What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
How 'good' actually is US Quality Control? Boeing, for example, doesn't strike me as a company which gives it much of a glance. And one of my sons, who deals in drones thinks he's going to have to use US ones in the systems he sells, and he's not that impressed.
What I have invested I will keep invested but what I have in cash stays in cash.
I did sell some of mine and my wife’s funds start of March as they were too heavy in tech and took some profit. I’m just lucky it is not genius on my part. More wanting to move a portion to less risky investments.
I am sooooo fortunate I retired when I did as I transferred my company DC pension to my SIPP and did so as cash. Currently transferring to II.
That's how all my friends have reacted too - cancelling the standard order into the S&S ISA. I guess EMH would suggest keep investing as normal, particularly at our age, but we're not convinced the markets have fully come to terms with how bad this could be.
If I was in my thirties or forties I’d keep paying in and dollar cost average. At 59 I’m happy to commit some to equities to fund the back end of my retirement. But not a lot of it and a fair amount of that is in dividend paying stocks.
I've got about 10 years to go and all my spare investment (not much anyway) is in a Shares ISA so I can't really put it anywhere else. I haven't cancelled the monthly standing order as I can't call the bottom so will just rely on aberaging out over the next year or so, and in 10 years time it won't matter much.
I am sitting on a bit of spare cash that's probably heading for the mortgage instead unless things have settled in a few months. But my view is we have at least another 3 and a half years of chaos in the USA and there's no point worrying about it on a day to day basis.
What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
They are actively wrecking the country. I'm not sure it really matters whether its through malice or sheer incompetence. There are signs that they have realised how much they've buggered it up, but corrective actions are happening too little, too late, and being mishandled to boot.
Very dangerous times now for the west. The one bright spot was the usa and now Trump is totally wrecking their economy.
What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
I’m guessing the tube wasn’t in for the entirety of the journey, just the customs points, however, it might have just felt good in which case the train journey might have been pleasurable - each to their own.
I had a "round in the chamber" for about 15 minutes while boarding the MV Sanctions Buster in SA and for about 90 minutes while we waited for Dutch customs to clear the ship at 2am in Rotterdam. Getting it out was worse than putting it in both times.
I've also smuggled gold into India quite a few times over the years but that's easier and doesn't necessitate arsehole shenanigans. Also very high value car parts through Dover quite recently as a brexit bonus but, again, no sphinctoral dilation involved.
"Getting it out was worse than putting it in both times."
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
The mystery is why so many — from Ackman’s fellow billionaires to Florida-based Venezuelans — have bent over backwards to miss who Trump is. A trillion comments have been wasted accusing the wrong people of Trump derangement syndrome. The real TDS afflicts those who keep seeing a rational actor, or an economic chess game, where none exists. The whole market arguably suffers from this syndrome. Shortly after plummeting on Monday morning, a fake news release surfaced that said Trump would announce a pause on his tariffs this week. The markets more than erased their opening losses. All those gains, in turn, were wiped out when the White House issued a denial.
....while Trump is in charge, stay short on America.
As the ex-GOP rebels on the Bulwark keep saying: why did no one listen to us? We told you repeatedly what he was like and what would happen.
It is a good question. Fox News and the development of social media both crucial to the Trumpian takeover, anything else?
Coinciding with boomers disappointed that the home straights of their lives have not necessarily turned in their favor. Moreover, the general trends of the world have not been advantageous to them. Join the fcking club, I say.
Boomers are still pretty ok at present. But if this crisis gets big enough even they are looking at a massive fall in living standards.
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
Commented a while back that I couldn’t understand why Warren Buffet was sitting on $325bn of cash - but then he is The Sage.
It was pretty clear at the time - he couldn't see any value.
Give it a couple of weeks, and he probably will.
If Trump is pushed to some sort of capitulation soon - as in an even semi-rational world, you'd expect - then there's value now. There was a fair bit of buying made yesterday and some of the worse hit stocks made decent afternoon recoveries. Wiped away again today, of course.
I sold all my US stocks including funds with any significant holding in the US a few weeks back, but as part of the 'dump everything American' protest initiated by the Canadians.
To be fair, AEP has predicted 105,456 of the last 2 world financial crises.
He has, but Trump is gearing up for an all out attack on the Fed.
At the back of my mind is the knowledge that the US represents 25% of global GDP but 60% of market capitalisation. There were two ways that the US could adjust this and Trump has chosen the one that will lead to the collapse of US exceptionalism. This has already cost Trillions, by the end, it will be a number so vast as to be inconceivable.
Unless the Congress seizes back control over the steering wheel, the US is going straight over the cliff. As it is the rule of law in the US, upon which all else depends, is now looking so threadbare as to presage a collapse of confidence in the entire system. If that happens, there is no come back for the US.
Will spineless congress act to stop this insanity?
This is the $64 trillion question now.
Trump can veto any legislation unless both houses vote for it by 2/3.
As that’s not going to happen things could get a lot worse . We also know that the Maga cult are moving the goalposts as they try and defend why they voted for him . They’re all in now on some short term pain , the price of eggs and inflation have been ditched .
To be fair, AEP has predicted 105,456 of the last 2 world financial crises.
He has, but Trump is gearing up for an all out attack on the Fed.
At the back of my mind is the knowledge that the US represents 25% of global GDP but 60% of market capitalisation. There were two ways that the US could adjust this and Trump has chosen the one that will lead to the collapse of US exceptionalism. This has already cost Trillions, by the end, it will be a number so vast as to be inconceivable.
Unless the Congress seizes back control over the steering wheel, the US is going straight over the cliff. As it is the rule of law in the US, upon which all else depends, is now looking so threadbare as to presage a collapse of confidence in the entire system. If that happens, there is no come back for the US.
Will spineless congress act to stop this insanity?
This is the $64 trillion question now.
There's a least one GOP congressman who wants it to do so:
National Review: “Trump Tariffs: Congress Should End Trade War.” The Founding Fathers wanted Congress to have the power to tax and determine tariffs for a reason.
Decent demolition of the latest brain dead article from the Telegraph.
In case you didn’t know, it’s the SDR silly season in the UK. There have been a few stories recently about our combat aircraft - how many, who owns them and what type? This one tries a whole new approach by trying to rehash the SDR of 15 years ago. A “Where do I Start” 🧵 https://x.com/gregbagwell/status/1909874025620287878
I’m guessing the tube wasn’t in for the entirety of the journey, just the customs points, however, it might have just felt good in which case the train journey might have been pleasurable - each to their own.
I had a "round in the chamber" for about 15 minutes while boarding the MV Sanctions Buster in SA and for about 90 minutes while we waited for Dutch customs to clear the ship at 2am in Rotterdam. Getting it out was worse than putting it in both times.
