Maybe the survivalists were just prepping for the Trump election:
President Trump appears prepared to unravel 70 years of painstaking effort that the United States has led to build an international system of trade based on mutually accepted rules and principles.
Ever since an agreement on trade emerged in 1947 from the ashes of World War II, presidents of both parties have pushed this system as a way to strengthen alliances and promote the expansion of democracy and prosperity in Europe and Asia.
But with Trump’s decision last week to enact aluminum and steel tariffs against U.S. allies in Europe and North America, he is subverting previously agreed-upon trade pacts. The result is a brewing trade war with Canada, Mexico and Europe, which are expressing shock and bitter frustration while enacting tariffs of their own on a bevy of American products.
The measures announced last week went beyond Trump’s previous actions, such as pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a recently forged trade agreement among 12 nations, and his efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.
President Donald Trump’s trade war is supposed to help boost America’s job market, but new tariffs could actually make things ugly for US workers.
On Thursday, Trump announced that the US would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from three key US allies: Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. The move follows earlier metals tariffs on countries around the world.
Peter Navarro, Trump’s protectionist-leaning trade adviser, wrote in a USA Today op-ed that the metals tariffs will be a boon for American workers.
But economists and trade experts say the ultimate result will be a net loss in US jobs — perhaps in the hundreds of thousands.
The tariffs will likely boost the price of steel and aluminum in the US, since metal imports will be subject to the additional tax. These higher prices are good news for steel and aluminum manufacturers, but they present a problem for companies that use those metals.
Increased costs for businesses that use steel and aluminum will put pressure on profits and force those companies to cut costs. Some of the necessary cost cutting is likely to come from the workforce, leading to layoffs.
And then there is this from the liberal Wall Street Journal:
New tariffs intended to bolster the American steel and aluminum industries are starting to have the opposite effect in a key part of the U.S. supply chain.
U.S. steel producers are benefiting from tariffs that make it more expensive for companies to buy the metals overseas. But some U.S. firms that use the metals to make everything from refrigeration parts to wheels say the tariffs have led to higher materials prices that are forcing them to charge more for their products. These firms say that in some cases, customers are turning to foreign suppliers that use cheaper, tariff-free metals to make the same products they can then export to the U.S. without bumping up against the new trade barriers.
The fallout, while so far limited, illustrates how efforts to protect some U.S. companies can cause unintended pain for others.
“This is a nightmare for steel consumers,” said H.O. Woltz III, chief executive of Insteel Industries Inc., a North Carolina maker of concrete reinforcements. Mr. Woltz said some of Insteel’s customers have indicated they will boost imports.
This is the best theory as to why Trump is doing this (other than being a fucking ignoramus):
Terrifying is right.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
I’ve thought this for a long time. He can’t understand that there can be anything between two parties, people, businesses, countries, anything, any deal, any talk, any relationship, any casual meeting, anything at all, where both sides come out ahead. Somebody has to win, and somebody has to lose. There’s no other outcome. There can’t be any other outcome. It’s impossible. This Twitter guy is right. This country is fucked until Tяump is gone.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
That’s a very enlightening analysis.
Corner Stone
It’s why he hates multi-lateral agreements. He is too stupid to figure out who is getting the “best” deal and so then thinks it’s obvious he is getting cheated. It’s also why his word is no good on any bilateral agreement either. Because the first time he gets the sense someone else isn’t getting enough of the short end of the deal he will back out of it.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
I guess it’s why he has no friends. Friendship is for suckers. Friends are only out to get something from you. It makes sense in a way that he’d think that. I can’t see him ever knowing anybody without trying to take advantage of them.
Jerzy Russian
Christ, what an asshole.
Corner Stone
I still don’t understand this calculation. What do they think is going to happen in 3 to 6 months? We don’t live in a vacuum.
Brachiator
Good analysis of Trump, which dovetails with a lot of Adam’s commentary here.
Sadly, some world leaders don’t get it. A recent BBC radio story noted that G7 leaders were sending Trump a message via the Treasury secretary, asking that Trump hold off on imposing tariffs. They cannot believe that he doesn’t see the danger in this, even though he has been consistent on this point since the primaries.
Also, Trump wants to be Donald I of America. He tears up previous agreements because he is truly delusional and believes that Greater America begins with his reign. And so, all prior agreements must be null and void.
M4
As always, conservative policies only make sense if you understand that conservatives think everybody else is as much of a twisted fuck as they are.
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks for posting the Chapman analysis, John. I think it makes a lot of sense.
schrodingers_cat
Its easy to blame the President, but he is doing what many Americans want. I am so old that I remember many lefties including some on this blog railing against trade deals. TPP was not a favorite among FPers and commenters on Balloon Juice either. I have read anti-NAFTA tirades on many lefty leaning site.
He only believes in win-lose situations. Others must lose for him to win. Its stupid and reductionist but he represents the views of a lot of people including leftier-than-thou folks on trade.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Also what about the industries that need aluminum and steel as inputs. This is going to adversely affect them.
patrick II
Trump is wrong about almost everything, and even wrong about the reasons he sees trade deals as being harmful and destructively wrong in what he sees as the solution. Not to mention his philosophy of the sovereign citizen applied in extremis to sovereign nations, each acting only individually against each other. With all of that said, and for reasons too long and complex for a comment, I think our country does have a trade problem and it would be good if some democrat recognized that and could think with more sophistication about why the problem exists what what to do about it.
Corner Stone
Can someone please kill that GD *.connatix.com subscription. Jesus FC.
Mandalay
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.):
Occam’s Razor offers a much more plausible explanation.
Adam L Silverman
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): He thinks he knows the price of everything, which he doesn’t, and knows the value of nothing.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
We’re going to have to make the Trumpsters pay not just for the sake of justice, but to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we’re redeemable.
SFAW
If the Orange Traitor had more than two working brain cells to rub together, he’d have realized by now that his “dealmaking” hasn’t worked out too well, resulting in multiple bankruptcies, his name being shit in banking circles, needing to go to Russia to try to keep solvent.
If he thought about it, he’d realize that there’s no way a dishonest, zero-sum, me-Me-MEEE fuckhead like him could ever get elected Pr- ….
Uh, never mind.
Where’s that fucking meteor when you need it?
