You want American Greatness? I'll get to it but It’s easy to forget what any trader, business person, or bank clerk would confirm: amidst the noise of outrage and cultural conflict, just how strange and privileged the global economic system of the last half-century has been—especially for the United States. Since the 1970s, the world has run on a kind of *financial perpetual motion machine*, with the U.S. at the center. America consumed the world’s goods. The world, in return, saved its profits in the U.S. financial system. This wasn’t a scam. It was *a complex, mutually beneficial loop*. But like any loop that depends on unspoken trust, it is fragile.
Economists have called it many things—“exorbitant privilege,” “surplus recycling,” “the dollar trap.” One Chinese official once described it more plainly: *“Your trade deficit is our demand engine. In return, we fund your lifestyle.”* That’s the deal. A *magic motor* running on U.S. trade deficits, global production, and Wall Street’s gravitational pull. The U.S. imported far more than it exported since the 1970s, sending dollars to countries like China, Japan, Germany etc. Those countries, instead of spending those dollars elsewhere, turned around and *reinvested them in U.S. assets*—Treasury bonds, real estate, equities. The result? The U.S. could run massive deficits, borrow cheaply, and still maintain strong global demand for its currency. Meanwhile, exporting nations got stable consumers for their goods and a dependable place to park their earnings. Everybody wins, right? Lol This system didn’t just help Wall Street or coastal elites. It also *quietly benefited* working- and middle-class Americans in real, material ways. Imported goods stayed cheap. Inflation was kept low. Mortgage and loan rates were modest. Public spending—from schools to highways to national defense—could be funded with low-interest borrowing. Even during recessions, investors ran toward the dollar, not away from it. *The world trusted the U.S. with its savings.* That trust became the backbone of American risk culture. Yes, Americans work hard. They build. They strive. But *it’s simply easier to take risks when you know failure won’t mean catastrophe*. Venture capital, startup culture, long-term product R&D, and yes—even outpacing the world in becoming a space-faring civilization—were possible not just because of ingenuity, but because of *the financial backstop provided by global dollar demand*. Other countries don’t lack creativity. They lack the luxury of failure. Their currencies don’t buy them a second, or even multiple chances. Silicon Valley, in this light, is not just a triumph of vision. It’s a monument to *financial privilege*—where massive investments could be made with little short-term return, because someone, somewhere, was always willing to buy the debt and hold the currency. In that sense, even America’s boldest economic narratives rest on something much quieter: *trust*. And this is why the current populist backlash—particularly from the U.S. right—is both tragic and surreal. We now see citizens declaring victory over an imagined globalist-communist elite, claiming to have reclaimed their country, as if America had spent the last 50 years under socialist rule. They don’t see that what looked like economic decline was actually *a trade*—*deindustrialization in exchange for global financial dominance.* It’s true the factories disappeared. But the ability to import goods and print money without collapse remained. The problem wasn’t that “China stole our jobs.” The deeper truth is that *US** outsourced production and kept the benefits of imperial financial status*. There's no need to invade the rest of the planet if you dominate its pocketbook, set the rules, and print cash to pay for anything/everything with the cash coming back! So when MAGA voices cheer global market turmoil as proof of American resurgence, the world stares back—confused. Because from outside, it doesn’t look like victory. It looks like *the one country that gets to have its cake and eat it too is now smashing the cake, setting fire to the kitchen, and demanding applause*. This isn't communism. It's not socialism across the board. Quite the opposite: It’s a system built on *structural capital flows, asymmetric risk, and the centrality of the dollar in global trade settlement and investment*. America’s fiscal and trade deficits weren’t signs of weakness—they were signs of dominance. They allowed the U.S. to shape global monetary conditions without lifting a hammer or casting a mold. If there’s a Marxist twist, it’s that those most harmed by this system—the folks left behind by automation, offshoring, and financialization—began to see the pattern. They recognized “socialism for the banks” and demanded something similar for themselves. But instead of turning left, they were seduced by a loud, orange guy, his nationalism (= loyalty to him), nostalgia, and easy villains. They blame immigrants. They blame DEI. They blame ecologists and crazy notions of trees, clean air, clean water, un-poisoned food, and compassion. They blamed “wokeness". And now, the world is asking the question that somehow wasn’t asked enough in 2008: *If the U.S. nearly destroyed global markets through subprime madness and was still rewarded with more trust—what happens if that trust finally erodes or breaks?