President Trump

threespires said:
There's a quite important assumption in that statement. I hope your assumption is true as well as the outcome of said elections!
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Several assumptions in fact:
1) That the economy will tank;
2) That voters will vote their pocket;
3) That elections still matter in 2026.

I think it's a safe bet that all 3 of the above hold, hence the statement.
 
robbieh said:
As I understand it the US has a massive budget deficit and a massive trade deficit and any less important country would be in serious shit.
What makes it different is the dollar is the world's reserve currency. A lot of the dollars that China has, get sent back to the US to buy treasury bills. With this money the US can import more from China. It's a symbiotic arrangement.
However the US looks in greater jeopardy.

Trump probably had to do something. Whether his approach will work is highly debatable. An increase in domestic production will need immigration to start with.
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Trump gained power in part due to votes from the 'rust belt' where traditional industries (steel etc.) have been decimated by globalisation (much the same as what has happened in parts of the UK). Trump believes (or, more to the point, has convinced those same voters) that the tariffs will magically reverse this and all those steelworks etc. will reopen and manufacturing jobs will come flooding back. the reality will be far more complicated.

The reason Europeans don't buy American cars is not because of high costs due to tariffs, it's because American cars are, for the most part, shit and no amount of tariffs or otherwise is going to change that. Ironically, Tesla is the exception - when you make a car Europeans want then, surprise surprise, they buy them (although I personally think they are still a bit shit).

And don't even get me started on American chocolate which tastes of vomit - I won't be buying that no matter how cheap.
 
TinFoilHat said:
Kill a rich man equals death penalty methinks?

Not long now until Trump collapses the world economy.

I don't want to see his "liberation day" speech and his cabinet sucking him off whilst doing it.

Glad City are on instead.
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I may be wrong, but I do not think that this is the point OP intended to make. Why? Because two news feed captions were cited, one about a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, another about DOJ directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Why did I ask, "What was intended?"

Because I don't know what OP intended...

Was he trying to claim "fake news abounds" based on the surface level interpretation of the posts? One for death penalty, another for plea deal?

Or that state versus federal sentiment is at an all time high?

Or perhaps something else.

In particular I'm uncertain as to whether or not OP realizes that both federal and state charges are pending against Mangione.
 
bluethrunthru said:


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So no tariffs on Russia and Belarus supposedly because there’s hardly any trade due to sanctions yet they’ve announced tariffs on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Indian Ocean and several other countries where trade is negligible.

Interesting that world stock markets are only 1 or 2 percent down presumably because traders anticipate that this clown show will change completely within a week or two after Trump declares victory again.
 
Gabriel said:
You're also assuming there will still be elections...
and a 2026.
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And what about the existence of Earth? I assumed that too.

And the existence of the Universe.

And so on.

I'm not trying to engage in mathematical certainty here. Instead I'm engaging the layman.

If you want to discuss mathematical proof of assertion, well... this isn't the thread for you.
 
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The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
The real reason they buy imports though is corporate greed. We’re seeing it on a scale rarely if ever seen in history and, unless someone has the balls to stop it, this spiral will just continue.
Apple, for example, sell phones for £1000. I can’t believe that they couldn’t make those phones, in the US, for somewhat less than £1000. They don’t, because corporate greed and share prices have become the drivers for everything.
At home, M&S sell jackets for £100 but they’re made in Bangladesh. I’m sure they could be made for less than £100 here but greed says they must buy them cheap and sell them dear.

All Trumps stuff will do is, once again, enrich the already ridiculously wealthy even more, whilst pushing more people into penury.

Also, make no mistake, there will be a serious cull of existing US workers rights, once the realisation of true costs are realised.
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Labour rates are the key.
That's full cost all expenses, not the wage packet rate.
I would expect that a US labour rate is around say $50/hour.
I would expect that the China rate is less than $10/hour.

For anything with a relatively high labour content, it can make a significant difference.
Clothing is intricate to automate manufacture, usually a high labour content.
For example, making a pair of trainers may have say an hour's total labour.
Make it in the US and that's $50, /China that's $10.

On top of all that, you have the startup costs - build a facility, buy/install equipment, hire and train workforce, setup logistics operation, etc. Assuming you can actually find people who want to do those low-paid jobs in the first place. If you're sending them to El Salvador or wherever they may not be so keen.

And, if you're trying to do this on a large scale, there's increased competition for labour, pushing prices up and encouraging erosion of worker benefits.
 
The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
The real reason they buy imports though is corporate greed. We’re seeing it on a scale rarely if ever seen in history and, unless someone has the balls to stop it, this spiral will just continue.
Apple, for example, sell phones for £1000. I can’t believe that they couldn’t make those phones, in the US, for somewhat less than £1000. They don’t, because corporate greed and share prices have become the drivers for everything.
At home, M&S sell jackets for £100 but they’re made in Bangladesh. I’m sure they could be made for less than £100 here but greed says they must buy them cheap and sell them dear.
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Trade has always been important, even before written history existed, as evidenced through archaeology.

