[roenxi]

1. After what happened to Russia every planner in China has "the US government seizes our assets" as a plausible in the next 50 years.

2. It is implausible that the US will ever pay back its foreign debts in real terms. Anyone who lends to them will end up with less stuff in total.

3. We live in an age of computers and pervasive digital communication; things can happen a lot more quickly these days than in the 50s.

4. There is a consistent trend of dropping energy security in Western countries.

This is no time to be forecasting assuming things will happen at a comfortable pace. People should have contingencies ready in case something unprecedented happens. It is tense out there.

[cwal37]

Actually, over nearly the past two decades, in the US, it has been the opposite of a “consistent trend of dropping energy security.” Considered like a trade balance, since 2019 the net energy balance in the US is positive.

[roenxi]

https://ourworldindata.org/energy -> Chart per capita primary energy use -> pick the US -> observe steadily dropping per capita energy use per person since 2000.

Down ~20% from peak. That is not a country drowning in cheap energy, that is a coming under a lot of pressure. Not a time to be going "eh, long term trends take a while to kick in". The long term trends have been around for a while, we're well in to the part where we start reaching tipping points and step changes.

What is going to happen? Who knows. But it could happen quite quickly.

[lolinder]

So your argument in support of the claim that the US isn't secure in its energy supplies is that we're using our energy more efficiently than we were before?

I can imagine how that could be a second order effect of energy insecurity, but there are other explanations that seem more likely, like:

* The move from incandescent to LED lighting

* Improved insulation and heating technology

* Energy efficient appliances

* Removal of inefficient vehicles in favor of more efficient vehicles

You're going to have to do better than "per capita energy use is dropping" to convince me there's a looming threat to US energy supplies.

[roenxi]

The US political situation isn't remotely consistent with it being a country that has just freed up 20% of its energy for alternative uses. It is acting like a country that is being squeezed and has an increasingly desperate underclass that has gotten quite disgruntled.

20% is like having no energy on half of Saturday and all of Sunday. The improvements you listed are not comparable.

[JumpCrisscross]

> is not a country drowning in cheap energy

On average, we have cheap power [1]. If you're power hungry, we have some of the cheapest power on the planet [2].

The fact that coal-burning China pays more for power [3] than American industry should drive home our massive geostrategic advantage.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...

[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/end-use.php

[3] https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/electricity_prices/

[roenxi]

You seem to be referencing electricity. That is missing the energy which comes from oil. The energy from oil is the important stuff here, because it is the one that links into the US dollar and its performance.

And the US having access cheap oil is a good argument for why there might be a sudden step change in their economy - there are a lot of people with a serious interest in breaking the US dollar oil trade. Now including Russia and possibly China if they can read the writing on the wall. The US can't fight them both at once so China is in a pretty good position to get away with stuff right now if their regime survives COVID.

[nonethewiser]

You dont think the largest oil producer in the world has cheap oil? Even compared to a country which is completely dependent on oil imports from the middle east and Russia?

[roenxi]

If they had cheap oil, we'd be seeing people using more energy, a stable and improving political climate and rapid improvements in the quality of life of individual people. Like we see in China (or the rest of Asia) as they gain more access to energy. None of those things are evident in the US - it is a country that is seeing reduced access to energy.

Cheap oil in the US has been extinct for more than a decade.

[int_19h]

I would hope that our energy consumption per capita is lower than it was 20+ years ago, given how much of it is from burning fossil fuels that we've been struggling to reduce.

Energy security is not about how much energy we do spend, but rather about how much energy we could spend, if we wanted. On this count, OP is right and the situation is still better than it used to be.

[gumby]

The energy intensity of the USA (Kcal/$GDP) has been falling for decades. You don't understand the figure you are quoting.

[gumby]

Almost all wrong, except #1. #1 is a definite risk, and a more interesting one than just Russian and Chinese "planners." Otherwise your note is nonsense.

2. No sovereign government debt is paid down in real terms over the very long run (this doesn't have to be so, but the data). So why should a non-national buy it?

If you buy US debt you get an asset that is supremely liquid and extremely unlikely to default. Over shorter terms from right now it appears likely to outperform other sovereign assets.

In very short terms at various times you can make money trading marginal countries' debt (even Argentinian!). But you take on a big risk premium for that!

3. There is so much analysis of technological advances of the 20th century that I won't even bother to try an summarize. WWII began with horse drawn artillery and ended with jet aircraft and ICBMs. My own grandmother was alive from kitty hawk to moon landings and robots spread out through the solar system. Things move frustratingly (for me) slowly these days.

4. Arrant nonsense, with the trend pointing the other way.

[nonethewiser]

> After what happened to Russia every planner in China has "the US government seizes our assets" as a plausible in the next 50 years.

Only if they plan on doing something akin to starting a war against Ukraine.

[patrick451]

I'd rephrase this as only if they plan on doing something the Americans have done themselves many times in recent memory. Which makes predicting what will set off western ire difficult to predict.

[the_doctah]

What kind of contingencies? Money in mattress?

[roenxi]

I've got no particular clue. But if the plan is to assume things happen slowly over 50 years then that is a risky plan. If things play out like in the 1900s, we could see an entire world war play out over 5 years and that'd likely break the US dollar. Or some similar shock. We still don't really understand the impacts of the COVID pandemic and what that is doing in China.

> Money in mattress?

The response to every crisis the US has had for the last 3 decades is to print and borrow increasingly large amounts money. And they are probably the most responsible fiscal controller around at the moment.

If you see that changing for some reason then sure, maybe money under the mattress could help. I don't expect that strategy to change myself, and the last thing I'd want under my mattress is money.

[nonethewiser]

The problem is that you have to pick an alternative. The default is probably cash, because that's how you get paid. If you can't even make an argument for an alternative then I think the overwhelmingly historically best option is the obvious decision. Gold is something people often make an argument for in this case but it's historical returns are pretty bad.

[roenxi]

I can make an argument for anything being better than cash including a massive tinned baked bean stockpile. It is quite hard to do worse than cash.

> Gold is something people often make an argument for in this case but it's historical returns are pretty bad.

I don't follow, gold has been making pretty reasonable returns for about 20 years now and has been a far superior option to cash. What don't you like about it?

[bee_rider]

What does investing with possible WW3 taken into account look like? Heavy on canned food, bullets, and remote real estate I guess? Assuming nuclear weapons don’t just magically vanish.

[kudokatz]

> People should have contingencies ready in case something unprecedented happens.

> What kind of contingencies? Money in mattress?

The right to live in multiple countries on a permanent basis (foreign permanent residence and/or passports) and investments that automatically balance as world markets shift over time (e.g. the worldwide equivalent of VTI: VT)

[nonethewiser]

If a world war causes the US stock market to crash you can be damn sure that the rest of the world is going to have bad time starting from a worse place. Not only are other countries so connected to the US's global economy, but many literally cannot secure trade without US security and US lead organizations.

[ahyattdev]

Those lending to the US government are doing so by purchasing US Treasury bonds, which have due dates and earn interest.

Based on the credit rating of the US government, they will certainly not end up with less in nominal terms.