It's not pure symbolism. The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar. The US economy is in a very precarious state, tensions along political ideology lines are high, and it would not take much more than a worsening of economic conditions plus a catalyst event to kick off armed unrest within the country. A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective.
> Danish pension fund AkademikerPension said on Tuesday it would sell off its holding of U.S. Treasuries, worth some $100 million,
> AkademikerPension has in total 164 billion Danish crowns ($25.74 billion)
So they are moving about 0.4% of their investment.
Not pure symbolism, but $100 million is really nothing when we're talking about US treasuries. In the past decade, China has reduced their holding by about $600B.
Can. Won't. There is no safer place to stash money in the world. Nobody buys treasuries for the fun of it. They do it since that is the safest place to stash money long term.
That's your opinion, which you are of course welcome to.
People buy treasuries because they expect a return. If a party is threatening to get into a shooting war with you your expectations of a return drop significantly. This then causes that party to protect their investment, the last one to defect will hold the bag. The US is signalling on all wavelengths that it is no longer the safest place to stash money, long term or otherwise.
The US was a safe place with consistent returns for decades.
Now the US has increased risk. It isn't a calculation of "where do we put $100B", it's a calculation of "what is the balance of managing risk and returns".
Canada and Australia are low risk, but don't have the returns of the US. Brasil, Argentina, have higher risk.
The allocations get spread across different risk profiles, and the money gets spread across different investments. Of course, this is on the assumption the majority of this money stays in Treasuries. These large funds have options beyond that. It's a mathematical calculation where every asset in the world is an option. $100B can be spread around pretty easily I'd think.
You are so far out from understanding why pension funds put money in foreign government paper that I'm not sure where to begin explaining it. But the key is simply portfolio diversification. Institutional investors have access to a very large number of options on where, how and for how long they want to park their money that it isn't some kind of forced move to put their money in US Treasuries.
It's just a way to hedge their bets. In the larger scheme of things $100B isn't all that much (it may be to you, but even a small trading desk of a mid sized bank or multinational, say Royal Dutch Shell, or such) have access to that kind of money. They are not going to take the chance that Donald Trump on Monday morning, after eating a bad burger the night before, decides to unleash the might of the US military on their territory and be left holding the bag.
One downside of running a trade deficit with the rest of the world is that they have you by the short and curlies; if they dump your paper you will have to buy it back as fast as they can dump it to avoid a crash of your currency. That can get expensive really quickly.
> They do it since that is the safest place to stash money long term.
Only historically. The calculus is rapidly changing. If the US can't even respect sovereign territory of friendly countries, it doesn't inspire trust that they would repay debt.
The assumption that treasuries is safe depends upon the guarantor (the US government) being reliable. Currently this is ahistorically far from being the case and therefore people are investigating other places to park capital.
I’m curious when people make comments like this, do they actually live in the US and believe this or has the media environment gotten so bad in Europe+ that people have no clue what’s real or not?
Do you have any criticisms to the parent comment? As an American, they seem pretty spot on to the current climate.
I'd argue we've never been closer to civil war than we are today[0], primarily due to trumps regime invading cities around the country, kidnapping citizens utilizing a bounty program, and killing people in concentration camps.
Ediot: [0] - Since the last civil war. I thought that was obvious, but it seems like it isn't.
A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective.
We’ve apparently abandoned the meaning of the word “best,” for staters.
> For countries outside the US, it would actually not be a bad scenario.
I really don’t think I can help you, but the two obvious crazy ideas encompassed here are that civil wars never turn into wider regional conflicts and that losing a major trading partner never tanked an economy. Or that the ideological conflict here won’t possibly spread anywhere else (did you not even notice Vance and Musk’s support of afd ?) Good luck with all that.
I don't think it's all that nutty, considering that large regional blocs in the United States basically voted against all this and have less than zero desire to be dragged along for the ride, having our lives ruined for someone else's insanity.
The last Civil War in the U.S. had States banding together and separating from the Union.
The closest the U.S. is to a Civil War now is akin to a Cold Civil War with, for example, states gerrymandering their Representative districts. Or the Pacific states joining together for West Coast Health Alliance. Did I read rumblings about separate trade deals with foreign countries?
