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
I think he’s incredibly ambitious and not especially wedded to MAGA or Trump. I doubt he’s as stupid as some people think.
He has a Summa Cum Laude Politics and Philosophy degree from Ohio State. That is, top 2-5%. And then a Yale Law Degree.
He's intelligent, and I think knows what he is doing. But also imo stupid in his methods, partly because he is an arrogant swine. He is also a liar - see for example his fairy stories around "assault on free speech" in Europe.
Intelligent ≠ wise, as anyone who has spent time near a university will tell you. Indeed, sometimes intelligence is what allows people to convince themselves of really stupid things.
Intellectuals can be quite malevolent. Ann Coulter is a good example. You do not get to edit the Michigan Law Review without being in the top 1%, intellectually.
It's almost a feature not a bug.
You can end up thinking you're superior to everyone else, and then you stop listening believing you know best and try and impose your ideas on everyone, that only you truly understand.
Dogmatists who think they're intellectual, but are actually quite limited, are similar.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
That makes no sense. In the example used the price was $5 if bought from China. American company produces for $10 so American company can't compete.
Tariff raises price to $11 for China produced goods so Americans can now buy US goods which are cheaper than the China products,
However previous price $5. New price $10. 100% inflation.
Of course it does, just don't buy Chinese goods buy American is the Trump message so no inflation
OK this is hurting my brain. How is a price rise from $5 to $10 not inflation?
For about the 20th post Electoral Calculus is worthless in this scenario. It is not designed for it. You might as well make up numbers. For instance the LD have a significant increase in support yet lose 8 seats. I would think the rest are out by even more. It is not designed for Reform's existence as a major party and the consequential low vote for Lab/Tory.
Well if you wish to think Davey will be Kingmaker not Kemi fine, either way Labour loses its majority
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
The most stupid thing the UK did was having seen that China doesn't act in the global interest during COVID, Boris set up a taskforce to investigate what crucial elements of the supply chain are wholly reliant on China and how could we onshore / do deals with our allies to try to reduce that dependance.
Then he scrapped it.
The premise of the taskforce is what actually what Western countries should be doing.
But we may need to do the same work for the US as well.
It is hard to imagine how a hotel in a small town or village being used as a holding pen for asylum seekers must ruin the lives of the residents.
How a migrant hotel brought racism to a quiet village near Windsor
“Abhi is fed up with the racist abuse thrown at him on a daily basis while he works behind the counter in a small corner shop in Datchet, a mile and a half away from Windsor Castle.
But the racism isn’t coming from far-right agitators or Middle England locals. It’s coming from some of the asylum seekers housed in the only hotel in the village, located on the banks of the River Thames, which would take the Prince and Princess of Wales just a ten-minute stroll to reach from their home at Adelaide Cottage.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” says Abhi, a 24-year-old who has lived in the UK legally for several years.
He says most of the abuse comes from Muslim asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Pakistan living at the 54-bedroom Manor Hotel, described on its website as a “boutique hotel” and given three stars on booking.com, promising a “serene country house experience” with a “beautiful garden”.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” Abhi says. “They come in and shout ‘Muslim is good, Allah Allah’. They come in and say, ‘Indians are not good, f*** Hinduism’. It’s f***ing bad. They’re always coming in, taking food, [they] don’t pay. I personally hate it.”
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
It will, because the choice isn't just "buy American T-shirt" or "buy foreign T-shirt". The most likely option is "don't buy any T-shirt".
Trump as a Deep Green. Whodathunkit? No wonder that horse was so happy.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
The most stupid thing the UK did was having seen that China doesn't act in the global interest during COVID, Boris set up a taskforce to investigate what crucial elements of the supply chain are wholly reliant on China and how could we onshore / do deals with our allies to try to reduce that dependance.
Then he scrapped it.
The premise of the taskforce is what actually what Western countries should be doing.
Globalisation works very efficiently, economically, in a neo-liberal paradise where everyone plays by the same rules, has the same interests and there is free movement of capital, goods and services and a decent free movement of labour too - ideally, with as few frictional barriers as possible, like currencies. Socially, it's coupled with hyper-liberalism where the individual can be anything, identify as or do anything they want, unencumbered by anything.
I'd say this is the dominant belief system of global western elites worldwide.
Unfortunately, it is just as idealistic as plenty of other philosophies and doesn't survive geopolitical reality
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It was more that the big push into automated production in the 80s stalled - so moving to low wage economies was the easy way to make things cheaper.
Automation has caught up - some low wage jobs will vanish in the next decade or so. Fruit pickers will finally go, for example. More and more dark factories.
It would take decades of investment to build the infrastructure. Which requires stability…
The USA is pushing other countries towards China so the total reverse of what it wants to see . China is now seen as a more reliable trade partner .
This looks like the biggest of own goals by the USA .
Not if the US wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and just produce its own goods and services for its own consumers and stay out of foreign wars and deport illegal immigrants too ie America First as Trump says.
If Trump's tariffs do increase US manufacturing jobs then nationalist parties across the West will also grow further including on a policy of raising tariffs on cheap Chinese goods
Trump's policy (if not his intent), is to strengthen rival nations at the expense of his own.
