President Trump has declared a momentary pause – for one month – as regards the imposition of the massive taxes (styled “tariffs”) he wants imposed on vehicles manufactured outside the U.S.
Specifically, in Mexico.
GM, Ford and Ram trucks are made there and then truck-shipped here, which is a variation of driving around the block to cross the street done to get around the high cost of manufacturing vehicles in this country. Trump has been using the threat of heavy taxes – those tariffs being just exactly that, just as your “contributions” to Social Security are exactly that, too – to pressure GM, Ford and Ram (and not just them) to ship their manufacturing operations back across the border in order to “make America great again.”
But it won’t. All it will do is make things more expensive for Americans – again – unless the factor that’s made manufacturing vehicles in this country so expensive is dealt with. That being – chiefly – the cost of complying with a Kafkaesque array of regulations applied to the manufacturing of vehicles and to the vehicles themselves.
This latter is italicized to bring up a point that is rarely brought up – and to bring up related point.
The first point is that regulations pertaining to what is styled “safety” and also “fuel economy” have imposed thousands of dollars in add-on costs to new vehicles. One can argue the merits of a car that has six air bags in terms of the hypothetical benefit to the people within in the event of a severe crash. It is beside the point if people cannot afford to buy a car with all those air bags – and everything else that is mandated in the name of “safety.” It is like arguing that a home solar system that costs tens of thousands to install will “save money” on utility bills.
This brings up the “fuel economy” thing. What good is a 50-plus MPG hybrid car if people can’t afford to buy one? Federal regs now demand exactly that – i.e., that cars average 50 MPG – and if they do not, then the federal government hits the manufacturer with taxes that are styled “CAFE fines.” The taxes are of course folded into the cost of vehicles.
How many Americans would prefer to be able to buy a $15,000 new car that gets 30 MPG rather than a $30,000 hybrid car that gets 50 MPG? Of course, they’re not aware that the $15,000 car has been out-regulated (effectively the same thing as outlawing something) by federal “safety” regs that have made it impossible to sell a $15,000 car in this country.
Other, more subtle costs imposed in the name of “fuel efficiency” are direct injection (rather than port fuel injection) which adds at least $1,000 to the cost of every new car so equipped as well as the add-on costs of elaborate transmissions that have twice as many forward gears (8-10) as transmissions used to have.
Add in also the cost of such things as back-up cameras built into the bumpers of cars that feed close-circuit views to a TeeVee built into the car’s dash. Plus the cost of covering all this stuff that is based on the cost of replacing all of this stuff when it is damaged in even a relatively minor accident.
Here is another – even subtler – cost of all this regulation. You may have noticed that pretty much every new car now has an enormous LCD touchscreen that is the device used to control various secondary functions such as the AC/heat and fan and stereo, etc. The one device has replaced what were formerly individual buttons and switches and knobs as a cost-cutting measure. More finely, as a way to offset the regulatory costs that have made vehicles increasingly unaffordable. Electronic displays are cheap to manufacture and to install and this serves to increase the profit margin without having to raise the cost of the car.
But there is a price to be paid – by us. These LCD displays, while cheap to install, are expensive to replace when they fail and the failure is more catastrophic because so many things are controlled by the display. It is not just that the fan stops working. The AC and heater stop working, too.
And we’ll get to pay for that, too.
Trump could do much to curb these costs by challenging the legitimacy of the regs pertaining to “safety” and “fuel efficiency.” Not to mention “emissions” – which regs stopped being about pollution decades ago, when 97-plus percent of the meaningfully harmful compounds that caused pollution were scrubbed from the exhaust stream of vehicles. Since the late ’90s, “emissions” regs have cost far more than has been gained.
Addressing the high cost of vehicles this way – as opposed to adding costs to the manufacturing of vehicles just because they’re not made in the USA (and doing nothing to reduce the cost of manufacturing vehicles in the USA).
The case is easy to make. All it needs is for Trump to make it.
. . .
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There’s no reason that an LCD screen should be a reason that an otherwise perfectly functional automobile or truck need be scrapped. Same with most Engine/Drivetrain control units. The use of proprietary firmware is how car manufacturers build “planned obsolescence” into their products.
