Great point. Many Americans would prefer to buy (given) a flying car vs. build a flying car. Personally I believe there is dignity in self determination. To each their own.
You also lower the profits from the exporting country (China) through reduced volumes. China has been on a massive productivity growth agenda that is only sustained through open trade and exports.
They’re the wrong numbers and people misunderstand the numbers. The consumption basket for CPI (food) is determined by consumption surveys. Not desire or historical consumption. You can have less and lower quality food with a rising spend on food.
For example, food away from home is down. People cannot afford to go out to eat as much. Rather than reflect the higher cost of going out to eat, the consumption basket reduces the proportion of food away from home.
There are also hard limits on food spending. People have limited money. Instead what you seeing is a continued increase in SNAP and record food bank usage.
Make no mistake. The young family or median person is worse off with food security today despite spending more.
Agree it will land more stable for most parties but it will be turbulent getting there. Global free trade under the USD has created many structural fragilities. Principally that we have global overproduction outside the USA.
That’s entirely the point. Leave the USA financial system or contribute more. If you pick an single alternative currency I’ll run through the reasons why most would choose the US Dollar.
The broader trend here is that power is becoming more concentrated in companies and institutions and away from individuals and local groupings. These differences in beliefs, ethics, morals, etc. are difficult to work through in any large grouping of people. The array of approaches to government is an example of trying to solve this coordination problem.