Whenever I take the first bite into an energy or protein bar I pause with surprise because of how sweet it is. Then I ask myself, "how is this not a candy bar?"
Two weeks ago I was an excited entrepreneur/engineer and looked forward to building new products that improved peoples lives. But with an inability to estimate my product COGS and consumer confidence diminishing, I'm giving that up (edit: for now).
We went from win-win capitalism to a pump and dump economy. That happened so fast. I can't comment on your site because I find this all so vile.
My small business produces a niche consumer electronic device. Anyone watching us operate would say that our product is Made in the USA. But the components of our product are sourced and pre-processed all over the world and our COGS just increased significantly due to tariffs.
We now have to raise our prices, but our Made in China competitors have to increase theirs even more. That isn't a net benefit for us, given the product is "nice to have" and does not have an inelastic price.
If my sales drop by 50% and the Chinese competitors drop by 75%, is that winning ? I am still in shock and denial by all this. After 11 years in business, this manufactured/avoidable crisis can't be what ends us.
And it gets worse for you. That's primarily considering the US market. Your Chinese competitors aren't simultaneously being shut out of non-US markets (since this is a unilateral trade war, not the US + allies).
Your US sales may drop 50% due to the change in price, and your Chinese competitor's US sales may drop by 75%, but their sales in other countries may not change at all. Meanwhile, your sales outside the US are going to drop because not only are your component costs going up driving your price up, you now face tariffs when selling in every other country in the world (if they choose to respond to the tariffs the US is levying on their goods).
Because of how China desperately needs exports, they'll almost certainly end up being tariffed by the EU, so just because this started in the US doesn't mean it's gonna stay there.
So the goal is to rely on NATO as allies right after they threatened individual members of NATO and generally telegraphed that the alliance shouldn't be relied upon?
Please, just stop steelmanning these actions as anything coherent that would possibly benefit the United States. In the best case, Trump is a demented has-been that only understands the world in terms of bullying. So sure, maybe the "plan" is to keep bullying Europe until they're joyfully professing that Trump's diapers smell just like roses and asking how high he'd like them to jump. But that just doesn't seem very in touch with reality.
That Peter Navarro item resurfacing on news today (he is the chief advisor to Trump on tariffs) explains a lot. He made up at least one of the experts he quotes on trade in his non fiction books using an anagram of his own name. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771396016/white-house-adviser... If something looks entirely stupid one the surface, it is exactly what it looks like, there's no 4-D chess with any of these guys except exploiting inaction of Congress to do things it could, like revoke the law that gave Trump these wide powers to tariff given for the "war on terrorism".
It takes two thirds of the Senate and two thirds of the House to pass legislation. It takes two thirds of the Senate and only one half of the House to impeach and convict. And deposing this anti-American fuck would carry much more weight internationally for starting to repair the damage done to our relationships with our allies. Just sayin'.
For non Americans, a slight clarification, passing a bill to revoke would only requiring half, but to override the presidential veto would require a 2/3 vote.
For the tarrifs specifically it wasn't the case as they were under an emergency powers bill which could be cancelled using a privileged resolution without veto, but that was until the Continuing Resolution which took away that safeguard.
But I'm not even that incurious. Rather I think the problem is that their claimed plans rhyme with reality, while being utterly preposterous upon deeper analysis. We need to avoid implying there might be any merit to them lest other people read our comments and, not having been as diligent to separate fantasy from reality, get sucked into the fictional universe where Trump is some master negotiator who is going to bring other countries to heel with pure drunk-uncle-on-the-recliner force of will. And if we do analyze their delusions to figure out what destructive thing they might do next, we should be using the same disclaimers as doctors at a mental hospital.
It doesn't matter if you think their plans will work and/or are a terrible idea. I don't waste words on the latter, because I assume stringing together insults on the internet isn't going to change anyone's mind.
Instead and more interestingly:
- Do you think they'll have any outcomes?
- If so, what do you think those outcomes will be?
Hint: there's plenty of academic literature on the topic
I don't think there needs to be this hard distinction between saying a given thing won't work, and proposing specifically what I think will happen instead. On this topic I generally avoid saying what I think the overarching dynamics are, because being specific generally gets written off as a crazy-sounding straw man.
My initial point is that you answered someone's "why EU would tariff China just because they need export" with saying that the US would "ask" the EU to do this - implying that the EU would want to cooperate or is otherwise beholden to the US. That's thinking from within the fictional universe, which is what I called out.
Since you asked, what specifically I think will actually happen is that Trump will continue to alienate our allies, keeping them at the realization they have to go their own way rather than being able to rely on our military backstopping them. To the extent there is leverage Trump can force Europe to put tariffs on China, Europe will only do that as much and as long is required to decrease that leverage. About the only saving grace here is that the EU isn't the type of place that will agree to something de jure and then de facto allow those rules to be skirted.
I think a different administration that was open and friendly to Europe and other allies, reassured our commitment to NATO, increased support for Ukraine rather than turning tail, etc, might have been able to make the case for coordinated international action being necessary to maintain the military advantage enjoyed by the US and its allies. But a savvy administration wouldn't have started with the ham-fisted unilateral blanket tariffs either.