Again a globalist view, China already dominates manufacturing globally so the rustbelt has nothing to lose and if Europe has to fund more of its own defence and builds military strength that was needed anyway.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
It will, because the choice isn't just "buy American T-shirt" or "buy foreign T-shirt". The most likely option is "don't buy any T-shirt".
Trump as a Deep Green. Whodathunkit? No wonder that horse was so happy.
Tariffs are on virtually every good, so it isn't just T shirts, if you don't buy more American you either near starve or have no new goods
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It was more that the big push into automated production in the 80s stalled - so moving to low wage economies was the easy way to make things cheaper.
Automation has caught up - some low wage jobs will vanish in the next decade or so. Fruit pickers will finally go, for example. More and more dark factories.
It would take decades of investment to build the infrastructure. Which requires stability…
While I was in Asia, I was talking to some people who do a lot of business in China and there is a lot of fear there that automation is coming and coming fast and what will happen with society in China itself e.g. They already have robotaxis in some cities and they are very controversial and get attacked by human tax drivers.
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
It will, because the choice isn't just "buy American T-shirt" or "buy foreign T-shirt". The most likely option is "don't buy any T-shirt".
Trump as a Deep Green. Whodathunkit? No wonder that horse was so happy.
Tariffs are on virtually every good, so it isn't just T shirts, if you don't buy more American you either near starve or have no new goods
You are slowly getting there, what is coming to Americans is that they will have less goods.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
But then the revenues from the tariffs stop. Where does the government make that up from?
For about the 20th post Electoral Calculus is worthless in this scenario. It is not designed for it. You might as well make up numbers. For instance the LD have a significant increase in support yet lose 8 seats. I would think the rest are out by even more. It is not designed for Reform's existence as a major party and the consequential low vote for Lab/Tory.
Well if you wish to think Davey will be Kingmaker not Kemi fine, either way Labour loses its majority
Nope. I have no idea what the result will be. There is no 'wishing' involved. I have no idea who will be kingmaker or whether there will be a kingmaker
I'm just pointing out that you are plugging numbers into a model that wasn't built for the purpose. You might as well just be making up the numbers. The numbers for all 4 parties here are utterly meaningless. You might as well give us your prediction as it is likely to be as reliable and possibly better because you may not be making the false assumptions that the model makes.
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
I would suggest that would be a terrible move by them.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
It’s prohibitive when the price is now twice or 3 times what it used to be.
Previously with $300 you could purchase 60 $5 t shirts.
At $10 each you can purchase 30 At $15 each 20.
And your average American isn’t going to be paid more
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
I believe sub $60 is starts to get bad for Russia.
Maybe this is Trump's cunning plan.
Well they aren't happy,
Russia has accused the US of flouting international trade rules by imposing 104% charges on imports from China.
“Washington doesn’t seem itself binded by the norms of international trade law,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says.
When Donald Trump raised border taxes on Chinese goods by 10% in February, China complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which settles trade disputes.
Zakharova says the tariff decisions taken by Trump “violate the fundamental rule of the WTO”.
Russia has been spared from the list of over 60 countries hit by Trump’s latest tariffs, but the foreign ministry spokesperson tells reporters that the country is taking steps to minimise any possible damage by increasing its interactions with China.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
Whether I can afford something depends on its price, not its relative price compared to imports. Higher prices mean fewer T-shirts will be bought. That’s the point you’re missing.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It was more that the big push into automated production in the 80s stalled - so moving to low wage economies was the easy way to make things cheaper.
Automation has caught up - some low wage jobs will vanish in the next decade or so. Fruit pickers will finally go, for example. More and more dark factories.
It would take decades of investment to build the infrastructure. Which requires stability…
While I was in Asia, I was talking to some people who do a lot of business in China and there is a lot of fear there that automation is coming and coming fast and what will happen with society in China itself e.g. They already have robotaxis in some cities and they are very controversial and get attacked by human tax drivers.
Indeed, don't think the Beijing elite are immune. Across the world the working class and lower middle class are revolting as in their view the highly educated, elite, globe trotting, high earning, professional and managerial upper middle classes (who dominate PB too) have had their own way for too long.
Trump being elected to pursue tariffs and protectionism and tighter borders over free trade and easy immigration is just one example, if governments allow automation and AI to lead to significant job losses even China's government won't be immune from mass protests
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
Only on Politicalbetting.com
I didn't know Jesus posted to pb.com and I'm disappointed to hear he expressed different views to different audiences. Sounds like a politician to me
James Carville: "I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
The bond market is where Trump is going to lose this. The Stock Market is just collateral damage.
The most stupid thing the UK did was having seen that China doesn't act in the global interest during COVID, Boris set up a taskforce to investigate what crucial elements of the supply chain are wholly reliant on China and how could we onshore / do deals with our allies to try to reduce that dependance.
Then he scrapped it.
The premise of the taskforce is what actually what Western countries should be doing.
That was the essence of Biden's industrial policy. Which the congressional GOP downsized.
Senile or not, he was delivering 4%pa growth. Whereas the mad king...
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.
Even a 50% tariff on Vietnamese or Bangladeshi t shirts wholesale price at the importers would make them cheaper than the USA made ones.
I don't think that the tariffs will impact sales much, just sucker US consumers.
It would be a 100% tariff if necessary a la on China
Yes, but on wholesale not retail price, which usually is 100% higher, so a price increase, but not enough to bridge the price difference.
