By this logic, we should all leave our lights and air conditioners on while we're at work or on vacation because it will increase demand and hasten the transition to renewables.

The idea that you can be paid to waste this power just creates economic incentives against the improvements we actually need to be making.

In other words: your scenario is identical to GP's except that someone is paying you to run your AC while you aren't at home, rather than just doing it because you can. The logical question is then to ask why they're paying you to run your AC, and that is the uncompelling part: it's not clear that we should be paying people to burn energy to crack hashes.

Im not saying this is good, but its the way it works...

if you want a transition away from carbon, you have to solve that question.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend

This would remove the incentive to mine crypto on any grid that is coincidentally emitting carbon.

As most (if not all) uses of electricity, Bitcoin mining is sensitive to the electricity price. Introducing a a carbon tax / carbon dividend, doesn't magically make any particular use of electricity economically unviable all of the time. It just pushes the cost equilibria to different values.

Money is just another technology. As a technology it has existed in various forms over thousands of years.

Technologies see continual innovation and change, with various actors and various motives influencing their use, function, reach.

Governments of various forms are our current best method- govern-ance- for managing human-scale assets, resources, and technologies with collective purpose and implication.

Moneys- currencies- as a technology are one of those human assets owned and managed by governments, like land, and other resources. There are over 200 distinct currencies in the world.

The mechanism for this management is based on the notion of a ledger- the record of balances, of debts, of interest, and the creation- inflation- of money supply in the context of that management.

Most governments are poor at this management when measured by how well their implementation of this technology that is money serves the needs of most of their populations.

Governments themselves- both "democratic" and non- in their current form are fragile and vulnerable, with the powers of governments utilized against portions of theirs and other populations.

BTC is a technology, a cryptographically-secured system of record- a ledger- that can be used as a money. It is not under the control of an existing government.

By collective agreement of its participants, a complex balance of users playing different roles with different incentives and risks, the rate of creation of assets recorded there is managed to a low level of inflation. As such, as a technology utilized for money, it is a stable "store of value" in contrast to the moneys supplied by literally every government.

The ledger, the system of record can be preserved- secured- if and only if it is too expensive for attackers to change it. The turning of energy into hash minting is the security for that system of record.

That's it.

Adopting a mindset where the above argument takes hold involves a kind of leap of faith. It is a belief. Sure, a religion. The game theory/mechanism design behind BTC is a true innovation, the first demonstrated solution to the Byzantine Generals problem.

There is an argument- won't people stop believing in it?

Maybe? I would suggest evaluating that argument against the lifespans of other innovative beliefs.

Is it something that comes and goes, or is it like the eye, an invention of evolution that solves a specific problem and appears distinctly and repeatedly in different organisms once they hit certain levels of complexity.

Cheers.

It was first, and first mover advantage is significant, which has turned into network effects and inertia, and now with the ETF recognition has gained "official" validation;

Anti-inflation is one of its core design principles, is the basis for store of value, and commitment to it has remained solid;

After ETH PoS changes it remains the only proof of work chain. PoS has belief failure modes that can lead to collapse of value. PoW-based value by definition is secured by the cost of the work. It is a financial equation- a ledger can be maintained at the underlying cost of recoverable energy- not a political/fashionable one.

Mindshare can be fickle, and if purely based on fashion, if there is no inertia and there are adjacent equivalents, value can be lost quickly. With BTC there is inertia, because at a deeper level there are no adjacent equivalents. BTC continues to occupy a unique niche in the design space of these artifacts/assets.

I can see the inertia argument. Why switch when it works. I still don't see the store of value argument when Bitcoin requires such exorbitant amounts of energy to keep up. That's a tax on the value. "Look how much energy it's using, it must be worth a lot!"

People can wrap their heads around there being "value" in an "asset" because it has "revenue streams" associated with it- that's what property and being a landlord is about. You can charge rent, so your property has value. That is very familiar because everyone either owns property or rents property. And then they look at BTC and are like- there are no revenue streams, any "value" is just made up.

Gold, a scarce/low supply inflation asset, and former money, is a good mental model for BTC, but it is completely unfamiliar to most folks, and not even the notion of metal coin being intrinsically valuable applies in any economy any more. In fact if anyone thinks about gold, they probably think people who put value into it are deluded.

People also can understand different currencies having different relative values, some being stronger, some being weaker. Why that is is generally a complete mystery. People think of strong currencies coming from "strong" countries with "strong" economies and weak currencies coming from "weak" countries with "weak" economies, where strong and weak roughly correspond to military capability and economic industrial capacity and diversity.

There is some truth in that mental model, but since BTC is not really "used' as a currency, it doesn't get to be slotted in to the currency mental map.

The actual function that BTC is starting to serve and that is critical to the functioning of all modern economic entities, whether governments or private enterprises, the notion of a "financial settlement layer", is completely unfamiliar. So yeah. It is hard to get traction when the machine is mysterious, to abuse a metaphor a bit.

The unnecessary energy waste argument though is an interesting one, eg where BTC is wasteful like just running your A/C unnecessarily or whatever. The most relevant comparison is looking at something called "home idle load" which in the US is basically the background appliance energy use. BTC total electricity use is in fact a tiny fraction of home idle load, which people don't really get exercised about and many when buying new appliances pay little or no attention to.

If one doesn't see the purpose for the use of BTC energy- which again is an unfamiliar concept of the need for "security" for a system of record- people do see the purpose for the wasted home load energy. They need home appliances, they just wish they were more efficient. That BTC mining becoming more efficient would not result in the network using less energy, in fact, the opposite would occur- this is also strange.

Anyway- I agree with you, it is a set of completely novel concepts that interoperate in ways that are very different from existing related and familiar mental models.

That is why to my mind the only way "in" to arriving at an understanding is to look at money- all moneys- as technology, as technical machines that are different implementations of accounting rules.

BTC is a "store of value" "secured" by burning energy because it is an asset system of record, a ledger, that uniquely for the first time in human history cannot be changed either directly or indirectly (e.g. by inflation) by a political actor who "governs" it. The "value" of a BTC is mathematically related to the cost of energy, and to the demand for use of that sort of ledger. What we have seen is that there is significant and growing demand for this sort of ledger, a ledger that is independent of the political processes that exist in every government, and were some problem with BTC itself to emerge, there are now different implementations of the idea that this demand would shift onto. But most of the brains that have the capacity to study and find such problems in BTC's implementation have done so and have not yet found them, so its value is really as the best known solution to a problem that we didn't know we had, and now we do.

Not sure if that makes sense. Thanks for the engagement.

If we're talking about the value of a currency, we're talking about what we can get in exchange for it. And when we talk about the store of value, it's what we can get in the future. With Bitcoin, we know it must burn energy, so we can get something only less that energy. The currency may get more "believable" due to the burning, when you look at sacrifice as commitment. But what are they committing to? Burning more in the future, because they now have coins they want to keep their value?

The funny thing is that most people trade in virtual Bitcoin they don't control. Because it's more comfortable and the ledger doesn't support the volume. So they need a government to assert their claim on their coins. I guess one can't even get Bitcoin from their ETF and needs to round-trip to some other currency.

The market is settling out of chain, because it's cheaper.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4727999

Will try it this way. The store of value is a derivative result of the actual innovation, which is- BTC for the first time is a computationally secure mechanism that provides a system of record, the contents of which are somewhat resistant to political attack and manipulation.