NotMax
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
Remember this is a man so venal, so miserable, so spiteful, so utterly devoid of human decency that he ordered medical benefits for his critically ill infant grandnephew cut off.
While going back to find the story, came across this nugget of his self-awareness of what kind of person he is and chooses to remain.
Yarrow
Last night someone here posted this great opinion piece from in Macleans in Canada:
Yes. Like:
More of this, please.
MattF
And that’s why Trump’s ‘negotiating repertoire’ is all variations on bluster, bullying, and bullshit. Because that’s all there is. Because, in his opinion, everything is bluster, bullying, and bullshit.
Corner Stone
@Yarrow: It’s akin to a declaration of war but I say, why not?
Adam L Silverman
There is a larger issue, which you can see from looking at his tweets about the tariffs. He is convinced that a trade deficit means we are directly paying our trading partners. And that imposing tariffs will reverse this and they will then directly pay the US. This is similar to how he misunderstands our NATO and other security and defense alliances. That the allied parties pay dues or fees for service. And while that is the case in terms of some of our expiditonary basing – ROK, Japan, Germany – it is a fundamental set of category errors over how NATO and these other alliances work. Same type of errors he makes in regard to trade and economics. He has no idea or understanding of how international trade works, macro economics, business, or anything else for that matter.
Some examples. First the President directly:
And a pair of responses:
Teddys Person
@Yarrow: Interesting. Thanks for reposting.
The Other Chuck
@SFAW:
People keep throwing money at him though, so how has it not worked out well for him?
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Fundamental category errors by the President, Navarro, and Ross over how this stuff works.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat:
Speak for yourself. Also, as I’ve explained repeatedly, TPP wasn’t really about trade. It was intended to lock the PRC out of becoming the regional Asia-Pacific rule maker for at least 30 more years. The trade stuff was all just sweeteners to get everyone to go along with it.
TeezySkeezy (formerly the T S you hate)
@Corner Stone: I think their fantasy is that they can expand production if it is profitable to do so. Obviously, you can’t do that fast enough to stave off the negative economic impacts that are about to land which will piss off any voters with rational thought in their heads.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Band of Idiots, unfortunately for us, we are ruled by them.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: The top two priorities for Putin were getting Russia out from under the US sanctions and driving a wedge between the US and its NATO and EU allies. He didn’t get the first because of all the reporting over the Russian active measures and cyberwarfare campaign he conducted on behalf of the President’s campaign. But he did get the second.
Brachiator
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.):
Strangely enough, there are a few people who have been with Trump for decades. And as with Michael Cohen, he seems to be able to seduce people into not only protecting him, but into taking foolish risks for him.
For example,
this link
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a9521926/donald-trump-friends/
M4
@Adam L Silverman: didn’t he call one of “his generals” at like 3am one time to explain what a trade deficit is?
RandomMonster
Let’s not discount that he’s doing what benefits Russia. Here are the top five steel exporters to the US:
1. Canada 16.7 percent
2. Brazil 13.2 percent
3. South Korea 9.7 percent
4. Mexico 9.4 percent
5. Russia 8.1 percent
I no longer believe this kind of speculation is tin foil hat territory.
Yarrow
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Yes. This. Absolutely. They must pay because if we do nothing there is no chance the rest of the world will trust us ever again.
JaneE
A large part of the country wasn’t alive when trade wars were a thing. The WTO is far from perfect, but it was agreed upon and there are procedures to address perceived unfair practices. The US doesn’t always win, and isn’t always the one making the complaint, for that matter, but it did eliminate the tit-for-tat we used to do.
The reason we stopped that old way of doing things is that it almost always harmed everyone involved. And it put governments, or lobbyists in charge of determining winners and losers among businesses and sectors. Letting markets decide used to be a big GOP thing, but then they used to put country first at least part of the time.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: It is not akin to a declaration of war. The President, who knows nothing about everything, might take it that way. But that’s not the same way.
Mary G
@NotMax: The most disappointing thing in that article is the fact that Fred Sr. lived to 93. We could have 22 more years of this asshole.
Denying a very sick baby medical insurance is just what you’d expect from him. His sister the retired judge sounds just like him.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not ruled by anyone.
Except, perhaps, a pair of lab mixes.
Adam L Silverman
@M4: Flynn. Flynn told him he needed to call someone else as economics was outside of his area of expertise.
JPL
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/390462-trumps-german-ambassador-says-he-wants-to-empower-european
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-pompeo-to-huddle-with-anti-semites-envoy
wtf does Putin have on this guy We are in uncharted territory.
patrick II
Trump’s attempt to break up the international system of trade combined with his damage to the NATO alliance in addition to personal insults to leaders of various European countries, along with his support for far right racist both at home and in Europe, his disdain for the law, the constitution, and the free press, not to mention truth, combine to create immense damage to democracy. I know everyone here knows that as we discuss one problem or another, (I am thinking of changing my nym to Kooto, Keen Observer of the Obvious) but its the total package that is killing us. Putin couldn’t be happier with his pet.
zhena gogolia
My hatred of Trump is ruining my life.
Mandalay
@schrodingers_cat:
I remember that as well, but I didn’t see anyone here applauding when Trump killed TPP and gave China the car keys. That said, I also remember when I naively thought Jane Sanders was a breath of fresh air despite many folks here pointing out the obvious, so I’ll STFU.
Raoul
The Dow Jones has been effectively flat since January 1, 2018. But I expect a lot of traders will be digesting the nutball news out of Whistler and we can probably expect further slumpage this week.
Will the financial press note that Trump is presiding over a stagnant (or, most likely falling) market in the weeks ahead?
It sure seems like we’re headed for trouble on multiple fronts. The GWB crash might just have been a fore-shock.
Suzanne
This is going to have lots of downstream effects. I design large institutional buildings that use a lot of hot-rolled steel and concrete. Since the potential for tariffs was announced, costs have been skyrocketing on my projects. Like 30% increases every month. Not just for structural steel, but for everything metal in a building—plumbing pipe, electrical conduit, doors and hardware, windows, storefront and curtain wall systems, architectural metals like handrails. Projects in progress will have to pay the increased costs, but other elements will be eliminated or seriously downgraded, like flooring and wall finishes. Future projects are just going to go on hold altogether. So these tariffs are going to affect all kinds of industries, not to mention real estate development as a whole.
