Trump's tariff wars...long post.

[asingardenof]

4 hours ago, TimR said:

Might be something he read in a book somewhere about Disaster Politics. 😆

Probably something someone else read and then explained to him using big letters and colourful pictures

[asingardenof]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I think regardless of the current rumours going around about musk, it was always going to have a short time span, as they both really suffer from needing to be the 'Main Character', and you cant have two main characters.

Also yesterdays result of musk actually bribing voters with large sums of money (not sure how that is legal, I guess it doesn't matter in america) failing to win their guy in wisconsin wouldn't have helped.

He needs to focus on Tesla before the share prices dip too low and the board kick him out. Not sure what he'll do about new product lines though, because the Cybertruck wasn't exactly a roaring success and they're all subject to recall for shoddy workmanship.

[asingardenof]

1 hour ago, Beer of the Bass said:

 

It's the old "post-truth" tactic again, I reckon. We understand the word tariff to have a specific meaning that can be objectively used, but the Trump administration are applying it in a subjective and vibes-based way when it suits them (yet still rigid when it's in their interests).

I think we can legitmately call him Trumpty Dumpty because of this

[tegs07]

1 minute ago, asingardenof said:

He needs to focus on Tesla before the share prices dip too low and the board kick him out. Not sure what he'll do about new product lines though, because the Cybertruck wasn't exactly a roaring success and they're all subject to recall for shoddy workmanship.

Tesla’s share price is based upon what it might do rather than actual sales figures. Call me a sceptic but?

[asingardenof]

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

Tesla’s share price is based upon what it might do rather than actual sales figures. Call me a sceptic but?

I wonder if they actually have a forward plan though, or if because Musk has been concentrating on Doge it's all stagnated. I'm not sure if I was an investor that I'd have much confidence in him.

[tegs07]

Just now, asingardenof said:

I wonder if they actually have a forward plan though, or if because Musk has been concentrating on Doge it's all stagnated. I'm not sure if I was an investor that I'd have much confidence in him.

AI and self driving vehicles as far as I am aware. Track record so far isn’t encouraging.

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

Genuine question as I’ve not been able to google it….

Why is the Tangerine Dream saying “reciprocal tariffs”? The UK doesn’t charge tariffs on goods from America?

 

Average of 9.2% on agricultural products. A big bug-bear for the US where they have a competitive advantage. And selective tariffs elsewhere eg 10% (I think?) on US cars.

[Woodinblack]

29 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

If I were the EU/UK I would be going, offering the same deal but promising free trade with markets in china/brazil and india so you can make the chips cheaply and export easily....

 

And also 'This is our policy, it isn't going to change next week'

 

26 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

 Not sure what he'll do about new product lines though, because the Cybertruck wasn't exactly a roaring success and they're all subject to recall for shoddy workmanship.

 

Maybe he could try building, oh I don't know, a car? Like everyone else drives. Maybe he could copy BYD and Kia, they seem to have some good ideas!

 

16 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

AI and self driving vehicles as far as I am aware. Track record so far isn’t encouraging.

 

I figure the chinese will be there a long time before him.

[Woodinblack]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 A big bug-bear for the US where they have a competitive advantage.

 

Maybe not for long, most of their agricultural equipment output is to Canada and Mexico, probably going to take a hit.

[tegs07]

Nice summary here:

 

Trump’s downfall begins now – his paranoia and baseless rage is his undoing - The i Paper 

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trumps-downfall-begins-now-paranoia-baseless-rage-3621228

 

Edited 18 hours ago by tegs07

[Stub Mandrel]

21 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

AI and self driving vehicles as far as I am aware. Track record so far isn’t encouraging.

 

Trump will probably sign an executive order absolving the manufacturer of blame if the user of an autonomous vehicle 'allows' it to kill someone.

[Woodinblack]

Just now, Stub Mandrel said:

Trump will probably sign an executive order absolving the manufacturer of blame if the user of an autonomous vehicle 'allows' it to kill someone.

 

Although, yes, as a funny, but in a realistic sense, someone somewhere is going to have to come up with the rules on blame there. If you have self driving cars, it will get rid of a lot of road deaths but there will be a non zero amount of deaths caused by a failure in the self driving. It doesn't matter if you take 100 deaths from people down to 1 death by machine, someone has to take responsibility for that death by machine - whos is it? are you more likely to get killed in a BYD or a Tesla, is it going to be part of that safety record, part of the publicity 'only a 1:2,600 chance of death'

[tegs07]

3 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Trump will probably sign an executive order absolving the manufacturer of blame if the user of an autonomous vehicle 'allows' it to kill someone.

He will probably need a new box of crayons first. 

