President Trump

[Norbert D]

So agent Orange is going to bring home all those manufacturing jobs. ok, fine. Let’s say that’s even possible, spoiler, it isn’t, but let’s say it is possible. WTF is AI going to do to them jobs? Isn’t that whole point of AI, to take over labour intensive jobs? Isn’t that exactly what fElon rust is preaching? If it smells like a grift, it probably is a grift. Want to get around the tariffs, easy, just bungee Orange £200m into his meme currency.

 

[robbieh]

Rolls Royce Motors is owned by BMW but other than that it’s a fair point.

Haha, I knew whichever manufacturer I chose I'd pick one that was foreign owned.

But it raises another point that everything is so interconnected. British workers, German owners, steel imported from god knows where and so on. Trump appears to be trying to turn the clock back which seems to me to be doomed.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

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.

Everything is worth what people are prepared to pay for it.

You're railing against reality.

Sure, some corps behave badly. Tax avoidance definitely comes under corporate greed, for instance.

But the idea that the importing rather than making is down to corporate greed is just wrong. As long as a fundamental price driver persists, trade will persist.

As it has done since literally before the start of recorded history.

 

[noseve]

Somewhat unexpectedly, MAGA are gung-ho, enthusiastically in support of the tariffs. Lets see how they feel about the tariffs in a few months time when the economy craters.

Largely, though - assuming that not every single YouTube video is a put-up job - MAGA crowd genuinely believe that the foreign governments pay the tariff to the US, because this is how it's been sold to them.

They do not even consider what complicated logistics would be involved for any of his claims to be the case, in the same way that they lap up all his 'they're saying..' and 'some scientists, some great scientists, are saying...' without asking exactly who 'they' or 'some scientists' are?

A lost cause. There are so many of them, re-fuelled with Trump propaganda on a daily basis because everything they 'learn' comes from Fox or other right-wing media. One big, insulated, Amish-like closed community (no offence to Amish intended).

I really feel for Americans who didn't vote for him, but the fact that this controlled-input cult has been allowed to grow to the extent where it can dictate who's President is something for which the nation as a whole must take a lot of the blame.

 

[moomba]

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!

They've given Norfolk Island (which is part of Australia) a 29% tariff even though the rate for Australia is 10%.

Clearly a well thought out, researched policy.

 

[noseve]

Yep it’s about $7 and they voted against raising it, still they can get their kids in Florida to work all night to make up for it!

iPhones probably being built by people earning slightly more than that in a month

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Everything is worth what people are prepared to pay for it.

You're railing against reality.

Sure, some corps behave badly. Tax avoidance definitely comes under corporate greed, for instance.

But the idea that the importing rather than making is down to corporate greed is just wrong. As long as a fundamental price driver persists, trade will persist.

As it has done since literally before the start of recorded history.

So Apple, filing a gross profit margin of 46.21% is just about trade and not about corporate greed?

 

[remember arthur mann]

So agent Orange is going to bring home all those manufacturing jobs. ok, fine. Let’s say that’s even possible, spoiler, it isn’t, but let’s say it is possible. WTF is AI going to do to them jobs? Isn’t that whole point of AI, to take over labour intensive jobs? Isn’t that exactly what fElon rust is preaching? If it smells like a grift, it probably is a grift. Want to get around the tariffs, easy, just bungee Orange £200m into his meme currency.

I can't see all the fat, McDonald stuffing yanks manufacture anything.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

So Apple, filing a gross profit margin of 46.21% is just about trade and not about corporate greed?

Per my original, yes, corporations will be greedy, but regardless of that, if it's cheaper to import than make, then we will import.

Removing corporate greed doesn't remove the fundamental driver, which has applied for the entirety of human history and won't go away at Trump's behest.

 

[noseve]

I would think that getting dressed in the morning would mean he isn't that stupid, but then again, maybe he has "dresser" that helps him.
Probably somebody approx 21 years old and blonde.

"Can I call you Ivanka? You can call me Daddy..."

Sick pervert

 

[BobKowalski]

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.

Yes, the Chinese makers of the car will receive their share, but you will be buying a more affordable car than if it was made in the UK. The more affordable the car, the more cars are sold, requiring a network of storage, dealerships and servicing outlets and thus jobs that would likely outweigh the numbers employed in directly building the car which would or could be largely automated anyway.

And is the core economic activity of the UK economy - services. Not making the car, but servicing the car. That is where we are in the economic food chain. This is also true of the US.

Yes it does make importing countries more vulnerable to shocks or issues in a core manufacturing country. The theory is, and this underpins the EU, countries that cooperation and working together acts as a deterrent to these shocks because of the money involved ie we are customers of China and the rule is don’t piss off your customers. Cooperation is better than confrontation and everybody wins. Unfortunately, this doesn’t allow for the Putin’s or Trump’s of this world where self-interest or welfare of your citizens is of no interest.

 

[threespires]

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.

They are all reasonable assumptions,
I would suggest (1) is the safest bet (2) I imagine the number of people continuing to self-harm in the voting booth will be higher than you'd hope due to the cult like effect, but you'd like to think there will still sufficient numbers to punish the government's behaviour. Which leaves (3).

