America

[morepork]

Y'all should be aware that the previous record holder for length of speech, intended to be an actual fillibuster, was Strom Thurmond, that paragon of racist democrat-turned republican who did everything he possibly could to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act in '64. Booker's effort was more than a little symbolic.

[Son of Mathonwy]

As I understand it, this wasn't a Filibuster as there is no bill involved. Hisintention is to let Democrats in the US knwo there are still folk willing to stand up for their views. But definitely insane means of generating media coverage.

Exactly, it was like a filibuster but didn't block anything. So whether it inspires anyone or is an indicator of the Democrats being out of touch is anyone's guess.

[Stom]

As I understand it, this wasn't a Filibuster as there is no bill involved. Hisintention is to let Democrats in the US knwo there are still folk willing to stand up for their views. But definitely insane means of generating media coverage.

Yeah...so was pointless...like most of what the dems and other mainstream "left leaning" parties do nowadays.

God, we need new political parties across the globe, really, backed by young, democratically inclined rich individuals.

In Hungary there's Tisza, but he's not exactly democratically inclined...

[Which Tyler]

Doesn't the Senate do more stuff than "pass bills" though?
It spoiled an entire day of Senate activity - it may not technically be a fillibuster, and may not have stopped any bills, but it's not "nothing"

[Stom]

Doesn't the Senate do more stuff than "pass bills" though?
It spoiled an entire day of Senate activity - it may not technically be a fillibuster, and may not have stopped any bills, but it's not "nothing"

Sure, it's not nothing...but I still feel like the dems have completely shown they have no backbone.

I still remember the "nods" I got from a politician friend (and former leader of the opposition) here in Hungary when I tried to say that he needed to use "dirty" tricks to at least get close to Fidesz...

And I feel that's the problem: most politicians have no idea how to get into power, and then no idea how to govern when they get there. And so only the pigeons playing chess and the truly dangerous right-wing nutjobs remain.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Well he did it. A piece of theatre for his domestic audience and a collection of made-up numbers to justify his tariffs.

1) A big driver of this - perhaps the main one for Trump - is that this raises billions in tax revenue from ordinary Americans which he can then spend giving tax breaks to the rich.
2) Prices will shoot up in the States. Hopefully the stock markets will tank along with Trump's ratings.
3) There will be reciprocal tariffs from most of those hit, particularly the EU and China. US companies will find it noticeably harder to sell to those countries/regions.
4) The UK's softly, softly approach. Who knows what's going on in the negotiations for a trade deal, so it's hard to say if it makes sense to retaliate immediately. But according to Trump, the 10% we're being hit with is not a so-called 'reciprocal' tariff - it's the minimum, the penalty for daring to export the the US. So it's difficult to see what we can negotiate to get rid of it. I just hope that we're acting like grown-up negotiators behind the scenes and that ALL options, including tariffs and increased tax on tech companies are really on the table. I fear a pathetic sell-out, involving outrageous concessions, just to get rid of the 10%.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ration-day

[Mikey Brown]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Apparently he was keen on tariffs last time but was talked down by sane advisors. No sane advisors this time.

I'm thinking the everyday Americans will not like the massive price rises. True faith MAGAites will believe their prophet will lead them from the economic wilderness but the average Trump voter might have some regrets.

[cashead]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Apparently he was keen on tariffs last time but was talked down by sane advisors. No sane advisors this time.

I'm thinking the everyday Americans will not like the massive price rises. True faith MAGAites will believe their prophet will lead them from the economic wilderness but the average Trump voter might have some regrets.

Yeah, well, fuck them. Perfectly happy to vote for a fascist, and let the marginalised get shat on, until they realise that they were also among those slated to be marginalised.

Especially when these fuckers come crawling over, asking "we good?" No, we are not fucking good. How about you suck the shit directly from my ass with a straw.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Apparently he was keen on tariffs last time but was talked down by sane advisors. No sane advisors this time.

I'm thinking the everyday Americans will not like the massive price rises. True faith MAGAites will believe their prophet will lead them from the economic wilderness but the average Trump voter might have some regrets.

Yeah, well, fuck them. Perfectly happy to vote for a fascist, and let the marginalised get shat on, until they realise that they were also among those slated to be marginalised.

Especially when these fuckers come crawling over, asking "we good?" No, we are not fucking good. How about you suck the shit directly from my ass with a straw.

Yep, believe it or not, they are adults and as adults they need to take responsibility for their actions and the flyer they took on Trump. They know him even better than we do, so there's no excuse. What, tariffs don't work the way Trump said they do? Oh no, reality bites, fucking hard.

However, my main interest in their pain is that it causes them to turn on Trump. It's the best hope of getting out of this with civilization intact.

[Puja]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

I suspect that he is genuinely as stupid as he looks and is doing this out of a 5 year old's misunderstanding of international economics vs corporate economics - he sees US and the dollar's hegemony of international trade as an unused lever of power and believes that he is a genius for spotting and the people before him who didn't use it were imbeciles or weaklings. There is a chance that he's secretly clever and seeing it as a way to transfer more money from the poor to the rich, but I doubt it.