THE DIPSHIT IS SUPPOSEDLY A DEVELOPER.
Skepticat
I believe “Don’t” should be replaced with “Shouldn’t,” as it’s painfully obvious that someone did indeed make this egregious error.
NotMax
@Brachiator
re: that Plaza Hotel deal.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I think this also explains a lot about his base. They also cannot fathom that two parties could ever have any kind of dealing with each other in which both sides come out ahead. Look at their obsession with how much undocumented aliens cost us. It’s trillions! They get free food and housing, and they’re fucking us over sideways! They must be! How can they not be? They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t getting something out if it, and if they’re getting good, then it must be at our expense! It has to be!
And you tell them that, no, they aren’t getting “free shit”. Not food. Not housing. Nothing. And they won’t believe it. They won’t believe it because they can’t believe it. They’re here, right? They came here, right? So they’re coming out ahead somehow, right? So if they’re coming out ahead, it’s costing us something!
These people are dangerous, because that kind of thinking is what gets people killed.
M4
@Mandalay:
I did. There was a long comments discussion about how the death of TPP was good news for Americans sick of copyright abuse just the other day.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I merely made an observation that TPP was not popular among many left leaning people, including over here.
An example:. You may have been pro TPP, I don’t remember your stance, but you are not the only front pager on Balloon Juice. The posts about TPP were overwhelmingly negative, if my memory serves me right. Speaking for myself, I think labor needs a seat at the table when deals like this are negotiated.
These trade deals have been beneficial to the United States, as in they have increased our GDP. Trade creates winners and losers, but overall the economy gains. Labor has been at the receiving end of these deals, they have been pro-capital. So I understand the sentiment. Its not new either.
People have been railing against NAFTA since the 90s. People in Maine used to blame it for the demise of the paper industry there. So when the President rails against these deals, he is cynically exploiting a vein of anger against these deals that already exists.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: If Grennell pushes this, he’ll have his credentials pulled and be shipped home by the German government.
As for the Hungarian Foreign Minister meeting with the SecState. It is unfortunate, but nor surprising given the current state of affairs.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Where does this all end?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: You know what I mean, they set our policy. I am a humble minion of my wrathful brown tabbeh, who rules over the abode with an iron paw and purrings.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Good question, but do you really want the answer?
Jager
I read this in Car and Driver, The new Ford small SUV, the EcoSport has a body made in India, a transmission from Germany, the engine is built in Mexico and then it’s assembled in the US. In the same issue they wrote about “Gliders” a scam to beat EPA regs on over the road trucks. Peterbil and other builderst sell a new truck without an engine, transmission or running gear. The gilder company installs rebuilt pre-2002 components to beat the regulations. The trump administration just tripled the number allowed to be sold. Another trump-Pruitt deal to benefit campaign donors. The gliders are pollution monsters 430 times dirtier than trucks with modern power plants. There were interviews with engineers from the auto makers, guess what? They were all against dropping the mileage standards…interesting reading. Consensus, the administration doesn’t know shit.
Raoul
@Adam L Silverman: Trump has no understanding of how many of these systems work, and he aggressively avoids any opportunity to learn. He is unteachable and unreachable.
How much damage he causes before his reign of ignorance ends is the six trillion dollar question.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: The TPP is not a trade deal. The TPP was a national security arrangement to lock the PRC out of emerging as the regional hegemon and rule maker in Asia Pacific for at least the next 30 years. Everything having to do with trade was added as incentives to get the various parties to the deal to buy into it. And that was the problem: the Obama administration wouldn’t, because they really couldn’t, explain TPP in this manner. They couldn’t explain what it really was.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
But it was clear to anyone with a brain who read a newspaper.
M4
@zhena gogolia: yes, but he needed a majority.
schrodingers_cat
@Mandalay:
No I didn’t see that either. But the President is cynically exploiting the divisions among his opponents and the anger against these deals that has existed since long before his run for the Republican nomination in the last cycle.
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: Eliminating flooring sounds like a bad idea. :P
Suzanne
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): As soon as we stop giving a flying fuck about dying industries in this country, the better. Does that mean some people might have to move or change careers? Yeah, it does. Oh fucking well. I don’t know why the Trumpy Right thinks that we should accept that some white people need to be pandered to with high wages for low-skill work, and that the rest of us need to prop their shit up and protect their industries. All the immigrants I know work harder and are nicer people, and thy don’t have this sickening attitiude of entitlement.
raven
Butter beans and redfish on the half shell comin right up!
NotMax
@Skepticat
Mustn’t is suggested instead.
As Mom is wont to say, “Nobody likes to be should on.”
;)
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Gonna be cool when the German government declares the American ambassador persona non grata for having Nazi paraphernalia in his office.
raven
@Jager: Sound like the old “catalytic converter test kits” they sold. You took off the converter, put a straight piece of pipe in its place and “tested” it. If it worked you left the pipe!
Raoul
@Suzanne: Yeah, that supposedly is the key. He was a failed developer. His only success has been as a licenser of his ‘brand’. There are no real inputs or costs of production when you are the brand licenser. So of course he is full of category errors.
What amazes me is how many people around him in his administration who should know better just play along. They are fucking up our economy in real time, in a massive, dangerous emperor has no clothes storyline. Not a one of those wimps will note his naked inabilities.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: I do not know. If the House, at least, and possibly the Senate can be flipped come November, than Congress through the power of the purse and oversight can place the President on a very short tether. That will help. It will also provide time and space for the Special Counsel to do his job. And it’ll give our allies and partners space to get ahead of dealing with the President.
If Congress remains in the hands of the GOP, then I expect things will get much, much worse. And at an exponentially fast clip. Given the number of moderates Republicans, for lack of a more accurate term, retiring in the House and Senate, or as in the case of Senator McCain fighting for his life and being unavailable, what will be left are the Freedom Caucus types. The next GOP caucuses in both chambers, whether majorities or minorities, will be far more radically reactionary than the current ones. You will see an acceleration of attempts to permanently lock in one party control for as long as possible. Through executive branch appointments, appointments to the judiciary, legislation, and regulation.
