Trump Presidency

[fiksal]

to me it matters more what I can buy versus what we can produce

I would rather buy a hammer produced locally, in support of the local community, than buy one produced by slave labor in a country with horrendous labor laws.

Having no evidence presented at a time of purchase either to consumer or to the local store that sells it, there's no way to make accurate observation about what labor created an item.

In which case this is a personal subjective assessment. Which is neither here nor there.

I also never seen anyone wonder where their gas that they put into a car comes from.

Nor I have noticed that supporting local small business have been Trump's goal ever. Including people that run it and people that work their.

There's also a reason why higher technology is archived by global trade, which can be discarded of course, and have people happily return to locally made. As a Russian I know too well how locally made goes, if we are going for extremes

[Vertigo 7]

You're living under the illusion that "Made in America" is somehow a stamp of quality. It isn't. Neither is something produced overseas always the product of slave labor. Hell, if you wanna talk about horrendous labor laws, go take a look at what your fellow MAGA freaks are doing to dismantle child labor protections here in the US. Speaking of child labor, did you forget your overlord's daughter has her goods manufactured in Chinese sweat shops? Think he's going to do anything to disrupt her business dealings and fight for human rights?

The points you raise, are valid and serve to illustrate that there is much to be done. By the way, I am not a "MAGA freak". I am a long-time liberal Democrat, who's party lost a wheel and veered into far-left insanity. Many of "us" begrudgingly voted Republican this time around, because more of the same was even more unacceptable than Trump.

*yawn* same ol' tired nonsense. You can't point to a specific policy or campaign promise or anything that could reasonably be considered "extreme". Not buying it.

I very much doubt you're a so-called "liberal democrat". You've been spouting pro MAGA crap since your overlords first term. You're just pissed that no one is buying into your anti-vaxer BS. Even the mods on this very forum didn't tolerate much of that mess being posted here. But because twitter (a private entity that's not under control of the US government and therefor 1st amendment doesn't apply) CHOSE to remove some posts at the Biden administrations request, which they could have denied, you start whining about censorship and acting like the sky is falling without even understanding what censorship is. Meanwhile, your fellow MAGA freaks are banning books all over the country from schools and libraries - where's your whining about that?

Furthermore, liberal democrats don't vote for fascist regimes that threaten to jail/execute/deport US citizens that disagree with their politics or that happen to be the latest boogeyman the RWNJs conjured up. But I'm sure none of that is "extreme" to you. They've been threatened so they should just lie down and comply, amirite?

[fiksal]

I don't think it's possible to be viewed as liberal Democrat by anyone after voting Trump. Undecided, unaffiliated, sure.

[Vertigo 7]

Some people will find ways to lie to themselves no matter the circumstances they find themselves in. Still, doesn't mean any of us have to believe a thing they say.

[Observe]

*yawn* same ol' tired nonsense. You can't point to a specific policy or campaign promise or anything that could reasonably be considered "extreme". Not buying it.

OK I'll bite this once. Take DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs. Harris was very vocal about supporting these crippling policies. Good news this week though: Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies. Definitely a step in the right direction and a good reason not to have voted for Harris.

Gender affirming "care" is another area where Harris either endorsed or said that such decisions should be left to "medical authorities". On the bright side, some countries are waking up. This year England announced it would no longer routinely prescribe puberty blockers to children and adolescents at gender identity clinics. Another step in the right direction and one that Harris would likely have opposed. Trump will likely support such measures.

The war in Ukraine is another subject of difference between Harris and Trump. It is no secret that I am opposed to further carnage there and that it is past time to attach the string of peace negotiations to any further assistance. Harris is of the "as long as it takes" or "it's up to Ukraine" mantra. Not good enough.

[Vertigo 7]

*yawn* same ol' tired nonsense. You can't point to a specific policy or campaign promise or anything that could reasonably be considered "extreme". Not buying it.

