There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
And people still say this isn't a crisis...
I have just come back from several weeks in Asia, one that thing immediately struck me the number of rich Asians who aren't choosing iPhones, instead Chinese phones I have never seen in the West. Same with driving things like BYDs rather than Teslas. Mercs seem to be the one Western car brand that was popular.
Remember the old poem If you can keep your head when all about you, Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, Perhaps you have misunderstood the situation. Or something like that.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor says “Any discussion of recession seems silly” whilst noting, practically in the same breath, how great it was that oil prices are falling. Like the 2 are unconnected.
This is not going to end well
Peter Navarro is - and has always been - an idiot.
He represented the steel companies in the fight under the Bush administration to get tariffs imposed on steel imports.
The result of the tariffs was a marginal increase in employment (like 1,000 jobs) in the steel industry, and a loss of 100x that in steel consuming industries.
You know: there are many ways one could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the likelihood of increasing US manufacturing employment and production.
There are ways you could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the US's negotiating power.
But what the Trump administration has implemented hammers US firms that have foreign components anywhere in their supply chain. And because it is so dumb, no one believes that the tariffs will last, so no one is going to onshore production.
For economic idiocy, the current US government takes some beating.
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
I think @bondegezou is outlining a possible path forward.
We've already seen - in North Carolina - a court toss out tens of thousands of ballots in a closely contested election.
The issue with the North Carolina election is that it was exceedingly close. The Democrat (Riggs) won by around 600 votes. If Riggs had won by hundreds of thousands of votes, then Griffen would have quietly conceded.
Also, it's worth noting that Gore was trying similar shenanigans with the Florida result in 2000, meaning he was trying to force selective recounts only in areas of the State where he thought he would gain votes. Meaning: the Democrats aren't exactly angels when it comes to trying to use courts to overturn election results.
In any event, the litigation is ongoing. The Federal courts haven't stepped in, as yet, only because they want to let the State litigation play out first. Eventually, they will step in, and then I expect the case will go to the Supreme Court. I have my doubts that Roberts, in particular, and also Amy Coney, will allow something blatantly unfair to take place.
What do people think of the likelihood of another American civil war or a state seceding? If you're New York or California, your president is continually slagging you off, you contribute a vast amount to federal coffers, and pretty soon you might find out your retirees have had their social security all DOGE'd up...
Non-existent, unless Trump reaches for a third term or actually invades Canada perhaps, and then “very slim”.
Invading Canada could be a trigger. A third term nah (i.e. it will happen but won't create a civil war).
I think even the MAGA diehards will see that Trump is utterly gaga in three years' time...
Munchau is absolutely right that the reason that Germany and China run trade surpluses is that they implement policies that surpress consumption (or, to put it another way, they encourage saving).
And they do it to an excessive extent, which unbalances their economies.
However, he (Munchau) is slightly guilty of the Sole Actor Fallacy: that is, assuming it is something that the Germans do to America. It is perfectly possible for a US government to implement policies that do the same.
The correct way out of the current morass is for Germany and China to encourage domestic consumption (I've suggested ways to do this in the past), and for the US to implement measures that encourage greater household savings. The US government could also follow the Michael Pettis strategy of limiting the flow of foreign capital into the US, which would have a similar effect. (Because it is, effectively, the savings of Germans and Chinese that flow into US assets. If you could limit that flow, you would reduce the ability of US consumers to spend.)
There's just one issue with this rebalancing strategy - and that is that it is likely to be extremely uncomfortable for the US in the short term, even if it results in a more balanced economy down the line.
I think this is actually a bit poor as analysis. Much of China's growth originally came from overseas companies offshoring production there. In times local companies, some of whom supplied the (much smaller) domestic market, began to compete for that production. But they also grew domestic production (Huawei), and some grew without exporting to the US at all - BYD, for example.
They are now in a position where if the US does cut off trade, there is enough of a domestic market to do what you're suggesting.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor says “Any discussion of recession seems silly” whilst noting, practically in the same breath, how great it was that oil prices are falling. Like the 2 are unconnected.
This is not going to end well
Peter Navarro is - and has always been - an idiot.
He represented the steel companies in the fight under the Bush administration to get tariffs imposed on steel imports.
The result of the tariffs was a marginal increase in employment (like 1,000 jobs) in the steel industry, and a loss of 100x that in steel consuming industries.
You know: there are many ways one could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the likelihood of increasing US manufacturing employment and production.
There are ways you could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the US's negotiating power.