I've also smuggled gold into India quite a few times over the years but that's easier and doesn't necessitate arsehole shenanigans. Also very high value car parts through Dover quite recently as a brexit bonus but, again, no sphinctoral dilation involved.
I’m relieved to hear you avoided the schoolboy error of smuggling rear axles up your rear.
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
Commented a while back that I couldn’t understand why Warren Buffet was sitting on $325bn of cash - but then he is The Sage.
It was pretty clear at the time - he couldn't see any value.
Give it a couple of weeks, and he probably will.
If Trump is pushed to some sort of capitulation soon - as in an even semi-rational world, you'd expect - then there's value now. There was a fair bit of buying made yesterday and some of the worse hit stocks made decent afternoon recoveries. Wiped away again today, of course.
I sold all my US stocks including funds with any significant holding in the US a few weeks back, but as part of the 'dump everything American' protest initiated by the Canadians.
It's arguable that the US market was significantly overvalued without Trump going completely batshit. I would be in no rush to buy back in. There's probably another couple of rounds of FOMO buying before the market genuinely bottoms out.
I’m guessing the tube wasn’t in for the entirety of the journey, just the customs points, however, it might have just felt good in which case the train journey might have been pleasurable - each to their own.
I had a "round in the chamber" for about 15 minutes while boarding the MV Sanctions Buster in SA and for about 90 minutes while we waited for Dutch customs to clear the ship at 2am in Rotterdam. Getting it out was worse than putting it in both times.
I've also smuggled gold into India quite a few times over the years but that's easier and doesn't necessitate arsehole shenanigans. Also very high value car parts through Dover quite recently as a brexit bonus but, again, no sphinctoral dilation involved.
There have been many cases of people putting things up their bottom and being unable to remove them. Butt plugs are commercially available and have a flared end to prevent engulfment, but people who improvise with available objects run that risk and end up in A&E ("I slipped in the shower" - uh, huh). If you put the cigar tube in a condom and tie a string to the end it makes it easier to extract.
I also have to ask: did you put it in flat end first or rounded end first?
Citizens of nowhere! We were taught that these people were more of a hindrance than a help with their unanchored ethics and globalization attitudes. Good riddance!
Presumably in the "wealthy South" because that's where they expect people can afford the tickets.
Is disposable income for Joe Average higher in the north or south? I suspect north due to property prices but could be wrong.
Theme parks are positioned near transport and population centres but just far enough out that the land is available and not exorbitant. Bedford fits the bill well.
That might be dependent upon age.
With northerners having more disposable income among the younger generations and southerners more disposable income among the older generation.
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
Commented a while back that I couldn’t understand why Warren Buffet was sitting on $325bn of cash - but then he is The Sage.
It was pretty clear at the time - he couldn't see any value.
Give it a couple of weeks, and he probably will.
If Trump is pushed to some sort of capitulation soon - as in an even semi-rational world, you'd expect - then there's value now. There was a fair bit of buying made yesterday and some of the worse hit stocks made decent afternoon recoveries. Wiped away again today, of course.
I sold all my US stocks including funds with any significant holding in the US a few weeks back, but as part of the 'dump everything American' protest initiated by the Canadians.
It's arguable that the US market was significantly overvalued without Trump going completely batshit. I would be in no rush to buy back in. There's probably another couple of rounds of FOMO buying before the market genuinely bottoms out.
Agreed. The value - if a capitulation is probable - is likely in the UK, European and particularly some of the Asian stocks worst hit by the tariff news. But Trump is going to be more sticky than Truss.
What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
What we are watching is Trump’s tariff-induced crash turning into a Truss-style fiscal crisis. The collapse in US government long bonds, Treasuries, is startling, scary. It is precisely the opposite of what Trump and his advisers expected and wanted. It partly reflects heightened fears of US recession - which would see ballooning of US deficit - and may also be revenge selling by sovereign holders in tariff-hit countries. This bond market turmoil also increases risk of margin calls and forced sales by over exposed institutional investors. Another huge day.
If the US government struggles in its auctions when selling new government bonds to fund its current deficit, at that juncture surely Trump capitulates to market pressure. The other actors to watch are the central banks - the Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank - and whether they are obliged to act intervene by cutting interest rates and providing liquidity
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
How 'good' actually is US Quality Control? Boeing, for example, doesn't strike me as a company which gives it much of a glance. And one of my sons, who deals in drones thinks he's going to have to use US ones in the systems he sells, and he's not that impressed.
Related story from a Mech Eng academic I know. Company x makes parts for car manufacturers and has been making them for Japanese companies for yonks. Tenders for Ford. Ford are outraged as the parts are good for hundreds of thousands of miles. Its too good, they last too long. They need to be breaking after a shorter distance/time.
I do not drive a Ford. I drive a Toyota (and I'm on my third in the last twenty years).
Citizens of nowhere! We were taught that these people were more of a hindrance than a help with their unanchored ethics and globalization attitudes. Good riddance!
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
That's a good question.
Perun covered that in part at the weekend, when he looked for example at the top 50 non-oil US commodity dependencies. It isn't just things like eg scandium, but also things like LCD screens.
It's probably one reason Chump is obsessing about the potential of asset-stripping Ukraine, Canada and Greenland. But he has nothing in his head except Napoleon, which won't work in 2025, and he has never read a book so economics might as well be Chinese.
Wily old Warren. Though correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it looks like attendance on Trump's inauguration cuckfest damages your wealth.
Commented a while back that I couldn’t understand why Warren Buffet was sitting on $325bn of cash - but then he is The Sage.
It was pretty clear at the time - he couldn't see any value.
Give it a couple of weeks, and he probably will.
If Trump is pushed to some sort of capitulation soon - as in an even semi-rational world, you'd expect - then there's value now. There was a fair bit of buying made yesterday and some of the worse hit stocks made decent afternoon recoveries. Wiped away again today, of course.
I sold all my US stocks including funds with any significant holding in the US a few weeks back, but as part of the 'dump everything American' protest initiated by the Canadians.
It's arguable that the US market was significantly overvalued without Trump going completely batshit. I would be in no rush to buy back in. There's probably another couple of rounds of FOMO buying before the market genuinely bottoms out.
Agreed. The value - if a capitulation is probable - is likely in the UK, European and particularly some of the Asian stocks worst hit by the tariff news. But Trump is going to be more sticky than Truss.
The speculation that it's the Chinese selling Treasuries as revenge seems a touch unlikely to me. Whilst they clearly will be hurt by the tariffs the gains they are making in their global standing must surely outweigh the pain. I'd not be surprised if they added support to the marker rather than the reverse - doesn't make sense to shoot the orange goose.