OK I'll bite this once. Take DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs. Harris was very vocal about supporting these crippling policies. Good news this week though: Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies. Definitely a step in the right direction and a good reason not to have voted for Harris.

Gender affirming "care" is another area where Harris either endorsed or said that such decisions should be left to "medical authorities". On the bright side, some countries are waking up. This year England announced it would no longer routinely prescribe puberty blockers to children and adolescents at gender identity clinics. Another step in the right direction and one that Harris would likely have opposed. Trump will likely support such measures.

The war in Ukraine is another subject of difference between Harris and Trump. It is no secret that I am opposed to further carnage there and that it is past time to attach the string of peace negotiations to any further assistance. Harris is of the "as long as it takes" or "it's up to Ukraine" mantra. Not good enough.

Ok see now I know 100% you're full of crap. Harris never ONCE mentioned any kind of support for gender affirming care on her campaign, or even campaigned on DEI. In fact, she avoided it like the plague. But you know who did mention it, repeatedly? Thaaaaattt's right, ol Faux News did. They dangled that bait out in front of you and you bit like a chump. Congratulations!

As far as Ukraine, you've never once vocalized support for peace negotiations. You've only ever voiced support for unconditional surrender. If you're changing your tune, great, i'll get behind that. But Ukraine is a sovereign nation with the right to defend itself against any aggressor. That is a line I will NEVER capitulate on. And that doesn't extend just to Ukraine. If Ukraine were the ones that invaded Russia, I would say the same for Russia.

[euclid]

"1. Personal abuse directed towards another forum member is not permitted under any circumstances. "

So please keep it civilized

Cheers Euclid

[Observe]

Ok see now I know 100% you're full of crap. Harris never ONCE mentioned any kind of support for gender affirming care on her campaign, or even campaigned on DEI.

Pinning Harris down on anything is a matter of sorting through her indecipherable word salads. She did say in avoidance: "That is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary." The problem is that these "doctors" she refers to, think that that gender-affirming "care" (drugs and surgery) in children is medically indicated and necessary. Again, fortunately more countries and States are waking up to this shameful and arguably criminal area of the medical industry.

On DEI, she likewise is pretty wishy-washy, but here is one example: Harris defends DEI. There are many others. She was quite clear on this.

Meritocracy is the way to go if we want excellence. Force-fixing social injustices is not what the workplace is for. This needs to be corrected deeply within society as a whole. Hopefully, eventually this will get sorted out among humans.

[Vertigo 7]

Here's the thing. As I said before, I followed both campaigns. Of course, I was never going to vote for that diaper wearing traitor; I knew the kind of scum he represented based on his last bite at the apple. But I wanted to be aware of the things that were coming from that camp firsthand.

Your orange overlord campaigned on nothing but hatred, cruelty, and belittlement. "They're eating the dogs!" "They're sending us their murderers and rapists" <insert disgusting crap about the attack on Paul Pelosi>. It was that noise on repeat at every campaign event he held. He had no policy plan other than various forms of cruelty against legal and illegal non-white immigrants. Oh, well, he did throw in the tariff nonsense in the last couple of weeks of his campaign. Even when pressed about his healthcare plan that he was supposed to have implemented during his first term that never materialized, he said he "had a concept of a plan" . But he didn't need to campaign on policy, he had a winning campaign in 2016 built on racism and hatred and he expanded on that 10-fold this time.

OTOH, Harris actually put forth policy proposals to deal with price gouging, housing, investing in small business, reproductive health, criminal justice reforms, immigration reform (I'll remind you too that a bi-partisan bill that would have given significant resources to border patrol and tightened border security, drafted by both republican and democrats had overwhelming support in the senate and was tanked in the house at your overlord's behest just to keep the Biden administration from being able to claim that as a win). Those are the things her campaign focused on.