Please understand that this goes way beyond the old-fashioned argument about who’s a “true” mechanic versus a “parts changer”. Yes, in the days of yore, it wasn’t uncommon to take apart a generator and/or starter (indeed, when the Model A engine was developed, Henry Ford had to be talked into it having the “new-fangled” starter motor so that WOMEN, who even then were factored into marketing decisions, would be more inclined to drive them, and one of the prototypes had the generator and starter combined as a single unit!), sand the commutator and replace the worn brushes, put it together again, and it worked fine, as the labor to hand-assemble them at the factory and later for a garage to rebuild them was cheap enough to be the more feasible approach than buying a new or rebuilt unit. But as automation went forth in building even unit assembles like alternators, generators, and starter motors, along with other motors like WIPER BLADES or heater/AC blowers, it was cheaper to put together crimped and/or pressed assemblies that didn’t use threaded fasteners…which meant that getting a brush kit for these things was simply of no avail, as it wasn’t practical to disassemble and later re-assemble the thing. Indeed, the rise of “Maquiladoras” or cheap SoCal plants employing mostly illegals served to facilitate a whole industry of rebuilding automotive assembles. That along with the rising costs of labor for a typical garage or service department made the “parts changer” the default approach to being a “mechanic”.
OBD-II is but a step towards what we SHOULD have with current technology. For awhile, the so-called “Auto PC” was considered, then quietly dropped, a lot of it over digital licensing rights, the same problem that delayed the “smart phone” (with which we do ever DUMBER things) for almost ten years from when it was technically possible. The approach was obvious: as even by then Apple computers were simply another flavor of “DOS”, and PCs got smaller and lighter, and there were PDAs that had the power of desktops but a few years behind them, why not put the same sort of unit in an automobile? It’d be readily programmable, and, more important, UPGRADEABLE. Ah, but therein lay the problem! As already a whole lot of folks could, as of about 20 years ago, build a perfectly functional PC from assembles for even less than what they could be bought from retailers as a whole unit, and, even worse, rather than REPLACE them when the “latest and greatest” came out, simply upgrade components as they desired! Moreover, this didn’t require going to some specialized “geek store” if you knew a little bit about them. The big thing to, was, our “friends in Washington” simply had no way to put a stranglehold on the personal computer and handheld devices market like they had since about 1960 with the automotive industry…and don’t think they didn’t try!
With retirement looming, one of the projects I might want to embark upon would be engineering a hybrid vehicle as I believe it ought to have been done…using a lot of cheap old crap, of course. Something like a discarded Chevy Chevette or a Dodge Omni to start with, though…they’re actually INCREASING in value as enthusiasts are discovering that, compared to today’s “devices”, they weren’t all that bad! I had in mind something that on battery power could get maybe eight to ten miles, since that’s a median value for daily commutes. Of course this contraption should have “plug-in” capability from a 220 V source. As for powerplant…DIESEL. And full-time electric drive. That’d keep the engineering complexity down, at a fairly small sacrifice in fuel efficiency, compensated for by lighter weight overall (less complicated drivetrain and braking, fewer batteries which weight, cost, and fire hazard are the greatest drawback of any EV/hybrid vehicle). Would re-purposing a 45 y.o. car have much in the way of market potential, assuming I could actually attract any investors? Probably not, even Trumpenstein’s FedGov goons would regulate and/or litigate it to death at the behest of the car makers if it were a seriously competitive effort. But I would have the SATISFACTION of doing it MY WAY…because, FUCK ‘EM!
There are generic automotive computer systems available. Of course, they require tuning, but that is not out of the realm of a competent wrencher.
You could easily earn $500 from this even if you have never worked online.
Kindly check it out on the relevant website. I said this first. Assess your abilities, interests, and pastimes first.,. Find out what you have a passion for or abilities that you can sell. click on profile
>GM, Ford and Ram trucks are made there and then truck-shipped here
Well, let’s see…
If Mexicans can’t buy the trucks, because they aren’t being paid enough, and Americans can’t buy them, because the automakers sent their jobs to Mexico…
Who will buy the vehicles?
Martians?
Anyhow, L’il Donnie is a hypocrite.
How come his private jet has Rolls Royce engines?
What is wrong with Pratt and Whitney, or General Electric?
Buy American, Donnie, or STFU.
Rolls Royce jet engines are made in America as well. That’s part of the reason even Trump won’t make a big stink about outfits like AMERICAN AIRLINES using those “Frog” airliners (Airbus)…they use P&W and GE engines too, as well as quite a few American-made assemblies. All that is very much trade-agreement negotiated. Should it have been? No, but then again, if it hadn’t been for the European governments collaborating on efforts to save their respective flagging aerospace industries, especially while under the “nuclear umbrella” of NATO, to supposedly fend off the USSR et al, at the expense of the American TAXPAYER. No good deed ever goes UNPUNISHED.