Right now the hard work is ours to do. To keep informed and active. To make sure everyone who can register to vote does so. And then make sure that they all vote. And that whenever possible they take advantage of absentee and mail in voting or early voting in order to bank as many votes as possible and take pressure off of overwhelmed and understaffed and underequipped polling stations on election day. Hope is not a strategy. However, we it does sustain us as we undertake this hard, necessary work.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia:
I have been buying more art and vintage furniture, reading lots of books and listening to a lot of jazz, and going to the symphony and the opera a great deal this year. It has been very centering and it feels like my own personal protest.
Goddamnit, in the face of this ugliness, I shall have beauty.
M4
@schrodingers_cat: when he officially axed the TPP all my leftier-than-thou friends were ecstatic to have found a silver lining to his presidency.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Trump would retaliate and Ryan would say it’s disappointing.
raven
@Suzanne: and fish
Mart
President Donald Trump’s trade war is supposed to help boost America’s job market, but new tariffs could actually make things ugly for US workers.
Because when unemployment is at an all time low you pass a stimulus tax reduction bill, and impose scattershot trade tariffs.
Recently was at a manufacturing facility and the manager was complaining that the only folks applying for jobs now are mostly from the dreck pool.
schrodingers_cat
@M4: Yes mine too. Its not just the RWNJs that are none too bright.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.):
This is exactly zero sum thinking that drumpf does. Well any thinking beyond “Lunch!”
He sees everything as having to zero out. He pays=he loses. Now that he’s “in charge,” We pay=We lose. If he has to pay someone to mow one of his golf courses, he loses. Or pay them to spray paint everything in his house gold, he loses. Someone is on welfare, because they got screwed out of an education because they are black=him losing because he paid a tax at one point in time.
Everything he does and says is zero sum. It might be because he’s stupid and has the math ability of a 1 yr old, or a raccoon, or it might be because he’s a moron who thinks the world owes him everything or it might just be because while he got an education, he learned nothing.
Raoul
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The fundamental inability to understand mutuality is also the core of the (gahh I hate this term!) incel idea.
Freaks can’t get laid because they are utterly self absorbed. Must be women’s fault, though, eh? Yeah, no.
Suzanne
@Raoul: This just absolutely kills every infrastructure project that might ever have happened. I mean, we knew that Trump was never actually going to actually do anything about American infrastructure, but this just seals the deal.
I believe that he wants to cause a recession, personally. Recessions allow the rich to buy up assets on the cheap and consolidate their wealth.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: One would have thought so. But based on responses to me posting that over and over here in comments, apparently not so much.
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: Me too. I have been spending time in my garden, painting, connecting to my roots. Also, I am becoming more involved in the local politics. My town clerk, who runs the elections here recognized my name on a bunch of nominating papers of people collecting signatures to run in the primaries.
raven
@Ruckus: He learned how to beat the draft..
M4
@Ruckus:
He only ever eats like four things, so he doesn’t have to think too hard there either.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: This is what happens when you appoint an Internet troll to be ambassador to Germany. If he makes it past six months I’ll be surprised.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Guess that calling it a hegemon fund wouldn’t have flown.
:)
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: Homo Invertabratus.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Please take two protectorates out of petty cash.
Ksmiami
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): @Adam L Silverman: um if they do that, they should expect the other side to tear it all down. If this is truly a battle for America’s soul, then we fight to smash the gop and once victorious, we root out every single judge, every appointee etc
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: The question is whether Pompeo will recall him first or if the Germans will PNG him.
Damien
Not all stupid people support Trump, but all his supporters are stupid.
The next Dem President had better not look fucking forward and not back; as much as I love and miss Obama, that was a massive fuckup. And that’s even saying that I recognize he didn’t have a lot of options.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne:
I’ve been obsessively doing crossword puzzles and buying Andrew Lloyd Webber sheet music.
Raoul
@Suzanne: I don’t think Trump is that strategic. But Mnuchin and Ross as his top trade people are experienced. And have plenty of capital to deploy on downside bets in the markets. So they have a perverse incentive to push this trade war along.
No surprise really that infrastructure spending will not happen, and that tariffs will actually spike bridge and highway costs.
I visited Argentina a couple years ago. It was instructive for how we may end up looking in the not too distant future.
A formerly robust, culturally interesting place, looted and left melancholy and damaged for a generation or more, for the profit of a small corrupt class.*
Gahhh.
*ETA: and that’s not even taking into account los desaparecidos. My god.
Jay
Ya know, if y’all just removed all the idiot warning labels from stuff like Tide Pods, the “Deplorables Vote” problem would be gone in a few years.
The Canadian Aluminum Producers have back of a napkin done the math and figure that Treason Tribbles Tariff’s, because the US can’t replace the imports with domestic, will have bumped their profits up by $60,000,000 a year, as all aluminium will be sold at the same price globally.
Jager
The trump administration is crazy to be hitting German companies, the transmission builder ZF employs over 8,000 people in South Carolina, they have 28 other facilities in the US, a bunch of them are in Michigan, Kentucky and Alabama. Bend over trump voters.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Damien: The other thing the next D president (or candidate) had better do is be squeaky clean. Rs will be trying to prove both sides do it.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
As a formerly obsessive news junkie, loathe that there’s now a lowering cloud of trepidation overhanging each daily sojourn to read up on what’s happening.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, it’s like he doesn’t understand that even in a trade deficit we are receiving goods and/or services for the money that we’re laying out.
We’re not just giving China a check for $1 billion because we lost a bet in the international trade casino. (Or got cheated somehow, which is how Trump probably sees it.) We’re buying $1 billion worth of something with that money. The deficit comes in because we’re buying more stuff from China that we want than China is buying of our stuff that they want. This is high school “model U.N.” level theory.
Raoul
@Jager: They. Don’t. Care.
This country is being run (or, uhh, headlined?) by a person with severe narcissistic personality disorder who borders on psychopathy. Damaging 8,000 transmission workers is not even in mind. As the Chapman thread at the top notes, only the bizarro, pinched and zero-sum idea of ‘winning’ matters here.
Transmission workers will just be losers to Trump. People who made bad career choices he owes nothing to. Like Harley workers are discovering now.
Brachiator
As an aside, an Axios post did an assessment of Trump’s first 500 days. A tidbit:
And another
And one more, which confirms much of what has been commented on here
And yet Republicans are happy with Trump and continue to support him by a wide margin.
