What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[viper37]

I wonder if a way to remove the tariffs is buy into Trump's crypto.

I'm pretty sure it is.

Your employer might be about to find out:

White House trade advisor criticizes BMW's South Carolina operations

"This business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics. It's bad for our national security. We want them to come here," Navarro said.

They want the entire supply chain to be in the US.

Time to go packing and take the bizz elsewhere.

[viper37]

Well Russia is getting fucked now, though I think that is more OPEC's doing. The oil price was going way down last I checked.

Trump boasted about that.

Which is funny.  Oil price down is not good that "drill baby drill!" part of his 'plan'.

[viper37]

Trump Plans $92 Million Military Parade—Honoring Himself

Triumph of the will?

[Zanza]

"This business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics. It's bad for our national security. We want them to come here," Navarro said.

They want the entire supply chain to be in the US.

Time to go packing and take the bizz elsewhere.

Where would this elsewhere be? There is a limited amount of potential customers for premium cars.

PS: I agree with Musk for once.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Triumph of the will?

More like Springtime For Hitler.

[Razgovory]

I blame home alone 2


He's always been famous for being famous. Like the Kardashians, but without the porn. Don't know why him specifically though, America has plenty of rich narcissists. Even some that aren't incompetent.

Remember he has appeared in two pornographic films.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes, but the dollar's role as a reserve currency is a different kind of public good.

The world benefits in the sense that it is convenient to have a commonly accepted reserve currency that facilitates trade and investment flows.  But it is also a detriment in that it makes other countries vulnerable to US financial sanctions and because it reduces a degree of economic autonomy.

It's not hard to imagine a world with competing reserve currencies or currency blocs - it's what we had during the period before WWII and after sterling lost its dominance.  I don't think that would be unwelcome at all for many if not most other nations, and especially China, Russia, and the EU.  I don't think there will be many takers for the "deal" of paying the US for the dubious right to be subjected to the dollar's "exorbitant privilege"

The US provision of international security is a different kind of public good in that it was truly welcomed and valued by many of its intended recipients. That public good was not provided by the US out of a pure spirit of generosity, however. It was provided out of calculated self-interest and the US got value in return.

It is possible to argue that the US could fairly get more in return for its public security good provision, whether in the form of greater allied defense spending or other forms of "burden sharing."  However, it is Economics 101 that it is very hard to raise the price of a good if you simultaneously destroy its market value.  The problem for Trump is that in three months he has radically reduced the perceived value of American security provision, particularly to Canada and the EU.  Trash the value of your good --> watch as the price buyers are willing to pay declines.

Qui tacet consentire videtur

I only disagreed with one sentence in the article.

[Admiral Yi]

Admiral Yi believes in democracy.  What we are seeing is the will of the people.  No matter how hard the recession, no matter how low the markets fall, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to support their President because that is what democracy calls for.  Dissent is undemocratic. 

When you post nonsense and claim it as coming from your own mind it's just nonsense.  When you post nonsense and claim it is coming from another person's mind that is evil.

[viper37]

Admiral Yi believes in democracy.  What we are seeing is the will of the people.  No matter how hard the recession, no matter how low the markets fall, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to support their President because that is what democracy calls for.  Dissent is undemocratic. 

When you post nonsense and claim it as coming from your own mind it's just nonsense.  When you post nonsense and claim it is coming from another person's mind that is evil.

You said the President's will was democracy, did you or did you not? You said this at a moment when he was blatantly violating the constitution.  You said you should support democracy and it was his right to violate every fucking treaty he signed and pretty much as he pleased because people voted him in office.

Now he's fucking with the stock market because everyone let him play.  More protests might have convinced the GOP to rein in his emergency powers.  A few thousand people in the streets ain't doing jack shit for this mess.

104% tariff on China and calling them peasants means they have nothing to lose anymore.

Europe is about to go nuclear in its retaliation.

Meanwhile, Americans go about their lives while the stock market is destroying everyone's savings worldwide.

Because not enough people can't be bothered to make phone calls to their representatives and senators or to walk out in the streets to protests against their stupid King.

[viper37]

"This business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics. It's bad for our national security. We want them to come here," Navarro said.

They want the entire supply chain to be in the US.

Time to go packing and take the bizz elsewhere.

Where would this elsewhere be? There is a limited amount of potential customers for premium cars.

PS: I agree with Musk for once.