BTW, even behind the so-called “Iron Curtain”, the same sort of shit went on. Look up the “saga” of the DDR’s Baade 152. Ya gotta hand it to even the “Kommie Krauts”…compared to the rest of the Warsaw Pact, they had their shit together! Based on a design in the USSR developed by “their Germans”, the Baade (or Dresden) 152 was the civilian airliner version of that furtive bomber (equivalent to the Soviet-made Il-28 “Beagle”, the Douglas B-66, or the English Electric Canberra (also Martin B-57). This was to be strictly a short-haul “regional” airliner, which, given the DDR state airline, Interflug (Deutsche Lufthansa until it was agreed with the FRG that they’d not operate under that name) was limited by their Soviet overlords to domestic routes (the DDR is about the size of Illinois) and the few adjoined Communist states that’d allow them to operate to their respective capitals, was more than enough! Given that memories of the “Great Patriotic War” were still quite fresh, obviously, that “their Germans”, upon being allowed to go home to Germany, had the effrontery to build a competitive jet airliner, well, that was too much! That, and the Tupolev and Ilyushin design bureaus, which had most of the airliner, bomber, and cargo contracts for the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had their own designs for short-haul regional airliners (Tu-104 and Tu-134) ready to debut. BTW, it became common knowledge later among “Turd World” (Third World) military customers that if you wanted a Soviet design for a combat aircraft or a tank, the better ones were made in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and even the Romanian versions of AKs were typically better than what Tula Arms turned out! The Chinese Norinco versions were and still are crap, but you could at least get them, and for DIRT CHEAP.
>Rolls Royce jet engines are made in America as well.
I did not know that!
Thanks for the info. 🙂
Read it and weep.
Every RR jet engine is computer-tracked on every airplane equipped with RR jet engines.
Rolls Royce knows the flight path of every RR jet engine in the sky, no matter the airline.
RR knows how to fly, does not matter where.
Boeing buys RR jet engines.
What is Trump trying to accomplish with a month delay? It takes years and over $1 billion to set up a car production line. A lot of that is the tooling, which I guess could be moved, but the facilities, the supply chain?
If this is about getting Mexico to crack down on fentanyl, as he says, then it’s an awfully chaotic way to do it. It’s like telling Mexico that we’ll keep shooting ourselves in the foot until they comply.
But…but…we had a choice, so we are “free”, dontchaknow!
Vote for the Democrats= Destroy the auto industry via NHTSA, EPA and mandating EVs.
Vote Republican (Democrats who speak the language of “conservative”)= Destroy the auto industry via tariffs, while giving lip service to the ridiculousness of EVs, while not cutting the tax credits; and making the world’s foremost “carbon credit” rent-seeker your right-hand man.
Either way, we lose. As usual.
‘Every document with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency used the same autopen signature — except for his announcement that he was dropping out of the race last year.
‘Missouri AG Andrew Bailey asked the DOJ to investigate whether Biden’s cognitive decline allowed unelected officials to make decisions without his knowledge or approval.
‘If that’s the case, Biden’s executive orders, pardons, and other actions, may be unconstitutional and void.’
https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1897726502156091716
YEAH, RIGHT — just like the fraudulent ‘ratifications’ of the 14th and 16th amendments, now worshiped as holy writ by the hacks in black.
This wasn’t a hijacking of the process. It IS the process. :-0
Lie to me
I promise I’ll believe
Lie to me
But please don’t secede
— Sheryl Crow, Strong Enough
“Fuck you. We do what we want”
Jefferson Starship,
Out of control
“I’m a specialist in darkness darkness
And it’s dark and it’s cold and it’s not like they told me it was gonna be
And the only light is from the fire of the burning books”
You are here:
https://postimg.cc/PCYcVmGx
Two big things could end Trumpenstein’s Presidency:
1. Trade war, tariffs, and economic depression. (see the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930) The world is 451 trillion in debt, that debt has to be serviced continuously, without interrupt – you simply can not start a trade war when everyone is up to their eyeballs in debt and treading water with only their noses gasping for air.
2. Zionist WHORE Trumpenstein, bribed by Miriam Adelson ($100 million), is assisting Israel in the war crime of genocide. Genocide is the worst crime at the ICC, Trump is all in, and has made a terrorist threat to the people of Gaza. Trump said in a recent social media post:
“To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”
If you made that threat, you could be charged with making a terrorist threat, a crime in itself. Trump threatening to kill off all the native Palestinians defending their land from Jewish aggression makes Trump dangerous and mentally ill, since the claim to Palestine land is based on Bible mythology – the Bible is not literally true, Abraham never existed, etc. No god gave no Israelite any land via a covenant. That is a tribal story, not reality. Trump is going along with extremist religious insanity, thus making himself unfit for office.
