A short while ago, Trump lost his shit on Twitter in a way that is tanking the DJA:
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far….
….better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..
…your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon. This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States. Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE,….
….all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!). Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop – it didn’t. Our Economy, because of our gains in the last 2 1/2 years, is MUCH larger than that of China. We will keep it that way!
I’m sure everything will be fine.
hueyplong
So our great American companies “are hereby ordered” to stop doing business with China.
I’m so old I remember GOP outrage at the threat to freedom when the FLOTUS suggested that healthy eating would be a good thing.
Trump is losing it and there is no one holding him back.
donnah
Okay, I’m playing this familiar card: What if Obama had said this?
Trump has blown way past crazy. He’s racing toward certifiable and should be fitted for an extra-long sleeved jacket. Our allies must be completely flummoxed.
PaulWartenberg
I read that tweet.
My thought when I saw the phrase “Hereby Ordered” I had a flashback.
To Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States, who would issue decrees in the San Francisco papers arguing for certain civic projects, financing his empire, and buying him a new hat (he also encouraged the building of a suspension bridge between Oakland and San Francisco, which was truly built decades later).
Here’s the sad thing: Emperor Norton’s decrees were valid and sensible compared to the goddamned tweets trump issues that end up tanking economies and causing international scandals.
And Norton’s supposed to be the CRAZY one.
God help us.
trump is the Anti-Norton
hells littlest angel
They refused to sell him Mongolia.
dmsilev
He also called the Fed Chair an enemy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I hereby order pizza to be a negative-calorie victual!
Make it so
Soprano2
I’m sure there will be zero outrage from Republicans at the idea of Trump ordering American companies to do a certain thing. I wonder how many of those CEO’s are now rethinking their support for him? Probably more than will ever admit it.
Anonymous At Work
I think China’s cracked the code on Trump’s rants. I think they know he’s feeling vulnerable and isolated, and used this round to hit him even harder. China thinks that they can only manipulate him to a point but that Trump is too wedded to tariffs to back off through kindness and polite gestures (like granting Ivanka a few hundred million worth of “Chinese copyrights”). Ergo, retaliate until he backs down or bows out.
jl
Jared Bernstein has a rundown of contrast between normal government preparations for possible downturn, and now.
Here’s what a normal White House would be doing to prepare for a recession
Jared Bernstein WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/heres-what-a-normal-white-house-would-be-doing-to-prepare-for-a-recession/2019/08/23/0bfa48ca-c4f5-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html
clay
I wonder if trying to nationalize the shipping industry would be the one thing that actually gets Congressional Republicans to turn against Trump?
I mean, probably not, but it might!
rikyrah
@donnah:
come on, now.
come on….
Van Buren
“I am ordering all carriers”
Well, that got my attention for a second!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anonymous At Work: Maybe he can hereby-order China to stooopppp!
James E Powell
What continues to amaze & disgust me is the very large number of people and institutions that have absolutely no problem with this raving lunatic along with another large chunk of Americans who find the whole thing very entertaining.
Anonymous At Work
@clay: It’d get the Senate’s attention for sure, especially the Senate Majority Leader. Whether the House would react is a different matter. I would love it if the Senate reacted and the House sent McConnell 218 gifs of this: https://giphy.com/gifs/nancy-pelosi-clapping-8PBfNDoySmsRc49P4F
jl
Paul Krugman has some musings on Trump meltdown on the economy.
@paulkrugman
But now, at the first hint of a setback — I mean, no recession yet, no major market plunge, just a modest slowdown (so far) — he’s disintegrating before our eyes. And the closest thing we have to a grownup on the scene is the Lego Batman guy 3/
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1164931124398870528
Baud
@James E Powell:
It’s worthy of mockery, but it’s not entertainment.
swbarnes2
Fentanyl? “Ladies, Trump wants to take away your epidurals!”
JPL
Daniel Dale has a transcript of an interview in KY
When WDRB Louisville reporter Lawrence Smith asked Trump yesterday how he can appeal to urban voters in the city, Trump said with a smile, “Well, I used to bat with a Louisville Slugger. No bat like it.”
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1164563979039051777
MattF
Bear in mind that Trump threatened to overturn the 14th amendment to the Constitution by executive order. So… ordering American companies to do… whatever… is entirely within his bugfuck crazy repertoire.