Lots of differences but the similarity with Truss is that a lot of the market response is less about the specific event and more the realisation that these people really are total clowns and there's no clever plan behind the public statements of blathering ignorance.
In Brisbane and they are building like mad. Very confident, young and dynamic population. They’ve bet on their Chinese customers continuing to buy lots from them and no sign of panic.
If it does go t**s up then there is a beach or two where you can sit out Armageddon.
Trump's economic chief just revealed plans to TAX foreign holdings of US financial assets. Hidden in plain sight. Miran outlined 5 forms of "burden sharing" for countries benefiting from the US dollar reserve system: Four of these deal with reducing trade surpluses (more US exports, less US imports, etc.) - essentially reducing their net accumulation of US financial assets. But the 5th proposal is the bombshell: Countries "could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." Translation: You can keep holding US Treasuries and dollar financial assets, but you'll now pay a tax for the privilege. It's now almost a slam dunk that the administration's upcoming tax bill (likely in May) will include a provision bringing back the 30% foreign withholding tax on interest income that was eliminated in 1984. We predicted exactly this move in our ‘Dollar’s Dilemma’ and ‘Sovereign Wealth Effect’ reports published in Dec and Feb... https://x.com/michaeljmcnair/status/1909632751306780765
So does that mean the dollar will go up or down?
Probably.
Many people on here are smart and have experience of financial markets, but leveraging that intelligence into actionable insights is proving a chore. The current GBP to USD rate is £1=$1.28. By the end of 2025 will £1 buy i) more than $1.28 or ii) less than $1.28? F you feel you cannot tell me in public you can PM me. I won't blame you if you're wrong. No smarty-pants answers like "Yes", if you could be so kind.
Lots of differences but the similarity with Truss is that a lot of the market response is less about the specific event and more the realisation that these people really are total clowns and there's no clever plan behind the public statements of blathering ignorance.
Trump's economic chief just revealed plans to TAX foreign holdings of US financial assets. Hidden in plain sight. Miran outlined 5 forms of "burden sharing" for countries benefiting from the US dollar reserve system: Four of these deal with reducing trade surpluses (more US exports, less US imports, etc.) - essentially reducing their net accumulation of US financial assets. But the 5th proposal is the bombshell: Countries "could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." Translation: You can keep holding US Treasuries and dollar financial assets, but you'll now pay a tax for the privilege. It's now almost a slam dunk that the administration's upcoming tax bill (likely in May) will include a provision bringing back the 30% foreign withholding tax on interest income that was eliminated in 1984. We predicted exactly this move in our ‘Dollar’s Dilemma’ and ‘Sovereign Wealth Effect’ reports published in Dec and Feb... https://x.com/michaeljmcnair/status/1909632751306780765
So does that mean the dollar will go up or down?
Probably.
Many people on here are smart and have experience of financial markets, but leveraging that intelligence into actionable insights is proving a chore. The current GBP to USD rate is £1=$1.28. By the end of 2025 will £1 buy i) more than $1.28 or ii) less than $1.28? F you feel you cannot tell me in public you can PM me. I won't blame you if you're wrong. No smarty-pants answers like "Yes", if you could be so kind.
Economic theory is that tariffs strengthen a currency, yet the $ fell - at least initially - and one of the 4D-chess theories behind the chaos is that Trump wants to weaken the currency. Making $ government bonds less attractive - or having them sold in retaliation - should push the $ down. Similarly, as the world's reserve currency the $ would normally strengthen during a crisis, with the flight to safety, but if you trash a country's reputation and put into question its currency's status as the global reserve, you'd expect the $ to fall significantly.
So there are big forces pushing in both directions, and your judgement as to which will win through are probably as good (or as weak) as anyone's right now. I have money - but only a little - backing a fall, largely on the basis that if there's a BIG movement in currency, it's more likely to be a fall.
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
Yet given the incoming CDU/CSU and SPD coalition government parties are on 39% combined to just 25% for the AfD it means little.
Basically Germany now has the equivalent of a Tory and Labour government to keep out Reform (as before under Merkel they worked together to keep out Linke)
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
Decent demolition of the latest brain dead article from the Telegraph.
In case you didn’t know, it’s the SDR silly season in the UK. There have been a few stories recently about our combat aircraft - how many, who owns them and what type? This one tries a whole new approach by trying to rehash the SDR of 15 years ago. A “Where do I Start” 🧵 https://x.com/gregbagwell/status/1909874025620287878
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
Indeed. It is just a steak, but it is alleged to be the best horse-steak in the world
I'm meant to be eating it here, for the Knapper's Gazette
But truth be told I might lazily just nip around the corner to the "Beefeater", which gets the same rating for horse steak minus the enormous cab ride into the mountains
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
It is the Chinese imported products becoming more expensive in the US and it doesn't matter how effective Chinese workers are if the goods they produce for the US market are hammered with 100%+ tariffs
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
Trump's economic chief just revealed plans to TAX foreign holdings of US financial assets. Hidden in plain sight. Miran outlined 5 forms of "burden sharing" for countries benefiting from the US dollar reserve system: Four of these deal with reducing trade surpluses (more US exports, less US imports, etc.) - essentially reducing their net accumulation of US financial assets. But the 5th proposal is the bombshell: Countries "could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." Translation: You can keep holding US Treasuries and dollar financial assets, but you'll now pay a tax for the privilege. It's now almost a slam dunk that the administration's upcoming tax bill (likely in May) will include a provision bringing back the 30% foreign withholding tax on interest income that was eliminated in 1984. We predicted exactly this move in our ‘Dollar’s Dilemma’ and ‘Sovereign Wealth Effect’ reports published in Dec and Feb... https://x.com/michaeljmcnair/status/1909632751306780765
So does that mean the dollar will go up or down?
Probably.
Many people on here are smart and have experience of financial markets, but leveraging that intelligence into actionable insights is proving a chore. The current GBP to USD rate is £1=$1.28. By the end of 2025 will £1 buy i) more than $1.28 or ii) less than $1.28? F you feel you cannot tell me in public you can PM me. I won't blame you if you're wrong. No smarty-pants answers like "Yes", if you could be so kind.
Economic theory is that tariffs strengthen a currency, yet the $ fell - at least initially - and one of the 4D-chess theories behind the chaos is that Trump wants to weaken the currency. Making $ government bonds less attractive - or having them sold in retaliation - should push the $ down. Similarly, as the world's reserve currency the $ would normally strengthen during a crisis, with the flight to safety, but if you trash a country's reputation and put into question its currency's status as the global reserve, you'd expect the $ to fall significantly.
