Subject: Re: I must need to drink more Kool-aid
Is the "entire global trade system" sustainable for us or Europe? If so, why do you believe that it is?

Of course it is.

Our trade deficit in goods is partially offset by the trade surplus we run in services - what remains is relatively modest compared to the size our economy. About 3% of total GDP, and well within historical modern norms. That can continue forever, and it will make us richer (overall) if it does. Foreign countries give us really cheap financing, which we use to buy all manner of things from them more cheaply than we can make ourselves - which frees up tons of our resources to concentrate on higher-end stuff that we can make more money on. In a nutshell, instead of using our capital on making t-shirts, we're using it to develop software and build AI and robots and make movies and companies like Facebook and Apple and Microsoft.

Are we a nation of building stuff any longer? The stats say no.

The stats say yes. Our industrial output is near an all-time high. We build more stuff than at any time in our history - just like we grow more stuff than at any point in our history, even though agriculture as a share of the U.S. economy has become incredibly tiny. No one's out there saying we're not a nation of growing stuff any more, simply because Ag is only 1% of our GDP, and the same is true of manufacturing.

If you ask me whether I'd rather be a global leader in software than making apparel, I'll choose the former over the latter every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

https://reason.com/2025/03/27/...

For the dozenth time, I wouldn't have done this the way Trump has. But something has to be done.

Even if you stipulate that "something has to be done," what Trump is doing is phenomenally stupid - not just the way he is doing it, but what he is doing. Even if something has to be done, that doesn't make this good policy just because it is "something."