“President Trump commands the second highest “own party” approval rating of any president at the 500 day mark since World War II, behind only President George W. Bush, after 9/11”
Trump is more popular than Reagan, among Republicans at this point.
Link
https://www.axios.com/trumps-500-day-coup-of-the-gop-conservatism-5f1f129d-22c3-4f53-b9f1-d957eb1ef05c.html
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I had a whole tirade along the line that you did. I’ve erased it all to say, fucking morons, like drumpf, will never get it. They are the ME generation writ large. The selfish morons stuck in their own moronic world, one that includes only them. They don’t understand how the world or people work together, they can’t, because they only see ME. Everything, the entire world revolves around the stick stuck up their asses. We’ve all known someone like this, probably all know someone like this now. drumpf is their leader because his stick is bigger than theirs, he is after all a much bigger ass. He has empowered them, given them hope that ME will take off as a political powerhouse. While it can actually only burn the entire thing down.
Damien
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I just want someone furious. It’s painfully clear that a huge proportion of the country doesn’t give a fuck about policy, so trying to explain it to them is like trying to give a thorough explanation of what you mean by “sit” to your dog.
You just say sit over and over with some treats until they get it.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
I’m shocked, just shocked
Brachiator
@Jager:
Trump hates Angela Merkel.
WereBear
@Brachiator: They dumbed-down and fanaticized their own voters. Trump IS their Frankenstein’s monster.
Jager
@Brachiator: Almost as much as he hates Obama, where do you figure Trudeau ranks on his hate list?
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: My guess is the latter. I don’t see Pompeo standing up the President.
M4
@Suzanne: @zhena gogolia: @NotMax: my artistic output is through the roof, after an initial slump.
Raoul
@JPL: This situation is not normal. (Her absence, I mean. I don’t care if she travels with POTUS or not, but she’s vanished).
And since the Admin cannot tell the truth under any circumstances, any assurances of her recovery from kidney problems or any other such press releases are meaningless.
Ruckus
@raven:
Like my friend who got out for being allergic to bees (an actual 4F thing), his lawyer did it for him. What do you want to bet his dad paid for that?
@M4:
Given what he has to work with, not thinking too hard, too long, or too successfully is his only possible method.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Too broad a brush, my friend.
Horse’s mouth:
(Bold in the original.)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Ugly
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman: But don’t you know paying for IP is evil! Knowledge must be free or something! Also rules about labor rules can’t be enforced somehow! It’s all a big giveaway to some corporations! Bernie doesn’t like it so it must be bad!
Did I miss any?
HeleninEire
So I am the biggest cynical bitch. Really I hate(d) everyone. About a year ago I wrote to a friend of mine and I wrote the sentence “I think this country has sucked the bitch out of me.” Everyone here is so kind and friendly.
All of this to say I stayed in tonight to watch the finals of “Britain’s Got Talent” AND I LOVED IT. I guess that means I’m old. In a good way. And the bitch has been sucked out of me.
No spoilers to you in the US. I couldn’t do a spoiler cuz I LOVED them all. But the end was GRAND!!! And well deserved.
WereBear
@M4: I find imminent danger likewise inspiring; I finished my cat book!
Raoul
@Brachiator:
And I wouldn’t be surprised if he is trade warring against Canada because 1. Justin is far prettier than he is and 2. a Toronto hotel got the Trump name removed.
He’s just that petty and revenge-motivated.
cc: @Jager
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
So was Russian interference in our elections.
Corner Stone
I have to say – Cole’s twitting about Miracle Whip vs mayonnaise followed next by a twit about an old white guy discussing rap….that’s freakin’ genius.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: I expect it’s the reason he’ll only eat in restaurants in his own properties. Because he gets comped. The idea of paying someone for food – a trade of money for consumables – probably makes him angry that he’s not won something over the waiter. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he got comped when he goes to other high end restaurants in New York, which are owned by people he knows.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I was just saying to my husband, I don’t recall that when Barack Obama was president, the news was ObamaObamaObama all the time! He just did his job.
ETA: Same with Bill Clinton.
Steeplejack
@Mart:
I would hazard a guess that the manager’s company is offering dreck wages.
Supply and demand, baby! Isn’t that how the free-market capitalists like it?
raven
@Ruckus: John Prine – Skip’s Story – The Stories Behind Beyond Words
Whistle and Fish
Skips was a famous drive-in, American Graffiti in Chicago . They used to drag race on North Ave on weekend nights. Prine has a fun description of working there and the bees.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: I will be very surprised if the President himself goes to the G7 summit. I think he’ll use the excuse of having to prep for the summit in Singapore as a way to not have to face the now very pissed off leaders of the other G7 countries.
raven
Aw right, got to get dinner on and back down to the water!
Mary G
@WereBear: I got a notice from Amazon that my pre-order for your book was cancelled. Will it go up again? When it does, let us know.
Jay
@Raoul:
The Melanie Bot went in for a software upgrade and to replace some fried circuit boards, Treason Tribbles Tariff’s are making that process harder than ususal.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Adam L Silverman: Pence can go to practice his presidenting.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
Thanks, yes, that’s golden.
Ruckus
@Jager:
Difficult to see a problem here, from their point of view. They will profit from the close downs and/or the importation of products in some manner, slime always does, or at least thinks it does. That their supporters will suffer is of no concern because they think their supporters are idiots and they are the ME morons. It’s of no concern because they won already. They think they can “fix” everything and not get thrown out, because their “leader” has ultimate power. In some ways he does, at the moment. But if that doesn’t work and we have another massive recession or worse, a depression, which is what we had the last 2 times we went this far over the edge, what do you think will happen? We got over the depression in part by WWII, we got over the last recession because of President Obama. What is going to work this time? And how often can we get through shit like that and in what length of time? I’m not predicting we will have one, but we are seeing all the signs starting to show and are headed down that road at far faster than a walking pace.
Corner Stone
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Pence’s practice presidentin’ probably prohibited per partner’s protocols.
MomSense
@Jerzy Russian:
Evergreen comment. ?
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: He hates the EU. He thinks EU regulations are what have made it impossible to buy or build golf courses in the EU.
https://www.ft.com/content/c652f79e-2a8c-11e8-9b4b-bc4b9f08f381
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Me too, but at least I thought she could represent the U.S. (not)
Suzanne
@Raoul:
At the rate Trump is going, we’d have to pay foreign firms to design our own fucking infrastructure, but we can’t afford it anyway.