So there are big forces pushing in both directions, and your judgement as to which will win through are probably as good (or as weak) as anyone's right now. I have money - but only a little - backing a fall, largely on the basis that if there's a BIG movement in currency, it's more likely to be a fall.
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
That's a good question.
Perun covered that in part at the weekend, when he looked for example at the top 50 non-oil US commodity dependencies. It isn't just things like eg scandium, but also things like LCD screens.
It's probably one reason Chump is obsessing about the potential of asset-stripping Ukraine, Canada and Greenland. But he has nothing in his head except Napoleon, which won't work in 2025, and he has never read a book so economics might as well be Chinese.
Thank you. I would have thought it was unlikely, but frankly, who knows?
In Brisbane and they are building like mad. Very confident, young and dynamic population. They’ve bet on their Chinese customers continuing to buy lots from them and no sign of panic.
If it does go t**s up then there is a beach or two where you can sit out Armageddon.
Agreed that Brisbane really does have that buzz. It was the first long haul place we went to post-covid, and we sat having a perfect flat white by the riverside watching the cranes in action and chatting to upbeat optimistic locals while the Trussterfvck was happening in the UK.
I still wouldn't want to live there though. Not for more than 6 months of the year anyway...
Trump's economic chief just revealed plans to TAX foreign holdings of US financial assets. Hidden in plain sight. Miran outlined 5 forms of "burden sharing" for countries benefiting from the US dollar reserve system: Four of these deal with reducing trade surpluses (more US exports, less US imports, etc.) - essentially reducing their net accumulation of US financial assets. But the 5th proposal is the bombshell: Countries "could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." Translation: You can keep holding US Treasuries and dollar financial assets, but you'll now pay a tax for the privilege. It's now almost a slam dunk that the administration's upcoming tax bill (likely in May) will include a provision bringing back the 30% foreign withholding tax on interest income that was eliminated in 1984. We predicted exactly this move in our ‘Dollar’s Dilemma’ and ‘Sovereign Wealth Effect’ reports published in Dec and Feb... https://x.com/michaeljmcnair/status/1909632751306780765
So does that mean the dollar will go up or down?
Probably.
Many people on here are smart and have experience of financial markets, but leveraging that intelligence into actionable insights is proving a chore. The current GBP to USD rate is £1=$1.28. By the end of 2025 will £1 buy i) more than $1.28 or ii) less than $1.28? F you feel you cannot tell me in public you can PM me. I won't blame you if you're wrong. No smarty-pants answers like "Yes", if you could be so kind.
It means that there will be a USD collapse. There is no growth incentive to hold US assets and real returns will fall in fact fall to levels reflected with a serious depression. Worse- there is a permanent structural reduction in US earnings capacity. The question is time. If the USD falls fast then there may be some bottom fishing, but if there is simply a long term bear market, then any possible recovery would be slow- and have to contend with permanently higher interest rates.
The US peer group goes from being the EU, Japan and the developed world to being a peer of Brazil, Russia or Indonesia, with weaker growth prospects as innovation business relocates out from the poor, drug-blighted, fat wreckage of the former global hegemon.
What the UK ends up being depends on who we choose now: Farage and the USA or Davey and the EU.
Only small piece of good news is that the oil price fall is going to really kill the Russian economy.
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
It's partly because Musk has stopped appearing at AfD rallies thar they are doing better. But mainly frustration that the election was weeks ago, nothing has changed, Merz is so useless, dishonest and unlikeable, and the AfD are the main opposition. The Greens are still part of the minority government that hasn't been able to do anything since November. The Left have also benefited in the polls but don't have the massive establishment support the AfD have.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
I have (some) horse in the freezer with the pheasants, the pigeons, the (checks) ostriches, and the chuckleberries.
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
It's partly because Musk has stopped appearing at AfD rallies thar they are doing better. But mainly frustration that the election was weeks ago, nothing has changed, Merz is so useless, dishonest and unlikeable, and the AfD are the main opposition. The Greens are still part of the minority government that hasn't been able to do anything since November. The Left have also benefited in the polls but don't have the massive establishment support the AfD have.
Is Merz really that bad? I confess I haven't attended German politics, due to ample distractions
Germany seems almost as badly governed as the UK right now, albeit America is still leading rhe way in madness
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
More likely the price of the US T shirt goes up, since there's less competition.
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
I have (some) horse in the freezer with the pheasants, the pigeons, the (checks) ostriches, and the chuckleberries.
Never heard of a chuckleberry. Looked it up and it sounds fantastic.
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
It's partly because Musk has stopped appearing at AfD rallies thar they are doing better. But mainly frustration that the election was weeks ago, nothing has changed, Merz is so useless, dishonest and unlikeable, and the AfD are the main opposition. The Greens are still part of the minority government that hasn't been able to do anything since November. The Left have also benefited in the polls but don't have the massive establishment support the AfD have.
Is this not just like the UK?
Starmer's first budget set of tax changes *started* 4 days ago, and Merz is not even in Government yet.
Meanwhile, Mr Chump demolished all the USA's political capital in a fortnight.
The mystery is why so many — from Ackman’s fellow billionaires to Florida-based Venezuelans — have bent over backwards to miss who Trump is. A trillion comments have been wasted accusing the wrong people of Trump derangement syndrome. The real TDS afflicts those who keep seeing a rational actor, or an economic chess game, where none exists. The whole market arguably suffers from this syndrome. Shortly after plummeting on Monday morning, a fake news release surfaced that said Trump would announce a pause on his tariffs this week. The markets more than erased their opening losses. All those gains, in turn, were wiped out when the White House issued a denial.
....while Trump is in charge, stay short on America.
As the ex-GOP rebels on the Bulwark keep saying: why did no one listen to us? We told you repeatedly what he was like and what would happen.
It is a good question. Fox News and the development of social media both crucial to the Trumpian takeover, anything else?
I blame the BBC. If they hadn't commissioned "The Apprentice", the septics wouldn't have commissioned it, and Trump would still be a NY socialite and real estate huckster.
So the BBC are the butterfly that flapped it's wings.
The US one came before the UK and was very popular in the US. Nobody in the US gives a stuff about Suuúuuur Alllan.
Trump's economic chief just revealed plans to TAX foreign holdings of US financial assets. Hidden in plain sight. Miran outlined 5 forms of "burden sharing" for countries benefiting from the US dollar reserve system: Four of these deal with reducing trade surpluses (more US exports, less US imports, etc.) - essentially reducing their net accumulation of US financial assets. But the 5th proposal is the bombshell: Countries "could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." Translation: You can keep holding US Treasuries and dollar financial assets, but you'll now pay a tax for the privilege. It's now almost a slam dunk that the administration's upcoming tax bill (likely in May) will include a provision bringing back the 30% foreign withholding tax on interest income that was eliminated in 1984. We predicted exactly this move in our ‘Dollar’s Dilemma’ and ‘Sovereign Wealth Effect’ reports published in Dec and Feb... https://x.com/michaeljmcnair/status/1909632751306780765
So does that mean the dollar will go up or down?
