science

The US still holds the reserve currency, that they force other countries to use via military force. Which allows them to export their inflation, and to print money to build up the military they use to protect its usage.

I think the problem is the population got too heavy into taking in debt via this mechanism, always asking for more and more tax cuts and more social programs, and China themselves stopped buying US treasuries in 2016. Then locking Russia out of US bonds further exacerbated the issue, as its no longer seen as a neutral asset, so bond yields rise as less people buy them.

Then the tariffs and higher interest rates cause debt crisis in other countries by limiting their access to USD, which makes them attempt to move away, which is likely how gold prices nearly doubled in a single year. Its pretty wild whats happening.

Yeah but this is round two: science boogaloo. We have a government actively hostile to science and research, throwing away where we still had a leading position.

In particular, we’re reversing the brain drain from China. If they’re becoming slightly less repressive and welcome science while we’re cutting research, cutting legal immigration, driving cuts by racism and judging research by whether the ai classifies it as “woke”, too many researchers who would have come here may no longer feel welcome