Flipped flop
this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Aamericans tend to over engineer, an approach which in many cases can be very desirable, but in this case would result in 1 inch thick of the heaviest rubber, with a tread, with a leather covering for entire foot, up to over the ankle, and the whole thing held together with shoelaces.
My feet hurt just looking at those fucking things. Are they made of cardboard?
50 years of manufacturing job loss can't be fixed in one presidential term. Nicocado didn't lose all that weight in one week. Change can be hard and painful. But not changing would be giving up on the next generation. He might be rude, he might be orange, but by god he is addressing the elephant in the room everyone else is ignoring.
Everybody is roasting you but I want to help you in a meaningful way. Decreasing trade and taxing US Citizens with tariffs does not create manufacturing jobs. In fact the USA is losing manufacturing jobs, exactly like last Trump term, because we're tariffing resources like steel and aluminium used to build heavy machinery, which is one of the USA's major exports following petrochem products and financial services.
See, successful countries specialize in specific goods and services then trade that to other nations. We could be making our own lamps, plastic tables, and mass producing PCBs but doing so makes us less money than the things we're actually good at making. We're actually forcing other nations to compete with us by not offering goods and services meaning they now have to create replacements for us.
It's not that the stated goal is wrong, it's that the Republican Administration's methods are so terrible that they can't achieve it. Indeed the methods are so wrong that it's not even clear that the stated goal is the real goal they are pursuing.
Yeah, making himself richer and manipulating the market in plain sight.
How is Trump personally benefiting from tariffs? Like I know congress does insider trading all day but I don't see anyone importing golf courses.
Trump: TARIFFS ON EVERYTHING
Market: * crashes *
Trump: * acquires crashed stock at bargain prices *
Trump: LOL JUST KIDDING. TARIFFS PAUSED!
Market: * rallies, because full of gambling addicts *
Trump: * realizes massive gains on acquired stock *
Is that clearer, or are you choosing to continue to participating in your own destruction?
Trump’s 53% ownership stake in the company, now in a trust controlled by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., rose by $415 million on the day.
crickets
Lashing out or Folding like one of trumps cheap blue suits when presented with proof.
It's the MAGA way
You don't need to personally own companies in those industries. The secret of insider trading is knowing what announcements will effect stock prices. If the government says that they're going to ban cigarettes, the value of tobacco companies will fall. If I know that the government isn't serious, and will never implement the ban, I can buy stock at a reduced rate safe in the knowledge that it's real value hasn't fallen.
If i run the government there's countless ways to profit from that insider knowledge. Gold prices go up when the stock markets are uncertain and people are worried about financial choas. So, I could buy lots of gold ($2300 an oz in Jun 2024), then make some wild decisions and statements so that the markets start panicking, and watch the gold price rise (peaked at around $3400 last month) . So I sell my gold for a substantial profit, and dial back a bunch of the most wild policies and stuff goes mostly back to normal, but I'm a lot richer.
Like I know congress does insider trading all day but I don't see anyone importing golf courses.
My sibling in Talos, are you really naive enough to think trump isn't playing the stock market too?
It must take some serious mental gymnastic training to try and justify trumps economic policy
He's an authoritarian nut job that is destroying this country and ignoring the Constitution. He's emboldened the racists to be more open and violent. Unless you are a billionaire, he will eventually get around to destroying everything you hold dear as well. Don't think you are special.
I think tariffs ARE a solution to manufacturing being exported. Your hatred for Trump is clouding your opinion of the economics of jobs. And I imagine a lot of billionaires are less than happy with the revenue loss they are about to have with trade being down. I really doubt Trump is coming for 'everything I hold dear'. I think this country was already broken well before he was in office, so you really can't blame him for that. Whether you think DEI policies are racist is subjective- making race part of any decision making process for jobs or education is racist in my opinion. Nobody is special. I don't think he has 'emboldened the racists'. If your local police force isn't addressing violence why don't you blame them?
I think tariffs ARE a solution to manufacturing being exported.
History is not on your side. Sweeping tariffs are BAD for the country.
Capitalism is carrot-motivated, NOT stick. You want companies to manufacture in the US? Provide incentives to do so, not threats if they don't.
You said earlier it will take longer than 1 term to build out. You're 100% correct. So why did Trump full send the tariffs right away? I agree that we need more manufacturing in this country but it's a 10-20 year goal...which is why you slowly increase the tariffs to allow companies time to build out while also not fucking over your citizens.
making race part of any decision making process for jobs or education is racist in my opinion. Nobody is special
I was just going to address the tariffs thing but...buddy, those laws exist because race was - and still is - part of the decision making process. It was nearly impossible for a non-white person to get a good job.
Your hatred for Trump is clouding your opinion of the economics of jobs.
Wow, a real life mind reader. What's it like to be inside someone's head and tell them how their mind works? Pretty cool.
I think this country was already broken well before he was in office, so you really can't blame him for that.
You had me in the first half, but then lmfao really? Yes this country has been on a decline for a while, steep one at that. But his actions are the equivalent of ripping out the ventilator and kicking the patient down a flight of stairs.
I don't think he has 'emboldened the racists'.
This is how we know you are one. Multiple of his cabinet picks have clear ties to white supremacy orgs, and he loves to rain down punishment on anyone who fights for people to be treated equally.
I didn't write this to convince you of anything. That hope is dead for people like you. There is no hope of instilling empathy in any real trump supporter at this point, I truly believe that. I wrote this for anyone who reads this conversation.
Tariffs are a way to bring manufacturing back into the country, but why have blanket tariffs instead of targeting specific sectors to incentivize bringing back manufacturing in those sectors?