Probably.
Many people on here are smart and have experience of financial markets, but leveraging that intelligence into actionable insights is proving a chore. The current GBP to USD rate is £1=$1.28. By the end of 2025 will £1 buy i) more than $1.28 or ii) less than $1.28? F you feel you cannot tell me in public you can PM me. I won't blame you if you're wrong. No smarty-pants answers like "Yes", if you could be so kind.
It means that there will be a USD collapse. There is no growth incentive to hold US assets and real returns will fall in fact fall to levels reflected with a serious depression. Worse- there is a permanent structural reduction in US earnings capacity. The question is time. If the USD falls fast then there may be some bottom fishing, but if there is simply a long term bear market, then any possible recovery would be slow- and have to contend with permanently higher interest rates.
The US peer group goes from being the EU, Japan and the developed world to being a peer of Brazil, Russia or Indonesia, with weaker growth prospects as innovation business relocates out from the poor, drug-blighted, fat wreckage of the former global hegemon.
What the UK ends up being depends on who we choose now: Farage and the USA or Davey and the EU.
Only small piece of good news is that the oil price fall is going to really kill the Russian economy.
AfD 25 % CDU/CSU 24 % SPD 15 % GRÜNE 11 % DIE LINKE 11 % BSW 5 % FDP 4 % (Ipsos）
It is significant - perhaps very significant - that the catastropfuck of Trumpism does not seem to be impacting the alt-right in Europe, which goes from strength to strength
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
It's partly because Musk has stopped appearing at AfD rallies thar they are doing better. But mainly frustration that the election was weeks ago, nothing has changed, Merz is so useless, dishonest and unlikeable, and the AfD are the main opposition. The Greens are still part of the minority government that hasn't been able to do anything since November. The Left have also benefited in the polls but don't have the massive establishment support the AfD have.
Merz is the first Germany party leader to get his party back to government after only one term out of power in 50 years. He also had a successful private sector career before becoming chancellor.
As long as the CDU and SPD combined have most votes and the CDU more seats than the SPD it doesn't matter if the AfD lead the polls either, Merz stays chancellor.
Merz has also just introduced a tough new policy suspending refugee immigrants
If (when?) this catches up with Trump, the Republicans are going to have to use the 25th to get him out the way. It won't be difficult for them to make the case that he has gone completely loopy.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
It is the Chinese imported products becoming more expensive in the US and it doesn't matter how effective Chinese workers are if the goods they produce for the US market are hammered with 100%+ tariffs
The US simply doesn't have enough people or factories to make all the stuff it imports from other countries.
So it will have to do some combination of paying higher prices and consuming fewer goods. Which is another way of saying a recession combined with increased inflation.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
Yes so relatively US T shirts will be a dollar cheaper than Chinese T shirts now rather than 5 dollars more expensive on your own figures.
So demand for US T shirts will rise and more US based T shirt factories could open
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
Indeed. It is just a steak, but it is alleged to be the best horse-steak in the world
I'm meant to be eating it here, for the Knapper's Gazette
But truth be told I might lazily just nip around the corner to the "Beefeater", which gets the same rating for horse steak minus the enormous cab ride into the mountains
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
Indeed. It is just a steak, but it is alleged to be the best horse-steak in the world
I'm meant to be eating it here, for the Knapper's Gazette
But truth be told I might lazily just nip around the corner to the "Beefeater", which gets the same rating for horse steak minus the enormous cab ride into the mountains
What makes the horse so special? Was it a consul?
Was it correct? Was it arranged in connected rows in such a way as to be described as a "battery"?
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
That's a good question.
Perun covered that in part at the weekend, when he looked for example at the top 50 non-oil US commodity dependencies. It isn't just things like eg scandium, but also things like LCD screens.
It's probably one reason Chump is obsessing about the potential of asset-stripping Ukraine, Canada and Greenland. But he has nothing in his head except Napoleon, which won't work in 2025, and he has never read a book so economics might as well be Chinese.
Thank you. I would have thought it was unlikely, but frankly, who knows?
Just a thought - how easy would it be for China - or anyone really - to retaliate by banning the export of certain key materials to the USA? Or does a 100% tariff have that effect anyway?
That's a good question.
Perun covered that in part at the weekend, when he looked for example at the top 50 non-oil US commodity dependencies. It isn't just things like eg scandium, but also things like LCD screens.
It's probably one reason Chump is obsessing about the potential of asset-stripping Ukraine, Canada and Greenland. But he has nothing in his head except Napoleon, which won't work in 2025, and he has never read a book so economics might as well be Chinese.
Thank you. I would have thought it was unlikely, but frankly, who knows?
I think it depends how seriously the leverage is that is needed, is needed.
I'm back to my comparison of Trump to a 14 year old Medieval King of England or France wanting to prove that he is the Lord's Anointed by hurting someone, anyone. The other world leaders are the grown-ups in the room.
Canada could turn off a big chunk of US Electricity, and US oil supply, with no alternatives available, or could put a major surcharge on it. They have the big red button, but unlike Trump they understand the consequences.
Both China and the EU are sitting on their hands wrt heavy counter tariffs, in the expectation that one of the sticks of dynamite Trump has put down his trousers will explode before long.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
It is the Chinese imported products becoming more expensive in the US and it doesn't matter how effective Chinese workers are if the goods they produce for the US market are hammered with 100%+ tariffs
The US simply doesn't have enough people or factories to make all the stuff it imports from other countries.
So it will have to do some combination of paying higher prices and consuming fewer goods. Which is another way of saying a recession combined with increased inflation.
It’s almost like Trump doesn’t understand the cosy position the USA carved out for itself with the post-war economic settlement, and implication of tearing it all up. In their medium to long term planning meetings, I bet the Chinese are pissing themselves laughing. The CCP just has to survive this bit up front.
If (when?) this catches up with Trump, the Republicans are going to have to use the 25th to get him out the way. It won't be difficult for them to make the case that he has gone completely loopy.
I expect Vance to become invisible and silent.
Vance is a social climber with very few rungs left above him. There are reasons that social climbers were traditionally viewed as untrustworthy. He'll wield the knife
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
Yes so relatively US T shirts will be a dollar cheaper than Chinese T shirts now rather than 5 dollars more expensive on your own figures.
So demand for US T shirts will rise and more US based T shirt factories could open
US produced T-Shirts are likely to rise in price, in the absence of competition.