A system of record is the basis on which rule of law exists, the basis for accounting and financial transactions, the basis for property, etc. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake vs others as the "costs" for maintaining those systems of record, are experiments, empirical discovery processes to see which one(s) over what timeframe hold water.

Specifically to the points:

> BTC vs Gold

Yes. BTC is a technology that has wider use cases than gold. Store of value is just one use case.

> Who is paying for those watts and why?

Right now, people who want to make money, it is economically viable to turn stranded energy into "mining". Who is benefiting from the use of the ledger for store of value and medium of exchange? Often, not always, elements considered criminal by most governments as well as people whose legitimate needs are not being met by their governments.

> store of value...we can get something only less that energy

This is where I think the disconnect between the mechanism that BTC is, and these "rhetorical" questions, is greatest. BTC is a system of record platform. We have lots of other ones. All systems of record require upkeep. They are out there, they are expensive, we don't think about them. They are just people's jobs. Every county has a system for property and title maintenance. Every single financial institution has a ledger- many ledgers. etc.

Many of these ledgers are private. Oracle, the database company, originally became a big business on being the underlying mechanism for millions of private systems of record around the world. In every one of those ledgers, there is a DBA who can do UPDATE X SET VALUE = Y WHERE KEY = Z and often does- certainly "legitimately" governed by the various policies and protections and business rules and so forth that apply to the ledger. But sometimes those UPDATE SQL statements are "illegitimate" and those often occur when the political and governance mechanisms in the business or in the country are breaking down.

There isn't any of that SQL manipulation in BTC. Storing asset holdings is again, just one use case. Attestations, like on off-chain ownership, are another.

And to be sure:

> The market is settling out of chain, because it's cheaper

Absolutely- or rather, there is a lot of implicit cost hiding and inertial convenience in existing systems, as one would expect. And they work "well enough" in a "worse is better" sense. BTC may be too good, too "perfect", too expensive, as a system of record, long term. We'll see.

Hope that makes sense. Cheers.

At the same time I have a hard time accepting that people could see use in the inherent waste of energy. And it irks me when it's framed as use of "stranded energy". Because that's far from reality.

I've heard two voices so which is it to you? Is Bitcoin useful now and worth the lost energy? Or is it an experiment of an interesting tech gone too far?

Relative to other blockchains, like PoS ETH, etc- the question of whether BTC is "worth the lost energy" does have meaning. I think when one looks at the full spectrum of use and failure cases, the "lost" energy is an important part of the value proposition that BTC as technology offers. I don't see ETH or other PoS replacing it. Instead they are kind of complementary.

As a technology, like all technologies, BTC certainly has costs and externalities. Money as a technology is as important, say, as transportation technologies. So look at cars. Cars powered by internal gas-fueled combustion engines could definitely fit into the classification of "experiment of an interesting tech gone too far" given the incredible waste, ecological and sociological damage, and climate impact car-based travel and -based societies incur that, for instance, are lessened in mass transit-based societies. But we are stuck with cars, their global use continues to grow, and we're adapting, introducing and scaling electric, more efficient materials for roads and the vehicles themselves, safer automated driving, etc.

There is no going backwards. BTC and its ilk are part of the future, for both good and ill, IMO.

Specifically as a store of value, I do think BTC has a bright future. I have a small portion of my net worth in BTC, small because there are still non-nil risk and failure cases that could impact it specifically, and diversity across risks is important. It is also important to understand what one is getting oneself into in terms of one's investments. It is an "active" investment, not "passive." People who are looking for passive-like benefits should not look for them from anything in the "crypto" space.

One thing I'm wondering: did you acquire actual Bitcoin, or title to it?

In the crypto space there is data to quantify the cost of divergence. People who want to just get off the train- fine- there are others willing to play/drive.

Re: actual BTC vs title- the BTC I count is that which I only have title to, e.g. held by a custodian. Yes, not your keys, not your coins- but as both a technologist who has had to manage- and has lost data- and as someone also with a background in the financial space- custodianship is one of those essential cultural/behavioral features- it only works if people follow certain rules, and those who do not are punished. My custodians have been around for a while and are I believe properly incentivized. As such they will be better suited to asset management than I am, as a single point of failure. Once more mature multisig/social auth workflows are worked out I will probably move to those. I am lucky to have partners who can play parts in those.

I'm arguing that the unique energy demand characteristics of bitcoin mining allow it to support building renewable energy projects and balance electricity costs and thus it has effective positive contribution to the environment.

Whether it's used to mine bitcoins or cool a house is irrelevant, except that the demand for cooling a house is location and time sensitive, whereas bitcoin mining is cost sensitive. This flexible consumption gives it unique properties that support deployment of renewables.

Please explain what you mean by "false economy". Is the economy for skins in a game you don't care about "false" because you don't like that game?

Not if someone paid me to do it. That's the point. If there was money in hauling ACs around the US and running them on the cheapest electricity the local market could provide, we'd have exactly the same false economy.

(Besides: the GP points out that Bitcoin appears to be sufficiently profitable on NYC electricity prices, which are not cheap. They also appear to be sufficiently profitable on "retiring coal plant" prices[1], which undermines any kind of unique incentivization of renewals argument.)

[1]: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2023/12/05/c...

How is such a purely hypothetical scenario useful as an argument?

It's like saying: "If nobody ever did physical harm to anybody, we could get rid of some part of law enforcement." Not useful because it's simply not the case and very likely never will be.

> They also appear to be sufficiently profitable on "retiring coal plant" prices[1], which undermines any kind of unique incentivization of renewals argument.

Bitcoin mining incentivizes any kind of generation that cannot be consumed by a more profitable process or use case. If the price of electricity on a mostly fossil powered grid is low enough, then Bitcoin mining will be profitable. Same goes for a mostly renewables powered grid.

There are two ways, politics can handle this:

A) Impose a high enough carbon tax on fossil generation. This will lead to higher electricity prices for the fossil grid, possibly making Bitcoin mining unprofitable. But it will also make other uses of electricity unviable.

B) Regulate that Bitcoin mining is prohibited under certain conditions (location, grid generation mix, ...)

B doesn't appear wise to me. Since it's highly subjective what kind of energy/electricity use one deems useful/legitimate. I personally find the use of a > 100 horsepower private car or a private jet totally illegitimate and would welcome regulation that drastically hinders these absurd uses of energy.

Gold worked as a currency as it was independently verifiable from either side of a transaction. Modern currencies work so long as they’re backed by credible assurances of their value. Ie passing off fakes is dangerous and they may be used as “legal tender.” (That term could itself be further defined via google.) crypto currencies seem to lack this functionality. (Not wanting to abide by any law outside core network mechanics is functionally close to establishing a new form of sovereignty. Only sovereignty doesn’t work like that.) Also note how hyperinflation is dangerous to the assurance of value of a currency. Similarly, any form of instability could shake those assurances.

Modern currency is also almost trivially, embarrassingly parallel.

And even if that weren't the case, your argument still makes no sense. Every watt that Bitcoin mining incentivizes is then consumed on Bitcoin mining, it's a zero sum game.

It's like building heaters in the desert: if you're willing to spend money for 1GW of electricity to run your heater, someone will build a 1GW plant for you. Now there is nominally one more 1GW plant in the world, but there is 0 extra available power, you're using up all of it to heat the desert.

