Trump's tariff wars...long post.

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, prowla said:

Well, up until recent weeks I'd viewed him as an entrepreneur and innovator.

The facade appears to have slipped and now he comes across more as a wrecker and supremacist.

my mind was made up the moment he called the thai cave rescue guy a paedo.

 

[prowla]

Ah - the irony...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c201z4lv5xxo

Elon Musk's electric carmaker Tesla has warned it and other US exporters could be harmed by countries retaliating to Donald Trump's trade tariffs.

[Agent 00Soul]

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

Nothing has happened. He’s always been like this. There are 2 interpretations to his desire to create enhanced humans and explore space.

One is that he is a maverick genius pushing the boundaries of technology and science. The other is that he basically despises ordinary people and wants a home for the elites once earth is robbed of all its resources.

 

Chose as you see fit.

Both those could be correct and also just the natural pull of successful CEOs to authoritarianism since the late-19th century (too many examples to list but Bernie Ecclestone immediately springs to mind).  I was referring specifically to his Third Reich references. That’s very specific. 
 

He’s not even American, he’s South African. It’s like he’s one of those immigrants that wants to over compensate by taking loyalty to his new country to crazy extremes. 

[tegs07]

34 minutes ago, Agent 00Soul said:

He’s not even American, he’s South African. It’s like he’s one of those immigrants that wants to over compensate by taking loyalty to his new country to crazy extremes.

Indeed I believe his father had some slightly shady emerald mining operation during the apartheid era. he sounds like a charmer.

I am not convinced I buy the loyalty card. It seems to me that lobbying is little passé when you can just get the keys to the kingdom.

[TimR]

Some people read Science Fiction dystopian stories with evil geniuses taking over the world as warnings.

 

Other see them as something to aspire to. 

[Count Bassy]

13 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Just as jet airliners are made with pennies worth of aluminium, a sheet of Italian plywood is small part of the cost of a Mesa cab.

I think you would find that an airliner will contain somewhat more than pennies worth of aluminium and its alloys.

 

EDIT: From the net:

 

"A boeing 747-400 type airplane with 6 million parts, 71 meters long, 64 meters wingspan and 270 kilometers of cable, weighs approximately 185,000 kilograms, of which approximately 75,000 kilograms is aluminum."

 

I.e 75 tonnes of aluminium at $2500 per tonne, so around $187,500 worth in a 747-400.  Hardly Pennies!

 

Edited March 14 by Count Bassy

[JoeEvans]

21 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

I think you would find that an airliner will contain somewhat more than pennies worth of aluminium and its alloys.

 

EDIT: From the net:

 

"A boeing 747-400 type airplane with 6 million parts, 71 meters long, 64 meters wingspan and 270 kilometers of cable, weighs approximately 185,000 kilograms, of which approximately 75,000 kilograms is aluminum."

 

I.e 75 tonnes of aluminium at $2500 per tonne, so around $187,500 worth in a 747-400.  Hardly Pennies!

 

Although a brief Google suggests that they whole plane would have been $156m when new so the aluminium would be 0.12% of the total cost; I suspect that the plywood cost makes up a very much larger proportion of the price of a cab than that.

[borntohang]

On 13/03/2025 at 13:10, Russ said:

There's very little training available for those sorts of trades in the UK these days, and precious few apprenticeships. Which is a shame - apparently there's been a surge of interest in the more traditional trades these past few years, supposedly driven by the success of The Repair Shop!

 

Personally, I think it's very important to keep these trades and crafts alive - there's a lot of work there for people who have a genuine interest in them. 

I know a bunch of younger folk into traditional practical skills - off the top of my head I can think of friends into crochet, tailoring, knife crafting/metalwork, lathing, baking, brewing and luthiery. The problem is none of those are likely to turn into self-sufficient jobs without significant investment of time alongside another day job, and very few of them have spare time to do anything BUT a day job.

 

Spending ten years to become a qualified craftsman is only possible when somebody is willing to invest in training you for those ten years, and that's only possible if they think they'll make money back from that investment over the length of your employment, which of course doesn't happen because one-company careers don't really exist any more. I think there are lots of people out there willing to learn practical skills if it lead to them having a job for the next fifty years.

[SteveXFR]

50 minutes ago, Count Bassy said:

I think you would find that an airliner will contain somewhat more than pennies worth of aluminium and its alloys.

 

EDIT: From the net:

 

"A boeing 747-400 type airplane with 6 million parts, 71 meters long, 64 meters wingspan and 270 kilometers of cable, weighs approximately 185,000 kilograms, of which approximately 75,000 kilograms is aluminum."

 

I.e 75 tonnes of aluminium at $2500 per tonne, so around $187,500 worth in a 747-400.  Hardly Pennies!

 

 

 

$187,500 in a $380,000,000 jet is a very small percentage 

[Obrienp]

22 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

 

$187,500 in a $380,000,000 jet is a very small percentage 

Yep but that is only looking at raw material costs of course. There are probably countless subcontractors adding value to that raw material before it ends up in the plane. By the nature of supply chains, it may cross borders several times during that process and each time get clobbered by any new tariffs. 

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, TimR said:

Some people read Science Fiction dystopian stories with evil geniuses taking over the world as warnings.

 

Other see them as something to aspire to. 

Musk The Merciless?

[Count Bassy]

1 hour ago, JoeEvans said:

Although a brief Google suggests that they whole plane would have been $156m when new so the aluminium would be 0.12% of the total cost; I suspect that the plywood cost makes up a very much larger proportion of the price of a cab than that.

Totally agree, but it is still unnecessarily misleading to call it "Pennies" (an absolute measure) rather than 0.1%.