The US wants them to manufacture close to 100% of the car in the US, or they will face severe financial penalties down the line.

You're the expert.  Tell me if it's possible, tell me if people will still buy the car at that price.

If an iPhone built in the US costs 2300$, would BMW with a baseline of 100k$ costs close to 200k$ if near-entirely made in the US?  There's all these tariffs and counter-tariffs now, difficult access to certain minerals and some electronic parts.

[Razgovory]

Trumpworld Makes the Case Against Trump
MAGA supporters are attempting to understand Trump's catastrophic decision making, while accepting Trump's infallibility as a given.

Last November, Republican Representative Troy Nehls of Texas told reporters that "if Donald Trump says tariffs work, tariffs work. Period. Because Donald Trump is really never wrong." This expression of faith in the great leader is a precept of MAGA-ism. The pigs in Animal Farm had a similar way of thinking: "Comrade Napoleon is always right."

Trump's choice to not just claim that tariffs work but actually implement them and cause a market crash has, however, subjected this faith to its greatest test. And so MAGA world is attempting to understand and even argue over Trump's catastrophic decision making, while accepting Trump's infallibility as a given.


The most devoted Trump acolytes are dutifully insisting that the dismal stock market does not perturb them in the slightest. ''I don't really care about my 401(k) today. You know why? I believe in this man," the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro proclaimed on Thursday. "My own retirement account is down too. Don't care. All-in on the Great Deal. The Golden Age is on the other side," the One America News Network anchor Jack Posobiec wrote on X.

But some Trumpists, especially those whose net worth has plunged, find themselves unable to profess indifference in the face of calamity. A few days after "Liberation Day," the MAGA financier Bill Ackman briefly succumbed to despair. "I don't think this was foreseeable," he posted on X. "I assumed economic rationality would be paramount. My bad."


Among the MAGA faithful, this statement amounts to a shocking apostasy. And yet, even so, it was tightly circumscribed. Ackman wrote the entire passage in the passive voice—"this was foreseeable"; "rationality would be paramount"—omitting the need to identify any protagonist behind these disasters. Like so many Trump supporters, especially among the financial elite, he refused to believe that Trump would do the things he'd promised to do, precisely because they were so irrational, without pausing to ask if the very fact that Trump was promising to do crazy things was itself a reason to keep him out of power. Ackman's little soliloquy ended, fittingly, on a note of personal contrition. The only person he could blame was himself.

For those wishing to avoid further disaster, their only recourse is to complain that Trump has been badly served by wicked advisers. Elon Musk provocatively posted a video of Milton Friedman lecturing about the virtues of free trade. This put him in conflict with Peter Navarro, the Trump trade adviser whose fanatical loyalty to the president is exceeded only by his fanatical protectionism. Navarro questioned Musk's good faith by noting the conflicts between his auto business and Trump's trade policy. (Musk, of course, has an almost inexhaustible number of conflicts between his business interests and his government portfolio.) Musk replied by calling Navarro "truly a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks."


These comments might raise questions about the wisdom of the president himself. What kind of chief executive would hand over domestic policy to an adviser with such a deep vested interest in it, or, alternatively, take advice from a true moron with sub-brick intelligence? But to lay blame on Trump himself would violate the central tenet of the MAGA cult and, more important, forfeit any chance to influence its leader. The Wall Street Journal story reporting on Musk's apostasy was illustrated with him wearing his TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING cap.


Ackman, firmly grasping the euphemistic protocols necessary to jockey for influence in MAGA world, tried a number of gambits. He blamed corrupt advisers for manipulating the great leader: "Just figured out why @howardlutnick is indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing. He and Cantor are long bonds. He profits when our economy implodes" (a charge he subsequently withdrew). He tried flattery: "An important characteristic of a great leader is a willingness to change course when the facts change or when the initial strategy is not working. We have seen Trump do this before. Two days in, however, it is much too early to form a view about his tariff strategy."

When even these indirect complaints drew pushback, Ackman reaffirmed his unwavering loyalty: "Some have misinterpreted my thoughts on tariffs. I am totally supportive of President @realDonaldTrump using tariffs to eliminate tariffs and unfair trading practices of our trading partners, and to induce more investment and manufacturing in our country." Despite decades of evidence that Trump's tariff policy is a product of his belief in the efficacy of trade barriers, Ackman chooses to believe that the president is "using tariffs to eliminate tariffs." This apparently paradoxical feat could be managed only by Trump himself. It raises a question: Could Trump make a trade wall so high that he could not get over it?