Bitcoin mining, far from the wasteful ‘heating the desert’ analogy you propose, incentivizes the development of excess energy infrastructure that can be redirected or scaled based on demand fluctuations, acting as a catalyst for innovation in energy production and management.

Moreover, your argument smacks of a dangerous ‘divide the cake’ mentality, suggesting we should cap our aspirations and limit access to energy and technological advancement to maintain a status quo. Should we tell emerging economies that they must forego the benefits of modern technology because we’ve decided there’s simply no more room for energy growth? That’s not only patronizing but inherently regressive.

The beauty of Bitcoin and its underlying energy consumption is that it encourages the search for more efficient, cost-effective, and often greener energy solutions. This is not about wasting resources; it’s about driving forward a future where energy is more abundant, accessible, and sustainable for all. To stifle this under the guise of protecting resources is to deny the very essence of human progress and innovation.

> Bitcoin mining, far from the wasteful ‘heating the desert’ analogy you propose, incentivizes the development of excess energy infrastructure that can be redirected or scaled based on demand fluctuations, acting as a catalyst for innovation in energy production and management.

You do realize that the article here is directly pointing to evidence that the bulk of large bitcoin mining operations are being driven from existing fossil fuel plants that seemed to be on their way to decommissioning?

This is what I don't like about your argument: it's a standard Bitcoin talking point, but people struggle to point to actual examples of Bitcoin mining spurring investment in renewable energy, while it's easy to point to actual examples of Bitcoin mining spurring investment in decommissioned/decommissioning fossil fuel power plants. The facts on the ground just do not support your argument, period.

One can justify all sorts or environmental destruction with this your argument. Pouring oil on the beach is pushing local regulators to act, spurring the creation of less harmful lubricants.

The numbers show bitcoin mining is doing harm.

It's not clear to me that Bitcoin delivers sufficient economic value to justify the vast power demand. What utility do all these hashes provide, except to other people who bought into crypto trading? If there were some positive externality that'd be great, but there's no inherent value to crypto beyond the artificial scarcity.

The worth of a decentralized and uncensored monetary framework is beyond imagination; it promises to unleash the inherent vigor and potential of an organic market-driven capitalism, unfettered and boundless. Such a system stands poised to precipitate the downfall of the fiat regime—a mechanism that has empowered governments of every stripe to engage in warfare and to subjugate their citizenry, not excluding even the most free and illustrious nation such as the United States.

This assertion is far from nonsensical; it is a veritable truth, one conspicuously absent from educational curricula, likely because states find the acknowledgment of their historical predilection for violence too ignominious to bear. Taxation stands as the state’s principal means of amassing resources. Yet, for those states compelled to engage in warfare, mere taxation proves insufficient. Here, the utility of modern fiat currency becomes apparent, facilitating the acquisition of resources beyond what a transparent tax rate would permit. Through fiat, the dilatory effects of inflation serve the dual purpose of either being dismissed as unrelated in the event of victory—perhaps offset by the spoils thereof—or, in the case of defeat, rationalized as a war’s consequence. Regardless, the result is the same: a surreptitious expropriation of the populace’s wealth.

State-initiated actions, notably famine and war, rank as the foremost causes of human mortality, surpassing even health crises and natural calamities.

The inception of the modern fiat system, marked by the establishment of the Bank of England, was explicitly intended for waging war. Indeed, the very creation of the contemporary British Pound was predicated on this bellicose objective.

P.S.: Please excuse the grandiloquence of my discourse; consider it a charming anachronism. I hail from the future, having spent several delightful decades marooned in the 1800s. Only recently have I elected to grace the early 2020s with my presence, and it appears my linguistic preferences have yet to acclimatize to the present era’s vernacular.

It's actually rather more like "we'll rapaciously use energy to bring the grid to its utmost limits, but don't worry, if you pay us lots of money [in some cases, more than we get from our regular business!], we'll happily not use quite enough to actually cause it to buckle and fail." Sounds like an extortion racket, doesn't it?

This is a major flawed assumption. Even in a 100% renewable world, every extra watt consumed carries an environmental cost. It is of course less than when burning fossil fuels, but it's still there, and not necessarily even that small.

> The ability of Bitcoin mining to consume excess renewable energy when it's available (and potentially at low or negative prices) could improve the financial viability of renewable energy projects by increasing the floor price these new projects can sell electricity at.

The world has not run out of useful things to do with energy yet, so this is already a bizarre claim. But even ignoring the uselessness of Bitcoin for a moment, this clearly incentivizes the wrong kind of renewable development. If you need to turn your power to Bitcoin to be profitable, that means you can't afford to store this power even as the technology to do that improves. And if you can't store the power, then you can't be part of a fully renewable grid, so you're essentially building the wrong thing and it's better to leave the resources alone to be used in other projects that can actually be self sustaining.

Lots of things have the potential for lots of things. But we need to operate on the reality as it exists, and that reality is that Bitcoin uses a phenomenal amount of power, to the point that people are paying Bitcoin miners to not use electricity when the grid is at capacity (as mentioned in the article).

You state that peak (commute) traffic is recovering but off-peak is still low, due to WFH?

Wouldn’t WFH be impacting peak hours, with off-peak at all-time-low due to other things like leisure travel?

If thats when peak hours are

A similar amount of behavior existed of people doing anything to avoid a peak hour BART train.

Now, if you're commuting in, the best times are during rush.

BART numbers will always seem insanely low vs. pre-pandemic because they were unsustainable high back then.

Many transit districts in Washington State have already gone fare free. Removing the barrier of paying helps drive more ridership, particularly on non-peak hours that traditionally see much lower ridership.

The rail already exists, increasing it's utilization by will drive economic growth and help municipalities recover and heal the donut hole that was punched in many urban cores by the pandemic.

If its miles total, I would chock it up to people doing more leisure travel, seeing family etc.

I don't think RTO is in full swing in such force that its commuter miles, so I'd say you're seeing a big uptick in leisure travel right now, which makes sense, as more and more people are becoming comfortable with this again

I've done everything right according to Google, set up the search console, uploaded a site map, addressed all mobile usability issues. And yet only a tiny fraction of my content is being indexed.

I'm a bit at the end of my rope here as I've poured a year into this project and getting a historically normal amount of search traffic may be the difference between this project being viable or not. The most frustrating part here is having zero visibility into what's going on.

I’d add a paragraph, hero image image, cta/etc at the very top explaining what your site is. Additionally you need a menu at the top and footer at the bottom with links to additional content-only (not products) pages - IE an about us, where do we source data, etc. Even 2 blog posts would help a ton. Do not stuff them with keywords but be sure to use the words that are common in your niche of the industry so your site gets associated with industry sites.

From googles eyes the difference between a scammy online ecom site and your site is hard to see! (Even if your site provides legitimate value to users).

You can try posting a link to it on various digital Marketing subreddits (not the like “rate my website” ones) to see if you can get more feedback - I haven’t done that in years though.

Edit - also didn’t realize clicking product links takes you to external sites. That’s a tough site for google to ever understand correctly since you have so little content and the best possible outcome of a user visiting your site is that they leave it. Maybe set it up to have each product link to your own page for it, maybe with price history from camelcamelcamel, links to the product in tiger sites, generic info about what site it’s listed on, or just crawl the description at the vendors site.