My concern over this is that he may end up being proven right, at least in the theory that the US position in the world is strong enough that the normal rules don't apply to it, and that the economy won't crash, simply because there's too many people and nations that would be properly fucked if it did. Too big to fail.

Doesn't the Senate do more stuff than "pass bills" though?
It spoiled an entire day of Senate activity - it may not technically be a fillibuster, and may not have stopped any bills, but it's not "nothing"

Sure, it's not nothing...but I still feel like the dems have completely shown they have no backbone.

I still remember the "nods" I got from a politician friend (and former leader of the opposition) here in Hungary when I tried to say that he needed to use "dirty" tricks to at least get close to Fidesz...

And I feel that's the problem: most politicians have no idea how to get into power, and then no idea how to govern when they get there. And so only the pigeons playing chess and the truly dangerous right-wing nutjobs remain.

Puja

[Galfon]

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Can't get my head round how getting importers and consumers to effectively pay more into the state coffers with the import levy can prove popular with a large slice of the electorate who voted for him last time ( as the more expensive, more luxury items eg cars from Europe will be in their sphere ), or if it doesn't get ditched in a few months the cross-border shenanigans with Mexico and Canada thst would naturally ensue, and the natural rise in thefts, and then insurance....nah, it's all been checked out/ planned in.Sorted
Maybe he's just scooping as much in while he's there, short-term, to help fund more forays in the Arctic region

[Son of Mathonwy]

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Can't get my head round how getting importers and consumers to effectively pay more into the state coffers with the import levy can prove popular with a large slice of the electorate who voted for him last time ( as the more expensive, more luxury items eg cars from Europe will be in their sphere ), or if it doesn't get ditched in a few months the cross-border shenanigans with Mexico and Canada thst would naturally ensue, and the natural rise in thefts, and then insurance....nah, it's all been checked out/ planned in.Sorted
Maybe he's just scooping as much in while he's there, short-term, to help fund more forays in the Arctic region

He probably say those nasty foreign companies are raising their prices to rip off honest American folk.

The question is, are there enough ignorant voters for him to get away with it? A Fox News viewer is unlikely to encounter the truth on this.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’m so curious if he has any deep understanding of what or why he’s actually doing these things. Pure malice, ineptitude or just following the lead of his handlers?

I suspect that he is genuinely as stupid as he looks and is doing this out of a 5 year old's misunderstanding of international economics vs corporate economics - he sees US and the dollar's hegemony of international trade as an unused lever of power and believes that he is a genius for spotting and the people before him who didn't use it were imbeciles or weaklings. There is a chance that he's secretly clever and seeing it as a way to transfer more money from the poor to the rich, but I doubt it.

My concern over this is that he may end up being proven right, at least in the theory that the US position in the world is strong enough that the normal rules don't apply to it, and that the economy won't crash, simply because there's too many people and nations that would be properly fucked if it did. Too big to fail.

Puja

The contents of Trump's brain will always be a matter of great uncertainty but I think there's a good chance he's grasped the fact that tariffs are a tax on the ordinary consumer that he can pretend is not a tax at all.

If he backs down from these tariffs - on the big players (the EU and China) - he might avoid a big impact to the US economy and his popularity. Otherwise I don't think any illusions of American exceptionalism will help him. There's no way either the EU or China will back down from raising their own economic defences, so not only will prices shoot up in the states but US businesses will struggle to sell to the EU and China. It will not be pretty.

I guess I wouldn't put it past Trump from riding through the carnage like it's a war and he's George fucking Washington, because USA!! but even those MAGA morons (or enough of them? ) will see the light as their wealth turn to shit.

[Which Tyler]

I never understood how he managed to bankrupt a casino
A fucking casino!

I think I'm beginning to get it

[Stom]

It's not the consumable goods that's the problem, it's farming... Fertilizer costs have already risen, and they're going to go even higher. Cost of food on the plate is just going to get higher and higher for the end consumer.

Voters in the North are screwed, but Trump doesn't care about them. Texans and red Californians won't feel the problems as keenly, so that is probably the team's idea there: red meat for the core.

As for the impact elsewhere, I've seen it said before, and I've said it myself: the EU needs to distance itself and start setting up its own brands to take over. A European Amazon, Meta, etc., would go some way.

What the UK has is banking (thanks to Brexit) and the UK will therefore not suffer as much as other European countries.

But the EU needs to pull its finger out, and we know just how easy it is for one of those knuckles to get stuck on the way out...

[Puja]

Are your everyday, hard-working, Trump-voting Americans on board with all this?