If something is cheaper to import than make, then people will do that.

If you charge to import, things will get more expensive, so we'll all be poorer.

The base of this is not "corporate greed", it's that (1) Bangladeshis get paid less than Brits (2) Information flow and transport is easier than it used to be which enables trade.
 
Vic said:
Why would the US car industry invest billions in car plants only for the whole nonsense to collapse in a few months?
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They may declare that they will, but it usually takes a long time to spend that amount of money. Still, it keeps Orange happy, and hopefully get some leverage against the state governor.

I'd expect there is a fair bit of gaming the options going on in boardrooms as to what to do. It may be that they'll wait and see what happens for a few months, while, er, 'assessing how to follow Orange's lead'.

I think the Canadian oil (for car fuel) and who pays the farmers for what USAid used to buy will be two major issues.
 
BobKowalski said:
It’s the closed economy model vs the open economy model. The closed model seeks to trade/be self sufficient within its own borders and protects industries with tariffs and trade barriers. The open model encourages cross border trade and investment and freer movement of goods and people (services).

North Korea is a closed economy. South Korea is an open economy. In short the open model works better which is why the Western developed nations are largely open economies.

Closer to home, you can see the difference in Eastern Europe with the growth in wealth of countries like Poland. Previously they were part of the Soviet Bloc which was a closed economy and now are part of the EU a trade bloc that actively facilitates trade and movement between European countries.
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A classic real-life test of the central theory of Nobel winners
en.wikipedia.org

Why Nations Fail - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
west didsblue said:
So no tariffs on Russia and Belarus supposedly because there’s hardly any trade due to sanctions yet they’ve announced tariffs on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Indian Ocean and several other countries where trade is negligible.

Interesting that world stock markets are only 1 or 2 percent down presumably because traders anticipate that this clown show will change completely within a week or two after Trump declares victory again.
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The penguins of H&M islands are having crisis meeting as I write.

Officially, it's because they're Australian dependencies (see also Svalbard for Norway).

Unofficially, I'm certain it's to make the lists longer and therefore More Impressive. It's nuts though - all the rows with 10% could be covered in one row!
 
BobKowalski said:
There is nothing wrong with a trade deficit. A country is not a company and has no balance sheet or P/L account. If a company in the US imports cheap reading glasses from China it generates wealth for the US economy. The docks that receive the import, the company that transports/stores the import, the shops that employ people to sell the import, the sales tax on the import.

The US is a huge consumer machine that sucks in goods and services and grows on that consumption. Restrict that consumption or make it too expensive and the economy ceases to grow and starts to retract. You have to keep feeding that machine. The entire US economy is built on that machine.
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Surely if I buy an expensive car made in china, the majority of what I pay for the car goes to the workers and owners of the Chinese car company. I take your point that along the way to my door there are all sorts of businesses involved in this including the showroom I buy the car from.
But were I to buy a Rolls Royce (I'm assuming owned and built in the UK) that the largest part of my expense would got to the workers and shareholders here.
Multiply this across all industries and surely it can't be wise economically to rely so heavily on imported goods. I may be wrong though.
 
robbieh said:
Surely if I buy an expensive car made in china, the majority of what I pay for the car goes to the workers and owners of the Chinese car company. I take your point that along the way to my door there are all sorts of businesses involved in this including the showroom I buy the car from.
But were I to buy a Rolls Royce (I'm assuming owned and built in the UK) that the largest part of my expense would got to the workers and shareholders here.
Multiply this across all industries and surely it can't be wise economically to rely so heavily on imported goods. I may be wrong though.
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Rolls Royce Motors is owned by BMW but other than that it’s a fair point.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
Trade has always been important, even before written history existed, as evidenced through archaeology.

If something is cheaper to import than make, then people will do that.

If you charge to import, things will get more expensive, so we'll all be poorer.

The base of this is not "corporate greed", it's that (1) Bangladeshis get paid less than Brits (2) Information flow and transport is easier than it used to be which enables trade.
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Of course it’s corporate greed.
An iPhone costs about £450 to make and yet they sell for upwards of £1000, which is a huge profit margin.
Apple CEO has already hinted at more price rises by stating:
‘The iPhone has become so integral into people’s lives,’ said Cook during Apple’s earnings call. ‘I think people are willing to really stretch to get the best they can afford in that category.’

M&S and H&M pay their ‘workers’ less than 10% of the prices charged in the UK.

So many companies exploit cheap labour but don’t pass any of that on, they just charge what they think they can get away with.
Corporate greed, in other words.
 
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