Backlinks also matter, for both domain and page authority. You are competing with 20+year old domains from large companies-- why should you (or any new site) get ranked before dickssportinggoods.com who have top tier backlinks (graph network, implies trustworthiness) from sites like Espn.com? Google likely uses CrUX data for ranking (because 2023 backlinking is vastly different than 2012), so high engagement from users is likely a KPI to focus on, in addition to backlinks (both branded and inclusive of terms/pages you want to rank for).

Have its ranking algorithms do the opposite of all the things you just said!

You might argue that your discount price is "unique content" but good luck getting Google to understand that. Plus, I imagine those shoe names are competitive queries, which means you're up against paid ads. Further, I assume your discounts are time-sensitive, which means unreliable indexing is not a good solution for up-to-date pricing.

One of the more baffling choices they made was to have “today” and “yesterday” as options on the user reporting tab, even though it can take up to 48 hours to process the data and my dashboard always shows zero users for “today”. Took a while to figure out what was going on there…

Meanwhile the real-time reporting works reasonably well but is limited to a 30 minute window. Some real head-scratching choices were made here.

The only way I'm able to use GA4 in any way is with their search box + autocomplete, you can sometimes get a decent query result, then you click the three dots next to the tiny line chart, export as CSV and you get the data.

And for events, I think they want you to pay for BigQuery, so you only get some kind of aggregate count, which is useless. It'a too confusing to figure out if I'm wrong about that.

The whole UX drives me mad.

This is what you get when you hire developers to make people click ads.

In this case, perhaps, yes, the developers don't care and just do what the PMs tell them to do.

  But it’s fun to watch them fail to circle the wagons when it’s Theranos or FTX or Y Combinator.

I find myself easily distracted reading any long form content on a screen. The temptation to check email or social media is strong.

I also prefer to read print materials when I am alone sitting at a coffee shop or a lunch counter or riding the train.

I feel more aware of my surroundings. People tend to engage me more, ask me what I’m reading etc. than if I have my face buried in my phone. It feels less antisocial.

The experience just feels qualitatively different. When I’m reading print, some part of my mind feels—in a pleasant way—that it is in the physical not digital world.

https://github.com/mapbox/pixelmatch

> “pixelmatch is around 150 lines of code, has no dependencies…”

The question is whether the power and influence of the U.S. will grow similarly over the next 150 years as it has over the last 150.

To invest mechanically without thinking about what’s actually happening in the world is cargo cult behavior.

It's going to be a long time before some other country takes over the "reserve currency/investment market of last resort" position the US currently has. No other market is even close to providing the deep liquidity and rule of law the US market has over a wide variety of instruments.

Sure, someone will eventually take over that role, but there are no candidates today. And, to your point: it was clear by the late 19th century that the US dollar would displace Sterling, but it took another half a century for that to happen. On the scale of current human lifespan, you can assume it won't happen at all.

So, the US doing extremely well 100 years from now vs. the US doing very badly 100 years from now could have a non-trivial impact on the perceived value of US assets. I suspect that the large uncertainty about what the world will look like in 100 years means there is just some sort of seldom changing value baked into assets to account for this, but it nonetheless exists, and could change if there was some huge geopolitical shift.

And before you mention anyone on earth would be dead in 150 years, yes that's true, however you can always sell it to someone later on who will be alive in 150 years (or sell it to someone who can later sell it to someone etc. etc.).

It’s like food. Food in 100 years does not help the need for food now.

If there was a futures market in foodstuffs that basically keep forever and is cheap to store (honey?) you would see that the expected price of that food in 100 years would have some effect on the current price.

Also, the US stock market, US Dollar and US economy/gdp aren't hard linked to one another these days. The companies listed can be selling to non US markets, employing internationally, founded internationally. They're just listing on the US stock market because well.. that's where the stock market is. The US could, in theory, become more or less popular a stock market regardless of its currency's popularity.

Meanwhile, both the Euro and RMB have similar size markets backing their currency. Neither one is currently trying to displace the USD. I think the importance of owning the international currency is somewhat speculative.

If countries then acquire dollar surpluses by running trade surpluses with the US, the US by contrast has a trade deficit. This is equivalent to having a capital surplus for the US. It means excess capital is funneled back into the US into the capital markets buying stocks and bonds.

This is maybe a chicken and egg phenomenon..is it the demand to invest in the US creating a capital surplus that creates the dynamic whereby the $ becomes reserve currency and the US runs increasingly large trade deficits? Is it the military/political power that creates all of the rest? Probably all of above. But in any case the reserve currency system has at its core the financial markets of the US that the rest of world invests their surplus into, incentivizing them to produce in excess and trade real goods and work with US in exchange for paper IOU's that they can invest into the US markets.

A big aspect of this $ financial/trade system isn't just the $ as currency itself but the unique and important position of US treasury debt as the premier reserve asset that countries store their surplus and forex reserve in, and which is the center piece of the eurodollar[0] lending markets.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/eurodollar.asp

The policies you describe as "idiotic" are rationally imposed. The assumption is that they will weaken Russia's war effort, and that the cost, while high, is much lower than fighting a hot war down the road if Russia is allowed to continue to invade its neighbours.

You can argue that the policies aren't working, but while looks like that in the headlines, if you look at what's going on inside Russia all the lines are pointing down, even if the government's own figures claim otherwise. You could argue that a slightly different class of restrictions could be more effective.

But the only basis for "idiotic" is if you think it's none of the EU's business if Russia chooses to invade and try to conquer one of their neighbors.

Unlike the chicken/egg situation we know precisely when this system was born: the Bretton Woods Conference, 1944.

To some degree of course it recognized what was happening anyway (uh oh, chicken/egg is back) but rather than letting things evolve it built upon emerging practice to build the modern global financial system (basically still in place despite further evolution, like floating currencies).

Is there anything stopping the NYSE, Nasdaq or CME/CBOT from handling trades in another currency?

It would reduce liquidity. Equity prices would fluctuate not only on buy/sell basis but exchange rates. Sure, computers could figure all that out these days but what's the advantage? Overwhelmingly, equity buyers and sellers (not "traders") buy in their local currency because they use the money to live in a local economy.

Companies list in other countries for access to those countries' buyers. What would be the point of Shell listing in Euro on the NYSE? They want to list in dollars. Nobody outside Nigeria lists on its exchange but local companies do because local people understand the companies and everything (both their operations and their stock) is in naira.

So if you want to be an exchange in a different currency, just buy a local exchange. NASDAQ did try to buy the London Stock Exchange, though I think it fell through.

It's entirely reasonable that we could enter a period of long, slow decline across the board. Especially as we continue to push the limits of natural resources and global supply chains.

For example suppose the US continues to move its push to return chip manufacturing to the US. This might mean both that US chip manufactures have a more healthy future than other more fragile tech companies and that they shrink in size. We could see a return of manufacturing to the US which leads to continued employment in US labor for while also meaning that labor force gets paid much less.

We're already starting to see evidence of this happening.

The concerning thing is that I'm not at all sure that our incredibly debt dependent global economy, which assumes future growth, can really handle a gradual contraction to a more sustainable economic structure.

Either way, assuming up is the only way for the market to go is a very naive assumption, but one nobody is happy questioning.

Why do you assume that it requires a contraction to reach a sustainable economic structure?

