America Is in Big Trouble

True wealth is created by the real economy—agriculture, manufacturing, mining, energy, and construction. In contrast, trade, professional services, and financial sectors merely support the real economy, extracting value in exchange for their services rather than generating wealth independently (see Mammonism).

Driven by economic liberalism, the United States has undergone severe deindustrialization over the past few decades. Aside from a few remaining high-tech and military industries, most manufacturing has relocated to countries with lower production costs. Today, the U.S. economy is dominated by financial capitalism, relying heavily on monetary maneuvers to extract global wealth, even as its real productivity has long been unable to sustain its hegemony. America's perceived economic strength now rests more on printing money and financial engineering than on genuine economic output. Over the past 20 years, while its real economy has grown by only 1.5 times, the annual issuance of U.S. dollars has increased fivefold, national debt has surged sevenfold—exceeding $34 trillion—and private lending has ballooned to another $30 trillion. Much of this money flows abroad through the purchase of foreign goods, international loans, U.S. bond sales, and debt and interest repayments, driven by continued global demand for the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. It is estimated that more than $100 trillion in U.S. dollars circulates outside the United States.

This excessive money printing has fueled global inflation, doubling food prices, raising oil prices by 4.5 times, and tripling the price of iron ore. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency enables the United States to manipulate the global economy through its monetary policies. Monetary easing (lowering interest rates and increasing dollar supply) stimulates borrowing and spending, while monetary tightening (raising rates and restricting supply) strengthens the dollar, prompting capital to flow back into the U.S. and contracting other economies. Through this cyclical process, American oligarchs are able to periodically acquire foreign assets and stocks at discount prices. These monetary policies are reinforced by geopolitical strategies—fostering regional conflicts, inciting social unrest, and supporting "color revolutions" under the pretense of promoting democracy and human rights—to destabilize investment climates elsewhere. In this way, the U.S. extracts wealth from other nations while profiting from arms sales and wars. The primary beneficiaries, however, are not ordinary Americans, but elite special interests.

From the perspective of developing nations, this global economic order established and maintained by U.S. elites is profoundly unfair and immoral. To protect this system, the United States has historically sought to suppress rising economic competitors, from Britain, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the past, to Russia, Europe, and China today. By instigating the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the U.S. seeks to weaken Russia while simultaneously engineering a security crisis in Europe. Severing Europe's access to cheap Russian energy has allowed American energy to dominate European markets at much higher costs, fueling inflation, driving up production costs, damaging European industries, and accelerating capital outflows. This has further eroded Europe's strategic autonomy, binding it more tightly to American interests against the emerging East. Similarly, in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is forging alliances—with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Australia, and NATO's expansion—aimed at containing China.

The American oligarchy’s commitment to maintaining global dominance directly conflicts with the aspirations of other nations, which seek a cooperative, equitable international environment conducive to mutual growth. Yet the U.S.'s pursuit of unilateral hegemony, its extraterritorial reach, and its prioritization of self-interest have provoked growing resistance around the world.

At home, soaring debt, inflation, and a hollowed-out economy have left U.S. policymakers increasingly anxious. Instead of addressing deep-seated structural and institutional weaknesses, they double down on aggressive tactics to externalize their crises: raising the debt ceiling repeatedly with little intention of repayment, coercing other nations into buying more and more U.S. treasuries, flexing military power, provoking regional conflicts, launching tariff, trade and financial wars, imposing unilateral sanctions, and exercising long-arm jurisdiction. They also weaponize the U.S. dollar and the SWIFT financial system, freezing and confiscating foreign assets, sabotage foreign infrastructure, and engage in economic embargoes, decoupling strategies, and geopolitical isolation. While intended to suppress rival economies, these strategies simultaneously harm the U.S. itself, eroding its global reputation, undermining the credibility of the dollar, accelerating de-dollarization and global sell-offs of U.S. treasuries, forcing countries to establish independent financial systems that are not controlled by the United States—ultimately hastening the decline of American economic dominance.

Meanwhile, rampant inflation has forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively, triggering a wave of bank failures, a global economic downturn, and widespread financial market turmoil, particularly in heavily indebted countries.

For its own self-interest, the United States has become a major source of global instability. Yet the ruling elite remains unwilling to change course, clinging to the belief that they can perpetuate American dominance through financial manipulation and military interventions. Some imagine they can continue harvesting the wealth of other nations indefinitely through unchecked money printing. Others seem willing to risk another world war to preserve their primacy.

On the surface, America’s crisis stems from over-financialization and economic hollowing out, but at a deeper level, it is rooted in the toxic ideologies embraced by its plutocrats—capitalism taken to extremes, opportunistic neoliberalism, social Darwinism, Machiavellianism, the law of the jungle, and a zero-sum-game mentality (see Understanding China: Philosophies That Separate Two Worlds). They fail to recognize that hegemony built on mounting debt, rather than real economic strength, is fundamentally unsustainable.

I believe most tango dancers do not share the ideologies of America’s plutocrats. Tango, in its ethos, opposes such predatory mentalities. Nonetheless, we must remain vigilant about the insidious influence these ideologies may have on our lives—and on tango itself (see A Dance That Challenges Modern Ideologies).

The world that most nations seek is not one of dominance, but of democracy: a system where every country has an equal opportunity to develop and improve their people’s lives through cooperation and mutual benefit. If U.S. policymakers truly believe in democracy, they must abandon their selfish, exploitative, hegemonic strategies. The American people deserve leaders of greater moral integrity. Otherwise, America will inevitably face the consequences of its own actions (see Understanding China: The Vicious Circle of Regime Change).