Kelly
From below
Josh Marshall, Trump’s Razor
JPL
@swbarnes2: My DIL had a C-Section and that is the drug of choice. It’s fine in a controlled setting but the president wouldn’t understand that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell:
my only problem with that tweet is that it suggests a narrow idea of “rich people” as the fabled 1%. This is your in-laws who have followed the sugar-high in the Dow through their portfolio and calculated they can now afford the bigger condo in Florida with the better view, or can retire a couple of years earlier, if they time it right.
Which, they probably won’t, so, as MY puts in a subsequent tweet:
MattF
@swbarnes2: Fentanyl was the anesthetic of choice for my eye surgery.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: I was administered it in the ER with my arm, and was not impressed. Its real advantage over other IV opi oids is that it is fast-acting and fast-releasing. But I found mor phine to be much better in the pain department.
Aleta
The prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead ! (The great Dr. SL springs to mind.)
‘Do not worry, we are in very good shape!’ (DT)
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the Dem nominee should appeal to Trump voters by promising them that she will make it financially easy for them to be racist again, just like Obama did.
Yarrow
“Trade wars are good and easy to win.”
JPL
@rikyrah: No more Popeye’s talk. It turns out that there is one less than ten minutes away and I left after 10:30 cuz no one would be there at that time. A hour later I left with two pieces of chicken and red beans and rice. They sold out of the sandwich. Now the red beans were tasty and the two pieces of spicy chicken were better than KFC. I’ll try the sandwich next year.
karen marie
@clay: Why would they when their ability to extract money would be guaranteed by appointing Elaine Chao as lifetime head of the “independent” agency?
patrick II
I hate this, because of all of the stupid, dimwitted, narcissistic, traitorous things Trump says, I have to agree that the problems we have with the trade relationship we have with China, including much of what he says above, is correct. And the person who says that a democratic president would never get away with this is also right.
I am not saying anything else about the way he is trying to fix the problem is right. Being bellicose, calling trade wars easy, alienating all of your allies who might agree and cooperate to some extent, leaving yourself friendless and alone, are just amazingly stupid.
But at the core we have a large deficit with China, they have a national strategy to take advantage of trade in a mercantilistic way (none of that free market stuff except when it suits their needs), in addition to the sheer amount of the deficit the future value of the things we exchange; tv’s for tbills, real estate, positions in american companies, assets for commodities, are to their advantage.
The idea was that we would open their borders to trade and they would become more democratic like us. Instead it proves that capitalist countries don’t have to be free ones and we have become entangled with an aggressive country who is not playing by any of the rules, economic or political, that we thought would blossom.
I will now duck and cover. (A drill now from my youth now being reintroduced).
JMG
My fellow retirees with whom I golf every day are mostly but not all Republicans. One who is exclaimed to me this morning. “Why does Trump have to be an asshole every day? Can’t he let us think about something else?” I think that was an ominous sign for the GOP next year.
rikyrah
You think those farmers realize that Dolt45 has cost them their markets with China?
I want to feel bad for them, but, I just can’t.
rikyrah
@JPL:
Sold out?
LOL
Whomever is on the Popeye’s Marketing Team, they have earned their bonus this year.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: The Amazon is burning because farmers are cutting it down to plant…soybeans, among other things. Trump’s trade war has global impacts and not just on trade.
oatler.
@PaulWartenberg: I learned about Norton from a Neil Gaiman comic.
Baud
@JMG:
Because that’s what you wanted when he was being an asshole to people you hated.
Gravenstone
@JMG:
It’s his nature…
Yarrow
@Baud: Yep. They were fine with Trump being an asshole to “those people” but when he’s an asshole to everyone and it hurts them…well, who knew that Leopard would turn on them?
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
TPP was designed to curb China’s power and make it harder for them to pull shit like this. Whoops. ?
jl
@Kelly: WH’s blind panic and frenzied public pep talks might be due to the fact that no one there has the slightest clue how the economy works. Standard signs of a recession are probably more unreliable than usual now. Fed has been using the yield curve as tool for decision making on federal funds rate, with goal of keeping it flat (and this arguably a good approach when monetary has to do all the work in supporting the economy). So, recession forecasts mainly based on yield curve are probably too pessimistic.