The dipshit just doesn’t understand that getting out of these dirty, dangerous, dying industries is a good thing. Let developing nations do those, and we can specialize in advanced manufacturing and product design and research and other advancements of knowledge and human flourishing, It is not like steel production is super-fuckin’ awesome. It pollutes and wears workers out. Steel fabrication and ironmongery and heavy construction would still be here. It’s literally the dumbest, dirtiest part of the process. I don’t know why we would ever fight to keep that shit when Americans have a competitive advantage in design, engineering, and advanced manufacturing.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: It’s gonna be. But Merkel is smart. And she’s a good strategic thinker and a good tactician. She’ll give him the rope to hang himself. Then she’ll pull it tight around his neck.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I know what the official Obama administration’s statement was. That is still not an accurate description of what the TPP actually was. They played it too cute by half in an attempt to get what they wanted – locking out the PRC – without looking like that’s what they were doing. And their strategic communication strategy cost them.
SiubhanDuinne
@M4:
Can’t do a proper search right now, but IIRC (and, of course, I very well may not), that was actually Flynn.
BC in Illinois
@zhena gogolia:
@Suzanne:
This is a serious concern. We can’t let this man overwhelm our thoughts. Now, there are things I do, meetings, rallies, and a city council meeting next Tuesday, but blogs and twitter can be a real time-suck and emotional down. (Oh, and I have cardiac rehab and designated exercises, but the mind keeps coming back to things political.)
I have decided that between now and Wednesday — June 6, the 50th anniversary of the death of Robert Kennedy — I will finally finish the book of RFK speeches. It will bring back the 60s at their worst and bring back what a good man can strive to do (and grow into doing) at his best. The night / morning when he was killed, was the only time I ever remember my father coming down into my room and waking me up to bring me the news.
“When they go low . . ” doesn’t always mean that everything we do in response needs to be unrelentingly high-minded. But we need to be looking / working / marching / etc for something higher.
On the other hand, I have this afternoon packaged up three cups to send to various people. Plain white cups, with a simple message on the side:
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It is amazing that really it is this simple. There is no thought, no nothing, other than hate. He hates AM and doesn’t even have any real reason other than she is in political terms equal to him. And she really doesn’t take his shit and has no reason to. It may on some level be important to her country but it’s far more important to her country not to.
So he hates her and responds like a snotty 2 yr old with a ton of toys but not the one that he wants.
mark
Raising taxes on the little guy. Go, Go, Donny Wad.
gene108
George W. Bush instituted a steel tariff in 2002, but it didn’t create this big a backlash.
It got challenged in WTO, I think, and he dropped it before he lost or lost and then dropped it.
Anyway Bush, Jr’s steel tariff lasted a little over a year and did little temporary or permanent damage.
God only knows how Trump is screwing this up worse than Bush, Jr.
Adam L Silverman
@Doug R: He’ll burn it all down to feed his ego.
Doug R
@Corner Stone:
Fawlty Towers on mayonnaise vs salad cream
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this poll is kind of goofy, IMHO: “What issue(s) do you want candidates to talk a lot/ a little /not much about”. But I think the big message is the right one people are still anxious about health care affordability, trump made it major plank in his campaign (“something terrific… cost less… easy… believe me”).
I’m surprised to say I think Feinstein laid out the path on this: Medicare and Medicaid expansion and a public option
Kaput posted a screen shot of the top line results. People are also worried about income inequality, which is not at all unrelated to concerns about health care– you shouldn’t go broke because you have cancer.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: It was always going to be a hard sale because, as Kay reminded us many times, people in Ohio hated NAFTA and saw the TPP as NAFTA^2.
I think Obama was upfront with all of us and did as well as he could to get TPP passed. I thought his messaging was just fine. There were, IMO, lots of disingenuous “arguments” on the Left, and too much GOP obstruction (the absolute refusal to give Obama a “win” on anything if at all possible) that made it ultimately too difficult.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I was a big supporter of TPP.
Frank Wilhoit
wrt the Chapman thread, accurate and amusing though it is, all it shows is that Trump is a typical American — an extremely typical one. We who think differently are the ones who are outnumbered. There are not a thousand of us nationwide; in my state, there are not half a dozen.
Doug R
@Jay:
I’m beginning to worry about that sinkhole. Apparently the last picture of the two of them together, he’s got a shovel in his hands.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Won’t happen. Too much money to be made clinging to our party.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Why not both? He hates the EU and he hates Merkel because she is the leader of the EU.
He hates Merkel because she is a woman. He can’t do macho handshakes with her or do other stupid guy rituals. And he could not get away with belittling her.
On the other hand, he tolerates Theresa May because of BREXIT, and she has fantasies that the US will save her after she has completely screwed up UK EU relations.
Also, great example showing how Trump conflates his personal business problems with the EU with his responsibility as president. We escaped the “conflict of interest” event horizon long ago.
Frank Wilhoit
@Adam L Silverman: The baffling trouble with Sanders is that his top-line critique is spot on, but that is all he has. He has not the faintest idea how to unwind impunity capitalism or what to replace it with. The supreme importance of unwinding it and replacing it does not justify the waving of the hands; quite the opposite. But it can sometimes look as if “Sanders’s people” consist of those who subscribe to this form of magical thinking, whereas “Trump’s people” subscribe to a different (and candidly violent) form of magical thinking. If one says “no magical thinking at all”, then one had best book one’s act into a fairly small hall.
(“Impunity capitalism” is, so far as I am aware, mine, but I hereby place it in the public domain.)
Ruckus
@Frank Wilhoit:
We out voted them in the last presidential election, and that was fucked with by a foreign power. We have won in many special elections in places they have held power for a long time. We have a lot of the media and especially a lot of the old line media against us, and we won. We do outnumber them. All we have to do is fucking vote and we can win and get back our country. Don’t be so fucking defeatist. It’s bad enough that we let them demoralize us, we don’t need to do it to ourselves.
Corner Stone
Rudy with that rictus death mask. How can Trump allow him on TV looking like a cross between the CryptKeeper and a wax museum exhibit of an alien homunculus?
catclub
@TeezySkeezy (formerly the T S you hate):
so, maybe 10 people.