But what the Trump administration has implemented hammers US firms that have foreign components anywhere in their supply chain. And because it is so dumb, no one believes that the tariffs will last, so no one is going to onshore production.
For economic idiocy, the current US government takes some beating.
Navarro is a 100%, gold-plated loon. Even Republicans will admit this if you meet them in person.
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
I buy five iPhones every September for myself and my family, I think I may have to set up a crowdfunder at this rate.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Remember that currently we won’t be - unless Apple decides to destroy its international business by charging us the price they need to sell in the US. Because I can safely say there will be other companies selling Android phones and windows laptops at current prices
Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor says “Any discussion of recession seems silly” whilst noting, practically in the same breath, how great it was that oil prices are falling. Like the 2 are unconnected.
This is not going to end well
Peter Navarro is - and has always been - an idiot.
He represented the steel companies in the fight under the Bush administration to get tariffs imposed on steel imports.
The result of the tariffs was a marginal increase in employment (like 1,000 jobs) in the steel industry, and a loss of 100x that in steel consuming industries.
You know: there are many ways one could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the likelihood of increasing US manufacturing employment and production.
There are ways you could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the US's negotiating power.
But what the Trump administration has implemented hammers US firms that have foreign components anywhere in their supply chain. And because it is so dumb, no one believes that the tariffs will last, so no one is going to onshore production.
For economic idiocy, the current US government takes some beating.
You forgot the “Brexit Tories” of 2016-2024.
The current U.S. government are humming if not the same tune, then something bearing a strong familial resemblance.
Remember. “They” need us more than we need “them”!
China has begun to devalue. The fall in the Yuan is still small, but it's noteworthy because the Dollar has fallen, so - if anything - China should be strengthening Yuan versus the Dollar if its wants to keep it stable in trade-weighted terms. This is a signal to Washington...
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
I buy five iPhones every September for myself and my family, I think I may have to set up a crowdfunder at this rate.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Remember that currently we won’t be - unless Apple decides to destroy its international business by charging us the price they need to sell in the US. Because I can safely say there will be other companies selling Android phones and windows laptops at current prices
Indeed: I would expect UK prices to fall slightly.
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
I think @bondegezou is outlining a possible path forward.
We've already seen - in North Carolina - a court toss out tens of thousands of ballots in a closely contested election.
We are just used to the US and most of Europe having relatively normal democracy so I think the mental jump to imagine even the Trump admin doing something we’re more used to seeing in developing countries is a big one.
Imagine Trump was president of, say, Chile or Serbia or Indonesia. A democracy but with a fairly recent history of upheaval or authoritarian rule. Watching his government’s behaviour now we’d be in no doubt of the playbook. The expectation would be a return to dictatorship. Because this is America, we assume it’s impossible.
It could go either way. Hungary and Poland show precisely the two different ways it could go.
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
I think @bondegezou is outlining a possible path forward.
We've already seen - in North Carolina - a court toss out tens of thousands of ballots in a closely contested election.
The issue with the North Carolina election is that it was exceedingly close. The Democrat (Riggs) won by around 600 votes. If Riggs had won by hundreds of thousands of votes, then Griffen would have quietly conceded.
Also, it's worth noting that Gore was trying similar shenanigans with the Florida result in 2000, meaning he was trying to force selective recounts only in areas of the State where he thought he would gain votes. Meaning: the Democrats aren't exactly angels when it comes to trying to use courts to overturn election results...
No, Gore was just dumb. A statewide recount might well have seen him elected.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade advisor says “Any discussion of recession seems silly” whilst noting, practically in the same breath, how great it was that oil prices are falling. Like the 2 are unconnected.
This is not going to end well
Peter Navarro is - and has always been - an idiot.
He represented the steel companies in the fight under the Bush administration to get tariffs imposed on steel imports.
The result of the tariffs was a marginal increase in employment (like 1,000 jobs) in the steel industry, and a loss of 100x that in steel consuming industries.
You know: there are many ways one could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the likelihood of increasing US manufacturing employment and production.
There are ways you could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the US's negotiating power.
But what the Trump administration has implemented hammers US firms that have foreign components anywhere in their supply chain. And because it is so dumb, no one believes that the tariffs will last, so no one is going to onshore production.
For economic idiocy, the current US government takes some beating.
There’s a video doing the rounds that the presentation on economic strategy he gave to the White House, citing the support of a supposed economist named Ron Vara, was completely made up, ‘Ron Varna’ being an anagram of Navarro?