On the other hand, forecasts the relay mainly on GDP are probably too optimistic, since 2017 GOP tax cut is causing a divergence between GDP and Gross National Income, since more GNI is going to overseas investors in US stock market. Growth in GDP is become less reliable indicator of resources for domestic consumers to support aggregate demand, and aggregate consumer spending is all that is keeping expansion going. Investment is flat. Investment if flat or falling, depending on which measure you look at.
Only good idea to support economy (in context of all the stupid policies Trump won’t or can’t reverse) Trump floated is a temporary cut in payroll taxes. But apparently that is now off the table (maybe because Trumpsters figured it wouldn’t pump enough money to rich people?) . So, now their idea is a capital gains tax cut, which is useless to support the economy right now.
And since Trump’s vision of what the great Trump economy should look like is incoherent and selc-contradictory, unlikely Powell can use his magical powers to fix all problems Trump creates to satisfy Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
just saw this retweeted
this guy’s trolling, but that doesn’t mean trump won’t catch up with the troll, and when you’ve staked your whole presidency on the notion that the DJIA= the economy, you don’t need a Great Depression, a slow down in growth could blow up in your face
(just switch on my TV, cause I’m desperate to put off going to the gym for another twenty minutes) and Andrea Mitchell was interview Cindy McCain about how disappointed and frustrated and angry John McCain would be at the “gridlock” in Washington today. I don’t care what Cindy McCain thinks about anything– is she still some kind of half-assed “ambassador” for the trump administration?– but I remember in the fall of 2016 when McCain gleefully pledged that Rs were gonna keep up judicial obstruction under President HRC. Andrea Mitchell should remember that, as should the chinless, gormless fuck Chuck Todd, to which gormless fuck Mrs Greenspan is now talking to about St McCain.)
BC in Illinois
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hereby order a Cubs victory over the Nationals.
It doesn’t work unless you *hereby* order it.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: I think pretty much everyone recognizes there are problems with the US-China trade relationship. We just don’t think it can be solved by alienating allies and tweet-screaming.
bemused
Evil bastard gets more bonkers by the hour.
bluehill
If the comments of one familiar consumer products company with 40% of its sales in the U.S. is a reflection of what other companies are starting to do, the slowdown in the U.S. economy is likely to accelerate in the next couple of quarters.
This company talked about how they passed on about half of the first round of tariffs to consumers, but couldn’t pass on as much of the second round because that would have a greater impact on sales. They also rely on a tourist spending, in particular, Chinese tourists, so that’s affected U.S. sales as tourism from that region has dropped.
Their margins are getting hit and a result they are cutting expenses and slowing capital investments to preserve cash. This obviously begins to affect their suppliers. The company started making some adjustments in the first half of the year, but plans deeper cuts in the second half of the year as it becomes clear that the trade war is not ending.
One can imagine what they would do if there’s a third round of tariffs. I think companies are running out things they can do to minimize the impact of the tariffs, so it looks as if they haven’t been that harmful so far. I think we start to see the real impact emerge now.
mad citizen
If no other jackal is going to acknowledge the genius of the title of this post, I just did. Betty Cracker, you crack me up!
russell
hereby ordered?
also, China is flooding the US with fentanyl?
bemused
@JMG:
That’s hysterical. He’s always been an asshole. That’s all he is.
Yarrow
#Iherebyorder is trending on Twitter. Heh.
jl
@patrick II: “But at the core we have a large deficit with China,”
Not clear at all that, today, a large bilateral trade deficit with China is a big problem. It was a big problem between 10 and 20 years ago when a bilateral trade deficit with China in manufacturing drove the overall US trade deficit and severely damaged several states’ economies. And note that some very large US corporations made huge profits from that bilateral trade deficit.
Fact that US has done very little to repair that damage done years ago is not China’s fault.
US macroeconomic management was horrible during GW Bush years, and mediocre during Obama years (though that is not entirely Obama admin’s fault). US international financial policy has worsened our supposed China problem, and parts of Trump vision for the US continues these policies. Looking around to blame China or Europe is avoiding the main problem, which is here in the US, and I think largely driven by control of federal government by large corporate crony capitalism.
TaMara (HFG)
@JPL:
@rikyrah:
I don’t do a lot of fast food. But I do love a good chicken sandwich (it must be fried, none of this healthy grilled crap) and Popeyes spicy chicken is right up my alley. It’s on a brioche bun, which takes it up several notches. Didn’t know there was a war on, but anything that takes down Chick-fil-a is A-okay in my book.
mrmoshpotato
But I thought the Soviet shitpile tanked the market last week! (Or was that the beginning of this week? I honestly can’t remember.)
