[xk_id]

> What does this mean really? That is their means.

It means Americans are providing mainly a financial service, by managing the dollar. The value of their currency therefore doesn’t accrue from a real economy, which, by definition, only includes consumer goods and services.

[starspangled]

Even if we take what you wrote as fact, that does not answer how it is living beyond their means if their means includes "providing mainly a financial service, by managing the dollar".

[vanviegen]

If you're spending $1.9 trillion per year more than you're earning (projected for 2025), accumulating debt, I think it's fair to say you're living well beyond your means.

We're talking about $5600 per inhabitant per year.

[starspangled]

I didn't say Americans aren't living beyond their means. Just that on the face of it they aren't living beyond their means due to their currency's status if that status gives them some means to buy more. OP just didn't really provide a rationale as to why it's this currency issue in particular that you can point to to say Americans are living beyond their means.

Lots of countries have a lot of debt, many are in similar boats or worse as USA when you look at various metrics like debt per capita, per gdp, etc. Politicians and their "experts" and economists etc generally insist this is perfectly fine. I also get the feeling they're probably lying about that and many other things, though I don't know enough about the subject to actually know myself.

[__m]

it's called the “exorbitant privilege”

[starspangled]

I'm not asking what it's called, I'm asking why that's claimed to be out of their means when it quite clearly is within their means to have this exorbitant privilege, as evidenced by the fact that they have exorbitant privilege.

[dns_snek]

Because at some unspecified point in the future, the rest of world will stop playing the game where the house always wins.

[starspangled]

No, the meaning of the phrase "living beyond one's means" doesn't go to the unavoidable fact that circumstances change over time. I will one day become infirm and unable to earn money, that does not mean I'm currently living beyond my means.

US dollars might one day cease to be the global reserve currency in which case Americans will not see such benefits associated with that. This is a true statement. That doesn't mean they are currently living beyond their means either though.

[dns_snek]

> I will one day become infirm and unable to earn money, that does not mean I'm currently living beyond my means.

That is not the same thing because it's real productivity, labor is the only thing in the world that has any real value. You're exchanging your own labor for other people's labor. The US is exchanging something that has no inherent value (USD) for other people's labor.

If I take on all the debt that I can, max out my credit cards, mortgage my house, and spend everything I have on luxuries, am I living beyond my means, or am I living within my means as evidenced by the fact that I'm actually doing it?

[intended]

The rest of the world wants to be the house.

The rest of the world was and remains very happy to play this game, because it reduces the amount of trouble people have when exchanging currencies.

It gives advantages to America, sure. But America recognized that there were consequences.

Today, 1/3rd of the American electorate is insulated from reality, and its politics are free to downplay, or ignore consequences, if not just blame them on the opposition.

No one has an answer to a broken market of information. In the end, reality will have its due.