Tariffs and sky high audio prices.

I want to click the heels of my red slippers and make it 1956 again.

Frank

Been following this thread diligently.  Please moderators don't kill it. It is a great debate to follow and most interesting.
Yes it does affect any and all things audio. 
A very civil discussion between all parties. I'm loving it.

@millercarbon

Excellent points all. Your examples are all relevant and reasonably accurate. Debt is a big deal worldwide and defaults trigger some amazing ripples and a few tsunamis from time to time. The nice thing about some debt though is watching the reset. What we have never seen in world history though is an intentional default from a nuclear power. You could argue that Russia was a hybrid but I might suggest they were just trying to find a few loaves of bread after wall fell and the Long Term Capital Management collapse.

The one child policy was effective for China, slowing the exponential and unsustainable population growth while allowing them to get infrastructure and food production to at least a manageable level. Their birthrate is now somewhere between Japan on the lower end and the USA on the higher end, a little more than 1.5 children per capita IIRC.

Once again, China’s international holdings and trade reach rivals ours. The EU will trade with them. Period. The EU was formed to try to establish a trading block to rival us. Whether it stays together remains to be seen but its allegiances will drift further away from the politeness assumed by the US/UK. Additionally, the wave of nationalist/far right movements throughout the world jeopardizes free trade and reasonable discourse.

We all have a ringside seat and it will interesting to witness. This is far bigger than steel but the Chinese will not have to capitulate. Frankly I would be quite worried if they did. That would mean to me that they are buying more time to position.

The U.S. economy needn’t be destroyed by another country’s actions or policies. A natural disaster(ie: Cascadia Subduction Zone, San Andreas Fault, Yellowstone Caldera, etc), or anything(on either coast) that even temporarily wiped out the electronic funds transfer records, regarding the billions of Dollars, moved EVERY day, via wire, would do the job. Every American citizen, would then be responsible, for what they owe the government. They’d pay, one way or the other. For such as can comprehend the significance: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/this-is-how-much-debt-your-country-has-per-person/ Those are simply facts. Digest them, as you please. As I quoted earlier, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Someone recently added that(somehow), “its different this time”. They forgot, "IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE!" Only time will tell. Could be another 200 years, or- tomorrow. Hopefully, we won’t be around to see the results of the current, tragic level of willful ignorance, so prevalent in this nation. "Misc Audio" thread qualifier: Except for my Canadian phono stage, everything in my home system is USA made.

The surplus of labor - the central tenet of capitalism- was realized in China. Wages were minimal. Production cheap. We bought their junk. They win.