@feather1952

Explainer for USians. #TradeDeficit #profligateconsumption

You have been living beyond your means. Don’t blame the rest of the world, tax the billionaires.

“A country’s trade deficit (or more precisely, its current account deficit) does not indicate unfair trade practices by the surplus countries. It indicates something completely different. A current account deficit signifies that the deficit country is spending more than it is producing. Equivalently, it is saving less than it is investing.

“America’s trade deficit is a measure of the profligacy of America’s corporate ruling class, more specifically the result of chronically large budget deficits resulting from tax cuts for the rich combined with trillions of dollars wasted on useless wars. The deficits are not the perfidy of Canada, Mexico, and other countries that sell more to the US than the US sells to them…

…
“The budget deficit is not due to the salaries of civil servants, who are being wantonly fired, or due to the government’s R&D spending, on which our future prosperity depends, but rather due to the combination of tax cuts for the rich, and reckless spending on America’s perpetual wars, US funding for Israel’s non-stop wars, America’s 750 overseas military bases, the bloated CIA and other intelligence agencies, and interest payments on the soaring federal debt.”

#USTrade #TradeImbalance #USA #Tariffs #TrumpTariffs
#USPol #JohnMenadue #IndependentMedia

Is #BigTech simply shilling profligate technologies?

Even the NYT has concerns!

“Do [US] companies need to spend hundreds of billions on vast data centers powered by hugely expensive chips from #Nvidia and others?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/business/dealbook/deepseek-tech-stocks-reckoning.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU4.hsoE.iMONwzgJ_QF1 (gift link)

#ai #profligatetech #profligateconsumption #deepseek