BTW – Trump has it all wrong on legal grounds also. The Palestinians have been overrun by a warmongering genocidal Jewish extremists, Jews forcefully taking their land is real terrorism. Hamas, on the other hand, are the defenders, and under UN war rules, Hamas has the legal right of self defense and can take any action necessary to defend themselves, including taking Israeli hostages. Get that? Hamas has a legal right to take hostages, while Israel, the illegal invaders do not. Hamas is not legally committing terrorism but Israel is committing terrorism, yet the Jewish run media presents it 180 degrees opposite of what ICC law states.
Trump’s death threat made me laugh, because the USA helped Israel flatten Gaza and they still resist. 500,000 Gazans have died since Oct. 7th and the Palestinians still refuse to budge. Hamas has fresh recruits, and is now a larger force since Israel blew everything up – every hospital, government office, school, church, UN relief workers, etc.
IMO Trump is dangerously mentally ill over Israel and should be removed from office. We can not have any President committing genocide for a foreign state, that is treason. Trump is committing treason by being loyal to Israel – regardless how the god lobby feels about it.
Speaking of, there was great uproar and celebration about Orange Man signing an executive order abolishing the Department of Education…
Then it all vanished, as if it were erroneous reporting. Then, it is said that Congress established that Department anyway, so they would have to initiate it’s dissolution.
But has Congress yet done shit regarding anything recently? It’s all been the Orange signing dubious EOs.
I am left in awe at the disconnect displayed among my countrymen. Tariffs vs income tax, as if we had a say in either. Just another clever diversion to distract us from bigger problems. And, if we aren’t carful, we will be getting both, good and hard. Aeneas Tacticus would be proud of our narrative engineers tactics.
The wreckage that is coming from this countries crash will be talked about for ages. Why are we still pretending? The debt owed by the political class in Americas name is beyond most to imagine. It Is an absolute unplayable amount. The trillions owed represent math and mathematical certainty. Never to be repaid, never going to happen, so why TF are we making the ole college try at lowering the deficit? Even if we get to a balanced budget, the debt remains. Our kids and Grandkids will be brought to ruin over it, better to repudiate it now, when we still have a few choices versus tinkering around the edges as we whistle past the graveyard.
In another form of epic irony, as I sat reading Erics article, my pandora algorithm began playing a song from a lifetime ago. Probably the most under appreciated musical genus of the last fifty years, and a Canadian national treasure, Bruce Cockburn. It was as if Pandora was reading my mind. A vastly underrated song with a raggaesque vibe and some nice island drum tones to it. Makes me want to pack up my shit and head south.
Look away across the bay
Yankee gunboat come this way
Uncle Sam gonna save the day
Come tomorrow we all gonna pay.
Desert storm was yesterday
Gaza and the Ukroid grift today
How would they ever make the fake news pay
If they didn’t have the CIA
Here it comes the loaded gun
Trump thinks he’s got the commies on the run
They’d buy or bury everyone
For DEI, political correctness, and just plan fun
And its Burn baby burn.
I guess if Trump sees tariffs as quid pro quo (the reciprocal tariffs he talked about) then it’s a good negotiating tactic to get a level playing field.
Tariffs for the sake of tariffs is not a good thing and in fact the so called ‘civil war’ was a tariff war (see: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/02/thomas-dilorenzo/lincolns-tariff-war-march-2-1861/).
This idea is really popular: “to get a level playing field”.
I wonder why it’s always to the up side, i.e. add regulations etc, than towards the down side, so-to-speak, i.e. regulations & taxes need to lowered here, just like over there.
Is the best answer to things: “China just needs the same kind of Environmental Protection Agency as we have”?
China is successfully imposing ‘coal-powered EeeVees’ on its hapless citizens.
And I still wonder why.
Orange Man’s tariffs have done a fine job – of kicking the sh*t out of my 401k; how long will his billionaire buddies on Wall Street put up with that? This business of ruling by executive orders needs to stop, most of it is unconstitutional and will be clogging up the courts for months on end. I appreciate his ending the DEI/woke BS but as far as cutting expenditures yeah, the Doge boys have exposed some egregious corruption but that’s just the loose change in the couch cushions. Let’s see some serious cuts at the Pentagram, David Stockman has a good article up on how to do it, starting with junking the F-35 boondoggle.
In related news one of Elon’s Space-X (what’s with Eloon and the letter X anyway?) rockets blew up this morning causing the FAA to halt air traffic over south Florida lest your flight get hit by flaming debris. Taxpayers are probably on the hook for all that since Elon grifts all his money from Fedgov.
Gosh, Comrad, it’s like you & your 201, ‘er 401K don’t want to share the pain. We’re all in this together, don’t ya know?
“The whole point of globalism is to punish nations for acting independently; US effort to become more self reliant will not happen without some pain.”
Grin. And, bare it. Happy Days will be here soon. They promise.