Hey Dumbfuck Donnie! It’s not a limbo stick!
ETA: And this is the same asshole who wanted to try out President-for-life like Xi.
TaMara (HFG)
@mad citizen: I guess because she’s so clever every day, we take it for granted. But I laughed out loud when it came up on my RSS
daryljfontaine
@PaulWartenberg:
Well, Norton is anti-virus, so I see no contradictions here.
D
scav
@Yarrow: If it turns out he really is being directed by the voices in his hairpiece, shouldn’t that be #Ihairbyorder?
patrick II
@jl:
I am not saying it is all China’s fault, I would even say mostly ours for the reasons you stated. And yes the TPP was meant to address some of that, and while
what percent of that came home to working people?
And I didn’t blame Europe for problems Trump has created with allies.
I will state as simply as I can, — while realizing being reductionist is also oversimplifying — it has been China’s national strategy against U.S. corporate tactics. The guy with the long term strategy wins.
And thanks for your respectful response to my less sophisticated take on the situation than yours.
Duane
Hereby order Trumpov says. Well an executive order should take care of it. Republicans love that take charge authoritarian style. They claim his craziness makes him an effective leader. He’s being presidential.
jl
@Duane: ” what percent of that came home to working people? ”
Well, now, THAT is a very good question. As far as I know, not much went to workers hammered in the Rust Belt, Alabama, and some manufacturing centers in the Plains states. I’ll look for something on that.
I agree with the Krugman/DeLong analysis on problems caused by trade deficit with China. Krugman likens Trump policies to trying to help a guy who got run over by a bus by backing the bus back over him. My disagreement with Krugman is that he doesn’t have much to say about what should be done to help the guy run over by a bus (but, hey, Elizabeth Warren does have something to say, so who needs Krugman on that?).
Kelly
@jl:
patrick II
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with you and I tried to make that clear in my comment. Causing disord with our allies has been stupid if not treasonous.
RandomMonster
I’m used to him sounding insane. This is more insane than usual.
Mike in NC
You have to wonder who — if anybody — is Fat Bastard’s nitwit chief advisor on China policy. My guess is Ivanka, since her trashy product lines are made in Chinese prison sweatshops.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How quickly did you turn your TV back off?
Betty Cracker
@jl: If the economy goes south, Senator Warren is going to look very prescient. Again.
The Moar You Know
@patrick II: Back in the last half of the 1990s I worked for an importer of Chinese goods – musical instruments to be precise – and every word you say is true. As is a lot of what Trump’s been saying. Of course, excepting the response today “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China” as that is total crazypants, both because a president doesn’t have that kind of power and there are no alternatives to China…now. There were as late as the mid 00s, but not any longer.
What a lot of people don’t get is that we didn’t just send the business over there, we sent the factories. Every last nut and bolt of them. So the God Emperor of Dumb, King of the Jews, can scream until he strokes out that this business and manufacturing needs to come home to America – and it does – but until someone lays out a LOT of money for factories and equipment to stock them with, along with ironclad guarantees that said equipment cannot be resold outside the continental United States, it ain’t coming home.
I also agree with the observation that a Dem could never make these statements, as the vast majority of the people I met doing the importing are solid-red Republicans.
One more thing:
I have heard this bandied about as an excuse for the lax oversight of US/China trade for a long time. Anyone who had EVER dealt with the Chinese at any level, including me, who did so at about the lowest level possible, knew this could not and would not ever happen. It was a convenient excuse for administrations of both parties to not rock the boat, that’s all. It was never something that anyone could have believed could ever happen.
TenguPhule
Why Trump is melting down.
mrmoshpotato
@BC in Illinois: I hereby order another Cubs World Series win and the swearing in of President Pelosi.
Elizabelle
@TaMara (HFG):
@rikyrah:
@JPL:
WaPost heartily endorsed the Popeye’s chicken sandwich over Chick-fil-A’s. Hands down. Yea.
