As tensions escalate between California and the Trump administration over immigration, another potential battlefront is emerging over taxes.
The spat began with reports that the Trump administration is considering cutting funding for California’s university system, the largest higher education system in the nation with about 12% of all U.S. enrolled students.
In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote Friday afternoon in a social media post that California provides about $80 billion more in taxes to the federal government than it receives in return.
“Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump,” Newsom said.
GDP does not indicate how big an economy is, it measures how many dollars trade hands in it.
So there are two things about this:
One is that the reason the US GDP is so high is because of price and wage inflation in the service industry that makes up most of it. And I mean white-collar services like software devs, management consultants, doctors and lawyers and the like. It’s a lot of made up money that goes nowhere, you pay a US software engineer twice as much as someone in the EU just for them to have less disposable income PPP than someone in the EU as that extra money ends up with landlords, banks and insurance companies. It’s a shell game that boosts figures.
Two, that shell game is held up by everyone trusting the dollar. Trump is eroding that precise trust, and a Calexit would be another hit to that. Do you know how much the US owes? It doesn’t matter as long as the dollar is king, and I would not have bet against the dollar last year, but it seems like Trump is betting against it and winning. And when everyone is convinced Wall Street is not a safe haven for your money because Trump will just steal it, then that premium on the US GDP will just evaporate, along with a sizeable chunk of the world economy.
Here’s hoping the world lets the US down gently for its own sake.
Yes.
Seriously get paid double and actually have less than a worker in another country since we have to pay for each single piece of life separately at retail prices.
And 2… Yeesh yeah. Literally stocks just keep going up cause the value of the dollar is lowering and nobody knows where to put it to keep it safe other than the stock market… And it does feel like it’s gonna get robbed at some point.
So agreed, just think it’s wild that there is enough money hoarding and spending in any state in the US to beat out lots of countries for GDP and sets the US as the battery that powers the global economy at our pain. I do hope we just drain the battery rather than light it on fire.