‘Orange Man’s tariffs have done a fine job – of kicking the sh*t out of my 401k.’ — Mike in Boston
This morning the S&P 500 slid to 5,700 — lower than it was on the eve of Trumpy Bear’s [sic] election. Stock chart [viewer discretion advised]:
https://tinyurl.com/ye246xed
As they say in businesses that actually need platoons of scientists, ‘real estate ain’t rocket science.’ 🙁
Hey Eric: Regarding your Murano review with the variable geometry crankshaft, I would say it is a big red flag. I think, for long term durability goes, turbos etc., are all external engine parts. This is in contrast to tricks like the collapsible lifters in GM’s Active Fuel Management, which are internal to the OHV engine. I have a 20 F150 ecoboost, and specifically bought it over the Silverado and Ram b/c both of those have the cylinder deactivation implemented with internal engine parts.
The crankshaft, of course, is an internal engine part, so if it were to fail, big dollars for sure, like you say.
Almost every other country tariffs American-made products to the nth, degree. Not only physical tariffs, but “value-added taxes” do much to make American products much more expensive in foreign markets.
Canada tariffs our dairy products at over 200%–yes, 200%.
In addition, Americans attempting to perform labor in Canada are looked upon with great suspicion. Have more than the normal tools in your vehicle when crossing the border into Canada is looked upon with great suspicion by Canadian customs officials. In many cases, you will be denied entry into Canada. The same lopsided situation exists with labor. Canadians routinely procure jobs in the USA while Americans who wish to legally work in Canada are routinely denied.
The U S government ran on tariffs until 1913, when the income tax was (illegally) imposed.
The only way for tariffs to work is on a tit-tor-tat basis. Any country that tariffs American products should have a like tariff imposed on their products coming to the USA.
Trump has the right idea on tariffs.
So, The only way for – taxes – to work is on a tit-tor-tat basis?
More & higher taxes fixes everything?
Do you like paying more for things?
Why wouldn’t you say, “lower the regulatory compliance costs placed by .gov upon the American producers so they can compete”?
Are American not able to compete?
Comparative advantage means something VERY different with no tariffs, that it does in the presence of tariffs…
Depending on how you decide to jack up the system the apparent comparative advantage might be completely opposite of the real one…hence protective tariffs etc.
Making tariffs exactly reciprocal is the best way, short of eliminating all tariffs, to make apparent competitive advantages match reality.
Trump may well be wrong on this issue but he is by no means stupid…he is approaching the problem in a different way from the usual.
Also, RE: “The U S government ran on tariffs”
Are the current tariffs being imposed in order to fund .gov or, are they being used to control the economies & businesses of countries in a Socialistic fashion?
When they remove or lower the current tariffs, is that helping to fund .gov or, is that not really the reasoning, just a carrot on a stick to entice people to support club wielding
Anarchyst: “value-added taxes” do much to make American products much more expensive in foreign markets.
I’m no taxation expert but it’s my understanding that VAT is charged on all goods no matter the country of origin. If all goods are taxed VAT it would not be discrimination against a specific country. Duty’s of course are different though.
Also thought these two comments in response to the Alt-Market.us article is instructive on how the Conservative mindset sees things:
“In lieu of this article I started to think about how libertarians claim to despise globalism and economic interdependency yet also despise the very means we can realistically break free of these things; tariffs, “protectionism”.”
The authors response:
“My next article covers that issue in detail. Libertarianism (like Anarchism) is wonderful in theory but simply doesn’t work in practice because evil people exist and libertarians have no solution.”
Blinders, tight. Onward, through the fog.
Seems like Conservatives wear blinders when it comes to .gov regulations preventing domestic production.
For example, at Alt-Market.us : ‘As Globalism Breaks, Nations Must Produce Their Own Survival Necessities’
“The international trade network is designed like an intricate Jenga tower […] No single nation is allowed to rely on its own resources and production […]
Donald Trump is engaging in wider tariffs, which could bring the US economy back from the brink of debt disaster, but only if he is able to somehow accelerate domestic production at the same time.”
What is this, “somehow” which will accelerate domestic production? And, what exactly prevents nations from relying on their natural resources & domestic production? It must be really powerful.
Is all that’s needed is, “a great rush by nation states to juice their domestic production. You get a rush to localism.”
So, juice + localism = increased domestic production.
A juice? Like, Brawndow?
“The problem is that we don’t utilize [national resources] at least not in an efficient way. The concern, of course, is environmental decay if America ever tapped into these resources on a large scale.”
So, increased efficiency = increased domestic production? It has nothing to do with .gov regs, in fact, that’s only a speed bump in the Conservative mind & one you’ll grin & bare:
“…The technology to prevent pollution is well in hand, though it’s true that prices rise the more companies have to spend on preventing contamination.