The USA is pushing other countries towards China so the total reverse of what it wants to see . China is now seen as a more reliable trade partner .
This looks like the biggest of own goals by the USA .
Not if the US wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and just produce its own goods and services for its own consumers and stay out of foreign wars and deport illegal immigrants too ie America First as Trump says.
If Trump's tariffs do increase US manufacturing jobs then nationalist parties across the West will also grow further including on a policy of raising tariffs on cheap Chinese goods
Trump's policy (if not his intent), is to strengthen rival nations at the expense of his own.
Again a globalist view, China already dominates manufacturing globally so the rustbelt has nothing to lose and if Europe has to fund more of its own defence and builds military strength that was needed anyway.
No, just a common sense view. Nobody got richer by making everything more expensive for their own people, putting a bomb under share prices, and raising long term interest rates. Nobody got rich by making their own country a worse place to do business in, and driving away foreign consumers.
Prioritising the rust belt, over every other part of the USA, especially the parts that make profits by selling goods and services abroad, is the epitome of stupidity.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
Again, follow this through.
If the price of clothing doubles in the US, consumers will by far less clothing. Which means your new factory doesn't achieve the scale production needed. Which means it isn't viable to operate. Which means the banks aren't going to fund its construction and OPEX.
Even the MAGA rampers are talking up robotics as the future in these new factories in their hoped for scenario. Rows of Optimus bots, not humans.
Average Joe thinks MAGA means "more US manufacturing jobs". They are going to be sorely disappointed.
This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing. ZERO TARIFFS, and almost immediate Electrical/Energy hook ups and approvals. No Environmental Delays. DON'T WAIT, DO IT NOW!
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
That makes no sense. In the example used the price was $5 if bought from China. American company produces for $10 so American company can't compete.
Tariff raises price to $11 for China produced goods so Americans can now buy US goods which are cheaper than the China products,
However previous price $5. New price $10. 100% inflation.
Of course it does, just don't buy Chinese goods buy American is the Trump message so no inflation
OK this is hurting my brain. How is a price rise from $5 to $10 not inflation?
Reform. Nail it to the floor. They voted in many BNP councillors back in the day, and have shown their willingness to vote for any party - Con, Lab, LD.
Stick in a local lad, one of the new generation of politically-minded forthright people, and Reform will walk it.
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.
An academic colleague of mine firmly believes that Callaghan actually said "Crisis? What crisis?". When I pointed out to him that this was a newspaper headline and not what had been said he refused to believe me and insisted that he remembered him saying it.
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
You mean Merz led the CDU to their 2nd worst result ever, and their worst ever from opposition. And that in the favourable situation of running as opposition to a historically unpopular government. And a government that contained all 3 of SPD, Greens and FDP. So a really bad result under the circumstances.
You may like Merz, but most Germans don't.
I do expect the CDU to recover a bit after they take office, and start spending all those billions they've made available for themselves that Merz denied the last government.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
There is no obvious rational way that any of this leads to "more US goods".
Lets assume for a moment that manufacturing actually gets created again in the US for all these sectors where it was lost previously. That a MAGA industrialist makes the leap of faith and builds a factory and partners with other MAGA industrialists to create a MAGA supply chain for this MAGA factory.
So we now have MAGA Inc making iPhones or Tshirts or Laptops or whatever. In the US. For the US market.
Who is going to buy their items? The cost will be prohibitive. The reason that production was outsourced to cheaper labour markets is because Americans cant afford to pay other Americans to make the stuff they can afford.
It won't be prohibitive when cheaper than imports
Whether I can afford something depends on its price, not its relative price compared to imports. Higher prices mean fewer T-shirts will be bought. That’s the point you’re missing.
Trump's appeal is to the simplistically minded. Sorry HYUFD, just saying!
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
That’s going to depend on the individual. If you already have a job, then you’re facing massive inflation but getting little in return. If you get a good job from this, then that’s worth it. Most (working age) Trump voters already have jobs, though, don’t they?
And how many jobs is this policy actually going to create?
No, just a common sense view. Nobody got richer by making everything more expensive for their own people, putting a bomb under share prices, and raising long term interest rates. Nobody got rich by making their own country a worse place to do business in, and driving away foreign consumers.
Prioritising the rust belt, over every other part of the USA, especially the parts that make profits by selling goods and services abroad, is the epitome of stupidity.
Exactly. The cost to America will go far behind the tariffs they now pay, the inflation, and the capital required to onshore what is in many cases quite low-profit labour-intensive work. The US is going to lose big time in areas like defence and tech, because essentially the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD can no longer afford to trust the US. Some of America's largest and most profitable companies will pay the price for the US re-electing Trump and ending the era of US dominance.
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.
I very occassionally, during possible crises only, have views on the directions of the stock markets but not really currencies so am limited to smart alec answers to your question unfortunately. FWIW I think Dow bottoms out 30-33k but ends the year around 40k (most of the recovery late autumn).
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
I would suggest that would be a terrible move by them.
It may be — I’m not certain — but I know there will be huge pressure for them to be seen to be doing something. And there is more justification for impeaching Trump now than ever before, arguably!
Interesting that the Economist is now parroting me on old types of data storage.