* The threat is not that America/Dollar collapses overnight. But that *the quiet recycling loop that keeps global capital anchored, American risks tolerable, and the dollar unrivaled, begins to fray*. The world isn't scrambling because "our team finally won"; it's scrambling because it was banking on the US maintaining and growing its greatness. The stupidity is not that the world took advantage of the United States. It’s that the world now appears to have *trusted it too much*—and that trust was spent, not reinvested. So now we face a choice: rebuild the scaffolding of credibility, fairness, and cooperation (you can't impose that via executive order btw)—or continue shouting victory from a tower slowly cracking at the base, which looks more likely. Everyone got high. Everyone got dependent. And now, coming down, the real question is: *who’s ready to sober up and do the work of building something that lasts? *Something immune to elections and idiots following idiots perhaps? Where's the magical fix that some supreme leader brings? In what theory? What is "your team" fixing, Mitch? Who is "your team"? Where's the promised salvation? On Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 11:04:41 PM UTC+2 [email protected] wrote: > Team progressive hasn't ameliorated the world's problems. We have tried it > this way for 3 decades and things have gotten worse. If one cannot change > policies when they fail or harm the locals, because of ideology, I can't > help them there. The tech promised by the Greens hasn't worked as yet. In > any case the American people have gone back, as a plurality away from the > progressive (neocommunist) mentality. People have resisted in Europe and > supression occurs. Be careful what one posts in FaceBook! > > On Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 01:40:46 PM EDT, PGC <[email protected]> > wrote: > Frankly, if this forum is as stupid and ideologically captured as you > claim—why are you here? Shouldn’t you be off delivering the master “fix”? > Where’s the legislation that ends war, cures inflation, feeds everyone, and > rebuilds the nation with laser-guided fusion-powered hydrogen cars? Did > your blueprint get lost in the mail? > > Where’s the plan that neutralizes the Rockefellers, vaporizes Klaus > Schwab’s teleportation satellites, deregulates every molecule of existence, > and still gets the crops watered? Where’s the anti-woke AI system that > scans every NGO for signs of empathy and shuts it down in real time? > > Why trust antibiotics? Aren’t they embedded with nanotech social credit > devices secretly funded by George Soros and LinkedIn? Shouldn’t we be > purifying our water with Alinsky-free charcoal and letting Comrade Xi > finish the railway while we split the nation into pre-ROI and post-ROI > zones? > > And remind me—does your miracle fix come before or after the national > divorce, the great bug ban, the banning of parties in France, the fall of > the UN, and the reanimation of Al Gore holding a cobalt-powered windmill? > > It’s all so confusing. Maybe the scientists are making things up. Or > maybe, just maybe—not everything is a simplistic Bond villain plot? Maybe > we just live in a messy, complicated world where people disagree, try, > fail, try again, and sometimes—just sometimes—care enough to feed a > starving child without checking their ideology first. > > So before you declare war on the fire extinguisher for being too woke—ask > yourself "why?". Water seems woke too. It will extinguish fires for both > illegal immigrants and trans folk. Isn't there a conspiracy between fire > extinguishers and water? Isn' this exactly the kind of thing the globalized > media left does not want you to discover? > > On Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 4:35:12 PM UTC+2 [email protected] wrote: > > We''l succeed never the less. Why? Even Adolf was first in Jet fighters > and rocketry. Technologies have their own trajectory. Americans will leave > for Canada. Indian researchers will set up shop stateside. > > On Wednesday, May 7, 2025 at 07:46:14 AM EDT, John Clark < > [email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, May 6, 2025 at 3:53 PM '[email protected]' via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > > *> JC, at the end of the day, we have spent decades on basic research and > it takes God's own time to get anything really good out of it. Do I need to > tell you of this, via, cancer,* > > > *So out of the millions of different extraordinary complex chemicals that > the human body uses and produces you think the decision about which one > deserves deeper investigation and is more likely to lead to a cancer cure > should not be made by Nobel prize winning organic chemists but by Robert > Brainworm Kennedy, Donald Trump and his clown car cabinet. I humbly > disagree. A strong analogy can be made between the present situation in > America and the way that Trofim Lysenko destroyed medical research in the > USSR. * > > * Lysenkoism* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism> > > *> your duly, noted, pessimism hasn't served us all that well* > > > *I'm not pessimistic, the situation is still not hopeless. I think the > human race has about a 30% chance of existing 10 years from now; before > Trump got reelected I would've said there was a 50% chance of surviving the > Singularity. * > > * > What's to lose? * > > > *Well for one thing, experimental cancer treatments that were terminated > halfway through their planned trial run so, thanks to Trump, they are now > scientifically useless. Hey but at least we've got the Gulf Of America!* > > *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* > > ag0 > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > > To view this discussion visit > > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv01M2fqmaC_FuqP4LW-4N-cLWdg%3DM6%2B%3Db3_eJttGZeBxg%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv01M2fqmaC_FuqP4LW-4N-cLWdg%3DM6%2B%3Db3_eJttGZeBxg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/06205578-cece-4ff6-8fda-74d0c0a6c24dn%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/06205578-cece-4ff6-8fda-74d0c0a6c24dn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2462f0c5-d279-449d-9c51-a71394a89079n%40googlegroups.com.
