this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 18 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

We've spent decades bleeding the middle and lower classes dry.

People get all up in arms about private equity groups buying up companies, extracting any value, saddling them with debt, and then skipping out, and understandably so, but that's exactly what's happening with the USA. It's just at a larger scale. The principle remains the same.

[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Don't worry, now's the time it'll finally all trickle down! /s

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Hmmm I love getting trickled on by the super rich.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 hours ago

Wow, just like all these people 'going broke slowly'!

[–] hark@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Slowly? Isn't just the interest payment on the debt like $1 trillion a year now?

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

That interest was totally manageable when America was the largest economy in the world and looking to stay that way. It's the whole deliberately burning down the economy that's the real issue

[–] hark@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't say manageable, it was only a matter of time before the debt would topple over since it compounds. That's just what happens with anything that has assumed infinite growth. Deliberately burning down the economy of course accelerates the collapse.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

That's not how the national debt works or ever worked. Every time someone tried to pay it off it was a massive disaster. Clinton's administration managed to pass a balanced budget that had many tangible benefits and some disputed downsides, but bush easily destroyed that when he took office. FYI, the balanced budget under Clinton was the last time, and only the second time ever, that had been done. Oh, and they did it by raising taxes on the rich and cutting defense spending. Imagine that

https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/clinton-administration-budget-balance-dd9c9f

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 13 points 11 hours ago
[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 21 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

The US government is in a significant amount of debt which is constantly growing and will never be paid back. We needed to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but we never did. We needed the banks to fail in 2008, but they stole our tax money. We needed a strong economic correction during a global pandemic, but instead they printed a fuck ton of money.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

don't let the Republicans off the hook like that. It wasn't "they", it was literally the guy we have right now, and all the same cronies, they just had different faces.

[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 1 points 5 hours ago

Top comment right here.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 hours ago

But... but... the're making so much money from tariffs!!

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 17 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

and You JP MORGAN helped him.

[–] Scribbd@feddit.nl 3 points 10 hours ago

As it is a great investment opportunity for them.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

Trump ain't going broke quickly, he's adding to his gilt while lacking any guilt.

[–] frog_meister@lemmings.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

How is this news?

It's been this way for years.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago

The news is that they are advising people to pull out. Keep in mind up til now this firm was telling people the us was a fine place to park your money.

[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Oooh no, they focus on the actual problem! Look at that! Too late tho, keep fighting guys!
Had to watch this video couple months ago about the debt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOmqA5zgds

[–] Corelli_III@midwest.social 24 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

america is already broke, the USD is hyper-inflated on fake proof-of-work and extraction infrastructure and a foundry they're about to lose access to

they're in that sad part of the con where the money is already gone but as long as appearances suggest the money is still there, the marks think they're getting rich

its going to be pretty funny i think, i mean i'll probably be dead of whatever famine, but the concept is funny

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 hours ago

The gap between the amount of money the mark thinks they have and the amount of extant money is called "the bezzle".

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 54 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Just like all his businesses. Bankrupt.

[–] hume_lemmy@lemmy.ca 11 points 20 hours ago

And just like his other businesses, he's pawning the furniture for his own wallet while it all crashes.

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 25 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Being broke, hungry, sick, and unemployed is good for the economy! 🫲🍊🫱

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Actually yes. You being broke, hungry, sick and unemployed is good for the top one percent's economy.

[–] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 3 points 4 hours ago

Not for long...

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 84 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Gee, I wonder why tariff revenue looks shaky. Well, I mean, there's the fact that tariffs don't generate revenue and never have. There is no account with tariff money accumulating in them. The money exacted for tariffs leaves circulation is entirely, it's basically destroyed.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 65 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well tariffs are import tax. Imports are driven by consumption and consumption doesn't go up in response to heavy new taxes.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 24 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

That depends a bit on the type of consumption. Foreign versus domestic. The problem being that capitalists hollowed out all manufacturing in the United States. And so now most of the consumption is from foreign sources. There are no domestic sources, and therefore it is simply a flat price increase.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Its not just that. Things like bananas, chocolate, etc are less suitable to grow domestically so tariffs are also just a straight up price hike while the retaliation on things that do grow well here, like soybeans, have seen reduced exports.

People got conned twice by this moron.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 3 points 12 hours ago

Yes. I was taking that part of the equation for granted.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 29 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I don't support the tariffs, but that's not really true. Tariffs are basically taxes. They go to the government. Presumably they would then be redistributed through government programs. You can say what you will about how effective those programs are, but the money does not just disappear and is certainly not destroyed.

[–] EightBitBlood@lemmy.world 35 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Tariffs only go to the government when people can actually afford to pay them.

When Tariffs jack up the costs of goods in a supply chain exponentially higher than they've even been, small to medium sized business can't afford their now Tariffed supply chain and don't pay.

That's how the money disappears. Whatever industry Tariffs are added to is now an industry that small to mid size companies can no longer afford to manufacture in. Which lowers the total value of that market as the profits smaller businesses had are now captured and destroyed by Tariffs.

Without Tariffs, the supply chain is affordable. With Tariffs, it's destroyed and doesn't magically come back. Soy bean market? Literally no more future profit potential now that our largest buyer has gone elsewhere.

