it's not that i want to see obama fail, which would be monstrous anti-patriotic racism. but i would kind of like to see the whole damn thing collapse like a house of cards, which i think is the only possibility for a slight, temporary halt in the growth of state power. admittedly, any tiny glitch in the continuous growth of the state would be a bizarre anomaly in our march to a future bright with promise, a march that is inevitable because we americans are a people who dream, indeed who basically only dream.

Comments

[Stephen]

Yes, economics is a fog machine and yes my argument is one-sided and there's a good chance it's wrong due to the nature of that 'science' and my own error. But c'mon, when I make an argument, shouldn't I root for the home team? (or Baker's idea I stole) Besides, it's a fun argument to make, and it's not totally without merit. Having a 'strong' dollar does have real and serious consequences.

[Stephen]

I know!

[druff]

Stephen, that is an uproariously one-sided analysis, and I know that without even being very good at alchemy.

[mr.fun]

economics is our alchemy.

[Stephen]

Let me say first and foremost that economics is an unreliable science at best. To borrow one if Crispy's terms, it's a fog machine. But I take my lead on this from Dean Baker at CEPR, who's a pretty sensible dude.

And this is what he has to say. Please note that everyone agonizing about the collapse of the dollar is a large news organization. I.E. people with lots of dollars at stake who don't want them devalued. If you have a mortgage on a house, student loan debt or ANY kind of debt, wouldn't you want the value of the dollars in that debt to go down, making your debt less? What's wrong with the dollar dropping another 50%? So American goods cost less to overseas customers and manufacturing actually returns to the states? Please note that the people screaming at the top of their lungs to save the dollar are the rich and the powerful. The people you owe money to. By the way, if you have a million dollars in your bank account right now, you probably aren't going to agree with me.
As to China... please note that as the value of the dollar has dropped, they've bought more dollars. Their purpose isn't to INVEST in dollars, it's to keep the price of Chinese goods low in America. That's so Americans keep buying Chinese goods and tens of millions of Chinese don't become unemployed. China craves stability above all. Tens of millions of unemployed Chinese does not equal stability.

[Standard Anthony]

I waffle on this. Unfortunately this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. If we collapse, some other state or entity or what-have-you would conceivably come in and take advantage of the situation and make a new, more draconian state or worse: a client state. I don't want to end up like Barcelona in the 30s or the USSR in the nineties. Personally, at this stage, I think -A- is more of an epistemological issue than otherwise. I hope I'm wrong. But I'm not going to invest in any party favors.

[mr.fun]

being is hard man. BEING IS HARD