Trump's tariff wars...long post.

[SteveXFR]

7 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

 

Very true. It's odd how the 'free market' can apply to everything but people's labour. 

 

Exactly. Skills shortages should result in higher wages to attract those skills but instead, employers seem to just make do with under qualified or inexperienced workers and then moan that they're not up to the job. Skills shortages should also mean an increase in training but that's also not happening. 

[SteveXFR]

5 hours ago, prowla said:

Presumably then there have been a lot of lefty lunatics previously buying or intending to buy Teslas.

 

Where's the good upstanding right wing patriots? Why aren't they all buying Teslas? 

It's mostly lefties who buy EVs while right wingers buy big V8's. Musk should have known that attacking the left was an attack on his customers and would hurt his business but apparently he's a genius.

[Leonard Smalls]

4 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

lefties who buy EVs

I'm glad our Swasticar was on a lease that finished in December!

[TimR]

8 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I'm glad our Swasticar was on a lease that finished in December!

 

I wouldn't be surprised if MAGA flock to buy them now Trump has announced he's going to buy one. 

 

I have no idea what to believe and what not to believe anymore. 

[Russ]

22 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Where's the good upstanding right wing patriots? Why aren't they all buying Teslas? 

It's mostly lefties who buy EVs while right wingers buy big V8's. Musk should have known that attacking the left was an attack on his customers and would hurt his business but apparently he's a genius.

He's hoping they'll buy Cybertrucks. Demand for them has softened significantly in the US, and they can't be exported as they don't meet other countries' safety standards. 

 

But they won't. They'll keep buying Fords, Chevys and Rams. 

[Leonard Smalls]

11 minutes ago, TimR said:

I wouldn't be surprised if MAGA flock to buy them

I left an opened pack of prawns inside the aircon vent...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't really but it might have been a spot amusant in findsight!

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, prowla said:

Further news on Trump's special operation trade wars, he is announcing the tariff on Canadian steel & aluminium will be increased to 50%:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cly412xwz44t

 

At this rate China will run out of popcorn very soon

[Woodinblack]

34 minutes ago, TimR said:

I wouldn't be surprised if MAGA flock to buy them now Trump has announced he's going to buy one. 

 

Will they notice the obvious that trump never drives

[tegs07]

Fairly sure tomorrow is the release date for February CPI figures in the USA. Could be interesting. Way too soon to see any real impact from tariffs but if it’s remaining sticky or even rising it will have a big impact on sentiment.

 

Edit: This is the real area of interest for me. I am expecting the usual hatchet job on Powell and if rates are lowered and fiscal policy relaxed when inflation is rising it could get very interesting.

Edited 23 hours ago by tegs07

[tegs07]

Leavitt argued the US would become a "manufacturing superpower"

 

Right so that’s the master plan? 

Good luck with that. Maybe you can force Americans to pay more for things but unless you pay less than China and have the same level of health and safety I doubt you can export to the same levels.

 

So Americans to earn less and pay more sounds like a winner.

[edstraker123]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Why aren't they all buying Teslas?

Is it because they've realised they have  the style of a 90's Vauxhall ?

[SteveXFR]

2 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

Is it because they've realised they have  the style of a 90's Vauxhall ?

 

They're not as stylish as even a Nova but they do have similar paint quality. 

[Si600]

Again, another thing to be impressed by Musk, he's managed to persuade people to buy BL quality cars at BMW prices.

[chris_b]

The guy over the road has a Tesla. They've had all kinds of problems with it.

 

Next door has a Skoda EV, and have no issues at all.

[prowla]

So, the EU has entered the Tariff Wars.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx2gprz84rlt

 

[Leonard Smalls]

8 hours ago, chris_b said:

The guy over the road has a Tesla. They've had all kinds of problems with it.

To be fair, we had no problems at all in three years with ours...

It was comfortable and easy to drive and went like a rocket. I even got used to the daft screen!

The main annoyance, apart from default driving "aids" like auto braking if you get within ten feet of anything, was the boot. Because it had one and not a hatchback you could only put thin things into it so I couldn't squeeze my 4x10 cab in, even though it fitted fine into my Super Mario Kart!

[tegs07]

The one thing I will say about the Team Trumps master plan is that after Covid the weakness of the current supply chain was exposed.

The dependence on single countries for the supply of key commodities was exposed (Germany and Russia) with geopolitical instability. The weakness of having too much of national wealth tied up in other nations assets and currency was exposed (Russia). Long term there is logic behind the madness. Can the pivot be achieved in the chaotic and aggressive manner that it’s being implemented and do the hard pressed US consumers have the stomach to bear the risk?