If you're a manufacturer of US T-Shirts, or employed by one, you benefit. If you're a US consumer, you lose. There will be individual companies, and some workers, who will benefit from high tariffs, but the typical American will lose.
And, if you're a US company that sources commodities or products from abroad, you can't set up new domestic supply chains overnight. And, some commodities (like Vanilla, or various types of oil), can't even be found anywhere in the USA. You're going to get hammered, which is why the share prices of such companies are plummeting.
Donald Trump is simply a raging Id, without an Ego or Superego.
Under "collapsing NHS", my GP has just announced new opening hours:
Practice opening times
Please be advised we have had a change in opening times at the practice our new opening times are now Monday 8 am - 18:30pm Tuesday 8am - 18:30pm Wednesday 7am - 18:30pm Thursday 8am - 18:30pm Friday 7am - 18:30pm
That's simpler and regularising some of what existed previously, but I think they will continue to do occasional Saturday mornings.
In Starmer Chronicles, they delivered their promised extra 2m GP appointments early. I'm just not sure that they have told anyone about it.
Under "collapsing NHS", my GP has just announced new opening hours:
Practice opening times
Please be advised we have had a change in opening times at the practice our new opening times are now Monday 8 am - 18:30pm Tuesday 8am - 18:30pm Wednesday 7am - 18:30pm Thursday 8am - 18:30pm Friday 7am - 18:30pm
That's simpler and regularing some of what were done, but I think they will continue to do occasional Saturday mornings.
In Starmer Chronicles, they delivered their promised extra 2m GP appointments early. I'm just not sure that they have told anyone about it.
My GP opening hours have been that for ages, still doesn't mean I can get an appointment to see a GP. If I am lucky I can see a non-GP in 2 weeks time.
"Germany has temporarily suspended the acceptance of refugees under the program of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the DPA agency reports, citing the German Ministry of the Interior and the UNHCR."
https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1909749419836141961 ...Sources close to the Trump White House say they are pressing on with their tariff plan based on this calculation: That the tumult in on Wall Street in stock market, while significant, will not be matched by a similar tumult in the Main Street economy. That the negative wealth effect primarily targets non MAGA affluent voters; that jobs will be largely retained because of deregulation and tax relief. And soon trade deals will be cut that lessens the tariff impact, so markets will stabilize. Bottom line: They believe that politically they will be just fine and at least for now they’re pressing on. I’m not saying I agree with this; in fact it’s a gamble IMHO and who knows maybe they do a 180. But that’s the thinking as we reach tariff judgment day and markets continue to rattle...
My question is, where is this mythical "Main Street economy". Other than back in the 1950s.
While I welcome the new themepark investment, I wonder if it will end up being a displacement activity i.e. there is already Chessington and Thorpe park on the outskirts of London. Thorpe park is more "ridesy", but Chessington was always billed as take your kids to see characters etc.
I am sure the Universal brand and IP will draw in extra oveseas visitors, but I wonder what percentage will be displacement from I would think Chessington being in big trouble to compete with Universal for the take your kids to see Minions.
Also other places that people used to visit for a bigger experience like Alton Towers.
The UK / Khan was also very stupid to block London have our own version of Las Vegas Sphere.
This is mainstream US politics today: ..The @catturd2 account, which has more than 3.5 million followers on X, referred to the justice as “Amy Commie Barrett” and complained that “Trump appointed her and gave her her dream job and complimented her and praised her — and she’s been an ungrateful, backstabbing POS since day one.”..
https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1909749419836141961 ...Sources close to the Trump White House say they are pressing on with their tariff plan based on this calculation: That the tumult in on Wall Street in stock market, while significant, will not be matched by a similar tumult in the Main Street economy. That the negative wealth effect primarily targets non MAGA affluent voters; that jobs will be largely retained because of deregulation and tax relief. And soon trade deals will be cut that lessens the tariff impact, so markets will stabilize. Bottom line: They believe that politically they will be just fine and at least for now they’re pressing on. I’m not saying I agree with this; in fact it’s a gamble IMHO and who knows maybe they do a 180. But that’s the thinking as we reach tariff judgment day and markets continue to rattle...
My question is, where is this mythical "Main Street economy". Other than back in the 1950s.
"If Woody Guthrie were alive today, he'd have a lot to write about. High times on Wall Street and hard times on Main Street"
as a New Jersey musician once said
Trump's getting rid of the high times on Wall St bit.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
That's the biggest issue of all for the US. Even if you accept that there's a coherent strategy behind the new tariffs, that will lead to a payoff for the US, the capricious and flaky way that Trump has gone about it has dented US credibility so much that no-one can guess what the position's going to be next week, let along next month or next year. In that sort of climate, businesses (and individuals) will hunker down, and postpone spending and investment decisions for as long as they can.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
Yes so relatively US T shirts will be a dollar cheaper than Chinese T shirts now rather than 5 dollars more expensive on your own figures.
So demand for US T shirts will rise and more US based T shirt factories could open
Or India or the Philippines start exporting more t shirts for $7 (factoring in their lower tarriffs) and the US ones are still uncompetitive.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
Yes so relatively US T shirts will be a dollar cheaper than Chinese T shirts now rather than 5 dollars more expensive on your own figures.
So demand for US T shirts will rise and more US based T shirt factories could open
Or India or the Philippines start exporting more t shirts for $7 (factoring in their lower tarriffs) and the US ones are still uncompetitive.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
The article clearly contains exaggerations such as "In China, there are no people who are too fat to work." WIth 1.3 billion people, I'm sure there will be quite a few people in this category.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
1. 100% tariffs just means that the Chinese have to be a factor of two times more effective than these hypothetical US factory workers. That doesn't seem too much of a stretch. 2. You can't conjure up these factories overnight. 3. The most likely outcome of making products more expensive and worse quality is that people won't buy them, made in the USA or not.
I know that the arguments that Trump and Vance are putting forward. In their case, it's because they're loonies.
It is the Chinese imported products becoming more expensive in the US and it doesn't matter how effective Chinese workers are if the goods they produce for the US market are hammered with 100%+ tariffs
The US simply doesn't have enough people or factories to make all the stuff it imports from other countries.
So it will have to do some combination of paying higher prices and consuming fewer goods. Which is another way of saying a recession combined with increased inflation.
and likely won't want or be able to employ lots of people making very cheap clothing or doing some of the environmentally unpleasant activities such as copper processing that we've outsourced to Asia.
If anyone believes that low skilled mass manufacturing is going to return to rust belt small towns:
Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.
In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do.
Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills.
And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that.
Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.
All very well but if Chinese imported goods face a 100% tariff it makes more sense to have more US based factories producting manufactured goods for the US market no matter how good the Chinese workforce is
You can already buy US made clothing.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
No, not if more Americans buy US goods as imported goods are more expensive. Trump's tariffs now make US goods relatively cheaper in the US so likely will increase demand for them.