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

Trump’s downfall begins now – his paranoia and baseless rage is his undoing - The i Paper 

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/trumps-downfall-begins-now-paranoia-baseless-rage-3621228

 

 

"It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is. You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticise it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought. "

 

[Cato]

Interesting article here on some of the more unlikely recipients of the new tariffs.

 

https://news.sky.com/story/island-home-only-to-penguins-hit-by-tariffs-and-other-things-you-may-have-missed-on-liberation-day-13340958

 

Almost makes me wonder if there may have been an AI element in how some of the calculations were made.

 

You'd hope a human would pick up on the fact that calculating tariffs on uninhabited islands is a waste of time and effort.

 

 

 

 

[Kiwi]

I laughed out loud when I read the MacDonalds Islands, which are uninhabited and governed by Australia, were slapped with a 10% tariff.  The penguins...think of the penguins.

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, Kiwi said:

I laughed out loud when I read the MacDonalds Islands, which are uninhabited and governed by Australia, were slapped with a 10% tariff.  The penguins...think of the penguins.

Yeah but they import a lot of those little chocolate biscuits. I’ve seen them on the telly.

[Woodinblack]

24 minutes ago, Cato said:

Almost makes me wonder if there may have been an AI element in how some of the calculations were made.

 

No intelligence of any kind, human or machine. Its like in that link up there:

 

The column on the left is Maximum('amount we sell to them' / 'amount they sell to us', 0.1) as a percentage

The column on the right is half of that.

 

and I would stress, it took many people who do this as their day job to come up with this

 

[NancyJohnson]

I watched the tariff press conference last night, the Orange One is just throwing (probably grossly exaggerated) billion dollar numbers out there and there's little or no live fact checking. 

 

Maybe this is quite a naïve comment, but one thing that struck me (before I genuinely glazed over) was that he was moaning about countries not wanting to import America's beef and chicken (because, why would we want their steroid injected meaty products?).  (I think) he mentioned beef imports/exports between Australia and the US, commenting about Australia's reluctance about importing US beef.  It did strike me that there could be some kind of levelling out here; rather than exporting beef from the US to Australia (and vice versa), just stop doing it.  Australians, you keep your beef, Americans, your keep yours.  

 

Wife chipped in and mentioned how much American stuff we actually buy.  I think the only US produce we have in house is Skippy peanut butter and a vast quantity of bourbon. 

 

 

[SumOne]

43 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Although, yes, as a funny, but in a realistic sense, someone somewhere is going to have to come up with the rules on blame there. If you have self driving cars, it will get rid of a lot of road deaths but there will be a non zero amount of deaths caused by a failure in the self driving. It doesn't matter if you take 100 deaths from people down to 1 death by machine, someone has to take responsibility for that death by machine - whos is it? are you more likely to get killed in a BYD or a Tesla, is it going to be part of that safety record, part of the publicity 'only a 1:2,600 chance of death'

 

And things like: Programme the car to swerve onto the pavement to protect the passengers of the car from a head-on impact with another vehicle - even if that means running over pedestrians? Or vice-versa, let car full of passengers have a head-on collision with a school bus vs running over one person over on the pavement. It all gets very complicated, someone has to give the AI guidance on what is best - then they are partly responsible.   

[tegs07]

2 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Wife chipped in and mentioned how much American stuff we actually buy.  I think the only US produce we have in house is Skippy peanut butter and a vast quantity of bourbon. 

netflix, amazon, facebook, uber, instagram, microsoft, apple, levis, nike, the odd us fast food restaurant?

[BigRedX]

4 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

netflix, amazon, facebook, uber, instagram, microsoft, apple, levis, nike, the odd us fast food restaurant?

 

Very little of that is actually MADE in the US

[SumOne]

Just now, tegs07 said:

netflix, amazon, facebook, uber, instagram, microsoft, apple, levis, nike, the odd us fast food restaurant?

Partly why I think Trump has things wrong - manufacturing is old-world stuff, polluting, and increasingly doesn't actually employ many people (see 'dark factories'). If it isn't competition from cheap plabour in Asia then it'll be cheap labour in Africa or S America etc. 

 

On the other hand, if a country can make money on things like Amazon and Instagram and franchise food chains and that seems the better option than actually having the grim factories make the tat. 

[NancyJohnson]

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

netflix, amazon, facebook, uber, instagram, microsoft, apple, levis, nike, the odd us fast food restaurant?

 

We're talking what we actually buy. 

 

Sure, I buy through Amazon and sell through eBay occasionally (to be honest, I spend more on council tax and utilities than anything else).  I have Microsoft Windows running on a seven-year-old PC.  I don't wear jeans and I don't frequent any fast food places.

[SumOne]

1 minute ago, BigRedX said:

 

Very little of that is actually MADE in the US

They've got the better end of the deal though and is where the massive profits are. I'd have thought a country would much prefer to own Amazon as a global 'shopfront' than the factory making the stuff it sells.