And came up with my favorite paragraph from yesterday. On the social media tumult following the chicken sandwich faceoff:
Will have to sashay over to Popeye’s and try it. We’ve got Zaxby’s here, too.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: That came through. It sounded like you thought you were going to get a lot of blowback from people here for saying Trump is right to say there are problems with the US-China trade relationship. That’s the part that was puzzling to me.
jimmirabob
Well, it’s a darn good thing that farm families and their communities don’t need that market.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Awwww, his tiny little mind at work, alienating allies and tweet-screaming, the trump’s idea of the presidency. Not quite as good as holding your breath till you get what you want but still stupid and less advanced.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
Fox and Friends.
prostratedragon
@jl: Hard for Fed easing policies to work when everyone is revising their risk premia (daily and furiously!) for U.S. assets. Could that not be an interpretation of the yield curve: this too shall pass, but it ain’t passed yet?
mrmoshpotato
@JMG: Something about leopards and spots.
Admirable that you didn’t rip the guy a new one.
jl
@Betty Cracker: I think still very uncertain whether going to be just a growth slowdown or actual recession by domestic US NBER standards.
Edit: though I think growth slowdown in 2015 and 2016 caused bigger problems for HRC than recognized, so maybe WH is right to be in a blind panic, even if no recession.
I do disagree with Warren about it being a crash. Might be a stock market crash, but if it is limited to that, competent coordinated Fed and Treasury policy can stop that from turning into a crash in the real economy, so… oh, wait…. Uh oh. And then you need good economic management to prevent another ‘jobless recovery’… oh wait… uh oh…
Assuming a stock market crash occurs, the damage done to the real economy depends on the extent to which securitization of increased corporate debt causes systematic risk. And that’s a wild care in the deal. Warren takes pessimistic view of that. Maybe I should take her warning more seriously, since she surely knows more about it than people like us do.
Mike in NC
OK, now I get it. He’s not content to be the Chosen One, the King of Israel. He needs to be Emperor of China. (Pronounced “Tchyna” in Trumpese.)
Sure Lurkalot
@TaMara (HFG): When in Denver, check out Royal Rooster at Broadway Marketplace food hall. Tater tots too.
Ian G.
Please, cult 45 members, tell me more about the dangers of soshulism while your Idi Amin impersonator president tries to nationalize the entirety of American international business via tweet.
Wapiti
@JMG: My reply might be “Well, actually, if the Republicans had nominated any other of their 10 candidates in 2016 then neither you nor I would care what Mr. Trump said today. But nooooo, the Republicans wanted this guy.”
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So, in Russian schoolbooks, Lincoln drove the country into the Civil War?
Interesting….
catclub
@Yarrow: I think it was King Canute who hereby ordered the tides to stop coming in.
geg6
He seriously thinks he can order multinational companies to stop doing business with China?!?!?!?!?!?!
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! He’s even more stupid than I thought. And you’d think that wasn’t possible because I already thought he was the stupidest person I’ve ever seen.
jonas
It’s like watching a guy run around his house with a 12-gauge blasting holes in the walls and ceiling because he’s fed up with a fly that’s been bugging him. Sane people are like: “Dude! You’re causing thousands of dollars in damage and putting people’s lives at risk! Calm down! There are better ways to handle this!” Meanwhile a MAGAt standing next to you is like: “Just watch, he’s gonna show that fly, yesiree. Can’t let a smartass bug get away with shit like that.”
Then the guy puts down his shotgun and starts pouring gasoline everywhere…
L85NJGT
The Chinese middle class is driving global consumer choice and consumption for the next twenty years. You ain’t putting that genie back in the bottle.
Chyron HR
Tune in next week to find out if this is an economic threat or a declaration of war.
jonas
@catclub: A more apt analogy might be Xerxes ordering the Hellespont flogged for thrwarting his attempt to cross it.
catclub
@Mike in NC:
Navarro
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle:
LOL
And thanks for using ‘sashay’.
jl
@prostratedragon: I think it has been hard for Fed to use traditional interest rate and money market tools when monetary policy has to do all the work to support a second successive weak expansion after a recession. That is why they used yield curve as a tool, I think Fed saw it as a good way to judge if they were pushing things to far in tightening.
I see from Krugman’s tweets on Jackson Hole conference, that there is worry that while Fed might be accused of tightening too quickly at times, but there is also worry that Fed will enter next recession with far fewer tools to cushion downturn than at any time in post-WWII era. But, Fed has been more moderate in tightening than any time since 1960s. So, forcing monetary policy to all macroeconomic management creates big dilemmas.