Protesters battling ICE in the streets would not, in my opinion, count as Civil War. Civil unrest? Sure.
EDIT: this always turns out to be one of my unpopular opinions. Oh well.
I think you misunderstand who participates in a civil war, at least initially. It's not always the citizens, in this case it's the state militia and the federal government. We are dangerously close to that.
I agree that it's silly to say "we're as close as we ever have...", but the rest of GPs point stands. Things are bad, and just because you're not seeing it and are rich enough to not care doesn't mean it's not happening.
It's still absurd. Today isn't close to what we saw during the depression or the 70s or desegregation or the Rodney King riot. Besides that, there's no plausible fault line in the military or any sort of ethnic or religious or regional fault line where two sides could form to fight each other.
We don't live in the meth lab downstairs, we're in the apartment above it. It's been wild in the past couple of decades, but lately you guys have started taking pot shots at the ceiling, so yeah, we're watching.
I think you're missing the criticism, which is not just that an armed civil war is extremely unlikely even given everything happening in the US, if it did happen, it would not splinter the US regionally.
The divide here is urban vs rural. There's no way to turn that into a set of successor regions.
If armed conflict does happen, it'll be much more amorphous, terrifying, and random, concentrated in the cities, and resemble things like the Tulsa massacre at a larger scale.
I don't think an American civil war in the next 5 years is at all likely. The rest of your comment I understand - not much we can say beyond we're sorry and his support is a small (but influential) minority.
> I don't think an American civil war in the next 5 years is at all likely.
The government of Minnesota has readied the national guard, the Pentagon put 1500 soldiers on standby to be deployed to Minnesota, Trump is threatening to invoke the insurrection act, and there's no sign of this conflict cooling off.
5 years is a long time too, I don't see how you believe it's not at all likely.
Edit: to be clear, I'm not sure it will lead to the fragmentation that the other commenters was claiming. But an conflict between federal and state law enforcement/ military seems likely.
Maybe you'd trust Blackrock's CEO instead? I live in the US and I have rotated away from US equities and treasuries to derisk from volatility of poor governance (both this administration and long term fiscal policy).
I don’t disagree that our fiscal situation is unsustainable. I’m curious specifically about the people envisioning (with barely disguised glee) the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.
> I’m curious specifically about the people envisioning (with barely disguised glee) the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.
The MN governor has called up their National Guard to help local law enforcement. The Pentagon is readying troops as well, presumably to help federal officials (ICE).
If both sides think they are following lawful orders, and neither side will give, what do you think will happen? (I have no answers.)
Further, there are folks that want a conflict because the West has become too decadent or something, and some conflict is needed to toughen up (?):
To note, I believe it's possible the ~1500 troops staging to Minnesota are not to assist with ICE operations, but to be air lifted via the 133rd Airlift Wing to Greenland. If interested in pursuing this, task some commercial satellite imaging.
If Trump decides to go pull the plug on invading Greenland an uses the 11th Airborne, McBride would, I would assume, at a minimum, be relieved of his duties with the 11th Airborne and sent back to Canada, with either a subordinate ops staff officer or the Deputy Commanding General (Support) or some combination filling in for the duties of the Deputy Commanding General (Operations).
Depending on the details of timing of the operation and the US-Canada diplomatic situation as a result, what happens after he is relieved might not be as simple as a return to Canada, he might conceivably even end up as a POW.
Federal supremacy will win, the MN governor will not tell local LE directly to prevent federal agents enforcing federal law. I understand that law is not popular among many right now, but that is how it will play out.
There will not be civil war unless the military truly comes to assist in a Trump attempt to take power in 2028, which I think is very unlikely.
The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded [1]. The US has one of the highest per capita of gun ownership and less than a million soldiers on US soil [2] [3]. Federal supremacy is based on the concept of the US military winning a conflict when they haven't won one since WW2. Force projection via military hardware and popping into Venezuela to extract its leader is a far different proposition than urban combat where your home and family is on the same soil.
I very much hope civil war is unlikely, but the federal government is vastly undermanned if a conflict occurs on US soil.