"United States | Burn the tapes DOGE is coming for American officials’ magnetic tape But more modern methods of data storage are not necessarily better"
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
That’s going to depend on the individual. If you already have a job, then you’re facing massive inflation but getting little in return. If you get a good job from this, then that’s worth it. Most (working age) Trump voters already have jobs, though, don’t they?
And how many jobs is this policy actually going to create?
Zero, because the net damage to economic confidence will outweigh any attempt to change manufacturing practices. Even if it did result, the adaptation will take years.
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.
If you own one of the minority of US companies that gets most supplies from abroad Trump isn't that bothered about you anyway
But most of the LARGE companies are also buying a proportion of their components from another country. The tariffs will end up making almost everything in the US more expensive. This is still Trumpism: the companies who buy their bottles from the USA will increase their prices less than those who buy their bottles from Mexico or Canada.
Your average Coke, Gatorade, Wine or Whiskey drinker won't really care if the increase is 5% or 6%, they will care they will care that EVERYTHING has become more expensive because of this Trumpism strategy.
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
And 100% inflation. No issues there.
Not if you are a US consumer and now only buy American made goods, that is the gamble Trump is taking, more US goods will be bought instead of imports and more US jobs created despite the price rise in imports
That makes no sense. [snip]
I feel like this might be the point where one of us has to step in and remind you who you're debating with here and - adopting a faux-London/Essex accent - say "leave it, it ain't worth it mate!"
I'm chilled these days when debating @HYUFD as I think he is in debating me. We haven't got annoyed with one another for years now, as it should be. As you say 'it ain't worth it'. To be honest I'm embarrassed we ever did get into heated arguments.
I tend to 'like' him more than I argue with him these days.
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
That’s going to depend on the individual. If you already have a job, then you’re facing massive inflation but getting little in return. If you get a good job from this, then that’s worth it. Most (working age) Trump voters already have jobs, though, don’t they?
And how many jobs is this policy actually going to create?
Nowhere near as many jobs as it will destroy as retailers get squeezed.
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
I would suggest that would be a terrible move by them.
It may be — I’m not certain — but I know there will be huge pressure for them to be seen to be doing something. And there is more justification for impeaching Trump now than ever before, arguably!
He stood on a platform of Tariffs. I think its bonkers, but this is exactly what he said he would do. I think it would be unwise for the Democrats to go down this route of yet another impeachment, it looks like yet more lawfare and that went down really badly before.
Rather use the levers available to try to put a break on things and then in 2 further years they can say look at the mess, we tried within our powers to minimise the effects, but the only way to reverse them is to vote for us.
What’s left of the UK steel industry is verging on collapse. Government bogus climate crisis errors led directly to this disaster. While Rachel Reeves makes panicky policy pronouncements, it’s too little, too late."
China has the upper hand in this battle. Why? Because China is NOT reliant on exports to the US. China learned very quickly that being too reliant on one country (especially a one that continuously attacks, sanctions, and tariffs you) would be way too risky. So what did China do? They diversified.
China trades more with SE Asian countries than the USA. China has close relations with 52 nations in Africa, China leads trade in the Middle East and vast majority of developing countries around the globe.
Meanwhile the US is screwed without Chinese manufacturing. Walk through your house and see how many products are Made in China. If Trump doesn't swallow his pride and immediately reverse positions (he won't his ego is WAY too big) then this is the end of the US economy.
The first 100 days of Trump's presidency couldn't have gone any worse. Absolute disaster for the United States
Not a terribly convincing argument that Trump is doing the wrong thing, is it?
Really?
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China China doesn't need to export to America American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
Which for Trump voters is still worth it if more US manufacturing jobs are created
Again, follow this through.
If the price of clothing doubles in the US, consumers will by far less clothing. Which means your new factory doesn't achieve the scale production needed. Which means it isn't viable to operate. Which means the banks aren't going to fund its construction and OPEX.
Even the MAGA rampers are talking up robotics as the future in these new factories in their hoped for scenario. Rows of Optimus bots, not humans.
Average Joe thinks MAGA means "more US manufacturing jobs". They are going to be sorely disappointed.
I think Trump’s policies will create some US manufacturing jobs… it’s just that they won’t create very many and they will also cause other jobs to be lost, so the net result will be job losses across all sectors combined.
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.
Since they are a hybrid you are probably a better judge:
Chuckleberries were bred by Chas Welch in Norfolk, England, by crossing a redcurrant, a gooseberry, and a jostaberry (a hybrid of a gooseberry and blackcurrant).
I usually order enough of berries (£60 I think) to get free carriage, which is significant.
As PB's answer to Mr Crump * (see James Herriott), you might like to give it a go.
If you happen to drive down the M1 past Alfreton (M1 J28) and you want a smaller sample I could happily barter some from my 12kg (how much do you need for a trial?) for 3-4 bottles of Vintage Taz Selection.
Do we still trust opinion polls? Or should I say, “why do we still trust opinion polls?”?
At the time of the Blackpool by election last year, Labour were on 44% in most polls, and that number went up afterwards. Yet in that by election, despite winning, Labour got fewer votes than they did in the 2019 GE when they got 32% nationally. This seemed completely at odds with a party about to get mid forties nationally; when Labour won in 97, they’d been stacking up thousands of extra votes in the preceding by elections. I asked at the time where the extra were votes coming from, if no one new is turning out to vote for them in these by election wins… as it happened, they didn’t need any extra votes, but it showed the 44% plus polls up as pretty shoddy
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
I would suggest that would be a terrible move by them.
