Hacker News Reader

Comment by skylurk | Hacker News Reader

Offshoring to stable countries is looking really smart now.

Exactly. The US has revealed itself to be prone to wild swings of policy, which will not be a lesson soon forgotten by prior trade allies.

Even if sanity and democracy are brought back by a future adminstration, the US public have proven they can't be trusted not to vote in another clone of their current dictator. DJT Jnr and Barron will probably have a shot at the title in the not too distant future to maintain some kind of North Korean-like dynasty.

There's enough of an undercurrent of overconfident, no-consequence, chest thumping "individuality and independence" in the US that, unless complete ruination occurs this time around, they'll vote for having another bash at complete ruination.

Good trade relations is what keeps the trust and respect for the laws of the US in place in other developed countries. Copyright for example. If the US isn't a reliable trade partner then their power to influence copyright laws around the world would rapidly diminish, which Disney wouldn't be happy with. (I'm sure there are other examples of this, but international US copyright Law is one I'm vaguely familiar with. Use of the US Dollar for trade is another possible avenue for decline of US global influence).

Yes, the US could be self sufficient to keep it's entire population alive and well, but not with the lifestyles to which many of them have become accustomed.

The US doesn't need to prove to the world that a bad president will never be elected again, which as you say is probably impossible and definitely false. What the US can do to rejoin the world in something akin to its former capacity is to walk back the extreme levels of authority granted to an individual who changes every four years (why is the executive able to change tariff levels every day?) in a way that relatively elevates rule of law and deliberative, compromising decision making.

As an outsider, it certainly seems like the US is entirely incapable of doing that in the foreseeable future.

Yes but at least the nature of the problem is one of getting people informed and in agreement and not some kind of economic miracle or unhinged reconquista.

Yet the executive branch, regardless of which party was in office, has done nothing but push to extend its powers for decades. They all get drunk on power and can’t help themselves. And here we are.

It will be impossible until the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United is reversed. Prior to this it would have been illegal for Musk to contribute $300 million to Trump. Now he is contributing another $100 million after the Tesla car show at the White House south lawn.

I'm hoping that the Democrats (and sympathetic Republicans) started working on a plan for this a few weeks ago. It needs to be comprehensive, and it needs to deal with both houses being majority single party, and deal with the ability for a president to select appointees to the powerful roles that are now filled with Trump catspaws.

They also need to fix their voting rules and gerrymandering.

I hope.

One thing that might help is if we stop thinking of them as, "they," as if they were some kind of occupying force.

Government is an occupying force. That some people hold sympathies with the regime and even voted for it in hopes that its serves their personal interests doesn't change the nature of the monopoly on violence.

> Disney wouldn't be happy with

... and something like half of the companies comprising the US GDP.

Much of the value that the US exports heavily depends on foreign nations enforcing intellectual property rights for the US.

If the world decided that the US is hostile and stopped enforcing US trademarks, patents, copyright, and trade secrets... it would be over for the US economy.

Any software could be "stolen" legally by anyone and sold under the original name and the US could do nothing about this except stomp their feet and threaten military invasion.

China and Russia already do this to an extent, but if everyone else did it too, it would be curtains for: The entire US game industry, movie industry, music industry, software industry, and more. Pharma and manufacturing would take a hit too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com