alt Hacker NewsSo when are they coming out with a study on how to regain the lost industrial and technological base, so as not to become totally dependent on a hostile competitor?
I assume they're working on that, right?
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Who is “they” in this question?
There's a guaranteed fix, but no one is going to advocate for it: replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.
The replacement of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s with the petrodollar, transformed the US from a creditor nation to a debtor nation, and shifted economic and financial incentives in ways that resulted in deindustrialization followed by trade imbalance.
If we want to reindustrialize, it's simple: de-dollarize the global reserve. The downside is that it affects the finance bros and the US's ability to apply economic pressure to achieve political outcomes on the world stage. If you think the benefits afforded in international politics outweighs deindustrialization, thats fine, but you can't have both.
My boneheaded proposal is the opposite of Trump's approach: give the rest of the world coupons to buy made-in-USA products and machinery at a steep discount. Ship stuff to the rest of the world and ask nothing in return. Get the orders rolling in from around the world, pushing up economies of scale.
Of course, this will make American consumers much poorer on average, but boost production capacity. Sort of what China does.
Any such plan requires evicting the fascist grifters first, and rejecting these fake calls of "fiscal responsibility" that have been running interference for the past several decades. Then, proceeds from having the world reserve currency could be spent deliberately (re)building our industry rather than just being dumped into handouts for the rich.
But in a way the reelection of the New York conman was the final nail in the coffin assuring that this will never happen. The red tribe found it more appealing to turn their frustration inwards and attack our country rather than working with the blue tribe to constructively address these types of problems. And with the subsequent destruction of most everything that had made us a world leader, it's questionable whether we will even have the world reserve currency for much longer.
They're tariffing manufacturing inputs. Almost everything we still make in America now costs us more to produce.
Don't anthropomorphize the misguided missiles in the Trump administration. There is no teleology behind the tariffs, only chaos and grift.
Who’s the hostile competitor? Denmark? Germany?