Edited March 14 by Count Bassy

[kodiakblair]

On 13/03/2025 at 13:10, Russ said:

and precious few apprenticeships.

 

I hear this a lot and while it's true with respect to changes in manufacturing, no iron foundries or shipyards, few brick works etc, apprenticeships still happen.

 

Coming out of lockdown I started with a joinery firm, fair sized job in Edinburgh. They had 14 young lads in their 1st/2nd year and 32 tradesmen. Sparks were a Glasgow outfit so just sent a couple of squads through, no more than 8 tradesmen but 2 young apprentices and 2 fellas on the adult apprentice scheme. Their trainee engineer was a young lass 👍 Painters had 4 apprentices, lead workers only carried 2. The plumber onsite took a slightly different route, they would start labourers then take the keen laddies on as adult apprentices. Stone masons had a couple of apprentices too.   

 

Still plenty of jobs for commis chefs, junior hair dressers. Some jobs are mostly redundant, place along the road from me hires porta-cabin offices/canteens. They don't employ any welders, no need when they can stick a boy a short course.

[tauzero]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

$187,500 in a $380,000,000 jet is a very small percentage 

 

Still sufficient to give the beancounters conniptions if it goes up by 25%.

[Downunderwonder]

2 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Totally agree, but it is still unnecessarily misleading to call it "Pennies" (an absolute measure) rather than 0.1%.

Tough crowd. Pay pennies, short for "pennies on the pound", for raw materials, manufacture something, sell for heaps and heaps of dosh.

 

Comalco ships bauxite ore from Australia to NZ. Our cheap power turns it into some very high quality aluminum. It goes all over the world

 

I did not know the US was short of it. They should be so lucky they get some out of Australia via NZ. I am getting a bit sick of night after night of Trump whining about the Rest of The World abusing the US. Dipshit is the word that comes to mind.

[Staggering on]

7 hours ago, Agent 00Soul said:

Both those could be correct and also just the natural pull of successful CEOs to authoritarianism since the late-19th century (too many examples to list but Bernie Ecclestone immediately springs to mind).  I was referring specifically to his Third Reich references. That’s very specific. 
 

He’s not even American, he’s South African. It’s like he’s one of those immigrants that wants to over compensate by taking loyalty to his new country to crazy extremes. 

 

Musk has dual citizenship with both South African and Canadian passports due to the fact that his mother is Canadian. He lived in Canada for several years before heading to the USA. Of course given the recent tariff war we in Canada are well aware of the irony of his Canadian nationality.🙄

[prowla]

17 minutes ago, Staggering on said:

 

Musk has dual citizenship with both South African and Canadian passports due to the fact that his mother is Canadian. He lived in Canada for several years before heading to the USA. Of course given the recent tariff war we in Canada are well aware of the irony of his Canadian nationality.🙄

Maybe annexing Canada is his route to getting a US passport. 🙂

[Staggering on]

1 hour ago, prowla said:

Maybe annexing Canada is his route to getting a US passport. 🙂

 

I hope not.

There is some speculation that he moved to Canada and even attended university here as a stepping stone to the USA. He transferred from a Canadian university to an American one after his second year. He had an interesting childhood and was happy to leave South Africa and that may have been to avoid military service and get closer to America, his Canadian passport allowed him to do that.

Back on topic...

Of course some of the tariffs will affect his businesses but I guess he has so much money he isn't worried and he has political power to go along with his economic power, best of both worlds. 

[TimR]

7 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

 

$187,500 in a $380,000,000 jet is a very small percentage 

 

This is just raw material price.

 

If you're making the steering widget that goes into every plane. The cost of your Widget has just gone up 25%. And if you're exporting that widget to be used in other planes round the world, China will undercut you outside of the US. 

 

So maybe pennies in raw materials but there's potentially a big knock on effect on these specialist companies for world exports. Probably not the effect Trump is expecting. 

Edited March 15 by TimR

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, TimR said:

The cost of your Widget has just gone up 25%

That is the level of Trump maths!

 

The cost of the main material in your Widget going up 25% has no effect on the factory and workers and overheads that make up the rest of the inputs of Widget production.

 

If you are making a simple cast doofer you could be looking for an export credit on the Aluminium content.

 

Does the US even make its own beer can stock these days?

 

Crown Packaging has boutique raw can making plants in 23 countries. I guess they will simply be making US craft beer cans from Aluminium that costs 25% more than it should, either way starting from ingots or feedstock.  

[Buddster]

His speach yesterday to the DoJ was the incoherent ramblings of a deranged, bitter man which boarded on fascism. 

Naming left leaning news networks and lawyers who speak against him as illegal, in front of the DoJ (basically saying you need to investigate them), and then advocating free speach. 

Try and catch bit of a video, it's truly disgusting. 

[Geek99]

I don’t know what those Arab Americans who voted for him are thinking right now. Biden was a borderline senile muppet with good advisers, trump is much worse than I even thought he’d be 

[Agent 00Soul]

11 hours ago, Staggering on said:

Of course given the recent tariff war we in Canada are well aware of the irony of his Canadian nationality.🙄

I had no idea he was Canadian. Although I’m not sure Musk has anything to do with the tariffs - other than being a Trump brownnoser - as I suspect they would have happened if he was there or not. Trump is either catering to or is himself a part of that section of the Republican Party that sees Canada the way Putin sees Ukraine.  
 

Edited March 15 by Agent 00Soul

[tegs07]

Looks like they are picking fights with South Africa now as well.

[Agent 00Soul]

18 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I don’t know what those Arab Americans who voted for him are thinking right now. Biden was a borderline senile muppet with good advisers, trump is much worse than I even thought he’d be 

He’ll always be Genocide Joe to a lot of people.