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Well even she doesn't want to stand in front of the new Jag.....
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
I think @bondegezou is outlining a possible path forward.
We've already seen - in North Carolina - a court toss out tens of thousands of ballots in a closely contested election.
The issue with the North Carolina election is that it was exceedingly close. The Democrat (Riggs) won by around 600 votes. If Riggs had won by hundreds of thousands of votes, then Griffen would have quietly conceded.
Also, it's worth noting that Gore was trying similar shenanigans with the Florida result in 2000, meaning he was trying to force selective recounts only in areas of the State where he thought he would gain votes. Meaning: the Democrats aren't exactly angels when it comes to trying to use courts to overturn election results.
In any event, the litigation is ongoing. The Federal courts haven't stepped in, as yet, only because they want to let the State litigation play out first. Eventually, they will step in, and then I expect the case will go to the Supreme Court. I have my doubts that Roberts, in particular, and also Amy Coney, will allow something blatantly unfair to take place.
The irony being (with regards to Gore) that it was later demonstrated that the partial recount Gore went for (before the courts stopped it) would have actually resulted in a Bush victory whereas the full state-wide recount organised by the Florida Ballot project eventually showed that Gore should have won the ballot.
Adding to my Tesla sell position seems the best strategy right now, combining the widespread market pessimism with the unwinding of the Musk/Tesla bubble
Adding to my Tesla sell position seems the best strategy right now, combining the widespread market pessimism with the unwinding of the Musk/Tesla bubble
China has begun to devalue. The fall in the Yuan is still small, but it's noteworthy because the Dollar has fallen, so - if anything - China should be strengthening Yuan versus the Dollar if its wants to keep it stable in trade-weighted terms. This is a signal to Washington...
It’s devaluing its yen to maintain export competitiveness.
The issue for Europe (and the UK) is going to be how much it wants to accept a shit-ton of Chinese surplus exports that would normally have headed to the U.S.
What do people think of the likelihood of another American civil war or a state seceding? If you're New York or California, your president is continually slagging you off, you contribute a vast amount to federal coffers, and pretty soon you might find out your retirees have had their social security all DOGE'd up...
Non-existent, unless Trump reaches for a third term or actually invades Canada perhaps, and then “very slim”.
Invading Canada could be a trigger. A third term nah (i.e. it will happen but won't create a civil war).
I think even the MAGA diehards will see that Trump is utterly gaga in three years' time...
Coffee is grown in Puerto Rico, as well as Hawaii. The history surprised me: "Coffee production in Puerto Rico has a checkered history between the 18th century and the present. Output peaked during the Spanish colonial rule but slumped when the autonomous island was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1898 and the Puerto Rican Peso devalued forcing Puerto Ricans to sell their land cheap and become wage laborers instead.[1] In recent years, the gourmet coffee trade has seen an exponential growth with many of the traditional coffee haciendas of the Spanish colonial period being revived.[2] Puerto Rican coffee is characterized as smooth and sweet."
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
I buy five iPhones every September for myself and my family, I think I may have to set up a crowdfunder at this rate.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Remember that currently we won’t be - unless Apple decides to destroy its international business by charging us the price they need to sell in the US. Because I can safely say there will be other companies selling Android phones and windows laptops at current prices
So Apple product get priced like insulin? 10x in the US?
Wait for the law demanding equal pricing workdwide….
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Agriculture is the battle ground, not industrial goods. The EU has a 10% tariff on cars, which isn't aimed at the US, but other tariffs on industrial goods are minimal.
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Yes anyone who thinks Europe will be importing US vehicles has clearly never been to the US.
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Labour were struggling with their growth agenda before all this latest US created mess, so what are Labour going to do now?
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Labour were struggling with their growth agenda before all this latest US created mess, so what are Labour going to do now?
Cut spending, increase taxes and blame the Donald.
Or, in other words, what they were always going to do.
Celebrity Big Brother – Michael Fabricant is the rag at 40/1 with Bet365 but only 12/1 with Ladbrokes & Corals. Health warnings: no Betfair market and I've never watched the programme. The new series starts tonight.
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
I buy five iPhones every September for myself and my family, I think I may have to set up a crowdfunder at this rate.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Remember that currently we won’t be - unless Apple decides to destroy its international business by charging us the price they need to sell in the US. Because I can safely say there will be other companies selling Android phones and windows laptops at current prices
So Apple product get priced like insulin? 10x in the US?
Wait for the law demanding equal pricing workdwide….