It’s also true that most Americans regardless of politics don’t want to live in a country that’s production wealthy if that means it is also health poor. In other words, when America does shift into a domestic production model, it will have to do so with much greater expense than developing nations like China that don’t care about their own environment.”
Is the cart being put in front of the horse, there? A snap of the fingers, “when America does shift into a domestic production model”. And, it’s a necessary -greater- expense, you see?
The .gov regs aren’t the problem, America just needs more juice, like more wealth redistribution, i.e. “…Governments could incentivize small farms to sell their goods direct to the public (at a lower price) by giving tax credits for any farms with a store on their land.”
The Conservative mindset sees it as a money problem, not a .gov reg problem. And, there needs to be moar, “concept of fair play in the markets” as if more taxes & regulation is the solution for too many taxes & regulation. Makes perfect sense.
It’s quite like the, ‘Animal Spirits’ the Keynesians see in economics, things just need adjustment:
“On the individual level, this means people need to have a solid supply of necessities including stored foods just to give themselves time for domestic production to adjust. While this is happening, expect shortages and high prices on a number of goods. The whole point of globalism is to punish nations for acting independently; US effort to become more self reliant will not happen without some pain.” …
https://alt-market.us/as-globalism-breaks-nations-must-produce-their-own-survival-necessities/
So, while the Conservative advise to, “Position yourself as a producer if you can, or a person that can repair existing goods” is all great & well, the real barriers to doing so remain invisible to the Conservative mindset & will for as long as it takes.
Wundeful, income taxes + tariffs = fun juice. Long time, fun juice.
“Trump’s capricious rule by decree is a carbon copy of the Venezuelan caudillo Nicolas Maduro, in his clownish blue, red and yellow track suit made of some cheap and nasty synthetic fiber.” Jim H
Absolutely correct
I read the comments and simply cannot believe how little people understand about human action and economics.
Literally cheering on despotism, and their own enslavement. Americans despise freedom annd love tyrannical executive diktats. After 2020 I shouldn’t be surprised. Five years later and people have learned absolutely nothing!
“But it won’t. All it will do is make things more expensive for Americans – again – unless the factor that’s made manufacturing vehicles in this country so expensive is dealt with”
As I see it the most expense in producing a car is labor. That’s why the USA moved production to overseas countries like China, Mexico etc. Chinese labor rate is about 10 percent what the USA’s rate is. That’s just a guess as I don’t really know the exact rate. But do we as citizens of the USA reap those low labor rate savings? Not in all cases. Take for instance the Lincoln Nautilus which I understand is produced in China and shipped here. If produced in China then the MSRP should be about $40,000 instead it is listed at $50,000. So the cost savings hasn’t been passed to us consumers but instead Ford/Lincoln gets to keep the windfall savings.
The USA cannot compete with countries where labor is so much less expensive than here. People here will not work for $5 an hour. Here in America is you’re making less than $30 an hour you will find the going rough.
Manufacturing coming back to the USA? That’s be a tough one to enact.
RE: “People here will not work for $5 an hour.”
Why is that? And, why do people in other countries work for so much less?
Are the people over there, working for less, just dumb?
Or, is it because the cost of living is so much higher here, than over there?
Why is the cost of living so much higher here, than over there?
Is the answer to that, bigger than the question?
“Or, is it because the cost of living is so much higher here, than over there?”
Of course the cost of living is way higher here and in most 1st tier countries. Why? I don’t know. We could debate that topic until the cows come home and even then we won’t reach a resolution to that question.
I suppose so.
There’s just a whole lotta people looking at wage rates being the problem when it’s really from other factors.
The more that people know why the cost of living is so high, maybe, the better?
Or, not? I’ve heard that The Blue Pill is blissful.
Americans used to work for $2 per day… but… that $2 was enough to survive on,,, same as that $40 per day ($5 per hour) today. The government has destroyed the value of the currency since the Federal Reserve was given the money franchise.
The numerical amount used today has little to do with the value. This is why deficits DO MATTER and governments love deficits. The deficit adds to the amount of currency circulating which lowers the value of the currency. And no,,, SS has nothing to do with it. Corpgov is paying back stolen money with heavily devalued stolen money. To complain is insult to injury to folks that paid the tax 40 – 50 years especially when others are receiving gov money never once paying a dime in their lives.
A great reset is coming but not in the way as most people think. Back in ’75 when I was in Italy, an 20,000 Italian Lira was worth about one 20 dollar bill. When our currency becomes devalued to the point 20,000 dollars has the purchasing value of that 20 dollar bill then we simply remove three zeros from everything. that 20,000 bill be now $20. Everything will be de-valued. The $500,000,000 house will now be $500,000.
