US Insolvable Economic Problems

I made a list of some of the serious economic problems being faced by the United States.  One reason why they are unsolvable is that political leaders and their people believe lies about the situation that prevent them from understanding the cause.

The other obstacle is that many of the problems do have known solutions, but they cannot be implemented because they are politically unacceptable.  No politician would promise to implement them, because it would destroy their candidacy for office.

I have summarised the problems, the lies that people believe about them, and the truth that needs to be understood in the following table.

US Problem	Lies	Truth
Structural Trade Deficit ($850 billion)	Deficits are necessary to supply dollars to the nations (wrong – they did this when running a trade surplus. The nations are stealing from us Foreigners pay tariffs	Strong dollar limits exports and encourage imports A high-cost structure is the problem, - health care - education - social problems Lack of skilled staff Financialisaton shifted industry to cheap labour. Tariffs might help but would also increase inflation.
Persistent Budget Deficits ($2 trillion)	Deficits do not matter	Donors demand tax cuts. Political processes demand pork. The massive military machine costs money. The only solution is to increase taxes and/or reduce spending, but this is not politically expedient.
Government Debt ($30 trillion)	We owe it to ourselves so it does not matter. The Fed is too slow.	Persistent budget deficits feed debt. Interest is now one of the largest budget items. Debt pushes up interest rates which slows the economy and hurts consumers. The big beautiful bill is making the debt situation worse.
De-industrialisation		Financialisation moved industry to cheap labour nations for profit. China is skilled in industrial production China has an educated population More STEM graduates than the USA. Tariffs will shift some industries back to the US, but they will have to be specialised activities that can support expensive labour. Free market capitalism combined with debt-led consumerism throws up the problem.
Military Weakness	To be a world hegemon, the US must keep China down.	The US military relies on China for imports of technology. The US cannot afford to be the world policeman. The US military does not have sufficient personnel, and military recruiting is getting harder. The US military demands extremely expensive hardware which is not effective in a peer-to-peer war. Complex technology takes too long to develop and is too expensive to use against weak enemies.
Debt-fuelled consumption	Cheap consumption makes people happy. They will not accept a reduced standard of living.	Consumerism depends on cheap labour in poor countries. The US cannot produce the cheap goods that people want. Household and student debt are problematic.
Incompetent political leadership	Technocratic leaders have the solutions that society needs. Challenges to the political establishment are a threat to freedom.	Western politicians are intellectually, morally and politically weaker than ever. They are Detached from reality, assuming they live in a world that does not exist. Elite groups on both sides of the spectrum take turns at leading. Leaders don’t have effective solutions and don’t know how to implement t them effectively. Covid and the global financial crisis confirmed their incompetence. No political appetite for solving structural problems.
Flawed economic model - neoliberalism	Unconstrained free market capitalism will produce economic outcomes for everyone.	The western economic model has failed.Its weakness is confirmed by the global financial crisis. The world economy needs to be restructured but no one understands how this could happen or what should be the outcome.
Migration	The nations are emptying their prisons and mental asylums and sending the inmates to America. Immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country".	The US needs low-paid workers for its agriculture, to collect the garbage and clean the homes of the wealthy. The US lacks effective processes for managing the selection of migrants. The Migrants arriving are remaining in ghettoes because they fear the law. Many don’t speak English. Migrants are changing the culture at a time when Christian influence is declining. Debate about the merits of migration is impossible, because people who raise concerns about its effects are labelled as right-wing.
Resource Constraints	Drill baby drill!	American wealth was built on an abundance of mineral resources that were easy to extract. Unfortunately, most of the easily extractable minerals are now becoming exhausted. There are plenty of mineral resources still available, but they are more costly to extract and use. This will push up the price of everything.

These are interlinked problems. One cannot be solved without solving the other. Most of these problems cannot be solved politically. Most solutions are politically unacceptable.

Donald Trump understands the seriousness of the problems, but he remains part of the problem, not the solution. His economic decisions and political rhetoric are exacerbating many of the problems.