And tariffs are not the only way to bring manufacturing back, government can subsidize bringing manufacturing back. Biden did that with the CHIPS act, where are Trump equivalent of the CHIPS act?
Furthermore, if the plan is to bring manufacturing home why is Trump trying to kill the CHIPS act?
And why is he gutting education when it's obvious to anyone that manufacturing requires skilled labor?
He's doing only one thing (and he's doing that very poorly) that is supposed to bring manufacturing back and everything else he does more or less works against bringing manufacturing back. You have to have blinders on to really believe he's trying to bring manufacturing back to America.
Exactly. Biden was bringing a lot of manufacturing into Ohio through the chips and infrastructure acts. Manufacturing with good mixes in skill of labor.
We aren't competitive in stuff like steel or high volume low cost manufacturing. What we are able to compete on is high skill and high tech manufacturing. Things like chips, manufacturing equipment, and vehicles. Our labor is disproportionately skilled and our costs of living and land are significantly higher than in many countries. I would also love a focus on domestic production of green technologies like batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, and trains and rail equipment. There's a reason China focused on such things.
I'm pro manufacturing, it's my career. But tariffing everyone and everything doesn't improve manufacturing. Targeted combinations of tariffs and subsidies do.
Additionally it needs to be said that when Trump does target, he focuses on outdated things, namely coal.
The Democrats were using the right means to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US, forcing the government to get contracts from US factories. Tariffs are just dumb.
In a global economy there's no need to be fully self sufficient; unless, for some reason, no one wants to work with you.
If the true goal is to just bring manufacturing back to the US then a stable economy and negotiated deals with entities that are actually manufacturing things are going to go so much further than just telling the rest of the world to find new clientele among the remaining 96% of the global population because the 4% that lives in the US can no longer afford it due to artificially imposed limits.
He might be rude and orange... He might also have done all this with no plan, he might be driving up the cost of virtually everything, he might be driving many small businesses into bankruptcy, he might have created instability that's going to make everyone reluctant to start new businesses, he might have driven away all of America's trading partners, he might have handed the 21st century to China on a silver platter, he might have ended the dollar as the global reserve currency and all the perks that come with that... I could go on.
How much more damage will Republicans do to the US before enough people accept that, by and large, our manufacturing days are behind us? And that manufacturing leaving our shores is not the reason the working and middle classes are poorer than they used to be?
by and large, our manufacturing days are behind us.
I agree, but even if one were convinced that they aren't, the proper way to do it is to use your congressional majority to come up with a package of actual targeted tariffs that phase in over time and thereby incentivize investment, which you can also do by subsidizing industrial development and getting labor on your side (other than the lukewarm conditional support of UAW and only UAW).
This, though, is a stupid and angry old man desperate for a legacy, being counseled by nativists and Christian Nationalists and nothing is coherent or likely to be effective. It's tearing down the existing system that, for better or worse, people have had to build their lives around, with nothing more than "concepts of a plan" for how to replace it, and with no real intention to have anything new benefit anyone but the super-rich for whom the worst outcomes are delayed megaprojects and lowered spots on a ranked list of billionaires.
The tariffs were planned. Presidents generally roll out the 'eating your vegetables' policies in their second term. Of course its going to drive up prices, that is the point. The small business that start making domestic goods will make good money. The small businesses that just dropship crap from Temu and Alibaba will go out of business. The dollar was already disappearing as the global reserve currency before Trump.
We need to NOT accept that manufacturing is behind us. NEVER accept failure.
Would you like to work in a factory for peanuts making basic goods previously made in China?
Manufacturing never left America. Aerospace, military, energy, etc. are alive and healthy, creating highly specialized and valuable jobs.
Trump wants to bring back people working for minimum wage (or way less if using prisoner labor) doing menial toaster assembly.
We need to NOT accept that manufacturing is behind us. NEVER accept failure.
How is manufacturing being behind us failure, exactly? Does an engineer fail when they pay to eat at a restaurant? The service industry jobs that make up 3/4 of our GDP pay better than manufacturing jobs. Tariffs are like adding a restaurant tax to incentivize lawyers and doctors and engineers to cook at home.
Transitioning from low paying physical work to high paying mental work is success, not failure.
There's no businesses, large or small, set up to take advantage of the tariffs in most industries. And it's difficult for new businesses to set up because there's an air of uncertainty to everything right now, because Trump likes to roll things out major changes with as little warning as he can - which is not an environment conducive to investment of any kind. Further, the equipment that would be needed to start a new manufacturing business is, by and large, covered by tariffs!
As for accepting failure - we didn't fail to keep those manufacturing jobs. We developed to the point nobody was willing to do those jobs for a cost effective price. That is not a failure.
You're right that there's a real issue with globalisation And tariffs aren't even an insane mechanism to use. But the way that the administration is using them is either a) well-intentioned but incredibly badly implemented, or b) a cynical manipulation.
The sad part is that it's likely to make it harder to change things for better in the long run. Instead of a sane plan to develop domestic manufacturing we have this chaos, and once it's over people will be wary of the very idea.
I agree that trying to bring manufacturing capability is a huge deal. Economics aside people talk about private jets polluting like crazy, well every container ship belches smoke like the fucking fire navy. And there's a lot of them
Speaking of the navy there's a concerning amount of missile components that are subcontracted to chinese companies
But that said if I was a company and I could hold out for 4 years I wouldn't build facilities in the US. When the new admin comes in I bet they would remove tarrifs and those facilities become way less profitable