(have four siblings who have decades in combined military tours across all service branches except the coast guard, and I leverage them as a resource collectively in these matters)
> The US military spent $4T-$6T in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing ~7k soldiers and ~52k wounded
Denmark and the UK (to mention just two countries) also lost men fighting alongside America in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look how they are being repaid.
Here is a rather sobering video from a British perspective: The Prime Minister responding to JD Vance by simply reading out in Parliament, the names of British soldiers who died supporting American operations.
In what world are Iraq / Afghanistan good "comps" for the US military's performance in a civil war? Those countries had a virtually endless supply of young men who wanted to die for their cause, due to religious fanaticism, and were willing to do anything to make that happen. Who is going to fulfill that role in this hypothetical civil war? The US military was also faced with 10,000 km long supply lines and extremely rugged terrain where no one had any local knowledge.
Why is it that every normalizing "this is fine" commenter invariably drops into the same nonsense about "enforcing federal law" after a few short comments? The problem in Minnesota isn't that [some] federal laws are being enforced. Rather it's that federal law enforcement "officers" are abusing their immunity to work as lawless terror squads, abducting citizens and attacking protestors, backed up by a demented chief executive who has no respect for our American ideals of individual liberty or limited government.
In longitudinal surveys, typically, about 5% of folks elect the "some men want to watch the world burn" option. I cannot speak to the glee component you mention, I know these people exist, but they are a minority. I can speak to the ongoing political polarization that treats national politics as a sport and is avoiding course correcting fiscal policy trajectory. And this fiscal policy is going to lead to widening wealth inequality, a continuation of a K shaped economic recovery, and pushing the electorate to more extreme options besides the voting booth. No one is "winning", there is no moderate middle ground any more, and I don't see how this trajectory will change. Thanks Gingrich (who set us on this path decades ago)!
> > the US erupting into a civil war within 5 years, as they seem somewhat to have lost touch with reality.
When your material needs are satisfied then only ideological battles remain to be won.
And having lots of material stuff you have plenty to throw at the enemy.
It's already happening. People are willing to forego their material needs and harm the country and themselves to 'own' and defeat the other side.
The only hope is that the ideological wars become so scattered and around so many topics and centers of power that it's not 70m people vs. 70m people or that the ideological wars are slow that people realize that they come with a loss of quality of life and material wealth and rebalance towards the latter instead of pursuing the 'owning the other side' doctrine
I think effectively all empirics go against this notion, the only real counterexample I can think of is the Troubles. People living comfortable lives don't want to die and the ideology usually routes around that: look how morality has been evolving wrt the notion of 'sacrifice for the common good' - and we expect people will sacrifice their lives for their perception of the common good? doubt it
> > People living comfortable lives don't want to die
Trump is the prime example , why did he decide to abandon the lifestyle afforded by his 500 million dollar net worth to pursue a job where 27% of his predecessors where shot at? Abandoning comfortable life to risk death.
Why don't rich celebrities quit after the first death threat letter, when they already have a huge bag of money?
The material wealth at the extremes is a recipe for unstable and unpredictable behavior , not for calm and collected behavior. People engage in ego battles and fall in love with their ideas and are willing to go to war for them as in a world of abundance they are the only thing that matters in order to 'win'.
The most abstract things (interest rates ring a bell) become personal because ideas about them were conceived in self reflection during the infinite hours of thinking and wondering free time afforded by material abundance, killing off ideas becomes akin to killing part of self and becomes unacceptable to the ego.
What could easily happen much sooner than 5 years is an incident that gives Trump an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act, and send federal troops - not just National Guard - into blue US cities. Things could go a lot of different ways after that, but something resembling civil war - or a smaller-scale guerilla war - is very much in the realm of possibility.
Be wary of normalcy bias, it's a big part of what lets the Trump admin get away with what its doing. People think "oh that can't happen"... until it does.
Warnings about the deficit are spot on. It is a safe bet that the country with government that spends 50% more than it takes in as taxes will not give above inflation return on its government debt. As a side note, most of the "Western world" is in the same boat (spending way above the long-term ability to pay, so eventually will have to default-by-inflation on bondholders).
But I am sure the poster you are responding to was criticizing the take about US splintering into parts due to armed unrest within the next 5 years. Which sounds completely nonsensical to me as well.