It may be — I’m not certain — but I know there will be huge pressure for them to be seen to be doing something. And there is more justification for impeaching Trump now than ever before, arguably!
He stood on a platform of Tariffs. I think its bonkers, but this is exactly what he said he would do. I think it would be unwise for the Democrats to go down this route of yet another impeachment, it looks like yet more lawfare and that went down really badly before.
Rather use the levers available to try to put a break on things and then in 2 further years they can say look at the mess, we tried within our powers to minimise the effects, but the only way to reverse them is to vote for us.
The Dems don't need to impeach the Mad King.
The Republicans are gonna do it for them before his term is over
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
What was his position on HS2?
I don't know. But apparently he liked the cheese makers. Although that may be a mishearing.
Do we still trust opinion polls? Or should I say, “why do we still trust opinion polls?”?
At the time of the Blackpool by election last year, Labour were on 44% in most polls, and that number went up afterwards. Yet in that by election, despite winning, Labour got fewer votes than they did in the 2019 GE when they got 32% nationally. This seemed completely at odds with a party about to get mid forties nationally; when Labour won in 97, they’d been stacking up thousands of extra votes in the preceding by elections. I asked at the time where the extra were votes coming from, if no one new is turning out to vote for them in these by election wins… as it happened, they didn’t need any extra votes, but it showed the 44% plus polls up as pretty shoddy
Polls ask "who would you vote for in a general election?" Lots of people vote only in general elections, by-elections have much lower turnout, so your argument about "fewer votes" is specious.
As you are a cheerleader for the swiveleyed populist right, is it causing you to have a rethink?
Bozo, Truss, Trump: all egomaniacs who are too stupid to recognise their own limitations that inevitably leads to their own demise with inexorable damage to the reputations of their parties and their country. Shakespeare would have had a field day with all three.
Nah, just unconstitutional. Casting out Truss and Rees-Mogg was the voters' job.
Jesus isn't MAGA anyway. In America he'd clearly back Bernie, and here I've always seen him as a LibDem - bearded, well meaning and sandal-wearing, but spouting pious, muddled and impractical crap.
If only MAGA and the LibDems were more like Jesus, i.e. non-existent.
Whatever your religious opinions are, one thing that is certain is that the person now known as Jesus of Nazareth" was a genuine person and certainly was not "non-existant".
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
Jesus was also relatively socially conservative even if economically left (also pro 3rd sector)
What was his position on HS2?
Matthew 21: Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
… which sounds to me a lot like he’d support compulsory purchase orders for HS2.
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
You mean Merz led the CDU to their 2nd worst result ever, and their worst ever from opposition. And that in the favourable situation of running as opposition to a historically unpopular government. And a government that contained all 3 of SPD, Greens and FDP. So a really bad result under the circumstances.
You may like Merz, but most Germans don't.
I do expect the CDU to recover a bit after they take office, and start spending all those billions they've made available for themselves that Merz denied the last government.
Merz threw his toys out of the pram when Merkel didn't give him a place in her cabinet. Leaving active politics completely.
I also think that leaving NATO might be the best bet from those, although the other good one is on impeachment. If the Dems re-take the House, surely there’s a high chance they’ll impeach.
I would suggest that would be a terrible move by them.
It may be — I’m not certain — but I know there will be huge pressure for them to be seen to be doing something. And there is more justification for impeaching Trump now than ever before, arguably!
He stood on a platform of Tariffs. I think its bonkers, but this is exactly what he said he would do. I think it would be unwise for the Democrats to go down this route of yet another impeachment, it looks like yet more lawfare and that went down really badly before.
Rather use the levers available to try to put a break on things and then in 2 further years they can say look at the mess, we tried within our powers to minimise the effects, but the only way to reverse them is to vote for us.
One wouldn’t have to impeach him for raising tariffs. You could impeach him for ignoring court rulings, overriding habeas corpus, acting without Congressional authority, politically-motivated pardons, not paying Jean Carroll etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
EDIT: … supporting war crimes, threatening to invade allies…
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
I think he’s incredibly ambitious and not especially wedded to MAGA or Trump. I doubt he’s as stupid as some people think.
He has a Summa Cum Laude Politics and Philosophy degree from Ohio State. That is, top 2-5%. And then a Yale Law Degree.
He's intelligent, and I think knows what he is doing. But also imo stupid in his methods, partly because he is an arrogant swine. He is also a liar - see for example his fairy stories around "assault on free speech" in Europe.
He’s just playing to his base. I’m not even sure he believes it.
I find it hard to see how America can draw a line under the catastrophe that it's insane president has unleashed without removing Trump from office. We're rapidly approaching the point where the destruction of US credibility means a simple reversal of tariffs won't be enough
Do we still trust opinion polls? Or should I say, “why do we still trust opinion polls?”?
At the time of the Blackpool by election last year, Labour were on 44% in most polls, and that number went up afterwards. Yet in that by election, despite winning, Labour got fewer votes than they did in the 2019 GE when they got 32% nationally. This seemed completely at odds with a party about to get mid forties nationally; when Labour won in 97, they’d been stacking up thousands of extra votes in the preceding by elections. I asked at the time where the extra were votes coming from, if no one new is turning out to vote for them in these by election wins… as it happened, they didn’t need any extra votes, but it showed the 44% plus polls up as pretty shoddy
Polls ask "who would you vote for in a general election?" Lots of people vote only in general elections, by-elections have much lower turnout, so your argument about "fewer votes" is specious.