What prevents the economy from growing for the foreseeable future while also becoming more sustainable at the same time?

Our current economic structure, due to its reliance on credit, requires perpetual growth and development in order to pay off today's debts. Debt in all forms has been growing increasingly and rapidly in recent years.

Infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet.

In many areas we are already seeing the limits of growth, from strains on oil supplies to global population growth starting to slow down. This is already, today, putting a strain on our economic systems.

Since our current way of life can only be sustained by future growth, it is by definition not sustainable unless you sincerely believe growth to be without limit (this would require near term interplanetary travel and energy advances such as fusion). As mentioned, we are already seeing system strain suggesting we are hitting limits.

Contraction is the preferable path of the two realistic alternatives, the other is complete collapse.

How do you propose the economy growth for the foreseeable future and becoming more sustainable?

Interesting! Why is it happening? Shouldn’t labor earn more in this scenario?

Though I suspect there is more need for such labor than people who can do the job. Hard to say, but there are a lot of things we haven't automated yet.

With a gradual decline in exposure to equities over time.

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+asset+allocation+should...

Why would you want to be more exposed to riskier equities (a la they are down 20% in the past year) when you are 65 years old and have no income other than dividends/bond yields?

"Accordingly, as the results support, for those looking to maximize their level of sustainable retirement income, and/or to reduce the potential magnitude of any shortfalls in adverse scenarios, portfolios that start off in the vicinity of 20% to 40% in equities and rise to the level of 60% to 80% in equities generally perform better than static rebalanced portfolios or declining equity glidepaths. Though as the results also reveal, in particular scenarios where the equity risk premium is depressed, the optimal glidepath includes less equity, and in scenarios where the goal is to withdraw at a level that stresses the portfolio and its expected growth rate, higher overall levels of equity are necessary; with such high-risk goals, having a relatively high-risk portfolio, with the danger that entails, is still the optimal solution (and for clients who cannot tolerate that level of risk, the ideal solution is to choose not a less risky portfolio, but a less risky and aggressive goal). Nonetheless, for everyone else looking to maximize a sustainable income level, or determine the amount of assets to support a (reasonable) target income level, rising equity glidepaths appear to both maximize the likelihood of success and sustainable income and reduce the magnitude of shortfalls when they occur."

There is a a lot of discussion of this here: https://www.bogleheads.org/index.php. Also, this article: https://www.kitces.com/blog/should-equity-exposure-decrease-....

2. It is implausible that the US will ever pay back its foreign debts in real terms. Anyone who lends to them will end up with less stuff in total.

3. We live in an age of computers and pervasive digital communication; things can happen a lot more quickly these days than in the 50s.

4. There is a consistent trend of dropping energy security in Western countries.

This is no time to be forecasting assuming things will happen at a comfortable pace. People should have contingencies ready in case something unprecedented happens. It is tense out there.

Down ~20% from peak. That is not a country drowning in cheap energy, that is a coming under a lot of pressure. Not a time to be going "eh, long term trends take a while to kick in". The long term trends have been around for a while, we're well in to the part where we start reaching tipping points and step changes.

What is going to happen? Who knows. But it could happen quite quickly.

I can imagine how that could be a second order effect of energy insecurity, but there are other explanations that seem more likely, like:

* The move from incandescent to LED lighting

* Improved insulation and heating technology

* Energy efficient appliances

* Removal of inefficient vehicles in favor of more efficient vehicles

You're going to have to do better than "per capita energy use is dropping" to convince me there's a looming threat to US energy supplies.

20% is like having no energy on half of Saturday and all of Sunday. The improvements you listed are not comparable.

On average, we have cheap power [1]. If you're power hungry, we have some of the cheapest power on the planet [2].

The fact that coal-burning China pays more for power [3] than American industry should drive home our massive geostrategic advantage.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...

[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/end-use.php

[3] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/electricity_prices/

And the US having access cheap oil is a good argument for why there might be a sudden step change in their economy - there are a lot of people with a serious interest in breaking the US dollar oil trade. Now including Russia and possibly China if they can read the writing on the wall. The US can't fight them both at once so China is in a pretty good position to get away with stuff right now if their regime survives COVID.

Cheap oil in the US has been extinct for more than a decade.

America produces more oil than ever [1]. (We also produce more energy than we consume [2].)

Your argument that waste equals production is flawed because energy doesn’t turn into production at a fixed rate [3]. The fact that per capita energy intensity falls while per capita real production rises means the economy is becoming more efficient.

> cheap oil in the US has been extinct for more than a decade

American crude is among the cheapest in the world [4]. (Bonus: look at Canadian and Mexican crude prices. Cheaper still.) Production costs aren’t Arab, but it’s way cheaper than what China pays, even before transport [5].

What makes this fantasy particularly stupid, beyond being trivially fact checkable, is that it mistakes China’s strategic weakness for America’s. The weakness that pushed Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor: their energy comes in from abroad, mostly by sea. The United States can strangle their economy from thousands of miles away by interfering with their shipments of seaborne coal and crude.

This is why the South China Sea is militarising. This is where Belt & Road comes from. The Russia dependency. It makes sense. It’s a weakness Beijing is working to buttress. One which America doesn’t suffer from on account of its geography and geology.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/crude-oil-product...

[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity

[4] https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/748207/breakeven-prices-...

It is hard to say exactly what that entails. Maybe the world gets lucky with a fission/fusion breakthrough of some sort - maybe even a political breakthrough to let us use proven-good nuclear tech. But in the interim it isn't easy to say that the US stock market will mirror its performance in an era where it had unchallenged dominance of a global network of easily available oil shipments. And it certainly isn't safe to say things will happen slowly. Things could start breaking and move quickly.

You keep saying this despite it being wrong. America hasn’t run out of cheap oil. Americans pay less for oil because we produce oil cheaper than most others, and that will be true relative to e.g. China for fundamental, structural reasons. All while the economy uses less oil [1], year after year, per person and unit of production. (Adjusted for inflation, WTI is about where it was in the 1980s, and lower than it was in the 1970s and most of last decade [2].)

Unless your argument is now peak oil. That we’re running out of oil, as a planet, i.e. that oil will cost more as we extract less. Something we’ve known for decades and are actively re-structuring our economy for. If that’s the case, then your comparisons to Southeast Asia don’t make sense—they pay more for oil, are less productive with it and thus will experience price increases more painfully than America will.

> Domestic consumption of energy showing signs of serious stress

This is a brand new plot point that is also entirely wrong. Total energy consumption is at an all-time high [3]. We’ve even recovered from the pandemic [4].

[1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...

[2] https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices...

[3] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/

[4] https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/energy-environment/

2. Just a few hours ago you referenced a link [0] showing that China has electricity prices sitting at half the US's. India too.

The US has lost access to a cheap form of energy and is likely going to be forced to rely on electricity going forward. I put it to you that it is by no means certain that the US market is going to be in a position where it can sustain even relative out-performance, let alone objectively good performance in line with historic figures. Depending on how optimistic we are about the communists continuing to adopt sane policies, it may even be unlikely based on the current trends.

Fortunately those trends will likely change as the squeeze the US is going through right now gets more pronounced. But the conditions we see now are simply not the conditions of the past 60 years, putting strategies based on the last ~150 years of data into a suspect light.