>Fink is still a big believer in the U.S. economy and argues things are looking mostly constructive at this point. He feels the bull story is still intact, but its durability matters a lot more.
So do you believe him? Let me guess: you'll pick and choose the parts
I agree with his statement you quote. I believe that the US still has some growth ahead purely out of existing demographics and population, but that due to go forward geopolitics and global trade reconfigurations, more growth will be had internationally than in the US over the next 5-10 years (and this is the same guidance I share with the HNW individuals I advise from geopolitical safety and portfolio strategy perspectives). Where has most growth been in the US recently? The Mag 7, AI, data centers, etc. Will this growth last? No one knows. What happens when it stops? Sadness.
I'm not gonna watch a video but did you even read that article before you linked to it?
"Fink is still a big believer in the U.S. economy and argues things are looking mostly constructive at this point. He feels the bull story is still intact, but its durability matters a lot more."
On the contrary. The ones that want to see dead Americans are currently sitting in the Whitehouse. Mostly because it won't be them on the receiving end of it and they get to plunder the country. Smaller cake, but more for me seems to be their motto.
I think perhaps multiple people can want to see dead Americans. There is definitely a subtext of glee in this discussion of modern American civil war imo.
Not with the Europeans that I know, they are all absolutely aghast at every single murder. It is one of the reasons EU countries are reluctant about participating in any war, they always hope to avoid it (and as a result sometimes get much larger ones...).
Hard for me to see anyone who says an American civil war is a best case scenario as not cheering for American deaths and I'm skeptical that this was written by an American as it sounds far too out of touch and 'wishcasty' as someone else said.
In other comments on their profile, they refer to Americans as if they are someone other than themselves. Also, the belief that a civil war splitting up the US is likely within the next 5 years seems like a pretty big giveaway.
> Those guys in the Whitehouse, are they not American?
As I said, multiple people can want bad things. I'm painfully aware of what the current admin is doing to our global reputation and what they are risking with their current games - and there are still 3 years on the clock.
Whether it is likely or not has no bearing on whether they want that to happen. I don't want it to happen. I still think it is not entirely unlikely. But that's not on the observers.
It's going to be a very long three years. Or a very short one. That choice is not up to the rest of the world but up to the USA.
From the perspective of these allies it is better that American descends into a small civil war and sorts this shit out now rather than it keep simmering and escalting into a global conflict where more people including more Americans die.
Why? The US is only 5% of the world population. If others successfully disentangle themselves before the civil war begins they can take steps to isolate themselves. Yes it won't be as peaceful of a world but I don't see how it is certain to end up in a WWIII scenario.
Do you think the newly minted American Balkans are going to be peaceful and well governed? And won't, say, try to annex parts of canada, mexico, greenland, central american or island nations, etc? Do you think they will be lead by well reasoned and insightful peoples that won't escalate to a nuclear civil war and that no foreign power will try to intervene, take sides, or try to grab some real estate as well?
You think the most well funded and capable military in the world would sit idle and please itself with keeping conflict contained?
Who are you referring to? Citizens doing this? 70% of the country is fat (large portion of that is also dangerously obese)
If your scenario plays out they will also be broke so that military may not be able to be funded. I wouldnt say its impossible but a civil war would break the country such that a lot of the aspects that make you fearful also cease to exist.
You have to ask yourself, compared to current US leadership, is China actually all that bad?
US is being driven by the personal whims of a deteriorating tyrant, Congress is allowing it and the courts are only doing a tiny amount of checking his power.
You can't just say "despite everything happening we're still the good guys and China and Russia are the bad guys!"
Osama bin Ladin won. The goals he had when he attacked America have been entirely achieved. Americans got stupid and became susceptible to the society changing effects of terrorism. He got us to destroy ourselves.
Having free elections doesn't make you the good guys if you elect a tryant to be a tyrant. Republicans are getting what they voted for and they STILL want what's happening. I've heard them say it.
This leftist idea that everything will just be ok and we don't need to do anything because it'll all be fixed in the next election needs to stop.
Right now the only people actually protecting the republic are the people in the streets because NOBODY else is accomplishing anything.
> Republicans are getting what they voted for and they STILL want what’s happening.