Tariffs just effectively convert long term viable market wealth to short term government wealth in a time when markets are already suffering.

In no reasonable calculation will the gains of any Tariff offset the long term losses in the market those Tariffs destabilize. There's literally hundreds of years of historical evidence supporting this as the outcome.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 5 points 20 hours ago

The commenter above said "The money exacted for tariffs leaves circulation is entirely, it's basically destroyed." They are talking about money that was spent on the tariff already. What you are talking about is the larger impact tariffs have on the economy.

I am not on the side of tariffs. I'm not against them on principle, but the implementation has never really been stellar. I appreciate your perspective, but in my opinion the OP made a somewhat misleading statement that is not really related to your point. People could walk away thinking that tariff money is basically just put in a big pile and incinerated. The money continues to exist and in fact could be directed toward a specific thing. So if we build luxury yachts here and people start importing them, we can add a tariff to them and allocate those funds to retraining programs for people who used to make yachts. I'm not advocating for that, but in that case the money would reenter in a specific location and affect a specific sector.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

Eldritch is right, but it’s kinda like Newtonian physics vs general relativity: you can think of (federal) taxes as “funding the government” and it’s not a terrible approximation. But it’s not the reality.

The reality is more like what Eldritch said: money is spent into existence, and taxed out of existence. The issuer of a currency doesn’t need to take the currency from you in order to spend it — they need to destroy it so that their newly-printed currency is actually worth chasing after.

Sounds like a distinction without a difference, right?

Except it matters when we talk about “tariffs funding the government” (cuz they don’t) or “how are we gonna pay for something like the green new deal?” (paying for it is the easy part, controlling inflation is the real constraint).

When we talk about major economic initiatives, it kinda matters for people to understand how money actually works. Musk, for example, had no clue and thought he had uncovered some massive scandal when he gained access to the federal payment system and was confused at how the funds don’t actually come from anywhere: https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/elon-musk-discovers-the-magic-of

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not going to pretend I'm an economist, but the idea that the government prints money is not new to me. If the government is "funded" via destroying money (because there is an inflation rate they are attempting to keep constant meaning they can spend X for every Y they destroy) then taking in "funding" via tariffs allows them to either print more money to make up for the additional "income" (aka increased government spending ideally on the public good) or need less money from other sources (lower other taxes - not how it happens but theoretically a possibility), or apply that "excess" to the debt (basically print directly to the debt holders). This does not make taxes or tariffs irrelevant. It is the way the government is "funded" since it needs income to maintain inflation. Is this not a correct reading? I'm legitimately open to learning something right now, but replacing "spend" with "print" and "tax" with burn does not really affect anything considering inflation is a constraint. I understand it's not 1:1 but that does not mean taxes are "disappeared" in any meaningful sense in this context.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 2 points 4 hours ago

It's a very meaningful difference, because these two things (spending and taxing) aren't actually related

Think of it like watering a plant. Watering is spending, and taxation is drainage. What actually matters is how wet the soil is

Our problem isn't the spending, it's that the drainage is bad. We have too much stagnant money. No amount of watering or not watering could fix that... The plant still needs water, even as mold in the bottom of the pot hurts the plant

Generally, taxes are drainage. As money moves around, a little bit drains out of the system at each step

Tarrifs aren't drainage, they're flow restrictiors. They reduce the amount of money moving around, which doesn't help the situation

It's not a perfect metaphor, but to strip it all away - the problem is that billionaires and speculation are collecting money in massive hoards, and the velocity of the money is zero

The actual health of an economy is the velocity of money, the amount in the system is secondary

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 3 points 23 hours ago (7 children)

Yes it's true. Taxes don't work that way either.

Simple question to ask yourself. If the government can simply create money, which they can. Why would they need to fundraise through taxes. When they can simply print the money. Answer, they don't. They can simply print it. The issue is that if you create too much you devalue it. Then you need to destroy some to bring it's value back up.

This is why despite constant cries from the fascists bemoaning deficit spending. Claiming government should be run like a business. It's all bullshit. When a government can print money and receive a 2x or better return on investment. Which they often do. Deficit spending effectively pays for itself.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 8 points 20 hours ago

I’m glad there are other people out here trying to explain how money actually works. I gave up a while ago cuz I got sick of being treated like a crazy person.

I think that, partially, people don’t like being told their folk wisdom is wrong… but more importantly, they don’t wanna believe that the people in power are either just as misinformed or deliberately lying.

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[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 54 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What the fuck else are we supposed to do when wages are completely stagnant and everything is getting more expensive by the day?

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

spend everything on protection without starving.

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 19 hours ago

When you expect bank runs and inflation you don't save money you spend it on assets or survival and debt becomes meaningless.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 18 hours ago

But but mr orange rapist was supposed to run the government like a business and reduce the debt.

Mr President is amazing at running businesses, assuming that governments can even be run like businesses.

[–] MilitantAtheist@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago

You all know it's Bidens fault /s

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 7 points 21 hours ago

I have been mentioning awhile about the record month to month deficits and he just spends more and more on ice and the military.

Yes, we're all spiraling into hell. And you're coming with us. So stfu and give us those Epstein files

[–] etherphon@midwest.social 3 points 19 hours ago

This shit has been broken for a long time now.

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

How much you want to get he's going to take the money, probably through crypto.

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