No, it’s not specious at all - it predicted the relatively low Labour vote way before the polls cottoned on
If your argument held any water, Labour in 96 wouldn’t have been racking up huge increases in actual votes in by elections either, but they did.
Just to note that if you add the LD and Green numbers, we have 24, 24,24,23.
FWIW I expect the LD to creep slowly up on the simple basis of what they are not: they are not Reform, and they are not tainted goods by being in government recently, they are not a single issue party, they are not (except on PB) widely hated, they are not Marmite, they are not even slightly interesting.
I think Kemi criticised them recently as being the sort of people who help repair the church roof. I think that thought, repeated often enough, may be worth about 3 million votes for the LDs.
"Brian Stelter posted a December 9, 2017, quote from the New York Times:
"Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals."
Stelter wrote: “I think about this quote a lot.” "
Where is the episode where he launches a single handed attack on the entire World, and gets thoroughly, completely, utterly, irreversibly and finally defeated?
As you are a cheerleader for the swiveleyed populist right, is it causing you to have a rethink?
Bozo, Truss, Trump: all egomaniacs who are too stupid to recognise their own limitations that inevitably leads to their own demise with inexorable damage to the reputations of their parties and their country. Shakespeare would have had a field day with all three.
I'm not even sure Trump is populist right. He's more uniquely Trumpite
My positions on Woke, asylum, migration, Islamism, etc etc etc - are not changed one jot
Do we still trust opinion polls? Or should I say, “why do we still trust opinion polls?”?
At the time of the Blackpool by election last year, Labour were on 44% in most polls, and that number went up afterwards. Yet in that by election, despite winning, Labour got fewer votes than they did in the 2019 GE when they got 32% nationally. This seemed completely at odds with a party about to get mid forties nationally; when Labour won in 97, they’d been stacking up thousands of extra votes in the preceding by elections. I asked at the time where the extra were votes coming from, if no one new is turning out to vote for them in these by election wins… as it happened, they didn’t need any extra votes, but it showed the 44% plus polls up as pretty shoddy
But Labour's share went up from 38% to 58% between 2019 and the byelection.
They got less votes because turnout was down, but I'd have thought that was because the actual result was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It probably suggests that there was a lot less enthusiasm for politics, but then 1997 was before the malign influence of social media had sucked most of the positivity from politics.
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
You mean Merz led the CDU to their 2nd worst result ever, and their worst ever from opposition. And that in the favourable situation of running as opposition to a historically unpopular government. And a government that contained all 3 of SPD, Greens and FDP. So a really bad result under the circumstances.
You may like Merz, but most Germans don't.
I do expect the CDU to recover a bit after they take office, and start spending all those billions they've made available for themselves that Merz denied the last government.
Merz threw his toys out of the pram when Merkel didn't give him a place in her cabinet. Leaving active politics completely.
He's pretty thin-skinned. There's a good chance this incoming government will be more effective than the last one. If only because the last one couldn't do anything, and now the debt brake is off (more or less). Maybe Merz will prove to be better as Chancellor than he's been so far as a politician. But my expectations are low.
I find it hard to see how America can draw a line under the catastrophe that it's insane president has unleashed without removing Trump from office. We're rapidly approaching the point where the destruction of US credibility means a simple reversal of tariffs won't be enough
The USA is pushing other countries towards China so the total reverse of what it wants to see . China is now seen as a more reliable trade partner .
This looks like the biggest of own goals by the USA .
Not if the US wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and just produce its own goods and services for its own consumers and stay out of foreign wars and deport illegal immigrants too ie America First as Trump says.
If Trump's tariffs do increase US manufacturing jobs then nationalist parties across the West will also grow further including on a policy of raising tariffs on cheap Chinese goods
Trump's policy (if not his intent), is to strengthen rival nations at the expense of his own.
Again a globalist view, China already dominates manufacturing globally so the rustbelt has nothing to lose and if Europe has to fund more of its own defence and builds military strength that was needed anyway.
No, just a common sense view. Nobody got richer by making everything more expensive for their own people, putting a bomb under share prices, and raising long term interest rates. Nobody got rich by making their own country a worse place to do business in, and driving away foreign consumers.
Prioritising the rust belt, over every other part of the USA, especially the parts that make profits by selling goods and services abroad, is the epitome of stupidity.
It was the rust belt that elected Trump.
Yes, Wall Street and Tech and government workers may be hit but they and Hollywood and DC backed Harris on the whole anyway as did coastal America.
It was rustbelt middle America who elected Trump and their America has been in relative decline for years, so they took a gamble on Trump to revive manufacturing and produce for America first, they don't care about the liberal coasts, they are also fed up of foreign wars and immigration they want an isolationist US.
Trump's gamble is more US manufacturing jobs will be created than the rise in cost of living hitting swing voters and that more consumers will switch to US goods from imports
I find it hard to see how America can draw a line under the catastrophe that it's insane president has unleashed without removing Trump from office. We're rapidly approaching the point where the destruction of US credibility means a simple reversal of tariffs won't be enough
Comments
You can end up thinking you're superior to everyone else, and then you stop listening believing you know best and try and impose your ideas on everyone, that only you truly understand.