Well that’s the problem with a global market and commodity items (which android phones and windows laptops are). Chinese and Korean manufacturers are going to continue selling at roughly current prices and Apple isn’t that special to be able to charge significantly more than they currently do
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Labour were struggling with their growth agenda before all this latest US created mess, so what are Labour going to do now?
Probably nothing. There’s been zero sign of strategic nous from the current government.
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Labour were struggling with their growth agenda before all this latest US created mess, so what are Labour going to do now?
Cut spending, increase taxes and blame the Donald.
Or, in other words, what they were always going to do.
They ought to use this crisis to abandon the triple lock.
Trump may well leave but Vance isn’t any brighter. Trump going may resolve a few issues but it’s likely to create different ones and doesn’t solve the problem that the US is no longer worthy of trust
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
Labour were struggling with their growth agenda before all this latest US created mess, so what are Labour going to do now?
Blame Trump / Tories for every problem and increase taxes further.
"See that Starmer? He's just like Stalin, yeah? Orwell wrote Animal Farm, so they must be the same!"
(narrator: Trump has overriden the courts, purged his competitors, installed loyalists in crucial posts (and killing people in the process) and is deporting people without trial to external exile)
Are you suggesting that British newspaper (I know) The National is missing the point somehow by penning an article on the actual British Prime Minister?
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
The US has big cars, and long, wide, straight and often mostly empty roads, yet most states have road casualty fatality rates around four times higher than most European countries. Go figure?
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Other than Tesla, all other US cars are also absolutely shit. The chlorinated chicken of cars.
He doesn't want anything so rational, though, does he ?
What he wants is balanced trade. He blames the current imbalance on NTBs instead of the profligate consumerism of the US and the much more conservative policies of the likes of Germany.
Tariffs are almost irrelevant to this. You either buy a lot more American goods or you sell them a lot less. Simple as.
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
If you want to make the point that the UK has industries worth protecting that's exactly where you would stand,?
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Other than Tesla, all other US cars are also absolutely shit. The chlorinated chicken of cars.
If you think about it, most American product is shite, with the critical exception of software / digital services.
He doesn't want anything so rational, though, does he ?
What he wants is balanced trade. He blames the current imbalance on NTBs instead of the profligate consumerism of the US and the much more conservative policies of the likes of Germany.
Tariffs are almost irrelevant to this. You either buy a lot more American goods or you sell them a lot less. Simple as.
If you blame profligate American consumerism then tariffs are quite rational as a way to reduce consumption and generate revenue for the government.
Trump may well leave but Vance isn’t any brighter. Trump going may resolve a few issues but it’s likely to create different ones and doesn’t solve the problem that the US is no longer worthy of trust
He is brighter, for sure. Whether that’s a good thing, is another matter
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
I think @bondegezou is outlining a possible path forward.
We've already seen - in North Carolina - a court toss out tens of thousands of ballots in a closely contested election.
The issue with the North Carolina election is that it was exceedingly close. The Democrat (Riggs) won by around 600 votes. If Riggs had won by hundreds of thousands of votes, then Griffen would have quietly conceded.
Also, it's worth noting that Gore was trying similar shenanigans with the Florida result in 2000, meaning he was trying to force selective recounts only in areas of the State where he thought he would gain votes. Meaning: the Democrats aren't exactly angels when it comes to trying to use courts to overturn election results...
No, Gore was just dumb. A statewide recount might well have seen him elected.
My point was that the North Carolina case cannot be used as evidence to prove that the "2026 and 2028 elections will unfree and/or unfair".
These types of shenanigans have a long history in the United States, and take place when elections are very close. And both the Democrats and the Republicans engage in these shenanigans.
Another example: in the 2024 Senate election in Pennsylvania, the Democrat Casey refused to concede even when it was obvious that he had lost. The matter went before the courts, which issued a ruling favourable to the Republican McCormick. The Democrat County Commissioner in Bucks County then said that she would defy the ruling because: "I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country ... People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes." She was eventually told by the Pennsylvania Governor to comply with the ruling.
Now, if the 2026 and/or 2028 elections come down to a few hundred votes in one State, then definitely, we might see some attempt to "steal" the election. But, if in 2026, for example, the Democrats win 30 or 40 additional House Seats, then there is no chance that Trump or the Republicans will be able to overturn the election.
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Other than Tesla, all other US cars are also absolutely shit. The chlorinated chicken of cars.
If you think about it, most American product is shite, with the critical exception of software / digital services.