Those were the two choices. If you didn't wanna pick either one of them, fine... I can't really blame you. I voted for a giant meteor in 2016 because I hated em both. I liked Harris a helluva lot more than I liked Clinton but there was no way in hell I was going to give my vote to General Bone Spurs. But siding with that fascist, racist, treasonous, misogynistic rapist shows who you are.

And obtw, the massive coalition of Republicans that endorsed Harris... do you seriously think they would have done that had she been proposing "extreme" policies? It's not like they endorsed Biden and then switched to Harris. Even if they didn't 100% agree with her policies, they knew it was reasonable enough that they could live with it in face of the alternative. It's a shame it wasn't enough. This may very well be the last election this country has seen, in its present state at any rate. And the thing is too, I'm not going to enjoy the "I told you so" when the orange one's SS comes kicking in doors and kicking off a civil war. But I'll be ready for it. Will you?

[Observe]

Those were the two choices. If you didn't wanna pick either one of them, fine... I can't really blame you. I voted for a giant meteor in 2016 because I hated em both.

This time around "Hated them both" was me. As you know, my preference was RFK Jr. whom I realize you also detest. I figured if we must have Trump, at least having RFK on his cabinet might render improvements in the health care and food industry. Having Elon Musk's insights for free, probably won't hurt either.

The alternative was continuation of the Biden policies which I oppose. Perhaps next time, the Democrats will put forth a candidate who has vision, instead of one who never saw a parrot that they didn't want to repeat.

[Vertigo 7]

Those were the two choices. If you didn't wanna pick either one of them, fine... I can't really blame you. I voted for a giant meteor in 2016 because I hated em both.

This time around "Hated them both" was me. As you know, my preference was RFK Jr. whom I realize you also detest. I figured if we must have Trump, at least having RFK on his cabinet might render improvements in the health care and food industry. Having Elon Musk's insights for free, probably won't hurt either.

The alternative was continuation of the Biden policies which I oppose. Perhaps next time, the Democrats will put forth a candidate who has vision, instead of one who never saw a parrot that they didn't want to repeat.

suuuuuuurrree buddy, whatever you say

[jlehtone]

Trump is going to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ...

I would rather buy a hammer produced locally, in support of the local community, than buy one produced by slave labor in a country with horrendous labor laws. Trouble is, no one produces hammers locally, because of cheap imports.

I do understand that Canada -- being so close to US -- has slaves, but how can you imply such about Mexico and China?


Local is now expensive. Imported is cheaper. Result: people buy imported.
Tariffs make imported as expensive as local. Result: people have to pay more. "Everything" will become more expensive.
(If tariffs do not make imported as expensive, then people will still buy imported and will still have to pay more.)

If local production uses imported materials, then even local production has to become more expensive.

Did Trump campaign on the "problem" that prices have increased? Sounds like he wants to increase them even more.

[chew-ie]

@jlehtone

I think you nailed it

[matthewfarmery]

Trump is going to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, and China has responded saying "war without winners".

Don't worry. The sky isn't falling. Almost all countries impose tariffs. India is the highest. Often it is done to protect or promote domestic production, including farmers.

It seems that part of Trump's tariffs will be punitive. For example, most of the ingredients used to produce fentanyl come from China. It is up to them to enact measures to stop this. Likewise, Mexico allows waves of refugees to pass through their country on the way to the US border. Refugees/migrants should seek asylum in the first country they enter.

I suppose sanctions might be a better word than tariffs in such cases, because they are punitive. Yes, there are some unsettling consequences, but ultimately, we should be producing everything possible domestically anyway. The market will adjust.

Again, you forget what I just said, Trump tried to impose tariffs on china before, and the USA farmer was hit hard. Trump is just picking fights, and what is more, most of Trump's products, the USA bible, the shoes, all come from china. But by this stage, he probably won't care, as it will be the gullible MAGA consumer who will be footing the bill. And its very likely his aim to increase those tariffs. He said in the campaign, he was making the numbers up. But a lot of stuff does come from China, so tariffs will only increase prices, especially if China follows suit by hitting America where it hurts.

