What would you want to watch for if you believed it was modeled by a cusp catastrophe and the catastrophe were unfolding to the alternate "sheet" / steady state (in plain terms, about to rapidly accelerate)? That might look like Fed attempts to stabilize the USD and failing to slow the capital flight. Then rapid treaty realignments out of NATO, economic realignments by Mexico and Canada, a loss of strategic deterrence by the US military resulting in regional territory realignments (with an eye on India and China as regional competitors) and bilateral defense agreements.

I expect the USD would decrease by 30% in this case against the EUR/GBP and China would unpeg the renminbi. Favorable trade treaties to the US would be abandoned and the US economy would reduce in real terms by 10-20%. Oil prices would triple. It requires some real thinking if the US could sustain its Pacific territories and even Alaska.

There are arguments against this, Krugman states them. I would suggest that the AI Boom is not counteracting this, but is serving as the normal factor. The capital flow and demand for energy, commodities, and advanced manufacturing is actually serving as a splitting factor and accelerating the bifurcation.

The most important thing I'm trying to say is that if you accept the cusp catastrophe model, then hysteresis is not the US's friend. Once this tipping point happens, the path back to the status quo is not the same way we got there and is not easy. The resulting equilibrium is strongly stable in a way that is extremely unlikely to be undone in the lifetime of anyone reading this

"I wsih it nede not have happneed in my tmie," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
[apologies for the butchered quotation, it was necessary to get past the firewall]

fin.