I wouldn't go that far and of course in a globalised world it is nearly impossible to separate where every piece of the puzzle was designed / made. But US car brands are miles behind for instance the Japanese brands or Mercedes, who manufacture in the US, and they have been for a very long time now.
Astonishing chart from Goldman showing the slump in overseas passengers arriving to the US. Presumably not largely because of the tariffs but because of the horror stories about random incarceration.
I'd suggesting looking at the reply below - its a correction to a big value the year before...
Whilst I agree that delta charts are not as good as absolute value charts, you'd have to ask yourself why the numbers went up in 2024 but down in 2025. I assume the 2024 change was down to COVID recovery, and 2025 changes are down to Trump. Happy to entertain other scenarios.
if in 2026, for example, the Democrats win 30 or 40 additional House Seats, then there is no chance that Trump or the Republicans will be able to overturn the election.
Rachel Reeves decides to give a speech at Range Rover in front of a production line when they have already paused production for the US because of tariffs.
Still got that magic touch.
If you want to make the point that the UK has industries worth protecting that's exactly where you would stand,?
If she’s going to do something about it. But she isn’t.
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
The US has big cars, and long, wide, straight and often mostly empty roads, yet most states have road casualty fatality rates around four times higher than most European countries. Go figure?
Maybe that's the reason. Give them a few curves, roundabouts, other vehicles etc to keep them awake.
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
The US has big cars, and long, wide, straight and often mostly empty roads, yet most states have road casualty fatality rates around four times higher than most European countries. Go figure?
Maybe that's the reason. Give them a few curves, roundabouts, other vehicles etc to keep them awake.
Americans have a more relaxed view of drunk driving. Also, they drive more. Are these figures corrected for actual miles driven?
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
And people still say this isn't a crisis...
No pain no gain remains true.
True. But the "gain" in Trump's mind is nobody importing into the United States, a medieval level of medicine, allowing Putin to kill Ukranians with impunity and annexing Canada and Mexico to the United States whilst kicking all his extra-continental allies in the face.
Follow FTSE 250 - there is a company in the green!
It's called Ruffer Investment.
Its website says: "Ruffer Investment Company Limited has a simple but unusual aim – to generate consistent positive returns, however financial markets are performing."
I met Mr Ruffer once, and had a very interesting conversation with him. He’s n interesting, if unusual, guy, and I’ve had a decent holding in his trust since then. I too noticed it is the only thing going up today. He’s been expecting some sort of crash for some time, and holds a fair bit of gold.
He does a lot of philanthropy, as well, although sadly much of it is religious
I wouldn’t say what he is doing in Bishop Auckland is particularly religious - but it focuses on the Bishop’s palace so it’s not surprising that it has a museum that focuses on faith there.
The fact he’s continuing to keep things going when I don’t think it’s working that well is something that I highly respect
As Ruffer said back at the turn of the year, “We have built a portfolio that should thrive if conditions markedly worsen….”
The irony is that the threats he foresaw were mostly economic, whereas deliverance has arrived from something almost entirely political.
The people who look after my house deposit fund, Capital Gearing Trust - who do the same sort of wealth-preservation thing as Ruffer - spent years during Covid warning about inflation coming when others didn't. Then, when inflation came, they had the worst couple of years in decades. Being right when everyone else is wrong isn't enough it seems.
The problem with expecting a crash is that it usually takes much longer to arrive than you expect, and you can lose a lot of money during the period when it fails to arrive.
Moneyweek magazine’s perpetual forecasts of a UK house price collapse during the 2010s is a classic example; following their advice would have been suicidal.
Ruffer has been expecting a crash for some time, seeing that the issues thrown up by the 2008 debt crisis were never resolved and the reliance on debt since then has inexorably increased.
Whether Trump’s idiocy delivering the crash means he was right, or simply lucky, is the question….
CGT record over the last 5 years is abysmal, been wealth destruction rather than protection. Any less than 5 years and you are under inflation or actually losing capital.
There are reports the tariffs as they stand would triple the cost of a new iPhone....even TSE might have to buy an Android.
I buy five iPhones every September for myself and my family, I think I may have to set up a crowdfunder at this rate.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Remember that currently we won’t be - unless Apple decides to destroy its international business by charging us the price they need to sell in the US. Because I can safely say there will be other companies selling Android phones and windows laptops at current prices
So Apple product get priced like insulin? 10x in the US?
Wait for the law demanding equal pricing workdwide….