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
@hyufd that doesn't make sense. The US prices aren't going to come down with tariffs are they? It just means the imported prices will go up. For example:
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10 Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
That's the biggest issue of all for the US. Even if you accept that there's a coherent strategy behind the new tariffs, that will lead to a payoff for the US, the capricious and flaky way that Trump has gone about it has dented US credibility so much that no-one can guess what the position's going to be next week, let along next month or next year. In that sort of climate, businesses (and individuals) will hunker down, and postpone spending and investment decisions for as long as they can.
Not just unpredictable but untrustworthy. He signed a new version of NAFTA during his first term and immediately ripped it up. Its like trusting a second hand car salesman with your life savings.
Reagan and Thatcher got buy in for their radical changes to world economic policies because for all the faults of Thatcher, once she had decided she wasn't for turning.
What I have invested I will keep invested but what I have in cash stays in cash.
I did sell some of mine and my wife’s funds start of March as they were too heavy in tech and took some profit. I’m just lucky it is not genius on my part. More wanting to move a portion to less risky investments.
I am sooooo fortunate I retired when I did as I transferred my company DC pension to my SIPP and did so as cash. Currently transferring to II.
That's how all my friends have reacted too - cancelling the standard order into the S&S ISA. I guess EMH would suggest keep investing as normal, particularly at our age, but we're not convinced the markets have fully come to terms with how bad this could be.
If I was in my thirties or forties I’d keep paying in and dollar cost average. At 59 I’m happy to commit some to equities to fund the back end of my retirement. But not a lot of it and a fair amount of that is in dividend paying stocks.
I've got about 10 years to go and all my spare investment (not much anyway) is in a Shares ISA so I can't really put it anywhere else. I haven't cancelled the monthly standing order as I can't call the bottom so will just rely on aberaging out over the next year or so, and in 10 years time it won't matter much.
I am sitting on a bit of spare cash that's probably heading for the mortgage instead unless things have settled in a few months. But my view is we have at least another 3 and a half years of chaos in the USA and there's no point worrying about it on a day to day basis.
If we’re lucky it’s a year and a half and the house and/or senate flips.
That's all very well, but tonight I have to eat a actual horse
That's not very impressive (I suspect many of us have eaten horse) unless you are eating the whole horse. If you are that would be very impressive indeed.
I have (some) horse in the freezer with the pheasants, the pigeons, the (checks) ostriches, and the chuckleberries.
Never heard of a chuckleberry. Looked it up and it sounds fantastic.
Mine came from here wholesale, as very good value compared to blueberries, redcurrants etc. I now have a freezer draw full of them, loose, having bought a 12kg box to get a ludicrous price (£3 per kilo). The other items tend to be £15-20 for 2.5 kilos, depending on timing.
Be warned, the stuff about surprisingly sweet is mainly baloney. They are less tart than a gooseberry, but still quite sharp. Sweetener required.
Comments
Ahem.
And one of my sons, who deals in drones thinks he's going to have to use US ones in the systems he sells, and he's not that impressed.
I am sitting on a bit of spare cash that's probably heading for the mortgage instead unless things have settled in a few months. But my view is we have at least another 3 and a half years of chaos in the USA and there's no point worrying about it on a day to day basis.
China hits back at US tariffs with export controls on key rare earths
https://www.reuters.com/world/china-hits-back-us-tariffs-with-rare-earth-export-controls-2025-04-04/
This is priceless.
https://x.com/ENERGY/status/1909728482898186463
Give it a couple of weeks, and he probably will.
As any A&E nurse could have told you.
Why is it niche rather than mass production ? Because it costs so much more.
The only way to have mass production from the USA from labour intensive factories is to massively increase the sales price of the output.
If you do that many people will not be able to afford it and will not buy it and many people who could afford it will still chose not to buy it.
What you cannot have is low cost items from a western workforce which has a low skill level and a low work ethic.
There's plenty of people in the western world with a high skill level and a high work ethic and these people get high pay and so the price of their output is high.
I sold all my US stocks including funds with any significant holding in the US a few weeks back, but as part of the 'dump everything American' protest initiated by the Canadians.
As that’s not going to happen things could get a lot worse . We also know that the Maga cult are moving the goalposts as they try and defend why they voted for him . They’re all in now on some short term pain , the price of eggs and inflation have been ditched .
National Review: “Trump Tariffs: Congress Should End Trade War.” The Founding Fathers wanted Congress to have the power to tax and determine tariffs for a reason.
https://x.com/RepDonBacon/status/1909792823487902023?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
In case you didn’t know, it’s the SDR silly season in the UK. There have been a few stories recently about our combat aircraft - how many, who owns them and what type? This one tries a whole new approach by trying to rehash the SDR of 15 years ago. A “Where do I Start” 🧵
https://x.com/gregbagwell/status/1909874025620287878
I would be in no rush to buy back in. There's probably another couple of rounds of FOMO buying before the market genuinely bottoms out.
I also have to ask: did you put it in flat end first or rounded end first?
With northerners having more disposable income among the younger generations and southerners more disposable income among the older generation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fij_ixfjiZE Margin Call (2011) Senior Partners Emergency Meeting (10 mins)
I do not drive a Ford. I drive a Toyota (and I'm on my third in the last twenty years).
Perun covered that in part at the weekend, when he looked for example at the top 50 non-oil US commodity dependencies. It isn't just things like eg scandium, but also things like LCD screens.
Chart and link to section:
https://youtu.be/nVZ1lcw2bVU?t=2426
It's probably one reason Chump is obsessing about the potential of asset-stripping Ukraine, Canada and Greenland. But he has nothing in his head except Napoleon, which won't work in 2025, and he has never read a book so economics might as well be Chinese.
https://x.com/wahlrecht_de/status/1909879533450285077
AfD 25 %
CDU/CSU 24 %
SPD 15 %
GRÜNE 11 %
DIE LINKE 11 %
BSW 5 %
FDP 4 %
(Ipsos）
Lots of differences but the similarity with Truss is that a lot of the market response is less about the specific event and more the realisation that these people really are total clowns and there's no clever plan behind the public statements of blathering ignorance.
https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3lmelapxhem2g
If it does go t**s up then there is a beach or two where you can sit out Armageddon.
So there are big forces pushing in both directions, and your judgement as to which will win through are probably as good (or as weak) as anyone's right now. I have money - but only a little - backing a fall, largely on the basis that if there's a BIG movement in currency, it's more likely to be a fall.