And lets not forget, that Trump tried to promote businesses in America, that wasn't successful. Sure tariffs are used, but the way that Trump will use them, will only spark tensions and trade disputes. Or have you forgotten what it was like under Trump? 4 years is a long time, especially under a dictator who will have complete power to set the world on fire.

[clakclak]

[...]

Local is now expensive. Imported is cheaper. Result: people buy imported.
Tariffs make imported as expensive as local. Result: people have to pay more. "Everything" will become more expensive.
(If tariffs do not make imported as expensive, then people will still buy imported and will still have to pay more.)

[...]

We are still thinking about this to much on a personal level, so allow me to broaden the scope a bit by using a famous American company to show some other issues here.

Boing. Boing is one of only two players in commercial aviation that matter. Their direct competitor Airbus is a European company. Both have specific elements to their products that give them a distinctive edge above the other, however in the end both of them provide a very similar product all things considered.

Now why might tariffs lead to issues for Beoing? Beoing needs to sell planes outside America. The American market is vast, but it alone simply is not enough to keep Beoing competetive with Airbus. So Boeing sells to other countries airlines. For example every plane above 100 seats in the fleet of Aeroméxico is a Boing plane. A really big operator of Boing planes is Air China, which is currently operating 180 Boing planes (excluding buisness jets).


Problem Number 1 for Boing: According to Boing: "Boeing is the largest customer of China's aviation manufacturing industry with more than 10,000 Boeing airplanes flying with China-made parts."

Problem Number 2 for Boing: According to Boing: "Boing spends over $500 million annually in Mexico for commercial airplane parts [...]Mexico is Boeing’s largest supplier nation in Latin America and one of Boeing’s top 10 regions in the world for sourcing airplane components and assemblies."

Problem Number 3 for Boing: According to Boing: "Canada is home to one of Boeing’s largest international supplier bases — including more than 500 major suppliers spanning every region of the country."


So what we have here then is an international company relient on selling to forgein countries and buying parts from forgein countries. A company which has a clear cut rival who will be more than happy to aggressivly push Boing out of any markets where it might be struggling. Furthermore Boing's vulnerable position is not a secret, China has in the past shown to be very aware of that.

And to anyone saying, "just produce the parts at home in America!" That is not how this works. The parts would be so expansive that Airbus would simply push Boing out of the market in the long run. Furthermore you can't just suddenly relocate entire supply chains build up over years to another country. These transformation processes take a LONG time, if they are even possible at all. What will instead happen is that Boing will swollow the cost of the tariffs and take a cut to their profits, as they can't simply pass on the cost to the consumer (at least not in full) without loosing ground to their competitor in the space. If the cost of the tariffs turn out to be too high, Boing will start to make losses which might lead to cost saving measures and the most flexibel way to safe cost is by cutting comparetivly well paid employees, aka American employees.

[matthewfarmery]

[...]

Local is now expensive. Imported is cheaper. Result: people buy imported.
Tariffs make imported as expensive as local. Result: people have to pay more. "Everything" will become more expensive.
(If tariffs do not make imported as expensive, then people will still buy imported and will still have to pay more.)

[...]

We are still thinking about this to much on a personal level, so allow me to broaden the scope a bit by using a famous American company to show some other issues here.

Boing. Boing is one of only two players in commercial aviation that matter. Their direct competitor Airbus is a European company. Both have specific elements to their products that give them a distinctive edge above the other, however in the end both of them provide a very similar product all things considered.

Now why might tariffs lead to issues for Beoing? Beoing needs to sell planes outside America. The American market is vast, but it alone simply is not enough to keep Beoing competetive with Airbus. So Boeing sells to other countries airlines. For example every plane above 100 seats in the fleet of Aeroméxico is a Boing plane. A really big operator of Boing planes is Air China, which is currently operating 180 Boing planes (excluding buisness jets).


