the greatest Ponzi Scheme" there ever was?

The entire world is ponzi. Land is ponzi. Buildings crumble. The only real investments produce products.

10 hours ago, swissie said:

They will live in "gated communities" (already happening). Private armies protecting their shrunken world.

But, every "fortress" will eventually run out of water/food.

Like an old Indian Chief in the North-East said to the invadors a long time ago: "You can have money, but you can't eat it".

The gated communities would have to have massive armies depending them, and that will be a very unlikely reality. There's no doubt that many of the men who consider themselves insulated and above the law, and beyond the reach of the masses will be sacrificial lambs once we see true anarchy, and very few tears will be shed on their behalf.