Trump was elected as a specific reaction to the previous administration’s immigration policies. You’re right that voters supported that, but they didn't sign up for the rest. If you look at the polling, the tariffs and the Greenland push are explicitly unpopular.
> having free elections doesn’t make you the good guys if you elect a tyrant.
it does. The point of democracy is that voters make mistakes. Even European countries have elected tyrants in the past. The difference is that a free system allows you to survive a bad leader and vote them out; an authoritarian one doesn't.
This excessive faith in democracy is problematic. The founders of the United States, the Romans, and the Athenian philosophers who came up with democracy all openly talked about one of the risks of democracy in mob rule. Sometimes the most popular idea is in fact not nice. Good things don't just automatically come from adding a little democracy to the mix.
Sometimes (it's not so rare) the majority of people WANT horrible things to be perpetuated by their government. It isn't just "mistakes" or being tricked or some sort of scam, governments act with the consent of the people and a ruling majority voting for atrocities is not uncommon.
I'm not saying democracy is bad, but I am saying it's delusional to think that just having democracy cures all ills.
---
I have heard first hand people I know, seen people in videos online, and seen plenty of comments online to the tune of "ICE is doing EXACTLY what we want, keep going". A lot of people want exactly what has happened and while I think either the majority is eroding or already lost in support for these things, it is by no means a landslide in public opinion against the rising fascist politics in America. Sitting by and expecting to win the next election and just gritting your teeth until then is not the right response.
A huge portion of why this has happened is democratic "knowledge" that they deserve to win so they will, and making really bad political decisions based on this attitude.
Or why GOP legislatures in states like Wisconsin or North Carolina remove powers from Governor, AG and other elected positions only when Democrats win but not when Republicans do?
> Osama bin Ladin won. The goals he had when he attacked America have been entirely achieved. Americans got stupid and became susceptible to the society changing effects of terrorism. He got us to destroy ourselves.
I think one of the effects of American narcissism and stupidity is not understanding that Osama bin Laden's primary goal was to replace the Saudi royal family with a Caliphate of his design, and no, he never actually accomplished that. He wasn't about us.
He's sent his personal police force to my city to rip people out of their cars and arrest them for being brown, not to mention murdering a lady who seconds before was smiling and waving officers to go around. In no way is this an exaggeration.
He's trying to use economic warfare to annex Greenland.
The most powerful man in the world is a delusional dementia patient and egomaniac being allowed to do literally anything he wants.
China is buying 50% of Russian gas and supplying them with drone parts and gunpowder which is directly used to kill Europeans and destabilize Europe.
They are also exporting their surveillance state technology to dictatorships in Pakistan, Iran, and Venezuela. Look at Iran, 16000 protestors are dead in two weeks. That is the Chinese model of stability.
Bad leaders exist everywhere, Europe included. But in the US, they leave. Trump is gone in two years. Good luck aligning your economies and value systems with China. I’m firmly on the side of liberal democracy.
The US just kidnapped the leader of Venezuela, Iran got into this theocratic regime situation in the first place because of US interference, and our closest NATO allies are legitimately preparing for war with the US and decrying the new world order. Not to mention the previous decades of destabilizing, arming, overthrowing, etc. many many countries to serve our own self interest.
You're a European leader looking at this situation frankly trying to decide whose atrocities and foreign policy is worse, it's not exactly obvious and choosing China because at least China isn't trying to annex your neighbors and is behaving rationally even if it's not nice things it's predictable.
There's a big difference between "We're the good guys, we stopped the bad things happening in our country before they started" and "I know we're doing awful things but I bet it'll stop soon with our next election".
I get what you're saying and mostly somewhat agree with your point, but it's kind of funny thinking back and feeling the complete opposite. People like to argue which states would be better off in a civil war, meanwhile I grew up in an area where people liked to claim the south is going to rise yet again. And we do have a problem with militias.
> A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective.
The US isn't going to passively give up its hold on the world order. You don't think this would trigger a world war?
And if / when the US does topple (whether in 10 years or in 1000 years), at the moment it looks like the only viable next leaders in the world order are autocratic dictatorships.
How is this a best scenario from a global perspective?
> The US isn't going to passively give up its hold on the world order. You don't think this would trigger a world war?