We could do this right now. That $20 bill would now be $2. Case closed.
Trump will have to ask Bibi if it’s okay to add a tariff to collect more money so Israel can defeat the subhuman Palestinians.
Income taxes are not going to go away, dotgov would be crazy to eliminate income taxes.
Bibi won’t stand for that.
Any American elected official has to ask Israel for permission before any action can be implemented.
The Jews hold all of the cards, not that hard to see.
I think his head is in the right place replacing income taxes with tarrifs. The world has changed a lot in 120 years though and we need to dramatically change the country to pull it off.
Tariffs wouldn’t be so bad if income taxes were lowered or removed entirely. The problem is that income taxes are just a form of revenue generation to fund wealth redistribution.
In other words you busted your ass so the welfare mom with five feral “kids” can live a better life.
If as Shakespeare wrote more or less that “A borrower is a slave to the lender” what does that make the consuming customer in relation to the outside country manufacturer? When the plaque started face diapers were in short supply, livable but what happens if everything from 1/4″ nuts to electric blenders are unavailable due to those items being produced in a country we are at war with and worse yet our industry’s can’t even produce the weapons we need.
Over fifty years of GovCo policy has turned us from an “Arsenal Of Democracy” to Only Fans content creators. I hope we are able to turn things around before it’s too late.
Hi Landru,
My belief – that is the goal…to lessen federal income taxes and to decapiate the IRS. I am not against it and this is from a woman that makes her living by it. I can only guessimate that he gets the economy about two feet away from the edge which forces the Fed to lower interest rates, but not push it far enough to force quantitative easing.
The economy has not been good for about 5.5 years. People are not opening up businesses, costs from food to housing has been insanely high, wages have not kept pace with inflation, and hiring as been stagnant. People will declare “Oh, the Stock Market has been good.” Sure, for the same ten companies. I see people’s earnings reports. Once you factor in the advisory fees the gains are pretty stationary. I would say the only exception of this are those that own stocks with a high dividend yield. They are the ones that I am seeing that are actually making money.
Globalism is not working. We can shout all day about “free trade”, but when other countries are keeping US made products from entering their ports you can see we are holding the losing hand. Trump is pushing the tariffs with two acceptable outcomes 1) that other countries will decrease their tariffs and VATs when dealing with the US or 2) the tariffs will push foreign products to be higher hoping that more Americans will choose to keep their money in the country. Earlier, Europeasant pointed out that the cost savings of cheaper labor worldwide is not benefitting us. I agree with him. Is the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over? That is not working. I am not against trying something new. The risk is big and could very easily backfire, but the status quo has to change. The pain for the ST will be brutal though.
Nice hopium RG. We’ll likely end up paying Tariffs AND Income taxes. There’s never been a tax governments didn’t like…. especially hidden taxes.
Think like a billionaire, ken.
Billionaires income is currently taxed at rates which could be anywhere from 23.8 (NIIT on LT capital gains) upwards to 37%. Tariffs are flow thorough taxes paid by the end user. If I am a billionaire which one do I want? Tariffs, of course. Why subject my own income to federal taxation?
Right now we have an entire Administration of business owning millionaires, not career politicians. The goal is to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. They aren’t doing it for you or me. Did you notice how many rich people have not spoken about Trump introducing tariffs? Did you wonder why? How many are contacting the MSM concerned about his ousting of federal tax agents?
For the first time ever the government is being run like a business. The Elephants who have been advocating for this for decades are going to realize it isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Businesses focus is profit, proficiency, and productivity. To achieve that nasty decisions have to be made – layoffs, drastic spending cuts, increase of revenue, etc. Will the federal government run more effectively? Yes. Will the majority of Americans like the consequences of it? No.
I’m not sure how Americans are supposed to pay for all these ever increasing taxes fees and tariffs?
This is the year of the Subhumanoid meltdowns..
https://youtu.be/wpPm1bs5tlQ?si=AW7Qdf8Vgr8pqwmc
With his tariff threats against American companies like Deere, Trump is continuing a trend set in motion during Biden’s term of repatriating industry to America. Is it because both of them love capitalism and want to see America “great” again? Or is it not because communism, which isn’t self-sustaining, requires a heavy capital base to parasitize? Note that Stalin and Mao were both huge proponents of heavy industry, as the psychopathic mind that runs communism thrives on competition (in this case among nations) and on “winning.”