As Adlai Stevenson said: …
WereBear
@Mary G: Yes, it is live and ready for download, here:
The Way of Cats: How to use their instincts to train, understand, and love them
You have a special place in my heart for going pre-sale for me! That got messed up, but the book turned into something I am really proud of.
M4
@Frank Wilhoit:
Sometimes?
Adam L Silverman
@Frank Wilhoit:
I just put in for copyright and trademark on it. Where do you want me to send the bill for your using it without my permission?//
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus:* Applause*. I have noticed that Balloon Juice comment section at times turns into an angst filled pity party, with comments imagining increasingly dystopian scenarios about how WASF.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Underdog is the President’s favorite cartoon.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: So you’re saying we are not about to start hunting each other for food?
But I paid for 10 more archery lessons.
Chyron HR
@Adam L Silverman:
“There will be a third party”
WE HAVE FOUR ALREADY
M4
@Baud: that just means you have more time to get good at it.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: BTW, thanks for your earlier post about the adventures of Bernie Sanders in Southern California. I saw a brief tv news item about it, but didn’t follow up.
As far as I can see, he left Democrat bashing to Jane, and mainly talked about Disney workers and truckers.
But he didn’t have jack to say about the June primary, or support of any candidates, and focused on ballot propositions coming up in November.
In short, self-serving bullshit. To hell with him. He is a Trump supporter in progressive clothing.
Corner Stone
@catclub:
“No! NO!! It can’t be my time! You can’t possibly take me before that son of a bitch Nixon!!”
schrodingers_cat
Test.
Jager
@Doug R: No that’s Cohen with the shovel
schrodingers_cat
Does St. Sanders have a primary challenger for the senate?
Baud
@M4:
Thanks. I will eat you first.
SiubhanDuinne
@WereBear:
I downloaded it yesterday and am, I guess, about halfway through. I really love it, WereBear! Your writing style is just perfect for this kind of book. Even though I’m currently catless, that will change in another 18 months or so, and The Way of Cats will be a constant reference. Well done, WB!
(Edited for commas.)
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, yeah! I loved that, and when I found out years later what “Bar Sinister” really meant, I had a moment of much belated hilarity.
M4
@Baud: you’ll have to catch me.
ETA and if I’m a robot or a sea monster will your arrows even work??
wizened_guy
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly. It’s sad that many critics of TPP on the left failed to understand that. On the other hand, President Obama did a fairly poor job in explaining the deal’s geopolitical dimensions, in part I suspect because he saw no upside in publicly rubbing China’s nose in TPP’s intentionally anti-China design.
zhena gogolia
@wizened_guy:
He always gave us more credit for intelligence than we deserved.
Baud
@M4:
I have +5 elf-enhanced metal piercing arrows.
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you so much! I am thrilled to hear that. I did work very hard :)
Found out just how much of a challenge it is to turn a bunch of blog posts into a book. A lot of bloggers just fill the book up with blog posts, but I always felt that was not very workable. Fortunately, I love to polish.
As always, can’t say enough good things about Scrivener, the writing software. They keep improving it and it is invaluable for exactly this kind of writing.
M4
@Baud: joke’s on you, my top layers are leather.
You also get no sneak attack or critical bonuses against constructs so you’d be at a disadvantage across the board for a full fight.
Corner Stone
@wizened_guy: President Obama could have also been trying to negotiate with the tide to keep it from coming in or going out. China was always going to be the regional hegemon in the near short term. It would not take a Trump-like incompetent buffoon to show our allies that they were essentially on their own against the expansion and exertions of China. What were we going to do? Confront them over Taiwan or in South China Seas? They are showing now that even if they may not want to, they can play the sanctions/tariffs game as well as anyone.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Did you any other resources besides their help section to get the most out of Scrivener?
Montanareddog
@Raoul: and don’t forget 3. He’s been insanely jealous ever since he saw that photo of Ivanka making cow-eyes at Trudeau
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
I admit that I haven’t been following it closely for the last month or two, but I thought he refused to implement the sanctions Congress voted. Has that changed? (I really don’t know one way or the other.)
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Christ, what an asshole she is.
Where are your fucking tax returns, Jane?
Baud
@M4:
Fuck! {Flips gameboard over}
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
Maybe he’s confusing America’s Most Racist/Fascist Mayor with KellyAnne Conway? The Orange Traitor is stupid enough to have done that.
Adam L Silverman
@SFAW: Some of the new ones have been imposed, some haven’t. But none of the existing ones have been lifted.
debbie
@Corner Stone:
And, most stupidly of all, he thinks that after fucking over Mexico and Canada the way he has, that he will be able to negotiate separate “bilateral” agreements with them.
Mandalay
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t care for him any more than anyone else here, and I know I’m comparing apples to oranges, but my anger for him does not come anywhere near the level I feel for cops who blatantly abuse their authority.
This video shows a cop deliberately running down someone who is fleeing with his car, and then lying about what happened. Fortunately the video busted him, but the end result?…the cop was fired. Why aren’t psychofucks like him given a prison sentence? I feel like our cops are a far bigger threat to society than MS-13.
stinger
@Mary G @WereBear: Me too — same issue, same question. I’ll keep reading — hopefully it’s answered below.
Corner Stone
This Canadian Trudeau kid. I think he’s got a future ahead of him.
HeleninEire
@Baud: OMG. Is that the first time you said FUCK on Balloon Juice? I think it might be.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
The word? No.
By itself like that? Maybe.
Another Scott
@debbie: Yup, yup.
Bloomberg:
Trump will back down eventually, and he’ll have nothing to show for all of his bigly negotiating “skills” than cackling midnight phone calls from Bannon saying, “Yeah! MAGA! Go Trump!!11”.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
We should start a pool to figure out who Donnie is going to blame, and when, when he loses the House and Senate in November…
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Mandalay: Saw that earlier. Also, if your name is Hunter Blackmon, perhaps policing isn’t a good job choice.
Corner Stone
Chuck Todd is the stupidest person on TV.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Well, when Trump turns to those who used to be our allies in the event of some tragedy and hears nothing but crickets, won’t he be surprised. Fucker.
