I think controlling immigration since a lot of government money goes here is a good start. I also think that going after a lot of the government waste is another excellent start. I of course realize that there are mistakes made in both of these endeavors, but if you don't do anything, then there can't ever be hope of any change. The expenses though are really far too big now to control. They will at some point eventually have to be the realization that those entitlements cannot be met. I think the numbers add up in such a way that when you take Medicare and Medicaid and interest expense, it is practically all of the tax receipts that the government collects. So the idea that you can have the balanced budget is farcical at this point. But I think cutting lots of government programs and hence teaching people that they will be more responsible for their own well-being is an excellent start to prepare the population for what's to come.
DOGE is for show. Small dollars (as you point out) but real impacts to the economy. illegal immigrants contribute a lot to society. So we lose that gdp. Also a drop in the bucket (as you pointed out) you haven’t mentioned the trade deficit which you said you were talking about also. This thread is about trumps tackling of trade deficits and destroying the economy in the process.
The real reason Trump is taking a whack at Aussie beef Campbell Kwan Reporter Apr 4, 2025 https://www.afr.com/politics/federa...taking-a-whack-at-aussie-beef-20250404-p5lp60 The Trump White House slapped tariffs on Australia based on the argument that American ranchers are being blocked from selling their beef here by unfair rules related to mad cow disease. Wrong, say local producers. American exporters are not banned from selling meat in Australia – they just want to charge too much for it to be competitive with the local product. US President Donald Trump and his officials have partly blamed Australia’s biosecurity laws for the White House’s 10 per cent tariffs. AP US cattle ranchers produce about $US87 billion ($140 billion) worth of beef each year and sell almost all of it domestically, thanks in part to Americans’ insatiable hunger for hamburgers. It exports about $2.5 million worth of beef to Australia. Still, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed American farmers were being “blocked from selling almost anywhere”. Trump himself singled out Australia and beef as one of the culprits as he justified including Australia in his global tariff wave. Garry Edwards, the chairman of Cattle Australia who runs $1 billion agriculture business AMM, said American beef producers were misrepresenting the beef trade imbalance to try to improve the perception of their products. “Cattle producers in America are concerned that we’re not taking any beef, but what they’re not acknowledging is that the price of beef in their domestic market far exceeds the price of beef in Australia,” Edwards told AFR Weekend. “It’s anywhere from 50 per cent to 75 per cent higher value in the US for an animal, so it’s significant. If the market price was compelling enough, they would be following all of our requirements, but they’re choosing to misrepresent and say it’s a biosecurity issue.” Australia banned US beef imports in 2003 in response to an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, colloquially known as mad cow disease. But the ban was lifted in 2019. Timeline of Australia's US beef ban Table with 2 columns and 7 rows. 2003 US beef banned after mad cow outbreak 2015 US classified as having comprehensive mad cow prevention controls 2017 Australian ruling that imported beef must be “continuously resident” in one country 2019 US beef ban lifted subject to “continuously resident” rule 2020 US seeks to import beef from cattle born in Canada or Mexico and legally imported into US 2024 Australian report finds biosecurity risk of such US beef is very low 2025 Donald Trump singles out Australia for not importing US beef Source: Financial Review BSE is an incurable neurodegenerative disease for cattle, which is linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder in humans. There have been multiple BSE global breakouts since the 1990s, which led to periods of deep cuts to beef trade and consumption. Australia, which has one of the world’s most stringent biosecurity protocols for beef, has not recorded any mad cow disease cases. While the outright ban on American beef was lifted, another biosecurity rule has meant US beef imports have been very limited. Australia requires that any cattle that produce meat to be sold here be verified as born and bred in the exporter’s country of origin. US producers, who bring in from Mexico and Canada, have been pushing for an end to this rule. Australia’s agriculture department is still assessing this request. Edwards said that lowering the biosecurity standards for what would be a small increase in US imports did not justify the risk of diseases entering Australia. NZ, Japan beef imports Other countries, such as Japan, that have experienced mad cow disease outbreaks have played ball with Australia’s biosecurity rules. Australians primarily eat domestically produced beef, but it also imports beef from New Zealand and Japan. Since June 2023, Australia has imported $25 million of beef from New Zealand and $10 million worth of beef from Japan. Monash University biosecurity professor Melodie McGeoch said the US has strong protocols for mad cow diseases but lowering Australia’s biosecurity standards for the sake of fewer tariffs was a short-sighted move. The risk of mad cow disease entering Australia from US cattle was low but the potential damage was huge and did not come with much benefit, she said. “You’re weighing up a short-term benefit of potentially removing tariffs against a very long-term danger of damaging our economy and the livelihoods of our people, particularly our farmers,” McGeoch said.
That's fair, and yes, the trade deficit will do it in the short term. But ultimately, I think this needed to happen. Trade deficit only works because people are willing to accept printed dollars. Imagine what happens if the fiat system really does start breaking down, or if investors demand much more interest for US treasuries. The US is then really fucked because all it knows how to do is export the dollars and hence export inflation. It better get some production back to the US in order to cushion the blow. So I think what happened was everyone agreed that debts are too big, deficits are impossible to balance, and the interest payment cannot really be paid unless money is printed and monetized by the FED. So in this scenario, investors may walk away. So if you know your debt is about to not be as attractive, you better get your country to be as self sufficient as possible because it may become too difficult to get cheap stuff from other places. I literally just watched a video on this. I cued it up to start here where he talks about Triffin's dilemna. Yes its from a Bitcoin podcast, but this guy really knows hit stuff about how the monetary system works.
dude. The fiat system is meaningless to this discussion. Trade deficits, interest, and tariffs existed while we were on the gold standard.
AHAHAHAHA... neighborhoods need more criminals because they're good people! This is your argument? You'll want to re-think this before pushing your legislative goals through congress.