Quoth symposes
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Imports would become quite expensive for us, since our dollar value would drop like a rock, and there would be no strong incentive for other nations to buy stuff from us other than basic agricultrual commodities, which usually have a reasonable demand. And there's enough US money in circulation to last them quite a while. We'ld have a tougher time selling bonds, so our politicians would really be SoL, since most of them don't really know how to balance a budget-- when it happens, it's usually the result of political gridlock, not good planning.
Other nations would hurt short-term, but would end up realizing that they can sell to each other. They don't have to depend on us to be the consumers.
On the plus side, there's enough US money in world circulation that people would realize they could afford stuff from here, so even though we'ld be caught in a nasty inflation cycle, employment would be unlikely to suffer badly.
And a few of those manufacturing jobs would return. Of course, what a lot of people don't realize is that some of those jobs didn't leave; they're got taken over by machines, and are never coming back-- not here, and not in China, either. But pointing this out to people losing their job means risking a new generation of Luddites...
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