Basically Germany now has the equivalent of a Tory and Labour government to keep out Reform (as before under Merkel they worked together to keep out Linke)
You'd think this would be covered by Brit journalists specialising in the USA but they are too lazy. I am tempted to shout at them to put a wiggle on, eg. "Arbeit, Matt Frei!"
"Trump conceded that his tariffs had been “somewhat explosive”, but claimed the policy was already making $2 billion a day for the US economy.
“The money is pouring in at a level we’ve never seen before,” he said"
*insert blank face staring emoji*
Trump is enforcing lower costs for consumers for US goods in the US by hammering imports from the likes of China with huge tariffs.
The high skilled workers (and at the other extreme those on welfare) largely voted for Harris, it is the middle and lower skilled workers who voted for Trump
Counterpoint: the Greg Bagwell rebuttal thread: https://xcancel.com/gregbagwell/status/1909874025620287878
I'm meant to be eating it here, for the Knapper's Gazette
https://www.theworlds50best.com/discovery/Establishments/Kazakhstan/Almaty/Auyl.html
But truth be told I might lazily just nip around the corner to the "Beefeater", which gets the same rating for horse steak minus the enormous cab ride into the mountains
it's April 8, 2025, and Trump is polling his fellow Republicans about whether they should call Biden "crooked" or "sleepy"
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1909761101304115327
I still wouldn't want to live there though. Not for more than 6 months of the year anyway...
The US peer group goes from being the EU, Japan and the developed world to being a peer of Brazil, Russia or Indonesia, with weaker growth prospects as innovation business relocates out from the poor, drug-blighted, fat wreckage of the former global hegemon.
What the UK ends up being depends on who we choose now: Farage and the USA or Davey and the EU.
Only small piece of good news is that the oil price fall is going to really kill the Russian economy.
Pre tariff: China T shirt $5, US T shirt $10
Post tariff China T shirt $11, US T shirt still $10
So the customer now buys a US T shirt rather than a China T shirt, but he is a lot poorer as a consequence. You might get factories opening to make cheap T shirts, but they are never going to match the pre tariff price of China. if they could they would have existed in the first place and the US would not have imported Chinese T shirts. So the consumer is always worse off.
And who the hell is going to invest in a factory currently anyway?
Germany seems almost as badly governed as the UK right now, albeit America is still leading rhe way in madness
Oswald Spengler, your time is Now
Bottom feeders not interested yet.
Starmer's first budget set of tax changes *started* 4 days ago, and Merz is not even in Government yet.
Meanwhile, Mr Chump demolished all the USA's political capital in a fortnight.
As long as the CDU and SPD combined have most votes and the CDU more seats than the SPD it doesn't matter if the AfD lead the polls either, Merz stays chancellor.
Merz has also just introduced a tough new policy suspending refugee immigrants
If (when?) this catches up with Trump, the Republicans are going to have to use the 25th to get him out the way. It won't be difficult for them to make the case that he has gone completely loopy.
I expect Vance to become invisible and silent.
So it will have to do some combination of paying higher prices and consuming fewer goods. Which is another way of saying a recession combined with increased inflation.
So demand for US T shirts will rise and more US based T shirt factories could open
I'm back to my comparison of Trump to a 14 year old Medieval King of England or France wanting to prove that he is the Lord's Anointed by hurting someone, anyone. The other world leaders are the grown-ups in the room.
Canada could turn off a big chunk of US Electricity, and US oil supply, with no alternatives available, or could put a major surcharge on it. They have the big red button, but unlike Trump they understand the consequences.
Both China and the EU are sitting on their hands wrt heavy counter tariffs, in the expectation that one of the sticks of dynamite Trump has put down his trousers will explode before long.
If you're a manufacturer of US T-Shirts, or employed by one, you benefit. If you're a US consumer, you lose. There will be individual companies, and some workers, who will benefit from high tariffs, but the typical American will lose.
And, if you're a US company that sources commodities or products from abroad, you can't set up new domestic supply chains overnight. And, some commodities (like Vanilla, or various types of oil), can't even be found anywhere in the USA. You're going to get hammered, which is why the share prices of such companies are plummeting.
Donald Trump is simply a raging Id, without an Ego or Superego.
Practice opening times
Please be advised we have had a change in opening times at the practice our new opening times are now
Monday 8 am - 18:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 18:30pm
Wednesday 7am - 18:30pm
Thursday 8am - 18:30pm
Friday 7am - 18:30pm
That's simpler and regularising some of what existed previously, but I think they will continue to do occasional Saturday mornings.
In Starmer Chronicles, they delivered their promised extra 2m GP appointments early. I'm just not sure that they have told anyone about it.
https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1909749419836141961
...Sources close to the Trump White House say they are pressing on with their tariff plan based on this calculation: That the tumult in on Wall Street in stock market, while significant, will not be matched by a similar tumult in the Main Street economy. That the negative wealth effect primarily targets non MAGA affluent voters; that jobs will be largely retained because of deregulation and tax relief. And soon trade deals will be cut that lessens the tariff impact, so markets will stabilize. Bottom line: They believe that politically they will be just fine and at least for now they’re pressing on. I’m not saying I agree with this; in fact it’s a gamble IMHO and who knows maybe they do a 180. But that’s the thinking as we reach tariff judgment day and markets continue to rattle...
My question is, where is this mythical "Main Street economy".
Other than back in the 1950s.
Exclusive: Algorithms allegedly being used to study data of thousands of people, in project critics say is ‘chilling and dystopian’"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/uk-creating-prediction-tool-to-identify-people-most-likely-to-kill
I am sure the Universal brand and IP will draw in extra oveseas visitors, but I wonder what percentage will be displacement from I would think Chessington being in big trouble to compete with Universal for the take your kids to see Minions.
Also other places that people used to visit for a bigger experience like Alton Towers.
The UK / Khan was also very stupid to block London have our own version of Las Vegas Sphere.
Amy Coney Barrett becomes an unlikely hate figure for MAGA World
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5239094-trump-supporters-blast-barrett/
This is mainstream US politics today:
..The @catturd2 account, which has more than 3.5 million followers on X, referred to the justice as “Amy Commie Barrett” and complained that “Trump appointed her and gave her her dream job and complimented her and praised her — and she’s been an ungrateful, backstabbing POS since day one.”..
as a New Jersey musician once said
Trump's getting rid of the high times on Wall St bit.
Reagan and Thatcher got buy in for their radical changes to world economic policies because for all the faults of Thatcher, once she had decided she wasn't for turning.
Be warned, the stuff about surprisingly sweet is mainly baloney. They are less tart than a gooseberry, but still quite sharp. Sweetener required.
They make nice jam, crumbles and fruit vinegar.
https://www.frozenfruit.co.uk/herefordshire-fruit.html