Problem Number 1 for Boing: According to Boing: "Boeing is the largest customer of China's aviation manufacturing industry with more than 10,000 Boeing airplanes flying with China-made parts."

Problem Number 2 for Boing: According to Boing: "Boing spends over $500 million annually in Mexico for commercial airplane parts [...]Mexico is Boeing’s largest supplier nation in Latin America and one of Boeing’s top 10 regions in the world for sourcing airplane components and assemblies."

Problem Number 3 for Boing: According to Boing: "Canada is home to one of Boeing’s largest international supplier bases — including more than 500 major suppliers spanning every region of the country."


So what we have here then is an international company relient on selling to forgein countries and buying parts from forgein countries. A company which has a clear cut rival who will be more than happy to aggressivly push Boing out of any markets where it might be struggling. Furthermore Boing's vulnerable position is not a secret, China has in the past shown to be very aware of that.

And to anyone saying, "just produce the parts at home in America!" That is not how this works. The parts would be so expansive that Airbus would simply push Boing out of the market in the long run. Furthermore you can't just suddenly relocate entire supply chains build up over years to another country. These transformation processes take a LONG time, if they are even possible at all. What will instead happen is that Boing will swollow the cost of the tariffs and take a cut to their profits, as they can't simply pass on the cost to the consumer (at least not in full) without loosing ground to their competitor in the space. If the cost of the tariffs turn out to be too high, Boing will start to make losses which might lead to cost saving measures and the most flexibel way to safe cost is by cutting comparetivly well paid employees, aka American employees.

Exectly, but try and explain that to Trump, and he will throw a hissy fit. He has no concept of business, he has no idea what makes the world go around. So again, if Trump imposes tariffs on china, it will effect a lot of players. Not just the rare materiels, but the parts and shipping. Tariffs will increase the cost of shipping, between China and the USA, and the rest of the world. So a lot of big manufactures will be hurt, just like the last time. And there weren't any winners then, and there won't be any now. But Trump won't care, he will be sitting on his throne and seeing trade wars and other sparks of conflicts, while racking in billions through dark money and the dark investors who won't get their names on the ethics agreement.

[Vertigo 7]

Not to mention there's a crap ton of goods we use on a daily basis that will never see the manufacturing facilities in the US to produce them. CPU, RAM, magnetic and SSD storage, just to name a few. Can't just run down to Home Depot to buy all the stuff necessary to build a fabrication factory for em. His stupid lil tariff mess caused all sorts of price hikes for PC components last time he got into this imaginary pissing contest. Think about how that's going to impact industries that rely heavily on computers for day to day business like hospitals, banks, telecom, etc. Watch your internet and cable/satellite TV bills go up by 50% or more. Watch banking fees go through the roof. Point is its always going to land back on us, we the little people, to shoulder the burden of that orange idiot.

[chew-ie]

That's one way to cripple US high-tech industry. Trump really looses no time to lay the groundwork for Russias plans. And good thing for Musk - he positioned himself quite nicely to make backdoor deals for his own companies once the other companies choke on the collapsing supply chains. Those US voters are so smart - hope they find satisfaction they won the "good fight" over imaginary "lefty politics".

[mr.WHO]

I think it's a bluff especially due to Musk - he has factories and supply chains in China, Mexico and EU.
Tarrifs will either hit him or he will get exemptions so huge, that everyone will scream he became oligarch.

More likely it's just a bluff for Canadia and Mexican leadership as convinient excuse on border crackdown - e.g. "Look I don't want it, it will break my heart, but Trump forced me with tarrifs threat".

[Vertigo 7]

Even if that's true, which I doubt it is, he's made such a big deal about imposing tariffs (after all, it's his favorite word), he can't back out without looking like he's weak and ineffectual. China, especially, will play him like a fiddle and just imagine how his animal base will react to that.