> America hasn’t run out of cheap oil ... all while the economy uses less oil, year after year

So cheap you can't afford to use it? I don't want to be exposed to your version of cheap.

[0] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/electricity_prices/

Why would I? Everyone knows this. It’s just not a catastrophe for America.

> few hours ago you referenced a link [0] showing that China has electricity prices sitting at half the US's. India too

How did you misread “China pays more for power than American industry” as China pays less?! Look at the national price for business in China. Now look at our states’ industrial prices. Lots of variation, because e.g. New York has different policy preferences than Texas.

> US has lost access to a cheap form of energy and is likely going to be forced to rely on electricity going forward. I put it to you that it is by no means certain that the US market is going to be in a position where it can sustain even relative out-performance

This is a real argument. Thank you.

I agree it’s uncertain. The point, however, is that this won’t happen to America in a vacuum. And as it happens, it hurts others worse and first. I’d also challenge the assumption that we’re out of cheap energy [1], but that’s a separate discussion. My point is that in a world running out of oil, nobody is better positioned than America, with its domestic reserves, co-located industry and cheap electricity.

> cheap you can't afford to use it

You really can’t think of another reason we won’t use our fossil fuels?

Hint: it’s the same reason Chinese and Indian power prices are anomalously close to America’s.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_sourc...

I don't see individual states.

> You really can’t think of another reason we won’t use our fossil fuels?

The price rockets upwards and people start using less of the stuff. There are a lot of possible explanations beyond that, but it is safe to assume the obvious one that is most likely.

I'm sure you already know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox but I'll link to it anyway.

> price rockets upwards

Again, where is this happening? I’ve provided numerous data points refuting this faulty hypothesis, yet you keep circling back to it.

Across the West, fossil fuels are being shifted away from for environmental reasons. India and China burn coal. That’s why Indian and Chinese power prices are even in America’s ballpark. Surprisingly, we’re finding some of the new generation methods, e.g. wind but increasingly also solar, to be even cheaper than coal and oil.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/end-use.php

Then use the national figures. Still cheaper.

And China won’t, not for oil. Oil is cheap in Texas because it’s pumped in Texas. China’s closest analogs are Russian pipeline terminals and seaports. The former, in aggregate, is less than a third of Texas aline’s oil production. The latter vulnerable. (Chinese electricity is cheaper in its mining provinces.)

> seem from the other link you posted that average Chinese business has much better access to electricity than the average US one. India too.

America is ridiculously more electrified than either country, so “better access” is the wrong phrase. I think you mean cheaper?

Short answer, mostly no. New York City adds power tariffs because they don’t want power-intensive industry in the city. If you’re doing energy-intensive work, you go upstate, where the tariffs are intentionally cheaper.

Will a shop in San Francisco pay more for power than one in Delhi? Sure. But now the energy intensity comes back to bite, because that shop in San Francisco is doing a better job turning energy into production. That means the fraction of income going towards power is smaller.

In any case, those are policies voters chose to impose on themselves. They could any day choose to prioritise cheaper power over environmental concerns and pay what Wyoming does. We’re comparing retail prices, after all, not generation costs.

How are you getting from that to "China pays more for power than American industry"? Could you do a summary in one place? Your links seems to support the opposite conclusion but maybe you've got something going on across a few comments that I've missed.

I also went to look at the absolute numbers out of interest and China produces 8 PWh total and the US 4 PWh total according to [2] and playing around with the "Electricity production by source" graph. Although obviously that means per-capita the US is still a way ahead.

[0] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/electricity_prices/ & https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...

[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/end-use.php

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/energy#country-profiles

The median American pays more for everything than the median Chinese. Including power. For electricity, particularly for households, the difference is largely taxes.

The median kWh purchased in America, however, is bought for less than it is in China because power-hungry industry happens where it is cheap. This cost difference is partly because China underproduces energy by a third [1]. It’s partly because we make power more cheaply [2]. The first gives us security. The second economic advantage. (It’s also why ditching coal and oil is easier for America than it currently is for China.)

Also, fun fact: electricity is getting cheaper in America, and has been for at least forty years [3]. (Those are household figures. No ready source for industry, but same tale, you can deflate historic prices using the PPI.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_p...

[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...

[3] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/electricity-...

Energy security is not about how much energy we do spend, but rather about how much energy we could spend, if we wanted. On this count, OP is right and the situation is still better than it used to be.

2. No sovereign government debt is paid down in real terms over the very long run (this doesn't have to be so, but the data). So why should a non-national buy it?

If you buy US debt you get an asset that is supremely liquid and extremely unlikely to default. Over shorter terms from right now it appears likely to outperform other sovereign assets.

In very short terms at various times you can make money trading marginal countries' debt (even Argentinian!). But you take on a big risk premium for that!

3. There is so much analysis of technological advances of the 20th century that I won't even bother to try an summarize. WWII began with horse drawn artillery and ended with jet aircraft and ICBMs. My own grandmother was alive from kitty hawk to moon landings and robots spread out through the solar system. Things move frustratingly (for me) slowly these days.

4. Arrant nonsense, with the trend pointing the other way.

Only if they plan on doing something akin to starting a war against Ukraine.

> Money in mattress?

The response to every crisis the US has had for the last 3 decades is to print and borrow increasingly large amounts money. And they are probably the most responsible fiscal controller around at the moment.

If you see that changing for some reason then sure, maybe money under the mattress could help. I don't expect that strategy to change myself, and the last thing I'd want under my mattress is money.

> Gold is something people often make an argument for in this case but it's historical returns are pretty bad.

I don't follow, gold has been making pretty reasonable returns for about 20 years now and has been a far superior option to cash. What don't you like about it?

> What kind of contingencies? Money in mattress?

The right to live in multiple countries on a permanent basis (foreign permanent residence and/or passports) and investments that automatically balance as world markets shift over time (e.g. the worldwide equivalent of VTI: VT)

Based on the credit rating of the US government, they will certainly not end up with less in nominal terms.

Those 50 years are part of the next 150, and are no easier to forecast. Most market projections are for numbers ~7% annually, but periods worse than that would drastically alter investing plans, and hence social infrastructure planning.

Another similar and popular US-data-only tool that is fun to play with is cFIREsim: https://www.cfiresim.com/

(Edit: of course, US companies have non-US revenues - helps out a bit)

Too lazy to web search for an answer, but are those real returns? (i.e. inflation-adjusted).

I get what you are saying, but your math here is a bit off.

50+18 = 68.

People generally can live longer than 68 years old, If we go out on longevity and assume people can live to 100 or 120, then it's more like 100 years.

Your next thought is, but people will retire before/around 68, fair enough, but they stay invested generally the entire rest of their lives.

So if the US dominance ends in the next 100 years, then today's teenagers might need to care about it. People in their 30's or 40's probably don't though.

The next 150 years, you are right todays teenagers might not need to care, unless many/all of our aspirational longer living goals happen.

Yes you probably want some bonds, but you still need some equities.

The default answer is something around 20% to 60% equities in retirement.

Bonds are like buying future cash-flow, stocks are about future growth.

i.e. if you buy a bond that's paying you $25k/yr, then you will get that $25k/yr regardless of what happens to the NAV until maturity(and/or bankruptcy obviously).

