Did you know that the USA has a state debt of 30.6 trillion$ as of 2022? Thats around 91.900$ debt per capita and it´s rising. Each one of you is affected by this because the US are “too big to fail” until it isn´t anymore.
To big to fail? Because the US sell goods to the world and if the economy collapses the world will have no “great” american goods?
No! It´s because the world economy is based on the USA buying more then they can sell. The economy of 333 million people is incapable of providing for itself with a trade deficit in 2019 of 576.9 billion$. So most will be sure that the chinese are at fault. In fact without the chinese the US would already be bankcrupt by 2008. A small country like germany with just 80 million people has a plus of over 200 billion $ per year. Remember this is a country with workers rights galore and the products ain´t cheap. The just keep the world running and are of high quality.
Take the food industry of the USA as an example. They can not legally sell their bread into the biggest single market in the world (the EU) because it´s not legally bread but a cake. The amount of sugar is way to high. The trade with meat from the US is also restricted by the amount of toxic shit that is included. Do a quick check on what the FDA approved of and throw up. Like ice cream with secretion from beavers anal glands? To get american cars in the EU outside of Ford you have to go to specialized vendors and be an enthusiast because nobody can bare the suffering. When cars from czech manufaturers outsell you on a market, you don´t have a quality product.
Workers who have rights, contracts, healthcare and minimum wage by fact outsell the US economy.
It was so annoying to the US goverment that every president in the last two decades complained to the germans that they sell more then they buy… with all their rights and contracts, paid over time and manadtory breaks… being only second in export plus to the 1.3 billion people big chinese economy… how could they! How dare they show the “greatest” country in the world with pure facts, that they suck!?
So next time someone discusses this lie with you, you have the facts.
Well paid workers, with a healthy work-life balance in a society that doesn´t give a single f* about what people buy because they buy it anyway produce goods that are good. A restriction in consumerism is actually profiting you and let us just not go into crime rates falling (I added it anyway because in switzerland every second resident owns a gun and it has a murder rate of 0.5 per 100k citizens) from having enough to live and being looked after by your state.
Whatever they tell you and what you tell yourself, having rights and being safe changes EVERYTHING! You have the facts and you can win every argument from now on.
Good luck!