Dogmatists who think they're intellectual, but are actually quite limited, are similar.
In that example that was the price rise.
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
People who don't accept this are on the same level as people who don't accept the moon landings.
How a migrant hotel brought racism to a quiet village near Windsor
“Abhi is fed up with the racist abuse thrown at him on a daily basis while he works behind the counter in a small corner shop in Datchet, a mile and a half away from Windsor Castle.
But the racism isn’t coming from far-right agitators or Middle England locals. It’s coming from some of the asylum seekers housed in the only hotel in the village, located on the banks of the River Thames, which would take the Prince and Princess of Wales just a ten-minute stroll to reach from their home at Adelaide Cottage.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” says Abhi, a 24-year-old who has lived in the UK legally for several years.
He says most of the abuse comes from Muslim asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Pakistan living at the 54-bedroom Manor Hotel, described on its website as a “boutique hotel” and given three stars on booking.com, promising a “serene country house experience” with a “beautiful garden”.
“They abuse me because I’m from India and I’m Hindu,” Abhi says. “They come in and shout ‘Muslim is good, Allah Allah’. They come in and say, ‘Indians are not good, f*** Hinduism’. It’s f***ing bad. They’re always coming in, taking food, [they] don’t pay. I personally hate it.”
https://www.thetimes.com/article/5100d369-e913-4676-b7d9-5b12de8fac0d?shareToken=cdaf5988960da9fac12bb3e78337c6d5
Trump as a Deep Green. Whodathunkit? No wonder that horse was so happy.
Increase Chinese exports by 6% and they no longer need to export anything at all to the US.
America thinks it has the power in this negotiation. It does not...
I'd say this is the dominant belief system of global western elites worldwide.
Unfortunately, it is just as idealistic as plenty of other philosophies and doesn't survive geopolitical reality
Automation has caught up - some low wage jobs will vanish in the next decade or so. Fruit pickers will finally go, for example. More and more dark factories.
It would take decades of investment to build the infrastructure. Which requires stability…
"Lab 24%
RefUK 24%
Con 23%
LD 17%
Grn 7%
SNP 2%
Source - MoreInCommon
April 4-7"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1909905345478017241
@biancoresearch
Something has broken tonight in the bond market. We are seeing a disorderly liquidation.
If I had to GUESS, the basis trade is in full unwind.
Since Friday's close to now ... the 30-year yield is up 56 bps, in three trading days.
The last time this yield rose this much in 3 days (close to close) was January 7, 1982, when the yield was 14%.
This kind of historic move is caused by a forced liquidation, not human managers make decisions about the outlook for rates at midnight ET.
https://x.com/biancoresearch/status/1909821135115694159
Murica thinks it holds the whip hand over China
China doesn't need to export to America
American consumers expect to be able to buy stuff at Chinese prices
The T-Shirt example given upthread illustrates the point. Lets assume a MAGA industrialist starts to make Tshirts that retail at $10 a pop. Great - no more imports from China of the $5 ones. Only problem is that US consumers now pay double the price.
I'm just pointing out that you are plugging numbers into a model that wasn't built for the purpose. You might as well just be making up the numbers. The numbers for all 4 parties here are utterly meaningless. You might as well give us your prediction as it is likely to be as reliable and possibly better because you may not be making the false assumptions that the model makes.
Previously with $300 you could purchase 60 $5 t shirts.
At $10 each you can purchase 30
At $15 each 20.
And your average American isn’t going to be paid more
https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1909813379897733250
California based manufacturer says it’s halting hiring, eliminating overtime, and that it’s seen a massive plunge in demand in recent days
Russia has accused the US of flouting international trade rules by imposing 104% charges on imports from China.
“Washington doesn’t seem itself binded by the norms of international trade law,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says.
When Donald Trump raised border taxes on Chinese goods by 10% in February, China complained to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which settles trade disputes.
Zakharova says the tariff decisions taken by Trump “violate the fundamental rule of the WTO”.
Russia has been spared from the list of over 60 countries hit by Trump’s latest tariffs, but the foreign ministry spokesperson tells reporters that the country is taking steps to minimise any possible damage by increasing its interactions with China.
Trump being elected to pursue tariffs and protectionism and tighter borders over free trade and easy immigration is just one example, if governments allow automation and AI to lead to significant job losses even China's government won't be immune from mass protests
The bond market is where Trump is going to lose this. The Stock Market is just collateral damage.
Senile or not, he was delivering 4%pa growth. Whereas the mad king...
Prioritising the rust belt, over every other part of the USA, especially the parts that make profits by selling goods and services abroad, is the epitome of stupidity.
If the price of clothing doubles in the US, consumers will by far less clothing. Which means your new factory doesn't achieve the scale production needed. Which means it isn't viable to operate. Which means the banks aren't going to fund its construction and OPEX.
Even the MAGA rampers are talking up robotics as the future in these new factories in their hoped for scenario. Rows of Optimus bots, not humans.
Average Joe thinks MAGA means "more US manufacturing jobs". They are going to be sorely disappointed.
This is a GREAT time to move your COMPANY into the United States of America, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing. ZERO TARIFFS, and almost immediate Electrical/Energy hook ups and approvals. No Environmental Delays. DON'T WAIT, DO IT NOW!
