Food for thought here, but I don't find myself agreeing. The transmission mechanism is 'do something to the state.... complex systems can fail catastrophically... the economy is a complex system... so it could fail catastrophically.' - ThreadSky

t0nyyates.bsky.social • 14 days ago

Food for thought here, but I don't find myself agreeing. The transmission mechanism is 'do something to the state.... complex systems can fail catastrophically... the economy is a complex system... so it could fail catastrophically.'

Reposted from George Monbiot

In this week's column, I explore what I see as a very real prospect of systemic collapse, caused by Trump's actions, and suggest we start preparing.
I try to explain how complex systems fail, and suggest some of the failure paths we could be on.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Comments

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

One of the examples cited, the shuttering of the agency that combats the defrauding of customers by banks and similar institutions... I don't think this is a vector for a financial crisis. It will lead to some more fraud. Market discipline will still constrain providers.

alexjw.bsky.social•14 days ago

If sufficient fraudulent activity happens it can undermine the whole system. Wasn’t that one of the reasons behind the subprime mortgage cause of the 2008 crash?

petercripps.bsky.social•14 days ago

Surely the 2008 financial crisis is an example of how markets lack very little discipline when it comes to defrauding customers. The impending car loan crisis in the UK is another example of how customers get screwed over by the financial sector.

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

The crisis was not, predominantly, caused by fraud it was caused by imprudence on the part of regulators allowing banks to take too much risk.

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

A different matter if DOGE goes after the Fed or the other bodies charged with regulating how banks etc arrange their balance sheets. Or if there is any repeat of the hints last week by Trump that government debt has been entered into fraudulently and therefore might not be honoured by the US.

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

I doubt anything Trump is doing is going to lead to 'collapse'. Economies are not like that. Covid19 was a huge shock affecting all aspects of the economy's supply chains. Yet here we all are.

freelunch23.bsky.social•14 days ago

idk, it seems to me that the us is similar to the ussr 1989 or something like that

aphclarkson.bsky.social•14 days ago

Going after IRS and Social Security does potentially generated huge cuts. As do Truss level unfunded tax cuts

dogpatchryan.bsky.social•14 days ago

I still think the biggest risk is that they start messing around with official statistics and nobody knows what is actually going on.

souptomatosoup.uk•14 days ago

There may be a collapse in some sectors like agricultural with everything they are doing to migrants.

rkemb.bsky.social•14 days ago

I think this is easier to recover (let in workers again!) than, say, a gutting of the FDA where you lose institutional knowledge and processes, have a series of food safety standards, and have to attempt to rebuild a complex embedded system of regulation to regain trust in the system.

souptomatosoup.uk•14 days ago

oh absolutely, I was thinking more about the initial failure of sections of the economy rather than long term impacts.

And how acutely it would be felt by the american populace

Early morning thoughts are limited in scope :)

rkemb.bsky.social•14 days ago

Think a lot of people choose not to realise how important it is for an economy to be able to trust the quality of the goods and services you're paying for; if you break that, you depress economic activity for a long time.

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

Most likely the US will see a significant diminuition in their capacity. A shrinkage in air traffic; manufacturing reshoring and becoming much more expensive due to the tariffs. Significant reductions in life expectancy as healthcare deteriorates for middle and low earners.

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

Deterioration in living standards and depopulation for areas vulnerable to wildfires, flooding and hurricaines as Federal relief shrinks and becomes more political. Massive corruption in the reduced government procurement, leading to worse govt services per $.

ghiberti.bsky.social•14 days ago

Baksheesh required to ease access to everyday services

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

There is and will be further significant reductions in labour supply as ICE scares undocumented and poorly documented workers away from work where they might fear being picked up, harming agriculture, personal services, a thousand other activities. No collapse, just shrinking.

caxskye.bsky.social•14 days ago

Trump has no real understanding of the economy or Government funding.
Likely the Federal state funding mechanisms will be the first to grind to a halt under the Starlink ‘explode & try again’ idiot.

zaphodbeeblebr0x.bsky.social•14 days ago

What would you call the transition from a high functioning society to a low functioning one?

royalinterest.bsky.social•14 days ago

Yet.

Getting infected repeatedly with a virus that can wreak havoc on all parts of your body and of course the immune system and can lead to devastating health issues such as #longcovid and #me/cfs ist just not sustainable.

But suit yourself, y'all, and keep not wearing masks.

yousitonmyspot.bsky.social•14 days ago

The current changes are structural, covid Changes were temporary to contain the spread.

hyperplanes.bsky.social•14 days ago

CFPB isn't that old so we know what's going to happen. Also it's not like they did much last time Trump was in charge. But Trum/Elon have talked about going after FDIC and the Fed

t0nyyates.bsky.social•14 days ago

Yep

sunnydarkgreen.bsky.social•14 days ago

I think you're conveniently muddling GMs argument. The problems with insurance, with corporate synchronicity & homogenaity, and the plain desire for State collapse among many plutocrats .. these are more powerful than you imply.

simonywaking.bsky.social•14 days ago

Does a possible crisis go: deregulation of fin system and erosion of federal agencies - excessive private leverage and risk - US uninvestible and uninsurable - crisis similar to GFC - but without international coordinated response and financially far weaker developed economies and governments?

mattrobb.bsky.social•14 days ago

Indeed. It's almost certainly nonsense.

Most complex systems are full of negative feedback loops that dampen rather than amplify disruptions. You can push a system out of that stable position and over some kind of saddle point, but it's really, really hard to do this at a nation level

mattrobb.bsky.social•14 days ago

None of which is to imply Trump can't do a lot of damage, but the 'systemic collapse of the US' is miles away and it's almost impossible to imagine how federal, state, local systems all fall over

mattrobb.bsky.social•14 days ago

We will see - are seeing - things like measles outbreaks in Red counties already. But we're nowhere near 'widespread measles epidemic' because most people in the US are vaccinated.

Ditto tariffs. They could be bad, or very bad. But they aren't going to stop trade entirely.

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