If you just want bonds, then LTT may not be the best move, it just depends. BND would be a better general bond portfolio. i.e. I dunno what I want, I just know I want bonds, then buy something like BND, since it aims to just own all the bonds.

Managed bond funds have more cost than something like TLT or BND, since they are index based. You have to pay someone to actively manage the bond ownership. Is the cost worth it? Only you can make that decision, generally speaking after fees active management doesn't usually earn extra income vs an index. The average return of active management after fees is usually under-performance relative to a benchmark index.

I think it's important to think of bonds by what they return(yearly cash flow), not by the NAV. i.e. if you buy a bond(or fund) yielding 5%/yr with $10k. That's a $500/yr income you just bought yourself. It doesn't really matter what the price of the bond(NAV) does, you will still get your $500/yr (until maturity and/or bankruptcy). Bonds are a cash-flow investment. If you want $500/yr then you buy $10k worth of 5%/yr yielding bonds.

If you want $25k/yr in income and the yield is 4%, then you need about $630k worth of those bonds(or bond fund). Buy the cash-flow not the yield or NAV. On existing bonds, the yield can't change, so the NAV/price does change. On new bonds the yield changes instead.

It's the same difference. Think about you as a person buying bonds. You have 2 choices:

* Old bond paying 5% * New bond paying 10%

Which would you rather buy? well the new bond of course, so if the person with the old bond wants to sell, what do they have to do to incentivize you to buy it instead? lower the price, so that when you buy it, you are getting around 10%/yr yield to match the new bond yield.

This is how bond markets work, in a few sentences.

Obviously you default temporarily enough times and people will stop thinking your promise is worth anything. So far that hasn't happened, let's hope it doesn't.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/26/the-day-the-...

Bonds are just converting today's money to future cashflow.

TIPS are inflation adjusted bonds, so you can get a real return > 0% with bonds, guaranteed by the US govt. For baseline retirement expenses, it's hard to beat. Right now they are up over 3%/yr real. You can't buy inflation adjusted annuities anymore, basically Social Security is it.

If one has 50X expenses invested, it doesn't really matter what they do, they would be hard pressed to screw it up so badly as to run out.

If one only has 20X yearly expenses invested, they need to be a lot more careful, as they might not make it, especially if they get a bad sequence of returns.

It all depends on your personal financial situation, it's hard to make general rules that can apply to everyone. It's called personal finance for a reason.

Bonds are just a great default tool, but like all tools, they are not perfect.

If you’ve been alive long enough you’ve realize the “end of US dominance” has been in headlines since the 60’s.

No, I think the question is more subtle ...

Will the relative power and influence of the US grow similarly.

... and I think that may be a very good bet.

The three closest "competitors" - the Eurozone, China and Japan - are, in their own unique ways, dysfunctional basket cases:

Europe's northern savers and taxpayers have to pay for southern workers to retire at 60 ... and southern workers need to eat benefit losses to avoid further (br)exits. This is a not-insignificant economic and cultural mismatch and the results of even minor adjustments are riots in the streets[1] ... or boring, orderly referenda[2].

It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth and whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all.

Japan is undergoing civilizational and cultural collapse.

So ... while there is much dysfunction - both economically and politically - in the United States, it is an enormous, resource rich country that can exist wholly independently from the rest of the world.

It also enjoys absolute control of the worlds oceans and brutally dictates economic and geo politics[3].

In a world of troubled and fraught investments, the US is probably the least troubled and fraught.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_withdrawal_from_the_Euro...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...

Europe's problems are not unlike the U.S. internal problems where the tech and financial centers mainly on the coasts subsidize the rest of the country. The difference of course is that the states of the EU can exit, where the American states cannot. I'm not sure which situation is preferable.

China is a black box, but so far recent history has indicated the populace will go along with a lot of pain to avoid chaos.

US wealth distribution is much flatter than European. The GDP/capita ratio between Mississippi and Connecticut is less than 1:2, while for Germany to Hungary it's more like 1:4.

China is... China. You can't call yourself the Communist Party and run the global financial system. The world can only tolerate so much contradiction.

The open question now is whether the dollar can be dethroned by nothing: can a basket of currencies become the default reserve?

My guess is the world can tolerate it as long as everybody is making money off it. When that stops, the contradiction might seem intolerable.

The world needs a default reserve that's not tied to any single central bank. For all the upsides there are also real downsides for the US having its currency as the default reserve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights

Perhaps, but you could as easily make the argument that the interior subsidizes the stomachs of the coasts. That seems more like a symbiotic relationship than the parasitic one you seem to be implying.

Trend last few years is PRC closing gap and approaching parity in indicators like GDP (already exceeded by PPP), % of global gdp / trade, science and innovation indexes, value chain upgrades etc. Even PRC military development and diplomacy is sufficient to get countries hedge / not commit to US alignment, which was unthinkable 10+ years ago. IMO US will find it difficult to maintain relative "lead" when, in the words of state department, "China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge" US order. That said, I think US has headroom via dictating economic and geopolitics within her relatively wealthy bloc and grow at the expense of others.

>It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth and whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all.

Western fixation with PRC real estate waste as proxy indicator of China (econ) collapse is particularly stupid. It's like suggesting US who spends ~20% of GDP on healthcare (approximately PRC real estate) with suboptimal result is spinning development wheels. Same with PRC wasting a few trillion in suboptimal real estate when significant (majority) resources being invested to bring up other (above) indictators that has substantively contributed more to PRC "comprehensive national power". Like US isn't initiating unprecented PRC containment policies because of a bunch of empty of housing units.

I don't think anyone who has seen the development in China over the last 10-15 years first-hand would say this.

There has been massive development in nearly every area, both in quantity and quality. Just to give one example, anyone who follows the scientific literature in just about any field will be aware of the massive increase in high-quality publications coming out of China over the last decade.

There are one or two examples of "ghost cities" (though most supposed "ghost cities" actually become populated over time), but that doesn't negate the massive, real development that is visible everywhere in China.

Yes, France retires at 62 but that'll change very soon...

Writing that the "north pays for the south" by looking at the GDP per capita instead of the GDP is... naive. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

What will happen (by design or not) is PRC demographics is being "strategically optimized" with the greatest demographic uplift/upgrade in recorded history. Roughly replacing 2 low skilled, under-educated workers with 1 skilled worker with additional automation. Every ~10 years for the next few decades, PRC will be upgrading / swapping the human capita potential of 1 Nigeria for 1 Japan, it's less people, but much more productive people. With PRC pop base effect this is still multiple more educated labour pool per year than US or other blocs can generate with immigration, and 100s of million more in net talent. Less people also alleviates import dependency, PRC with 1B (400M less) people would have substantially more strategic space to operate. It works towards close relative power potential. CCP wants to smooth out the pyramid with more births for better managed transition, which structurally/culturally PRC with some of the highest house hold savings rate and minimal expectation for safety net is positioned to weather, but long term PRC comprehensive national power is best improved by having less net people, with more % skilled people.

Yes the Chinese population is becoming more skilled, but I think you're underestimating how much of a drag on the economy and aging population is. Old people don't innovate and require much more healthcare spending. They also cause heavy burdens on their children/grandchildren who must take care of them (see the 4-2-1 family structure).

There's also a lot less juice to squeeze out of urbanizing the population which is what drove a lot of GDP growth in the past few decades. About 65 percent of the population is urban now and the rate is starting to level off.