Clear that, around the world, bond investors see lower real rates in near future. And right now, many long rates around the world, particularly Europe, are almost zero, maybe negative already.
jl
@jonas: Thanks for that analogy. I hope a front poster puts up on top of the next post on the economy, or, maybe the next post on anything related to Trump.
Cracker, did you see that comment?
catclub
@jonas:
I disagree. In this regard, Trump as president is not blowing trillion dollar holes by going to war. He has been quite cowardly so far, which is a wonderful thing. I am also amazed because going to war is a well known way to make the president more popular. Maybe he is waiting until next year. But so far, so good.
sherparick
1. One, we are all Steve McCloskey right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA
2. I know now, what I knew when I went to bed on 8 November 2016 – We are all so fucked.
3. It is always Infrastructure Week isn’t it.
4. That 70% of white guys (probably more among boomers like me) support this guy, proves that listening to right wing radio and watching Fox News destroys brain cells.
TenguPhule
@mrmoshpotato:
Didn’t the last one already do enough damage?!
Phylllis
@BC in Illinois:
I hereby doubly order it; the Braves could use another game or two of breathing space.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: This smacks more of Kudlow’s coked-up bellicose idiocy than Navarro’s reflexive embodiement of Cleek’s Law, but hell, it’s really hard to tell the difference between them these days.
I remember when Navarro had enough impulse control to be able to do a five-minute radio interview without turning into a decompensating lunatic, but sadly those days have been over since 2008.
TenguPhule
@Chyron HR:
Why not both?
jl
@sherparick: Trump is barely above 50 percent with low education White guys. if that keeps up, Trump is toast in 2020. Maybe another reason he is getting desperate and losing his mind (even more than usual).
TenguPhule
Bona-fried success: how Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich conquered America
Betty Cracker
@jl: I did. It’s a great analogy.
@The Moar You Know: I know nothing about economics, but isn’t Navarro widely considered to be a crank?
jonas
@The Moar You Know:
This.
A lot of people assume: “Well, if we stop buying cheap headphones or sneakers from China, we’ll just start making some here and employ some Americans for a change.” Yeah. Nice try. All the components are Chinese. All the factory equipment to make them is Chinese. All the workers who know how to assemble them are Chinese. We have none of that anymore. Also, the headphones will cost $200 rather than $20. More realistically, companies will start looking for alternative supply chains in Vietnam or India or someplace like that, but that takes time and will cost a lot. That manufacturing is never coming back here, no matter how many tariffs you slap on China.
kindness
King Trump has spoken. No more buying things with China.
Does that mean we can’t sell them things either? I understand the tech companies have been getting around the last edict by claiming the sold electronics were sourced from non-US factories and so they weren’t effected. I wonder how this new ‘decree’ will change anything? I suspect it won’t as Trump (even King Trump) doesn’t have the authority to do any of this.
jonas
@TenguPhule: So, is the real reason this is a thing that Popeye’s is just that good, or is it that people now have an alternative to the signature sandwich at Chik-fil-e, which is run by a family of homophobic Talibangicals?
TenguPhule
She is not wrong.
dexwood
Man, that is one crazy motherfucker infesting the Whitehouse. I hereby order myself to step away from the computer, get some lunch, then hit the foothills of the Sandias for a walk.
TenguPhule
@jonas: From the reviews it seems to be both. Their chicken sandwich is allegedly juicer on the inside, crisper on the outside and doesn’t turn the bun into wet tissue if you don’t eat it immediately.
jonas
@Mike in NC: Peter Navarro. And he is a nitwit’s nitwit.
Roger Moore
@jonas:
And it’s not clear that we should want it to come back. The stuff China is making is largely low margin commodity stuff, and that’s not where the profits (and good wages) are. The US has remained prosperous by sticking to making high-end stuff and importing the cheap commodities from elsewhere.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know about “widely considered” but yes, he is a crank.
jl
@jonas: ” More realistically, companies will start looking for alternative supply chains in Vietnam or India or someplace like that, but that takes time and will cost a lot. ”
That process has already started. Looking at the rise in volume and average cost of goods from those countries that are covered by higher Trump tariffs and comparing that to the successive rise in tariffs is now people are estimating the cost to US consumers and companies.
jl
@The Moar You Know: I think the ‘widely’ is correct too.
catclub
I will note this headline I read at Ritholtz:
patrick II
@The Moar You Know:
I have been struck by how desperate McConnell is to have Russian money to build an aluminum plant. Where the f*ck is American capital if having that plant is so important that Mitch would sell his withered soul to the Russians?