They are literally right in the middle of imploding their soft power; so maybe you are right about passively giving it up when they're actively doing so instead?
The opposition to American hegemony shifted from Europe (ie the USSR) to Asia (ie China). To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific. The EU simply does not have the means to project power in that way nor do they have the ability to meaningfully implement economic policies that would effectively reduce Chinese growth.
Trump is an asshole, but the strategy hasn’t really changed in the last decade or so. Obama tried to isolate China with European help, Trump 1.0 tried to convince Europe to step up, Biden showed them we were willing to move on, and now Trump 2.0 is following through.
People fail to realize how anti-European this past decade has been, and not just under Trump. Europe had significant issue with the Inflation Reduction Act. Not to mention the war in Ukraine, which while illegal and entirely caused by Russia, was capitalized upon by American diplomats to the absolute benefite of the US at the expense of Europe.
The overarching plan has been evident for a while, Trump is just blatant about it. He lacks the decorum to make someone happy about being gifted a lemon. Past administrations have had much more tact in that regard.
America does not want direct conflict with China. China doesn’t want direct conflict with America either. It would be catastrophic for both honestly. Neither side would emerge cleanly victorious. Both would be limping away scarred by the experience. To that end America is just trying to let the underlying structural issues play out. China and Europe both have some structural issues that need addressed. America is gonna build up it’s own hemisphere and simply wait the rest of the world out.
Is it the best plan? Honestly it might be. The more I see of it, the more comfortable I am growing with it. I was more worried about it in the Biden days simply because I was still under the mindset of Europe being an important ally. America was undermining the European economy on multiple fronts and it seemed like we were alienating some of our closest allies. Ironically what I think a lot of people are feeling now.
The truth is though that Europe is dead weight. Their economy is anemic, their still too fragmented militarily and they have been actively undermining America’s effects to derisk supply chains from China. Trump’s broad tariffs would have been handled better under someone else, but the end result would have been the same out of simple necessity. Since COVID America has grown more dependent on China due to second order effects. Everytime we close a door someone else opens a window to let them back in. And it’s not just Europe, but Canada, South Korea, others too. Honestly Mexico has probably been our best ally in that regard.
If you follow the geopolitical sphere most of what’s happening is not new. Trump hasn’t really changed the plan - he’s just subtle like a brick to the face. He is loud and boastful about it where before it was clever and subtextual. That is really the only change. Geopoliticallt he tries to dominate while Biden and Obama would convince people something stupid was what they really wanted.
I don’t know if that helps the anxiety at all. I’ve felt it, I’ve been there. I’ve yet to see a better plan though. Honestly, the next decade is gonna be bumpy, but if you look at the long-term trajectory, America is gonna be well ahead of the rest of the world by the 2040s. We are easily in the best strategic position I would say. Once you really wrap your mind around the various aspects of it, it’s not a bad plan. It’s not Trump’s plan, it’s not Biden’s plan, this plan has roots going back over a decade. I’m sure at some point it was just a COA under discussion with multiple decision points and alternatives. Could it have worked itself out differently? Probably. But given where we are it’s probably the best plan for now.
> To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific. The EU simply does not have the means to project power in that way
This has been repeated elsewhere in this story. What's your thinking here? I assume you mean the non-US members of NATO, but you seem to have forgotten two G7 members if you're equating NATO - US with the EU.
The remaining members include two nuclear-armed states, five or so aircraft carriers, submarines, several large air forces, navies, etc. What would make them unable to project force into the Pacific?
Yes, Britain and France have aircraft carriers but they are old, small and likely to be sunk by modern hyper-sonics. Europe's inability to project power is well documented though. Most of the 2025 literature is more related to overland mobility in Europe, since that is the piece Europe is currently working to fix, but the European militaries are not designed for global engagement. Most American documents on the topic don't even really mention NATO's involvement against China. Here's some stuff to consider though. Here is a decent primer:
> The truth is though that Europe is dead weight. Their economy is anemic, their still too fragmented militarily
What an incredibly ignorant statement. Europe's economy in real terms is doing fine, their productivity is growing. The US's economy only looks good on paper, but outside of the AI bubble, companies aren't growing wages are stagnant with inflation.