You forget what has already happened. Canada has escalated the trade war ... that cannot be explained by your reasoning. And the flaw is this: yes, Canada cannot seriously hope to defend against Russia without the US, and needs a US alliance, but they also see the US has no choice but to defend any Russian attack. Either that, or face Russian nukes in Ottawa. So, Canada escalates.
Plus, I get that it makes sense for you to think about it this way. But given the choice to get fucked militarily BUT get a few more euros now, I guarantee every EU government will choose to get fucked militarily. 95% of the EU countries only have to "sacrifice" in that OTHER countries get fucked militarily, so it's not a hard choice.
And that is before you factor in that Russia is not in any shape to attack any European nation of importance right now, not even Poland. In other words: the politicians choosing to act on the military problem or choose a quick buck ... will be out of office by the time their military decision matters!
And, lastly, I put forward the history of the UN. The great forum for international cooperation and making compromises in shared interests. The first 3 things the UN was going to solve with this cooperation-not-obstinate-refusal-to-accept-reality was the "Arab Issue" (now better known as Israel-Palestine), Kashmir (which under UN guidance has lead to such "successes" as the Partition wars, which when combined made more victims than WW2 according to some sources), and the Congo-Rwanda issue (which has raged on, with no-one actually caring after colonialism ended, and is now at risk of turning into a pan-African war involving every country from Morocco to South Africa). I'm glad they got all those issues solved to everyone's satisfaction before they were going to try forcing the US, EU and ... to cooperate because otherwise absolutely no-one would believe they have any chance whatsoever.
Besides: your hope that foreign governments will act in the interests of "the citizens of the world" (when the vast majority won't even act in the interest of their own citizens) ... what exactly is that idea based on? 12% of the world are free democracies and mostly do that. What about the rest?
If Russia fakes it and cannot make it, nobody can. Ignore the stark difference in behaviour before trump and after trump, because if trump is pure real politics then the before had to be idealistic and well meaning.
You are monsters and the world knows. The thing from the swamp, that is your civilization . A gross, locust like beast, glueing stolen gold and shiny things to its great conquests. Needing war, because western advanced tech saved you from china and the others taking all back. Delenda Moscovia!
It was the Soviets, Russia, that needed war so much they fed the whole world weapons. Russia still does that. The west simply gave some people better weapons to defend themselves.
Because otherwise China will sell all of their tarrifed goods into the EU, undercutting local producers.
Note that the EU is also removing their di minimus loophole (with a longer lead time, announced last month). See the tarriffs on BYD for likely moves on other goods.
And yes, this is a bad idea. But it's the least worst idea available right now.
it probably won't end you but maybe try to make sure your neighbors don't vote Right and support ultra-nationalist racists in Eastern European countries.
An old lady in the fashion industry once said "Everything is connected" and if Europe hadn't been mislead for fuck knows how long by dimwitted conservatives and their formidably educated voters, they would have been a proper economic competition with their own social medias instead of a tool to dump and pump stock prices ... which is how you can absorb your losses ... by focusing less on your productivity and more on that of le Wall Street's drivers and handlers of crisis
If the El Salvadorian gov't is corrupt enough to run an international pay-based prison, couldn't they also accept a payment, from anyone, for releasing an international prisoner? The logistics after release would be secondary but at least we'd know they aren't being abused in what is effectively a dark-site.
But if the current administration is offering $20k a year for imprisonment (rough guess) then they might want $200k to free him.
> If the El Salvadorian gov't is corrupt enough to run an international pay-based prison, couldn't they also accept a payment, from anyone, for releasing an international prisoner?
That's the problem with mercenaries: how much do you trust them?
There's a certain balancing act in going with the highest bidder: if no one trusts you to stay 'on side' once you're paid, why would they pay you in the first place?
US citizens may not want to travel internationally because they don't trust US customs and border agents upon their return.
About 20 years ago a customs agent asked me, "are you thanking the lord Jesus Christ that you have returned safely to America". You just tell them what they wanted to hear and you were fine. Now if I am not mistaken, they can demand you unlock your phone which might show you were at a Tesla Takedown rally, or purchased a movie ticket to No Other Land, or whatever else is deemed verboten. I am unclear how long a citizen can be detained/delayed by a customs agent without cause.
I thought why do you care, this is just a fast lane but your comment was enlightening... (I am sure based on other recent cases they would totally revoke his visa if he was not a citizen already)
He says in his original paper that the top point of his reference scale is 96, not 100 for the point where "Alcohol expands up to this point when it is held in the mouth or under the armpit of a living man in good health". He originally based his scale on 12, and then got more precise by increasing each division by two several times, ending up with 96.
He seems to have solved a mindset issue that eludes others like myself.
I reduced to 24hr billable hours a week thinking that it would help with burnout. Instead my ego is constantly deflated given that I am now the least productive developer on the team given all others work 40hrs+ and my meeting/coding ratio has become unbearable. The resulting competition anxiety ensures I think about the project all the time. The resulting lack of energy has affected my other projects/interests.
This is 100% in my head as my supervisor is happy with my output. But I can't escape it. I often lie down, stare at the ceiling for answers, only to find myself in a worse state.
No, this isn't about oligarchs. This is about sadists some of whom happen to be oligarchs whose singular goal is to make the non-MAGA sad. It is working.
it is of course not about that, maga could give two shits who is happy or sad. the whole exercise is too do silly shit in public to make people “outraged” while privately commiting the greatest heist in the history of the universe :)