[prowla]

Trump's steel and aluminium 25% tariffs impacts approx £350m of UK trade.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-trade-war-expands-globally-as-25-tariffs-take-effect-13326268

I think the new special operation is at odds with the special relationship.

[SumOne]

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

The one thing I will say about the Team Trumps master plan is that after Covid the weakness of the current supply chain was exposed.

The dependence on single countries for the supply of key commodities was exposed (Germany and Russia) with geopolitical instability. The weakness of having too much of national wealth tied up in other nations assets and currency was exposed (Russia). Long term there is logic behind the madness. Can the pivot be achieved in the chaotic and aggressive manner that it’s being implemented and do the hard pressed US consumers have the stomach to bear the risk?

 

The counter-argument has been that global supply chains and specialisation brings down costs and it benefits everyone (I could try and grow wheat in my garden, mill it to make flour and then bake my own bread - but it's a lot less efficient than one person on the street having a big oven, one with a wheat field, one mill etc). And also if you rely on that chain then you are much less likely to have a fight with your neighbour as you are inter-dependent. But yeah, the times they are a-changin'.

[tegs07]

31 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

The counter-argument has been that global supply chains and specialisation brings down costs and it benefits everyone (I could try and grow wheat in my garden, mill it to make flour and then bake my own bread - but it's a lot less efficient than one person on the street having a big oven, one with a wheat field, one mill etc). And also if you rely on that chain then you are much less likely to have a fight with your neighbour as you are inter-dependent. But yeah, the times they are a-changin'.

Indeed. People also have short memories. Even when I was growing up there was a limited choice in the shops and products were expensive. People didn’t eat peppers and avocados in winter and purchase of clothes was during the January sales and they were patched up and handed down. Pubs had the choice of a couple of lagers and a couple of ales and restaurants were a little limited.

And I am not even that old!

Edited 8 hours ago by tegs07

[TimR]

It's a balance. The problem during Covid was reliance in Just-in-time.

 

No one had a months supply of anything. 

 

What's amusing me at the moment is DOGE are finding loads of empty buildings that the government has been renting, and are shutting them down as wasteful. These buildings are actually being kept as emergency shelters. 

 

I seem to remember a British Governemt clearing out warehouses of stockpiled PPE that we would never need...

 

Memories are very short it seems, although with Musk there seems to be a complete overreliance of - we can fix it later if it is a problem. The same attitude he has with SpaceX - send it up and see what happens, fix the bits that break. Very expensive and wasteful of time.

Edited 8 hours ago by TimR

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, TimR said:

The same attitude he has with SpaceX - send it up and see what happens, fix the bits that break. Very expensive and wasteful of time.

I read an interesting article comparing the modular approach of SpaceX to the traditional big picture approach of Boeing and it was overwhelmingly in favour of SpaceX in terms of efficiency and progress.

[JoeEvans]

I think that Trump can only conceive of business transactions as having winners and losers. He's drawn to tariffs because they make he feel like a winner, doing damage to his opponents and forcing them to submit to his will.

But in reality business transactions don't work like that. Every purchase leaves both parties better off - the buyer valued the goods more highly than the money, and the seller valued the money more highly than the goods.

Business transactions are therefore collaborative and mutually beneficial, and when you restrict the options for such collaborations, both sides are left worse off. Tariffs damage both countries involved. But Trump can't see that because he has no conception of collaboration, cooperation and mutual respect. 

[tegs07]

3 minutes ago, JoeEvans said:

I think that Trump can only conceive of business transactions as having winners and losers. He's drawn to tariffs because they make he feel like a winner, doing damage to his opponents and forcing them to submit to his will.

But in reality business transactions don't work like that. Every purchase leaves both parties better off - the buyer valued the goods more highly than the money, and the seller valued the money more highly than the goods.

Business transactions are therefore collaborative and mutually beneficial, and when you restrict the options for such collaborations, both sides are left worse off. Tariffs damage both countries involved. But Trump can't see that because he has no conception of collaboration, cooperation and mutual respect. 

I think this lack of respect and understanding towards strategic partnership is particularly concerning bearing in mind the geopolitical situation. I had a thread a while back that was attempting to make sense of the vulnerable economic situation that western economies were facing and the rise and alliances being forged by countries like Iran, China, North Korea and Russia. Interesting to see joint military drills being conducted by Iran, Russia and China a couple of days ago.

 

I wonder how team Trumps vision of geopolitics squares up with the goals of other nations? As long standing alliances are weakened (including talks of annexing Canada and Greenland) is the USA losing its grip on its global position based upon wishful thinking and hyperbole?

[Geddys nose]

Someone called Trump “The Tariff of Nottingham “ 😆