Stalin was indeed a proponent of “heavy” industry…as long as they produced TANKS. The strategy of the Five-Year Plans, starting in 1928, and based on cyclical Russian weather patterns, was to put the USSR economy on a war footing. The rich JOOs that had post-“Great War” Europe, and especially Weimar Germany, in thrall, realized that they’d royally fucked up when the “other JOOs” that were most of the Communists (some say that Stalin secretly was a Jew, also, but he had been in an Christian Orthodox seminary as a “yute”) actually believed that “workers of the world, Unite!” bullshit. Hence the meteoric rise of the Nazi Party, not simply due to how hard-hit Germany was after things like the 1930 USA Smoot-Hawley Act killed off the exports upon which it’d so heavily depended, but ultimately as a bulwark against Stalin. The major problem with “Der Fuhrer”, of course, was that he “slipped the leash”, so to speak, and made nice with Stalin in August 1939, so they could divvy up Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, postponing the day of the inevitable conflict. Even then, the Poles and the Allies foolishly believed that it was all a bluff, which shortly would be shown to be not mere bluster. Hitler was put up to all that so he’d be the “Icebreaker” that’d reignite the war that’d been called off (too late) that was supposed to lead to a worldwide Communist revolution.
Eric, wondering, what is your view – will he ever actually reduce or better yet get rid of income tax ? As that is the dream he is selling…. Anyone believe him ?
Hi Nasir,
I suppose we’re going to find out. I would rather see him declare unrealized capital gains taxes to be illegal and thereby make home ownership possible.
100%
Unrealized capital gains don’t even exist. If you haven’t “realized” them, they aren’t gains.
That would be a real dream come true !
Nassir,,, Best I figure is they will lower them a ‘little’ then slowly raise them,,, after all,,, these are parasites. In fact they give most real parasites a bad name.
Yes – thats what most are telling me 🙁
‘President Trump has declared a momentary pause [on] massive taxes (styled “tariffs”) he wants imposed on vehicles manufactured outside the U.S.’ — eric
New York Slimes headline this morning:
Tariffs by Whim Keep Allies Off Balance, but Do the Same to Markets
‘Tariffs by [executive] whim’ — when Article I, Section 8 of the former ‘constitution’ states unequivocally: ‘The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.’
Trump’s capricious rule by decree is a carbon copy of the Venezuelan caudillo Nicolas Maduro, in his clownish blue, red and yellow track suit made of some cheap and nasty synthetic fiber.
Articles are now appearing, speculating that Trump actually wants to provoke a recession early in his term (which in fact was a regular pattern in the mid to late 20th century), so that opinion polls can recover by 2028 to facilitate a presidential run by J D Vance — or even the Orange Oligarch himself, should he issue an imperial ukase suspending Amendment XXII.
The US clowngov is self-destructing before our very eyes, as the McKinley wing of the Republiclown party goes medieval.
He only has the moves of a knight
But he wants the absolute freedom of a queen
Too bad the only money he’s got is all coming in colored American green
You know it’s worthless paper you can spend or ‘save’
— Jefferson Starship, Devils Den
Good write Jim. I am a little tired of one person getting kudo’s for pushing out decrees and another getting all-shits doing the same when both are literal assholes and could give two shits about the nation. Both lying their asses off while doing everything they can to please one little POS nation in NA/ME regardless of how much it hurts America. Roads full of potholes,,, ‘S’ curve rail tracks, Airplane parts falling apart in the sky,,, all because America is aiming for the lowest while they laugh their asses off because we are so stupid. Example:
Ft Bragg gets its original name back. I thought so too. But…. what they did was rename in honor of someone with the same last surname. In Ft Braggs case it was named after a PFC Roland Bragg. Not after General Braxton Bragg of the CSA. This is insulting but Americans apparently love to be insulted. Does anyone honestly believe this was coincidental? I don’t mind a PFC being honored but I do mind if its done to trick me.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293246/hegseth-fort-bragg-liberty-name
Did you know that towards the end the Biden Admin returned more illegals then the Trump Admin?
Approx 57,000 vs 35,000 And it appears they stopped using military aircraft which is less costly and gives pilots the proficiency time they need.
Maybe many don’t mind these insults to our intelligence but I do. I am so tired of people making a deity out of Trump while he is making fools out of us. Please stop!
Heard about the Fort Bragg subterfuge, ken.
Just be thankful that ‘Biden’ didn’t rename it for Alvin Bragg, the lawfare district attorney of Manhattan, on his way out the door.
Biden was going to rename the U.S. Military Academy as Netanyahu University. But he decided to let Trump render that honor to America’s decider.
Hey Jim: God I hate these bastards making fools of us. If they were serious MAGA they wouldn’t be tricking us.
Incidently,,, Netanyahu’s name is really Benny Milekowski. A polish Ashkenazi furniture salesman whose last known whereabouts were in Philadelphia USA before his latest scam as El Presidente of Judea.