Well that’s the problem with a global market and commodity items (which android phones and windows laptops are). Chinese and Korean manufacturers are going to continue selling at roughly current prices and Apple isn’t that special to be able to charge significantly more than they currently do
Didn't Trump exempt Apple from tariffs last time around ?
No one really knows how this plays out - which is part of the problem. Any business development planning regarding the US market (other than disaster mitigation) is effectively shut down until further notice.
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Other than Tesla, all other US cars are also absolutely shit. The chlorinated chicken of cars.
If you think about it, most American product is shite, with the critical exception of software / digital services.
I wouldn't go that far and of course in a globalised world it is nearly impossible to separate where every piece of the puzzle was designed / made. But US car brands are miles behind for instance the Japanese brands or Mercedes, who manufacture in the US, and they have been for a very long time now.
Isn't everyone exporting to the US going to have to do exactly that, within quite a short time ? One of the benefits of MFN status is that a large number of countries of origin were assessed at exactly the same rate. Trump just burned that to the ground.
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
For the same reason why we didn't bet on Brexit (but I did) or Trump winning (but I did) or Biden winning (but I did). Changing your portfolio or betting on politics is difficult and time consuming, and laziness, fear or normalcy bias prevents big punts.
As you may have noticed I asked on PB a couple of times as what the GBP-USD rate was at the end of the year, and everybody was determinedly silent. There's no "wisdom of crowds" if there's no discussion.
Having said that somebody will have been found to have bet big on Trump's tariffs (not me unfortunately!) and then we'll all say they were genuises.
be trump and his buddies, same clowns will be on when they get binned
Others may know better, but there wasn’t much tariff on industrial goods before “liberation day”, so this is essentially an offer for the status quo ante.
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Other than Tesla, all other US cars are also absolutely shit. The chlorinated chicken of cars.
If you think about it, most American product is shite, with the critical exception of software / digital services.
I wouldn't go that far and of course in a globalised world it is nearly impossible to separate where every piece of the puzzle was designed / made. But US car brands are miles behind for instance the Japanese brands or Mercedes, who manufacture in the US, and they have been for a very long time now.
Isn't everyone exporting to the US going to have to do exactly that, within quite a short time ? One of the benefits of MFN status is that a large number of countries of origin were assessed at exactly the same rate. Trump just burned that to the ground.
Why is a Labour government allowing the top rate of income tax to only kick in at £50,271 a year? Surely it ought to be more like £40,000 (from a Labour point of view).
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
Republican dissent is a hopeful sign. The hard limits on it, though, given the magnitude of the crisis, are a bleak reminder of how we ended up in this nightmare to begin with. Any successful resistance is going to require a fair number of Republicans to abandon their orange idol. It’s good to see them starting to do that. But it’s undeniably grim that the fate of the nation rests to any degree at all on these, gutless, spineless, christofascist quislings.
Posting someone else's thoughts get no 'like' from me, but responding to the first point;
What electorial apocalypse? It's one man, one vote in Trumpland, and Trumps the man and he's got the vote.
I suppose Americans have to have a coping mechanism and pretending 2026 or 2028 are going to be free and fair is the only way forward at this point.
What do you think will happen in 2026 or 2028 to make the elections unfree and/unfair? Are you thinking concentration camps? Or just SS troops at all the polling stations?
I can believe that Trump will try to find a way to have more than 2 terms. It seems an odd limitation, and most people would happily have Obama run against Trump in 2028, but the idea that somehow the last free and fair election in the US has already happened strikes me as a little hysterical.
It is easy to imagine an increase in the fiddling of elections we've seen to date: gerrymandering, no polling stations in Dem areas, "cleaning" electoral rolls, legislators stepping in to "correct" election results, biased social media, etc. Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador.
"Then you move up to arresting political opponents, maybe sending them to El Salvador" - any evidence of this? And we are not immune to the odd bit of tinkering in the UK, are we! Voter ID for one.
There is a continuum from tinkering to voter suppression... and the US goes a lot, lot further than anything in the UK. And, historically, they went further still with Jim Crow laws. The South lost the Civil War, had to give Black people the vote, yet managed to avoid doing so for about a century with various tricks. So, that's a set of stuff that happens and has happened, and one can easily see that all being ramped up.
Arresting political opponents: no, that hasn't happened yet. But I am extrapolating based on what we've seen with similar regimes (Orbán, Vučić and most relevant here, Erdoğan) and also looking at some of the MAGA rhetoric. (Trump in 2019 said that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other representatives should "go back and help fix" the countries they came from, even though she was born in the US. GOP Representative Paul Gosar posted a meme glorifying violence against AOC.)