Betty Cracker
So, how do y’all think Trump will “respond” to the tariffs this afternoon, as threatened via the tweet above? Remove the hold on the Christmas tariffs? Or just forget all about it like Melania’s immigration papers press conference?
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: what’s drumpf gonna do when China calls our debt they hold due? Declare bankruptcy?
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in NC: “Giina!”
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
I predict he will do something incredibly stupid, demoralizing and shameful.
Chetan Murthy
@Roger Moore:
Once upon a time, we said the same thing about Japan. Various entire industrial sectors disappeared to Japan. And it turned out, when the low-level manufacturing goes someplace, the design starts heading that way eventually. And the day comes when the entire value chain has relocated. And auto execs in Detroit end up buying the new Toyota to disassemble and figure out how they built the damn thing with such a low parts count …..
Not to speak of the fact that poorly-educated native-born can’t do the high-end work of which you speak.
I’m not a fan of Shitler, but we -are- destroying our industrial base, and the basis of our economy and prosperity. And btw, the famous theorem attributed to Ricardo, about how a country profits by opening its markets, even if its counterparty countries do not …. that theorem has “assumptions” that are worth investigating and pondering. He assumed capital was pretty much immobile, as was entrepreneurship. You can read it in his writings — that a businessman in Glasgow (or was it someplace in England?) would find it difficult to set up shop in Portugal, for many reasons, geographic, cultural, and otherwise.
mrmoshpotato
@Wapiti: I have a feeling any other Rethuglican would’ve done the same shit, but not screamed about it like a POS manbaby.
TenguPhule
@sukabi:
Trump: “Federal Bonds sold to China are just words on paper! WILL NOT PAY CHINA A DIME!!”
sukabi
@TenguPhule: sadly I think you’re right.
TenguPhule
@Chetan Murthy:
Until we get rid of Republicans and rebuild our civic educational institutions, this will not change.
mrmoshpotato
@TenguPhule: Don’t you blame Dump on my Cubs.
TenguPhule
@mrmoshpotato: The Cubs and Red Sox damned us into the worst of all timelines.
Ruckus
@jonas:
All that education and he so seldom uses it that I’d bet it’s difficult for anyone to remember a time when he has. He was probably hired because he’s written books about China. He even spelled China correctly so trump probably thought he’s a genius. It appears not to be so.
Harvard must be so proud of all the morons it has given degrees.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
Liberals killed it. They bitched about trade deals killing US manufacturing, and costing us many jobs over the past 25-30 years.
They pushed Hillary to disown or alienate a large section of the electorate.
“The Forgotten Man”, in rural areas, Rust Belt states, Appalachia, etc. was a huge theme in the 2016 elections. And those folks seem to be forgotten again, as it no longer benefits Republicans to push them into the spotlight.
Also, TPP exists. The remaining 11 countries ratified it. We’re just left on the outside, watching everyone else have fun.
ET
I thought trade wars were easy to win.
Betty Cracker
Wow, this Joy Reid thread:
chopper
so the “keep the gubbermint out of business” party is fine with their guy “ordering” businesses out of china. makes sense.
TenguPhule
@ET:
Yes, for the other side. //
StringOnAStick
@russell: Unfortunately that “flooding the US with Fent@nyl is actually true. I talked to a drug policy presenter at a dental convention about it and apparently it is an easy drug to make and China makes a lot of it legally and illegally, and the latter ends up exported to western countries for the addiction market. China also promised to stop the illegal manufacturing and exporting recently, and apparently hasn’t done so. The advantage it has over traditional illegal drugs is it is incredibly powerful so a small amount has a lot of dollar power. That’s how people end up dying of an overdose so easily though; a tiny bit does the job, and tiny bit and a half will kill.
Steeplejack (phone)
@JPL:
Welcome to the Popeyes club! I get it every couple of months or so, and I like it better than KFC.
I’ll have to try the sandwich when the rioting dies down. Those two guys that rikyrah linked to were pretty definitive in their review.
chopper
@jl:
this is one reason why the fed was on the QE train for as long as it was. goopers in congress shut down any attempt at policy on the fiscal side, so the fed had tho shoulder everything. now rates are stuck in the 2’s and there’s a recession coming.
catclub
@sukabi:
This is a case of: When you owe the bank $100 and can’t pay, it is your problem, when you owe the bank $1M and can’t pay, it is their problem.