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: Germany should demand that the U.S. recall its ambassador. I’ve never heard of an ambassador threatening to interfere with a country’s domestic politics. Merkel shouldn’t stand for this nonsense. Grennell has a sexist background so it’s no wonder he shows no respect for a woman leader.
debbie
@Another Scott:
I saw something this morning that showed Ohio would be hurt the worst by this trade war. I wouldn’t put it past Trump to be enjoying this, what with the treachery of John Kasich.
HeleninEire
@Baud: :)
Patricia Kayden
@zhena gogolia: Take some breaks away from politics. I just subscribed to Netflix and caught up with “Lost in Space” which is excellent and am now catching up with “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. We all can’t let Trump drive us batty. My only fear is that even if he is ousted, he’s already done so much damage for the next Democratic President to fix. Sigh.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Those aren’t his friends. They’re his subordinates.
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: Ohio voted for him though so dumb move.
It is already being reported that tariffs are going to hit red states which supported Trump.
M4
@Patricia Kayden: Kimmy Schmidt is amazing. Season 2 drifts a bit I guess.
TS (the original)
@zhena gogolia:
My abhorrence for what he is doing to the US and the world is what is causing me grief. I keep thinking this cannot last – but then I wonder about the people who voted for him & whether they will keep voting for him. I just try not to panic.
JPL
@Baud: My son mentioned to me that I should not say that word. Friends who have never sworn now use that word. It ‘s perfectly acceptable during these times.
@Patricia Kayden: Sorry I have no more empathy to give. Let them eat cake.
waysel
The “share on facebook”button for this post ain’t working. I assume the NSA is blocking it.
WereBear
@stinger: I answered here: @Sorry about that
Frank Wilhoit
@Adam L Silverman: My check is in the mail — for three Belair coupons and a Kansas state tax token. Use it in good health.
Ksmiami
@BC in Illinois: I’ve started to give hell to trumpets (his supporters) I basically tell them that anyone who supported him is morally deficient and beneath contempt and I don’t want to win them over, I want to prevent them from voting ever again.
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: I found their forum covered some issues, and there were blogger/writers who could explain the new ways of exporting for Kindle ebook and paperback formats. There were tricky parts, but there is plenty of help out there.
The Lodger
@Corner Stone: Brian Kilmeade on line one for you.
Sloane Ranger
The steel tariffs are popular with his base. The BBC interviewed some retired steel workers in some rust belt town and they were all cheering him on, saying the tariffs were 35 years overdue.
The one consistent thing about Trump (well one of them) is that he likes to reward his supporters and punish his enemies and this does that. The fact that, in the medium to long term, they will suffer like everyone else doesn’t occur to him as he does not do long term thinking. He lives in the moment and the adulation of his base NOW is all he cares about.
Platonailedit
@Frank Wilhoit:
A dumb assertion with no facts.
wuzzat
This has been Trump’s trademarked persona for at least the last 35 years. The analysis we actually need is what is it about American voters that makes them treat an in-depth exploration of the wetness of water like a revelation.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
“Fuck” (along with its inflections) is possibly the most useful, versatile word in the English language. Just off the top of my head:
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone:
I don’t doubt you for a second, but anything in particular?
David
Could anyone answer a basic question WRT to these tariffs? Does the US have enough underutilized capacity to provide import substitution on the taxed imports, and if not at what cost level would New US capital investment be cost effective.Obviouslythere would be a time lag and demand reduction but tariffs can encourage industrial development albeit at a real cost to the country imposing them. As far as autos go the domestic content is so variable you may as well add a sales tax for revenue and subsidize domestic manufacturing with it
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Fuck, the fucking fucker’s fucked. The sentence makes sense. Try doing that with a different word.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: OMG, yeah. More of this, please. If only to watch Trump’s head explode in rage. With any hope, before his finger has twitched over the fatal red button.
Aleta
@debbie: Indiana also. And Pence is silent.
boatboy_srq
@Yarrow: The one flaw in this as proposed here is Lord Dampnut’s proven willingness to declare bankruptcy and walk away from any and every venture. The key is not to tax but to sieze. Don’t attach or levy the gold courses and hotels; nationalize them. And then erase his name from each and every one. Do it before he has a chance to dissolve the related holding company and skate on the losses.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Hey I understand the despair. I’m working with some sort of illness that makes working a lot harder, If those tariffs for steel and aluminum go into effect, my job will be directly affected, I’m past when I had hoped to retire and I can’t yet as I’m still recovering from the massive fucking republican recession, trying to catch up to the money I lost due to it and I’m never going to catch up – I’m about 1/3 there now, and I’m spending no more than I have to and of course the cost of everything is rising faster than the cost of living because assholes have to make far more money than they have any need for, I’m on SS and the assholes are trying to fuck me over on that, I get my healthcare from the VA and they are trying to fuck with that and I already pay copays.
So I have, like so many others who also have many, good reasons to be pissed off and forlorn about the future. And yet I know that won’t do any good. We live in a country that the promise of was that we would be free, that we would be able to chose our leaders and specifically they wouldn’t be born into it. The UK has made the monarchy mostly ceremonial for that reason, but we find ourselves now with a different kind of monarchy, partially born into with large amounts of money handed down to those who are incapable of earning it respectfully and/or who steal it from the lives of the people who work for them. And look at the current WH occupant. He’s hired only people he knows, his children, and his loyal subjects. He thinks he can do anything he wants, including shooting someone on the street. It’s a monarchy, abet nothing close to a royal one. We have the Bushes, who overstayed their welcome. And dems aren’t free of this, the Kennedys, Bill and Hillary. In CA we have a second generation gov. Some of these people are pretty dam good politicians some of them are horrible. But what it does for me is say that major offices can only reasonably be held by a spouse or a child. A line of succession. And that’s wrong in our country. That we seem to value or devalue someone on their name or on the amount of money or TV fame or the color of their skin and not on their abilities. And if they don’t match up on those ridiculous values we shun them even after they have proven their abilities.
We want perfection, but look for it in all the wrong places/ways. We want perfection and we tear down the people who actually come the closest because they are better than us.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
Fuck is also an english word that is well known in many parts of the world where english is not a normal language. I’d say it’s about as close a universal word as there ever will be.
lynn
If you use steel/aluminum in manufactured things like Carrier, you just move operations to Mexico to avoid the tariff. Trump is on the verge of chasing manufacturing out of America.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Patricia Kayden: try “The Crown” it’s really good (clip), especially the Princess Margaret. story arc