Comment by tokioyoyo
2 months ago
Agreed, but you have to look at this from “government and elites realized that we’re screwed, and need to just do whatever possible to see what sticks” perspective. This time banging the drums actually might matter because a competitor (China) has caught up in most of industries and playing the “win at all costs” mode. I have no idea how US is going dig itself out of this situation as there’s no cultural, economical, nor political alignment.
There is a genuine belief in some people that if you just put a few thousand smart people into work, they’ll have a solution. But what is lacking, I think, is boots on the ground employees for numerous amount of industries. They’re thinking of a financially engineered solution, but there’s no appetite to pay or maintain an industrial workforce.
There is also no financially engineered solution possible when one of the groups has final say on whether anything changes and if it does, what exactly—at least when that group gains from the status quo. Cut x number of federal programs? You’ve now also directly reduced the amount of money flowing into y number of Congresspeople, and the number of districts in which that reduction doesn’t also make reelection more (marginally) troublesome is asymptomatic to 0.
It’s hope and prayers kinda season, maybe bunch of people will figure out something. I have no clue what they can do, but I’m not a smart person with 6496493 IQ.
> a competitor (China) has caught up in most of industries
stop spreading misinformation. go look at largest companies by market cap in the world https://companiesmarketcap.com/ and you'll see US domination while China has a few handful of companies, mostly banks.
> government and elites realized that we’re screwed
That's more like China. That's why 15k rich chinese are fleeing the country in 2024 https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/07/03/high-ne..., the most of any country in the world. US isn't the one where the stock market and real estate has collapsed.
All those things you said are objectively true. But it’s literally US government who is up in the arms right now screaming left and right how “we have to win against China”. Not taking China as a serious competitor is just weird nowadays. Take most of top industries, and you can find its equivalent in China serving the same amount of people.