The question is what Trump does next. People keep thinking he won't do the next outrageous thing, and then he does.
The stock market turn around seems to be based on a senior Trump advisor has said Trump is considering 90 day pause on all tariffs other than China.
Believe Ackman suggested this last night.
It would be sensible. The US’s strategic trade issue is essentially with China, not with its (erstwhile?) allies.
Lets says Bibi appears later today and says he has agreed a new deal with US on trade along with a 90 day pause on everybody else...then perhaps there is a bit of method in the madness. But maybe I am giving people too much credit.
If I was a journalist I would also be doing some digging to try to find out who put on shorts.
INSANE market action right now. Market exploded higher on a headline attributed to Kevin Hassett. And now nobody can figure out where it came from and the markets are diving again.
An 8% surge and then a 3.5% plunge in a matter of seconds
Europe’s GDPR privacy law is headed for red tape bonfire within ‘weeks’
Europe's most famous technology law, the GDPR, is next on the hit list as the European Union pushes ahead with its regulatory killing spree to slash laws it reckons are weighing down its businesses.
The European Commission plans to present a proposal to cut back the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short, in the next couple of weeks. Slashing regulation is a key focus for Commission President @vonderleyen , as part of an attempt to make businesses in Europe more competitive with rivals in the United States, China and elsewhere.
Who thought it was a good idea to do a press conference in front of a live car production line where you have to shout over the noise and the horn beeping. And now Sky journalist trying to do the same.
Comments
If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
Perhaps you have misunderstood the situation.
Or something like that.
He represented the steel companies in the fight under the Bush administration to get tariffs imposed on steel imports.
The result of the tariffs was a marginal increase in employment (like 1,000 jobs) in the steel industry, and a loss of 100x that in steel consuming industries.
You know: there are many ways one could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the likelihood of increasing US manufacturing employment and production.
There are ways you could implement tariffs in a way that maximized the US's negotiating power.
But what the Trump administration has implemented hammers US firms that have foreign components anywhere in their supply chain. And because it is so dumb, no one believes that the tariffs will last, so no one is going to onshore production.
For economic idiocy, the current US government takes some beating.
The top of the range MacBook Pro with all the toys costs £7,200.
I cannot imagine paying £20,000 for a laptop, even an Apple one.
Also, it's worth noting that Gore was trying similar shenanigans with the Florida result in 2000, meaning he was trying to force selective recounts only in areas of the State where he thought he would gain votes. Meaning: the Democrats aren't exactly angels when it comes to trying to use courts to overturn election results.
In any event, the litigation is ongoing. The Federal courts haven't stepped in, as yet, only because they want to let the State litigation play out first. Eventually, they will step in, and then I expect the case will go to the Supreme Court. I have my doubts that Roberts, in particular, and also Amy Coney, will allow something blatantly unfair to take place.
Much of China's growth originally came from overseas companies offshoring production there. In times local companies, some of whom supplied the (much smaller) domestic market, began to compete for that production.
But they also grew domestic production (Huawei), and some grew without exporting to the US at all - BYD, for example.
They are now in a position where if the US does cut off trade, there is enough of a domestic market to do what you're suggesting.
Germany is quite different, of course.
It's remarkable
The current U.S. government are humming if not the same tune, then something bearing a strong familial resemblance.
Remember. “They” need us more than we need “them”!
·
14s
*S&P 500 SET TO ENTER BEAR MARKET AFTER FALLING 20% FROM RECORD
Christ, it must be bad.
That really doesn’t matter - what matters is in the hour after opening does the market continue to fall or do people start buying.
Still got that magic touch.
Imagine Trump was president of, say, Chile or Serbia or Indonesia. A democracy but with a fairly recent history of upheaval or authoritarian rule. Watching his government’s behaviour now we’d be in no doubt of the playbook. The expectation would be a return to dictatorship. Because this is America, we assume it’s impossible.
It could go either way. Hungary and Poland show precisely the two different ways it could go.
A statewide recount might well have seen him elected.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_25_996
It’s devaluing its yen to maintain export competitiveness.
The issue for Europe (and the UK) is going to be how much it wants to accept a shit-ton of Chinese surplus exports that would normally have headed to the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Puerto_Rico
Wait for the law demanding equal pricing workdwide….
I guess from Trump’s view that’s useless.
The problem is no European wants US cars at any price, they’re not built for European roads.
Will Donald Trump complete a full term as US President?