On paper you'd have thought that was the safest bet but I'm not so sure anymore. The probability of attempting to subvert the democratic process I think is high with this administration but the real question is whether they can succeed in doing it? I would suggest the probability of that is increasing based on how much more effective Trump has been this time round in removing barriers to his behaviour. I also think that the people behind him this time are quite a lot more organised and malevolent. Given how high the impact would be of a successful vote suppression (or worse) then even a low to middling probably makes the risk worth focusing on. From the bits I've seen, it seems like you guys feel that the judiciary and rule of law will hold the line and that ultimately will be enough? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation, either way I'm interested in understanding why there isn't a bit more twitchiness about what could happen in 2026.

Btw - I think Alvin might be Chinese Dax so it might not be worth going there!

 

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

I really feel for Americans who didn't vote for him, but the fact that this controlled-input cult has been allowed to grow to the extent where it can dictate who's President is something for which the nation as a whole must take a lot of the blame.

Cheers. Agree with the rest of your post. But disagree with this point.

Free speech is free speech. And the underlying problem in the USA isn't per-se a "controlled-input cult" - it's the fact that almost half of America believes in what Trump is doing at base level... and always have.

I personally advocate the continuance of free speech but with restrictions on social media and any other public discourse to the extent that caveats are mandatory in certain cases, stating that such-and-such a media post or news broadcast is biased and here's why... The trouble with my proposed curb on absolute free speech is that its not clear how to determine when to flag a post as biased. I think that this problem can be overcome, but others, such as @ KS55 strongly disagree. See my previous posts on this topic.

 

[TinFoilHat]

Trumps speech was one line away from saying foreigners are sleeping with our food and eating women.

Getting fucked off that Sky/BBC are playing his speech on loop.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Haha, I knew whichever manufacturer I chose I'd pick one that was foreign owned.

But it raises another point that everything is so interconnected. British workers, German owners, steel imported from god knows where and so on. Trump appears to be trying to turn the clock back which seems to me to be doomed.

It is a commonly accepted problem with globalised industry. Globalism is why things are so cheap. Consumer goods have never been cheaper.

The downside is how they are produced and where. The answer is where is it cheapest to produce them and that is usually China. Apart from niche specialist products that come from elsewhere and normally have a premium in terms of quality and price.

It's been decades in the making and you can't turn it off without massive consequence.

Trump / America have no idea how bad this will be. For them as much as anyone else.

 

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

They are all reasonable assumptions,
I would suggest (1) is the safest bet (2) I imagine the number of people continuing to self-harm in the voting booth will be higher than you'd hope due to the cult like effect, but you'd imagine there will still sufficient numbers to punish the government's behaviour. Which leaves (3).

On paper you'd have thought that was the safest bet but I'm not so sure anymore. The probability of attempting to subvert the democratic process I think is high with this administration but the real question is whether they can succeed.in doing it? I would suggest the probability of that is increasing based on how much more effective Trump has been this time round in removing barriers to his behaviour. I also think that the people behind him this time are quite a lot more organised and malevolent. Given how high the impact would be of a successful vote suppression (or worse) then even a low to middling probably makes the risk worth focusing on. From the bits I've seen, it seems like you guys feel that the judiciary and rule of law will hold the line and that ultimately will be enough? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation, either way I'm interested in understanding why there isn't a bit more twitchiness about what could happen in 2026.

Btw - I think Alvin might be Chinese Dax so it might not be worth going there!

Cheers. I too think that my third assumption is most likely in peril. Nonetheless, time is a factor... by which I mean, in two short years, I think that Trump will not have been able to neutralize/fix the vote in favor of Republicans to the extent that a large anti-Republican turnout is voided.

At the same time, the longer Trump remains in power, largely unchecked by the Legislative, the more likely that the USA is headed towards a dictatorship.

 

[west didsblue]

Haha, I knew whichever manufacturer I chose I'd pick one that was foreign owned.

But it raises another point that everything is so interconnected. British workers, German owners, steel imported from god knows where and so on. Trump appears to be trying to turn the clock back which seems to me to be doomed.

If you look at the current US administration as a criminal enterprise and the tariffs as a protection racket designed to make governments and corporations pay homage and hard cash to the mango Mussolini in exchange for the alleviation of tariffs, it makes a lot more sense. They don’t give a flying fuck about the strength of the US economy or any other (except possibly Russia).

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Trumps speech was one line away from saying foreigners are sleeping with our food and eating women.

Getting fucked off that Sky/BBC are playing his speech on loop.

It’s not a loop it’s just one rambling, repetitive, senseless pile of crap. You know, his usual type of speech!!

 

[madloaf]

How's your investments looking today? A great example of how what happens in America does actually effect everyone and why electing a steaming festering pile of shit was not ideal.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Per my original, yes, corporations will be greedy, but regardless of that, if it's cheaper to import than make, then we will import.

Removing corporate greed doesn't remove the fundamental driver, which has applied for the entirety of human history and won't go away at Trump's behest.

I’d sort of agree if we, the customer, were getting cheaper stuff as a result. What we’re actually getting are prices, that would generate big profits, if made in ‘the west’, giving enormous profits when outsourced.

Imagine Apple making iPhones in the US, charging the same as now but ‘only’ making 15% profit all of which they could do without any tariffs.