Can't get my head round how getting importers and consumers to effectively pay more into the state coffers with the import levy can prove popular with a large slice of the electorate who voted for him last time ( as the more expensive, more luxury items eg cars from Europe will be in their sphere ), or if it doesn't get ditched in a few months the cross-border shenanigans with Mexico and Canada thst would naturally ensue, and the natural rise in thefts, and then insurance....nah, it's all been checked out/ planned in.Sorted
Maybe he's just scooping as much in while he's there, short-term, to help fund more forays in the Arctic region

He probably say those nasty foreign companies are raising their prices to rip off honest American folk.

The question is, are there enough ignorant voters for him to get away with it? A Fox News viewer is unlikely to encounter the truth on this.

That's basically it. Prices go up, it's because of those awful foreigners retaliating and putting tariffs on the poor innocent USA who was just trying to get a fair deal! It's not true, but it sounds truthy enough that people will buy it.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

It's not the consumable goods that's the problem, it's farming... Fertilizer costs have already risen, and they're going to go even higher. Cost of food on the plate is just going to get higher and higher for the end consumer.

Voters in the North are screwed, but Trump doesn't care about them. Texans and red Californians won't feel the problems as keenly, so that is probably the team's idea there: red meat for the core.

As for the impact elsewhere, I've seen it said before, and I've said it myself: the EU needs to distance itself and start setting up its own brands to take over. A European Amazon, Meta, etc., would go some way.

What the UK has is banking (thanks to Brexit) and the UK will therefore not suffer as much as other European countries.

But the EU needs to pull its finger out, and we know just how easy it is for one of those knuckles to get stuck on the way out...

Thanks to Brexit?

Agreed that the UK has less to lose in terms of trade with the US than the EU.

Agreed about setting up alternative to US tech. It would be a good idea for the UK (probably via the BBC) to create its own Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp clones.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Jeez, Dow Jones down 3%, NASDAQ down 5%

[Stom]

It's not the consumable goods that's the problem, it's farming... Fertilizer costs have already risen, and they're going to go even higher. Cost of food on the plate is just going to get higher and higher for the end consumer.

Voters in the North are screwed, but Trump doesn't care about them. Texans and red Californians won't feel the problems as keenly, so that is probably the team's idea there: red meat for the core.

As for the impact elsewhere, I've seen it said before, and I've said it myself: the EU needs to distance itself and start setting up its own brands to take over. A European Amazon, Meta, etc., would go some way.

What the UK has is banking (thanks to Brexit) and the UK will therefore not suffer as much as other European countries.

But the EU needs to pull its finger out, and we know just how easy it is for one of those knuckles to get stuck on the way out...

Thanks to Brexit?

Agreed that the UK has less to lose in terms of trade with the US than the EU.

Agreed about setting up alternative to US tech. It would be a good idea for the UK (probably via the BBC) to create its own Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp clones.

Well, the (conspiracy) theory is that Brexit was about avoiding the EUs new transparency and money laundering regulations on the banking sector because banking is something silly like 40% of UK GDP and the fear was that if London loses its attractiveness, they’d all flee to Dubai, etc.

The regs did come in for the EU.

[Son of Mathonwy]

The moronic formula used for Trump's tariffs:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... economists

[Son of Mathonwy]

It's not the consumable goods that's the problem, it's farming... Fertilizer costs have already risen, and they're going to go even higher. Cost of food on the plate is just going to get higher and higher for the end consumer.

Voters in the North are screwed, but Trump doesn't care about them. Texans and red Californians won't feel the problems as keenly, so that is probably the team's idea there: red meat for the core.

As for the impact elsewhere, I've seen it said before, and I've said it myself: the EU needs to distance itself and start setting up its own brands to take over. A European Amazon, Meta, etc., would go some way.

What the UK has is banking (thanks to Brexit) and the UK will therefore not suffer as much as other European countries.

But the EU needs to pull its finger out, and we know just how easy it is for one of those knuckles to get stuck on the way out...

Thanks to Brexit?

Agreed that the UK has less to lose in terms of trade with the US than the EU.

Agreed about setting up alternative to US tech. It would be a good idea for the UK (probably via the BBC) to create its own Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp clones.

Well, the (conspiracy) theory is that Brexit was about avoiding the EUs new transparency and money laundering regulations on the banking sector because banking is something silly like 40% of UK GDP and the fear was that if London loses its attractiveness, they’d all flee to Dubai, etc.

The regs did come in for the EU.

Yeah, I wouldn't use that to argue that we have our banking thanks to Brexit. We've lost a lot of ground in equities thanks to Brexit. Banking in general, probably not such a big deal.

[Mikey Brown]

Jeez, Dow Jones down 3%, NASDAQ down 5%

At least the EGG has gone way up.

[Puja]

Only a few days ago, Trump signed off on the British deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, suggesting that he, in theory, knew what they were and that they were not an independent nation and were inhabited solely by US and UK military personnel. Today, they were specifically named as one of the countries getting a 10% tariff.

Puja

[Galfon]

We have six or seven trillion dollars coming into our country," the US president says, "the markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom".

If you say it often enough, loud enough, convincingly enough you just might.....
( 'our country' = Treasury, of course )