Yes - 2/5
No - 7/4
https://x.com/LadPolitics/status/1909241327365107769
My Dad worked in a factory
I didn't know that !!!!!!!
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lma3uvy6ds2b
Or, in other words, what they were always going to do.
There’s been zero sign of strategic nous from the current government.
Tariffs are almost irrelevant to this. You either buy a lot more American goods or you sell them a lot less. Simple as.
Watch: Boris Johnson attacked by an ostrich
‘Oh cripes, f------ hell,’ the former PM is heard shouting in a video shared on social media by his wife, Carrie
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/07/boris-johnson-attacked-by-ostrich/
@MadisonMills22
Second fastest plunge of the 14 bear markets since 1945
https://x.com/MadisonMills22/status/1909242908407922815
Pension now off 35k from Jan.....
“What did he do there?”
“HE MADE TOO-OOLS!””
These types of shenanigans have a long history in the United States, and take place when elections are very close. And both the Democrats and the Republicans engage in these shenanigans.
Another example: in the 2024 Senate election in Pennsylvania, the Democrat Casey refused to concede even when it was obvious that he had lost. The matter went before the courts, which issued a ruling favourable to the Republican McCormick. The Democrat County Commissioner in Bucks County then said that she would defy the ruling because: "I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country ... People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes." She was eventually told by the Pennsylvania Governor to comply with the ruling.
Now, if the 2026 and/or 2028 elections come down to a few hundred votes in one State, then definitely, we might see some attempt to "steal" the election. But, if in 2026, for example, the Democrats win 30 or 40 additional House Seats, then there is no chance that Trump or the Republicans will be able to overturn the election.
LAB: 29% (-4)
RFM: 25% (+4)
PLC: 18% (+5)
CON: 15% (-3)
LDM: 6% (-3)
GRN: 6% (+1)
Via @Survation, 10 Mar - 3 Apr.
Changes w/ 18 Oct - 4 Nov.
Senedd Voting Intention:
LAB: 27% (-2)
RFM: 24% (+5)
PLC: 24% (+4)
CON: 15% (-3)
LDM: 5% (-2)
GRN: 5% (-2)
Via @Survation, 10 Mar - 3 Apr.
Changes w/ 18 Oct - 4 Nov.
Also, they drive more. Are these figures corrected for actual miles driven?
I wouldn't call that a gain, tbh.
This is the 11th worst 3-day performance of all time. 10th and 12th place were both during The Great Depression
https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1909242593134657697
No one really knows how this plays out - which is part of the problem.
Any business development planning regarding the US market (other than disaster mitigation) is effectively shut down until further notice.
This is NOT SUSTAINABLE! The United States can't lose $1.9 trillion on trade...
One of the benefits of MFN status is that a large number of countries of origin were assessed at exactly the same rate. Trump just burned that to the ground.
This Senate bill to slap limits on the president’s tariff power now has SEVEN Republican sponsors:
• Grassley
• Moran
• Murkowski
• McConnell
• Tillis
• Young
• Collins
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1909243502140981393
It would be sensible.
The US’s strategic trade issue is essentially with China, not with its (erstwhile?) allies.
Arresting political opponents: no, that hasn't happened yet. But I am extrapolating based on what we've seen with similar regimes (Orbán, Vučić and most relevant here, Erdoğan) and also looking at some of the MAGA rhetoric. (Trump in 2019 said that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other representatives should "go back and help fix" the countries they came from, even though she was born in the US. GOP Representative Paul Gosar posted a meme glorifying violence against AOC.)
The question is what Trump does next. People keep thinking he won't do the next outrageous thing, and then he does.
If I was a journalist I would also be doing some digging to try to find out who put on shorts.
INSANE market action right now. Market exploded higher on a headline attributed to Kevin Hassett. And now nobody can figure out where it came from and the markets are diving again.
An 8% surge and then a 3.5% plunge in a matter of seconds
https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1909251044632051900
If so, an excellent move.
Europe’s GDPR privacy law is headed for red tape bonfire within ‘weeks’
Europe's most famous technology law, the GDPR, is next on the hit list as the European Union pushes ahead with its regulatory killing spree to slash laws it reckons are weighing down its businesses.
The European Commission plans to present a proposal to cut back the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short, in the next couple of weeks. Slashing regulation is a key focus for Commission President @vonderleyen , as part of an attempt to make businesses in Europe more competitive with rivals in the United States, China and elsewhere.
https://x.com/euaccofficial/status/1909225030354940326