At a Senate hearing today, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina asked the U.S. trade representative, "Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?" The answer, of course, is not Donald Trump's. It could never be Donald Trump's.

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/maga-republican-tariffs-criticism/682359/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawJimhlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHv2DwRWrcoqIkD8rZlN0uK_lUKzlOsgWQwb4XxO0nAiSzLTp1vOpVJX7hqA6_aem_6NgXR5GVP2yTk6Ka23oUxg

[Zanza]

"This business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics. It's bad for our national security. We want them to come here," Navarro said.

They want the entire supply chain to be in the US.

Time to go packing and take the bizz elsewhere.

Where would this elsewhere be? There is a limited amount of potential customers for premium cars.

PS: I agree with Musk for once.

The US wants them to manufacture close to 100% of the car in the US, or they will face severe financial penalties down the line.

You're the expert.  Tell me if it's possible, tell me if people will still buy the car at that price.

If an iPhone built in the US costs 2300$, would BMW with a baseline of 100k$ costs close to 200k$ if near-entirely made in the US?  There's all these tariffs and counter-tariffs now, difficult access to certain minerals and some electronic parts.

My statement was not about whether it is possible to manufacture an entire car part-by-part in the United States (which it obviously is), source all parts locally (tough) or whether that would be profitable for these companies (very unlikely).

My statement was about "take the bizz elsewhere". The affected companies already operate in virtually all countries globally with the exception of some sanctioned countries (Russia, Iran) and are fairly successfully already reaching all their potential customers. Not selling in the United States means taking that business nowhere. There is no previously untapped pool of demand that would buy hundreds of thousands premium cars and replace American consumers.

[Admiral Yi]

Admiral Yi believes in democracy.  What we are seeing is the will of the people.  No matter how hard the recession, no matter how low the markets fall, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to support their President because that is what democracy calls for.  Dissent is undemocratic. 

When you post nonsense and claim it as coming from your own mind it's just nonsense.  When you post nonsense and claim it is coming from another person's mind that is evil.

You said the President's will was democracy, did you or did you not? You said this at a moment when he was blatantly violating the constitution.  You said you should support democracy and it was his right to violate every fucking treaty he signed and pretty much as he pleased because people voted him in office.

Now he's fucking with the stock market because everyone let him play.  More protests might have convinced the GOP to rein in his emergency powers.  A few thousand people in the streets ain't doing jack shit for this mess.

104% tariff on China and calling them peasants means they have nothing to lose anymore.

Europe is about to go nuclear in its retaliation.

Meanwhile, Americans go about their lives while the stock market is destroying everyone's savings worldwide.

Because not enough people can't be bothered to make phone calls to their representatives and senators or to walk out in the streets to protests against their stupid King.

I did not.

Admiral Yi believes in democracy.  What we are seeing is the will of the people.  No matter how hard the recession, no matter how low the markets fall, it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to support their President because that is what democracy calls for.  Dissent is undemocratic. 

When you post nonsense and claim it as coming from your own mind it's just nonsense.  When you post nonsense and claim it is coming from another person's mind that is evil.

You said the President's will was democracy, did you or did you not? You said this at a moment when he was blatantly violating the constitution.  You said you should support democracy and it was his right to violate every fucking treaty he signed and pretty much as he pleased because people voted him in office.

Now he's fucking with the stock market because everyone let him play.  More protests might have convinced the GOP to rein in his emergency powers.  A few thousand people in the streets ain't doing jack shit for this mess.

104% tariff on China and calling them peasants means they have nothing to lose anymore.

Europe is about to go nuclear in its retaliation.

Meanwhile, Americans go about their lives while the stock market is destroying everyone's savings worldwide.

Because not enough people can't be bothered to make phone calls to their representatives and senators or to walk out in the streets to protests against their stupid King.

I did not.

[HVC]

So nice you had to say it twice?

[Syt]

It's public, so hardly tinfoily. What I find hardest to believe is that these so called libertarians are going to let go now that they've got a taste for centralized power.

Libertarianism is very, very supportive of state power - it's just they only really back the coercive side of the state. It's the night watchman state.

Some seem inspired by the strict regime in Singapore. "They're doing well economically without freedoms for the general populace!"