What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Just talked with a nurse in my apartment building who is super anti-vax. "We should just see what happens without vaccines! What's the harm?" Just... wow. I'm pretty sure she was raised in a super religious household, but like... my god. The rot is so deep in this country. 

I think there are some books about the world without vaccines.

Some of them are even fiction

[Josephus]

The planet is due for a cull anyway. I'm sad, though, that it's little children they are playing their games with.

[HVC]

People are dumb and haven't had to deal with a bad outbreak in while. Ironically, I guess, it helps the antivax crowd that were so good at treating disease. Even with Covid, all said and done, it wasn't too bad. Thanks to all the precautions. Because they worked so well people are under the impression they weren't necessary. Like I said dumb. The last big polio outbreak was when, the 50s? And the last doom level pandemic was over 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu.

[crazy canuck]

People are dumb and haven't had to deal with a bad outbreak in while. Ironically, I guess, it helps the antivax crowd that were so good at treating disease. Even with Covid, all said and done, it wasn't too bad. Thanks to all the precautions. Because they worked so well people are under the impression they weren't necessary. Like I said dumb. The last big polio outbreak was when, the 50s? And the last doom level pandemic was over 100 years ago with the Spanish Flu.

COVID was bad until a vaccine was developed.  Measles outbreaks are already happening.

[Josquius]

Yeah, if anything it seems the opposite counter intuitive thing has happened.
Covid was a bad disease outbreak and it was vaccines which fixed it...
But rather than accepting fact and updating their views accordingly in our modern age of main character syndrome dunning kruger uber alles it seemed to have the opposite effect.

I would be curious to see though amongst those most heavily pushing and profiting from this shit. How many of them actually have vaccinated themselves. They just preach different.

[crazy canuck]

As anticipated the Americans need to import aluminum and steel, and American manufacturers are paying the price.

From the NYTimes

One of the country's largest manufacturers is worse off now than it was six months ago. Last month, John Deere said net income in its most recent quarter was down 29 percent from a year earlier. Higher tariffs, primarily on steel but also on aluminum, have cost the company $300 million so far, with nearly another $300 million expected by the end of the year. This summer the company laid off 238 employees across factories in Illinois and Iowa.

Yet John Deere is just the sort of manufacturing powerhouse that Mr. Trump says he wants more of in the United States. The company, based in Moline, Ill., has made farm equipment since 1837. Its green-and-yellow tractors, combines and sprayers help farmers feed the country and produce billions of dollars' worth of crops for export.

[Richard Hakluyt]

They should probably open a factory in Canada, thus avoiding all the tariffs on their input goods and only facing tariffs on that proportion of their final product that they sell in the USA.

[crazy canuck]

They should probably open a factory in Canada, thus avoiding all the tariffs on their input goods and only facing tariffs on that proportion of their final product that they sell in the USA.

That is exactly what is happening. Despite the fact that there are tariffs on Canadian cars, the amount of cars going to the United States has increased over the last three months.

The reason for that is simple, the input costs to manufacture cars in the United States has increased more than the tariff on Canadian cars because the tar on steel and aluminum is so high.

Canadian trade data was released today, export to the US went up, imports from the US declined. And remember we are their largest trading partner.

It will be very interesting to see what impact this has on American inflation and job numbers.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is another reason why tariffs should be discussed in Congress, hopefully so that sensible tariffs are imposed, rather than leaving it to the whims of a stupid old man.

[The Minsky Moment]

Canadian trade data was released today, export to the US went up, imports from the US declined. And remember we are their largest trading partner.

All by design, we must strengthen our 51st state.  So much winning!

[The Minsky Moment]

Remember the original steel tariffs date back to 2018 we have data on the impact.

Steel employment is slightly down.  Productivity collapsed and overall output is down.
There may be other factors at work but anyone expecting more tariffs would benefit the US steel industry is engaging in magical thinking at this point.

And that's the direct impact on steel.  The impact on US companies that use steel as an input - i.e. a broad array of US manufacturers of which Deere is only one example - is far more negative. 

The tariffs like much of the Trump agenda - e.g. the insanity with vaccines and the CDC, the assault on higher education, the replacement of an expert professional civil services with incompetent flunkies and partisan hacks - is best understood as a fascinating experiment in national self-vandalism, though probably more interesting to observe from the outside then to experience from the inside.

[Norgy]

Remember the original steel tariffs date back to 2018 we have data on the impact.

Steel employment is slightly down.  Productivity collapsed and overall output is down.
There may be other factors at work but anyone expecting more tariffs would benefit the US steel industry is engaging in magical thinking at this point.

And that's the direct impact on steel.  The impact on US companies that use steel as an input - i.e. a broad array of US manufacturers of which Deere is only one example - is far more negative. 

The tariffs like much of the Trump agenda - e.g. the insanity with vaccines and the CDC, the assault on higher education, the replacement of an expert professional civil services with incompetent flunkies and partisan hacks - is best understood as a fascinating experiment in national self-vandalism, though probably more interesting to observe from the outside then to experience from the inside.

Steel tariffs hurt Norway quite a bit.
The direct export to the US went down.
So we traded through the EU.

This love of tariffs baffles even a left-winger like me.

[The Minsky Moment]

Trump somehow acquired a view of economics from a late 19th century perspective.  When statesman would obsess over tables of steel and iron production and coal and oil were New Economy energy sources.  When the US federal government got almost all its funding from tariff revenue. It's hard to understand where he got this from, but any doubt about this was resolved this year when he started giving rambling talks about William McKinley.  I understand the McKinley stuff comes from his handlers, but it's mutually reinforcing.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

It certainly does feel like Trump is trying to run the US like the world is Victoria 2.

[crazy canuck]

The Department of defence is now the department of war.

Trump missed a golden opportunity. He should've named it the department of peace.