Europe is also on the verge of federalization. But you have to understand getting over two dozen countries with vastly different cultures, histories and languages to cooperate is a gargantuan task. One the EU has been incredibly successful at.
Over the past 15 years the European economy has grown from 16.25 to 18.50 trillion per World Bank. In 2008 the combined economic strength of the EU was 110% of the United State's. Today it's ~65%. By and large the European economy completely missed the mark on the Internet/Web3.0 technology revolution. You certainly have bright spots like ASML, but those are the exception and not the rule. It's reindustrialization efforts are facing massive head wins from energy costs and China is absolutely wrecking their neo-colonial African holdings.
I hope the EU moves to a more Federalized model of governance - it would certainly benefit them. And I agree that it won't be easy. I am not sure California and Texas would agree to the model the United States has today. I can't even imagine what it would be like for Germany and France. But they have some serious issues to address. These are some foundational changes that are unlikely to happen in the next year or two.
Adjust GDP per hours worked, you will find Europe has eclipsed the US in terms of productivity.
The US has the benefit of the government borrowing insane amounts of money to juice it's economy, by being the world hegemony. That advantage has evaporated and you see the current capital going to unproductive industries.
The ratio in money between the revenues in Europe and those in USA is rather misleading.
With the same amount of money you can do much more in Europe. Even in the few domains where USA had a traditional advantage, like the prices of electronic devices, e.g. computers, things have changed a lot recently.
Prompted by another discussion thread on HN, I have compared yesterday some prices for computers and associated components in USA and in Europe. Now the prices in USA are 30% to 40% higher, in sharp contrast with how the price ratio was in the previous years, when prices were lower in USA.
The real economic strength of Europe vs. USA is much greater than the values of GDP expressed in USD, and including some meaningless indicators, would seem to imply.
Someone has downvoted for unknown reasons my posting, even if what I have written are just true facts, not some personal opinion.
Perhaps the downvoter has not believed that the prices have become so bad in USA, but then he/she should have checked the prices instead of downvoting.
After another HN poster has said yesterday that he has just bought a computer in Europe and the same computer was more expensive by 37.5% in USA, I thought that this is unbelievable, so I have also checked myself the prices.
I have just bought an ASUS NUC computer in Europe at a price equivalent with $490 and the same computer is on Newegg at $679, i.e. more expensive by 38.5%, a value very close to that reported by the other poster.
Moreover, I have equipped that computer with an 1 TB SSD and 32 GB DDR5, at a hugely increased price in comparison with last summer, i.e. the DDR5 modules are more than 3 times more expensive now (thanks to the US companies hoarding memory devices). Even so, the total cost in Europe was equivalent with slightly less than $900 while the same configuration on Newegg was slightly less than $1200.
Q.E.D.
In past years the opposite was true, i.e. computers and related components were cheaper in USA, even if the difference was not so great as it is now in the reverse direction.
Therefore it is clear that the dollar is overvalued, its true value is much less in comparison with the euro than the official exchange rate says. For most non-electronic things, the prices were lower in Europe even before. So the GDP of USA is also not as big as it is claimed.
> To that end, NATO lacks the capacity to meaningfully impact a conflict in the Pacific.
NATO is literally the North Atlantic Treaty Org. Basic map-reading tells you that the Pacific is not the North Atlantic. Sure, securing the Pacific might take a "Pacific Treaty" of regional powers, but we see no signs of that kind of thinking at present from the USA. Bridges are being burned not built.
> Trump is an asshole, but the strategy hasn’t really changed ... Trump hasn’t really changed the plan -- he’s just subtle like a brick to the face
Is this the new talking point? That it's business as usual with an uglier face?
This is rubbish though on multiple dimensions, this is now a kakistocratic and kleptocratic US administration, that is going out of its way to alienate allies .
> America is gonna be well ahead of the rest of the world by the 2040s.
I think you'll find that kleptocrats don't tend to have that "get ahead" effect.
I agree there are strong undercurrents but how can we give Trump 2 any credit when we're annihilating brand America. Hearing Trump speak to Macron about the nobel prize and now he's tweeting out "I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace." We aren't a reliable partner and with the structural issues and real politik anything we try to do now in the pacific will cost substantially more. Alls we needed to do was deepen the partnerships we had and look like a mean bulldog against China.