Should Liz Truss ever return to No10.
https://x.com/LHSummers/status/1909926101133983870
Stick in a local lad, one of the new generation of politically-minded forthright people, and Reform will walk it.
Memories are not to be trusted.
You may like Merz, but most Germans don't.
I do expect the CDU to recover a bit after they take office, and start spending all those billions they've made available for themselves that Merz denied the last government.
And how many jobs is this policy actually going to create?
"United States | Burn the tapes
DOGE is coming for American officials’ magnetic tape
But more modern methods of data storage are not necessarily better"
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/04/08/doge-is-coming-for-american-officials-magnetic-tape
Your average Coke, Gatorade, Wine or Whiskey drinker won't really care if the increase is 5% or 6%, they will care they will care that EVERYTHING has become more expensive because of this Trumpism strategy.
I tend to 'like' him more than I argue with him these days.
Rather use the levers available to try to put a break on things and then in 2 further years they can say look at the mess, we tried within our powers to minimise the effects, but the only way to reverse them is to vote for us.
"Lembit Öpik
@lembitopik
What’s left of the UK steel industry is verging on collapse. Government bogus climate crisis errors led directly to this disaster. While Rachel Reeves makes panicky policy pronouncements, it’s too little, too late."
https://x.com/lembitopik/status/1909855201994977645
Since they are a hybrid you are probably a better judge:
Chuckleberries were bred by Chas Welch in Norfolk, England, by crossing a redcurrant, a gooseberry, and a jostaberry (a hybrid of a gooseberry and blackcurrant).
I usually order enough of berries (£60 I think) to get free carriage, which is significant.
As PB's answer to Mr Crump * (see James Herriott), you might like to give it a go.
If you happen to drive down the M1 past Alfreton (M1 J28) and you want a smaller sample I could happily barter some from my 12kg (how much do you need for a trial?) for 3-4 bottles of Vintage Taz Selection.
I am 6-7 minutes off M1J28.
* https://youtu.be/MXGmNNrP724?t=2088
At the time of the Blackpool by election last year, Labour were on 44% in most polls, and that number went up afterwards. Yet in that by election, despite winning, Labour got fewer votes than they did in the 2019 GE when they got 32% nationally. This seemed completely at odds with a party about to get mid forties nationally; when Labour won in 97, they’d been stacking up thousands of extra votes in the preceding by elections. I asked at the time where the extra were votes coming from, if no one new is turning out to vote for them in these by election wins… as it happened, they didn’t need any extra votes, but it showed the 44% plus polls up as pretty shoddy
Russia = fooked
In any other administration, the president would already be huddled with advisors trying to stave off collapse
https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3lmeuiqfiok2n
The Republicans are gonna do it for them before his term is over
It's just the one on the golf course...
Lots of people vote only in general elections, by-elections have much lower turnout, so your argument about "fewer votes" is specious.
Bozo, Truss, Trump: all egomaniacs who are too stupid to recognise their own limitations that inevitably leads to their own demise with inexorable damage to the reputations of their parties and their country. Shakespeare would have had a field day with all three.
… which sounds to me a lot like he’d support compulsory purchase orders for HS2.
https://news.sky.com/story/money-pensions-consumer-personal-finance-latest-sky-news-blog-13040934
EDIT: … supporting war crimes, threatening to invade allies…
I find it hard to see how America can draw a line under the catastrophe that it's insane president has unleashed without removing Trump from office.
We're rapidly approaching the point where the destruction of US credibility means a simple reversal of tariffs won't be enough
https://x.com/Simon_Nixon/status/1909943049947340903
If your argument held any water, Labour in 96 wouldn’t have been racking up huge increases in actual votes in by elections either, but they did.
FWIW I expect the LD to creep slowly up on the simple basis of what they are not: they are not Reform, and they are not tainted goods by being in government recently, they are not a single issue party, they are not (except on PB) widely hated, they are not Marmite, they are not even slightly interesting.
I think Kemi criticised them recently as being the sort of people who help repair the church roof. I think that thought, repeated often enough, may be worth about 3 million votes for the LDs.
"Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals."
Stelter wrote: “I think about this quote a lot.” "
Where is the episode where he launches a single handed attack on the entire World, and gets thoroughly, completely, utterly, irreversibly and finally defeated?
Markets & Mayhem
@Mayhem4Markets
·
4m
Oil is down 6.66% to $55.61 🤘
My positions on Woke, asylum, migration, Islamism, etc etc etc - are not changed one jot
They got less votes because turnout was down, but I'd have thought that was because the actual result was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It probably suggests that there was a lot less enthusiasm for politics, but then 1997 was before the malign influence of social media had sucked most of the positivity from politics.
The SCOTUS is not looking like a probable saviour of USA sanity so far.
Yes, Wall Street and Tech and government workers may be hit but they and Hollywood and DC backed Harris on the whole anyway as did coastal America.
It was rustbelt middle America who elected Trump and their America has been in relative decline for years, so they took a gamble on Trump to revive manufacturing and produce for America first, they don't care about the liberal coasts, they are also fed up of foreign wars and immigration they want an isolationist US.
Trump's gamble is more US manufacturing jobs will be created than the rise in cost of living hitting swing voters and that more consumers will switch to US goods from imports