> pretty hard to make the case

It's easy when drastic decline in population leaves behind a still massive country, with more productive potential and less security vunerabilities - PRC's future strategic posture will improve with respect to US relative to where PRC is now. PRC pop projection is 1.4B to 800M by 2100 in geography can barely sustain current 1.4B (1/3 of country is desert, 1/3 is plateau), with central gov working over drive to free agricultural resources in crowded 1/3 that's left. 800M is still an incredible amount of people for internal market and global competition. If higher % of population becomes educated/skilled over generations that in aggregate PRC will have more skilled labour pool with 800M than current 1.4B, then IMO she would be significantly better positioned geopolitically. It's still 200M more brains / bodies than US pop projection in 2100. 800M with current electrification efforts is PRC with feasible energy and calorie security, and combined with hammering automation at current rate, much more productive capacity.

>underestimating, urbanization

First important to recognize PRC currently has 600M+ of excess, relatively unproductive mouths that's taking up already scarce resources. Cohort skews old, are undereducated, unskilled - the ones left behind by modernization. The PRC demographic decline narrative vastly overestimates how much innovation / productivity this cohort of aging out demographics were / are capable of. ~600M in informal economy making subsistent tier ~2000 USD per year, bluntly they're excess people that doesn't substantively contribute to development let alone drag on economy by being even less productive when they retire, assuming they can. 100s of millions are already economic drag by merely living - part of reason why SOEs are so inefficient, or Chinese agriculture so labour intensive (200M+ farmers) when PRC only really needs 1/50th that amount with mechanized equipment, is to maintain 100Ms of make work jobs for folks that simply can't be integrated into modern economy. They're being replaced by new gens who can. Since 2000s education reforms, PRC has been generating 10-20 years worth of pre 2000 talent per year. They're the one's doing the high tier innovating and growth. Really look at SKR, JP, TW, all have grown developed to advanced economies while having terminal tier TFR simply by new generations being disproportionatedly educated / skilled. Even the economic case for integrating / urbanizing these unproductive corhorts are poor, urbanization drives growth when you're clustering productive people. Real reason to herd them into cities is short / medium term, state needs to consolidate land to improve food security, because again, too many mouths.

> healthcare, dependency ratios,

PRC has one of the highest home ownership / house hold savings rates, elders from poverty era culturally know they need to largely support themselves and there's little expectation for comprehensive safety net. Western analysis seems to project expectation that PRC would be crushed by welfare burdens like currently in west with typically onerous welfare systems with increasingly poor long term prospects, the reality is, most Chinese will simply make do with very little state support. Like most of humanity throughout history. PRC will have to accept life expectancy in high 70s (about US level) vs pouring in resources to reach low / mid 80s. Old also knows how to "eat bitter". That said there's plenty of room to up current 6% of GDP healthcare spending.

Sizable % of single kids will get dragged into support family, but this is where income disparity mitigates issue because burdens between rich (educated/skilled) and poor will be different. Folks doing strategic / important work that advances country up value chain and make decent money likely got their because they're priveleged and likely receiving end of support, or they weren't which means their high income will stretch far assisting family back in tier 3/4+ cities. These folks aren't going to be quitting fancy jobs to caretake. They'll pay for help or if it's anything like hollowed out country side where youth left, old people take care of each other. PRC still has lot of communal cultural elements that makes these kind of grass root social systems possible (also see how people organized for zero covid). Burden is going to be disproportionately shifted on that massive underclass, who again bluntly, don't substantively contribute to development / or the components that will increase national power. Really not too different from west. 1% does very well, top few quartiles do well, rest struggles. There's also considerations like when the 4-2 dies, multiple inheritences will go to the 1, and there's prediction of consumption and baby boom when resources eventually concentrate, which will be in the already affluent, talented and productive cohorts. Big reason PRC is having problem pivoting into consumption economy is savings redirected for nest eggs.

Certainly doesn't seem this way when you visit Japan. Sure, they haven't experienced wildly growing excessive consumption like some American states in the past couple decades, but their society is far from undergoing any sort of collapse.

Using the yellow vests as representative of "southern workers" makes me doubt how well you've researched this answer. Paris is hardly in "southern Europe", and the rest of the southern European countries have retirement ages comparable to those of the "northern savers".

Are you implying that US sabotaged Nord Stream?

It was a Keyser Soze move that basically destroyed Russias bargaining position.

At the same time, it was an enormous fuck you to EU citizens and, in particular, Germany: "Oh yes you will buy our gas ..."

It appears to be panning out in a non-destructive way for the EU citizenry as they muddle through this winter but it was not obvious that would be the case and this (relatively) benign outcome could not have been predicted.

If I were an EU citizen (particularly a German) I would be upset. Even as an American I am disturbed ...

EDIT: You know that thing ... that crazy thing that Dick Cheney said in that interview[1] ? About how there is no reality and reality is whatever we say it is:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

... every day that goes by I become more and more convinced that he could be right. NS2 sabotage makes it hard to argue with him.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/04/were-...

It kind of reminds me of the polonium poisoning that has become a Russian signature move. Despite not taking credit, the number of actors who have the capability to do it is so limited that it's basically outing them regardless.

Everyone just forgot that happened. Strange.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/business/nord-stream-pipe...

[2]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/104vin7/discussio...

To assume logic will prevail in a system with a substantial emotional component is a dangerous assumption.

Coca Cola has made and kept its fortune by successfully associating a syrup that is bad for you with Pure Happiness.

Marketing, media exposure, and subliminal messaging both turned Americans completely against weed from the 70s-2000s and then also now completely in support of weed legalization in the past decade.

Similarly, as we’re seeing play out today, the right has found success marketing the “danger” of drag queens to turn political opinion against the LGBTQ community, which itself gained overwhelmingly acceptance in the face of once-overwhelming disapproval by powerful self-determination and taking control of how they were portrayed in the media.

The same forces that convince people en masse to buy a certain brand can just as easily be used to affect how we view any political issue.

Hmmmm immigration. That's how fast growing powers have always done it.

This is where America wins. There is no American ethnicity. There may be, historically. But mythologically: no.

Even still, the US is much less homogenous than germany. A variety of cultures is not a problem.

Sad that nobody has been able to come up with something better that doesn't involve "infinite growth".

Companies in the S&P500 index are based in the U.S., but most of them earn revenues internationally as well.

"Roughly 40% of S&P 500 revenues are generated outside of the U.S., and about 58% of Information Technology company sales were sourced from abroad."

Source: https://www.globalxetfs.com/sector-views-sp-500-sensitivity-...

So, the performance of the U.S. stock market in the next 150 years will not rely solely on U.S. specific economic growth.

I know Apple does this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement#:~:te....

I just wonder, can they really not find a more favorable country to route the gross of their revenue through?

The number one way that Apple benefits from this is giving shares to employees as compensation, right?

They aren't commonly "financing" projects with stock as far as I understand it. aka, they aren't diluting existing shareholders by issuing fresh shares to take advantage of the share price.

Since they aren't doing that, how do they benefit financially from their share price?

Compare this to some partnership or other private structure where owners may be unable to exit unless they can force the company to liquidate some assets to buy them out. Companies and investors who work that way can face liquidity hazards compared to a similar-sized stock corporation.

There are a lot of benefits of being incorporated in USA / Delaware.