> The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar.
Which is exactly what this administration is doing. What do you expect to happen when the POTUS and DOJ overtly pressure the sitting Chairman of the Federal Reserve to cut Fed Funds rates and print more money, thus creating more inflation in direct violation of a crystal-clear Congressional mandate? Do you think that's good for the U.S. as a destination for safe assets, or a "reserve currency"?
No, it's pure symbolism. Countries don't purchase US treasuries to be charitable to the US. This hurts Denmark just as much as it hurts the US. And in relative terms, Denmark is going to feel the pain from this way more than the US since the US economy is 70x bigger than Denmark's.
> The US economy is in a very precarious state, tensions along political ideology lines are high, and it would not take much more than a worsening of economic conditions plus a catalyst event to kick off armed unrest within the country.
Do you remember the situation that precipitated the Nazi takeover of Germany? Wasn't it hyperinflation and economic collapse? And you think it would be a good idea to push the US further in that direction?
You'll get worse, not better.
> A new civil war that drives the US to fragment into several independent regions over the course of the next ~five years would kind of be the best scenario from a global perspective.
Are you serious? That's an utterly insane idea. The best scenario from a global perspective is the US regains its stability. Europe is in no position to defend itself militarily, it relies on US support via NATO. I believe similar is true of Japan and other countries. A US civil war would only help Russia and China (Russia would gobble up Ukraine and who knows what else, China would take Taiwan and dominate/subjugate the rest of Asia, like Japan, in some fashion that non-Chinese nations wouldn't be happy with).
Also US polarization isn't regional (e.g. a big part is urban/rural). There's no "fragmentation into independent regions" that would really solve the problem.
The rest of the world is not going to be bullied into submission by one guy. If you can't take care of your own problem then eventually the world will turn away from you. This has the obvious potential of spiraling out of control but Trump is first and foremost the responsibility of the US population. The rest of the world will pick up the pieces. But he needs to be kept inside the lines or he'll run into people who are not just going to say 'yes' to his every whim.
But "not getting bullied" is and entirely different thing than thinking a US civil war would be a good thing for the world or "reduce the global threat" (which is just bonkers).
Like, we're all amateurs on a web forum, but it's best to avoid monomaniacal, first-order thinking.
Nobody hopes for that other than some guys that think that crashing the US lets them pick up the pieces like it happened with the USSR but on a much larger scale.
If you honestly believe that the EU wants the US to descend into civil war then you you have your parties grossly mixed up.
> I think they're seeing that against the alternative: a global war. Which is definitely one of the other options on the table right now.
Except that's not an either-or alternative. Even if the US had a civil war and somehow disappeared, other belligerent actors would be free to start conflicts that had been held back by US pressure. You still have your "global" war. Like if the US disintegrates right now, Europe can kiss all of Ukraine goodbye, and probably the Baltics, too.
And even if somehow the US was the only problem (it's not), there's a decent chance that the end result of a civil war is a non-fragmented and even more belligerent US.
History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, something like that? I think we are indeed watching the fascist takeover, and economic collapse is under way -- it's just when you watch a giant fall, they seem to fall oh ever so slowly, the scale distorts the speed until it's right there, then it's "suddenly" a cliff drop.
I agree with you, one dimension of the cultural split is urban / rural. The other dimension is actual culture as based on history -- deep south, southwest, cascadia, breadbasket, eastern seaboard -- these areas have different enough cultural heritage you could see them as separate regions if you squint hard enough. But the key deciding factor are the centers of military power -- where the major air, navy, and nuclear bases are. Overlay that over the cultural map, and you get the Independent Regions. The urban centers would define the voronoi centers of the subregions, with rural areas becoming more of no-mans-land, roving-bands boundary scenarios.
I mean yes it all sounds fantastical, but most unprecedented things do until they come to pass. There's so many patterns and echoes that gently indicate that this unfortunately may indeed be the way.
> The most effective way to reduce the global threat the US is appearing to pose more as of late, is to hit the dollar.
I really don't understand why people keep saying that despite the fact that Stephen Miran, Trump economic advisor, made it an explicit goal to devalue the dollar:
> The root of the economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents the balancing of international
trade
