The Trump-Bessent Plan to Reduce the Debt: Tariffs are merely the tip of the iceberg
Their strategy is anything but "chaotic."
Have you noticed how the media loves to brand the Trump Administration as a “circus,” or call it "chaotic? Unable to see any unifying principle, most pundits debate specific issues like tariffs and immigration.
This view is naive. If we dive down and look beneath the water level, there’s a coherent plan to address the national debt while simultaneously addressing the nation’s security in a world where the balance of power is shifting. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s central role in this grand strategy is the subject at hand.
As usual, you can follow along at a speed of 1.25, which makes the video about 40 minutes long. I have attached a PDF transcript with lots of bonus material.
Note: At the close of the discussion, I intended to flag the new website of Loco-Foco Press, the publisher of my book, A Black Hole in Economics: Money Creation and its Consequences. However, while talking I forgot to click on the slide, so it’s attached below.
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HardmoneyJim, February 28, 2025
Thank you, Jim, for including that PDF for those of us who prefer reading to watching/listening to a video!
Jim, I would love your comment in a future podcast on the topic of foreign purchase of treasuries. I think I tagged you recently in a couple X posts on topic from Balaji. Here is the point stated in two different way:
(1) To say that USA pays $$$$$$$$$$$$ for NATO and the rest of the countries each pay $ for NATO is false because we are mass exporting our treasuries to our European allies while we simultaneously inflate away the value of these "investments." Balaji talks about it as if the NATO countries pay us a form of protection money, in the mafia sense, through treasury purchase.
(2) The American Empire has been able to distribute our inflation across the world rather than just on our own population here in the USA. The math of our situation looks much uglier moving forward if the world stops buying our treasuries, and that will be an increasingly likely result based on the current course that you well outline in your podcast.
Would love your thoughts on Balaji's ideas, which I probably didn't state as clearly as he did.