P.S.
The following video provides an in-depth explanation of the American monetary system—from the Bretton Woods Agreement and the decoupling of the U.S. dollar from gold, to its peg to oil, the rise of consumer capitalism, vendor financing, the outsourcing of manufacturing, job losses, trade deficits, growing inequality, military expansion, perpetual warfare, uncontrolled money printing, escalating debt, and the resulting dollar devaluation and inflation crisis. The speaker attributes these issues to the U.S. dollar's role as the world’s reserve currency and predicts that the system will ultimately collapse when a new currency regime emerges. The key question remains: will America's elite special interests allow change before their empire crumbles?

Mammonism

Money began as a practical solution to a very human problem: how to exchange what we have for what we need.

Before money, people relied on barter. A farmer with surplus grain traded with a fisherman who had extra fish. But barter required a coincidence of wants: both parties had to desire what the other offered. When their needs didn’t align, exchange broke down. This inefficiency pushed societies toward a universal medium of exchange—something everyone would accept, regardless of personal need at any given moment.

Early money took the form of essential goods like salt. Exchange ratios reflected the labor embedded in each product: if producing a pound of salt required the same effort as producing two pounds of grain, they traded accordingly. Money still mirrored real value.

As time progressed, various commodities—cattle, silk, shells—served as money. Gold and silver ultimately rose to prominence due to their durability, divisibility, and universal desirability.

As economies expanded, carrying metal became impractical. Paper money emerged as a representation of stored gold and silver. Later, governments detached paper money from metal reserves entirely, creating fiat currency—money backed not by a commodity but by state authority.

In the digital age, even paper currency is becoming obsolete. Balances exist as mere numbers in databases, and transactions occur through electronic signals. Digital currency is convenient and fast but represents the furthest detachment from the physical goods that money was initially designed to represent.

This evolution marks the alienation of money—a gradual separation of currency from tangible value. While money becomes abstract, it increasingly becomes an object of greed, mistaken for wealth itself. But currency is not wealth; goods and services are. Money is only a medium for exchanging them.

This confusion has consequences. Printing money and creating digital currencies cannot make a country richer. When governments print money faster than real goods are produced, inflation follows. Bank accounts may show larger numbers, but those numbers buy less. Without real products anchoring them, these figures become hollow symbols devoid of substance. The misconception arises that generating currency equates to creating wealth. In reality, only the production of real value can achieve that.

Yet, this empty symbolism has become the goal for many. People discovered they could accumulate money without producing anything—simply by inserting themselves between producers and consumers. Banks emerged to profit from lending. Financial institutions invented ever more elaborate mechanisms—derivatives, speculation, arbitrage, monetary manipulation—to generate money from money. Economic doctrines like mercantilism, financialism, and neoliberalism arose to justify this shift, claiming that profit—not production—is the true purpose of economic activity, that markets alone should drive this process, and that trade and finance offer the quickest paths to wealth.

As a result, more and more individuals transitioned from manufacturing jobs to commerce and finance, while companies increasingly outsourced production to countries with cheaper labor to maximize profits. This shift has led to the deindustrialization, commercialization, and financialization of home economies, leaving nations dependent on fragile global supply chains.

The drive for profit through extraction has also paved the way for exploitation. Employers profit by paying workers far less than the value they create. Financial institutions profit by lending depositors’ money. Insurance companies thrive on low‑risk clients. Pharmaceutical firms inflate drug prices. Hospitals charge exorbitant fees for basic care. Lawyers receive hefty kickbacks for helping people win lawsuits. In each case, money is made not by creating value but by extracting it.

In this environment, while a nation’s physical wealth stagnates, a select few can become extraordinarily affluent through unfair practices. When prices rise not because real value increased but because intermediaries manipulate markets, inflation spreads across the entire economy—housing, food, transportation, healthcare. The burden falls on ordinary workers. In the United States today, 63% of people cannot afford a $500 emergency, while a tiny elite accumulates unimaginable wealth through a system designed to benefit them.

Greed knows no limits. The majority of crimes—whether detected or not—are fueled by the pursuit of money. Even noble professions such as education, medicine, and journalism are increasingly driven by profit motives. Money, however, is indifferent to morality; those who exploit others are rewarded, while honest workers are left behind. As fairness erodes, so too does the incentive for genuine labor, leading to moral decay and opportunism.

When a society measures success solely by capital gains, allows oligarchs to hoard wealth, permits them to shape laws and policies, bestows upon them legal privileges, and exalts them as role models, the consequences are inevitable: a culture fixated on rapid money accumulation. Corruption festers, inequality deepens, and society fractures. Natural resources are depleted, the environment is ravaged, and the state becomes a cartel controlled by capital and special interests. Politicians become increasingly corrupt and shameless.

The greed for money may initially fuel economic growth, but it ultimately leads to decay, corruption, and collapse. When an economy prioritizes profit over production, when it outsources manufacturing to cut costs, when it sacrifices quality for profit—as seen in the failures of companies like Boeing, when it relies more on printing money, stock speculation, and financial manipulation than on producing goods, when its core workforce consists not of farmers and industrial workers but of bankers, dealers, brokers, and lawyers, when its GDP comes primarily from financial and non-production sectors rather than agriculture and manufacturing, collapse is not a question of if, but when. (See America Is in Big Truoble.)

Capitalism, in its current form, has become a cancerous force in the modern world. It transforms human beings into slaves to money. When money was invented, no one foresaw that it would lead to such profound alienation. How to break free from this destructive cycle remains one of the most urgent questions confronting modern thinkers.