Those debts are held in US dollars. NEVER a problem for a nation that runs its own printing press.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
We destroy our industrial base because they are not profitable enough, not necessarily because they are not profitable. We don’t teach how to build things as a national or even a state policy. And most businesses won’t spend money for that because it’s less profitable. Making things takes hands on learning experience. Book learning is important but learning to move your hands correctly to grow with the business takes hands on, apprenticeships. Some of those can be short but they have to happen. Unions did that for a while but where are the unions? Workers didn’t want to pay for them to train someone to replace them, and companies don’t want to pay to teach, it isn’t their job and isn’t profitable this quarter. The government has to or at least encourage it and it doesn’t do this well. Mainly because the base the political entities listen to have money, so they must know something and are willing to give some of it up to get lower taxes. You want a stable workforce, a robust mfg market, you have to train workers so that there is a supply of people to build the products, pay taxes and buy the stuff. We do the last part but neglect the first two and have a very lopsided political structure. Money is the power above all else, including the people that are supposed to be our government.
Chetan Murthy
@gene108:
Well, that’s one interpretation. Here are a few others:
(1) Shitler killed it, b/c he wanted to appear strong and smack other countries around
(2) in fact the TPP was a giant giveaway to the wealthy. Now sure, it was also a strong bulwark against China’s rising hegemony. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, that every time we need to tighten our belts for the common good, it’s the poor who take it in the neck? [Dean Baker wrote extensively about this]
(3) the new TPP is, from what I’ve read here-and-there, significantly LESS of a giveaway to the wealthy. It’s almost as if, without our malign influence, all of our better-governed trading partners decided to do it …..
rightbetter.I’m not trying to argue that the TPP was unambiguously bad. But pretending that it wasn’t a giveaway to the rich, and that that part wasn’t in large measure our own fault, is …. somewhat of a misrepresentation.
jonas
@catclub:
I was referring to his behavior in this *trade* war. And in addition to ruining the Chinese export market — perhaps permanently — for US farmers, it has cost businesses and consumers tens of billions in higher prices and risks triggering a worldwide recession.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
Are you aware of the many rules that China has in place to ensure that manufacturing know-how and trade secrets are transferred into Chinese [often state-owned] companies’ hands? It’s quite enlightening, and when you see it, you realize that, no, it’s not just about what’s cheaper — it’s about a concerted policy by China to transfer manufacturing and thereby design knowledge, to China from everywhere else.
Betty Cracker
Speaking of Great Patriot Farmers, the National Farmers Union issued a statement today:
I wonder who was president then? Reap, sow, etc.
catclub
@jl:
Somebody else posted that Trump has a lot of things right about the way China works against US companies.
Trump is also right that the Fed only knows how to do one thing: KILL INFLATION, and is only on the lookout for RUNAWAY INFLATION.
As soon as unemployment rates were down – but no sign of an inkling of wage inflation, they started raising rates – because interest rates must be ‘normalized’.
Also Jay Powell, the guy Trump hired after he fired Janet Yellen, is more of an inflation hawk than Yellen, but Yellen was appointed by Obama, so had to go.
jonas
@Ruckus: IIRC, he was a professor at UC Irvine before joining the Trump administration and when that was announced, a collective groan went up because his views on trade and national interests, particularly with regard to China, were so out of the mainstream. Well, I guess we’re finding out now why that was…
I’ll also point out that conservatives are constantly mocking ivory tower eggheads and how their smartypants leftist ideas never reflect reality. Well, like in Brownback’s Kansas, we’ve actually gotten to see in real time how crazy conservative ivory tower ideas work out in real life. The answer is: not too well. I’ll stick with Krugman, thank you very much.
rikyrah
08/23/2019 09:00 am ET
Elizabeth Warren Has Spent Her Adult Life Repeating A Lie. I Want Her To Tell The Truth.
headshot
Rebecca Nagle
Guest Writer
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
I think FDR did something about that chronic overproduction. I think the farmers still do not recognize the contradiction in this statement. You would think that those weather events would reduce the oversupply.
L85NJGT
@patrick II:
The determinative cost is the electric for the smelter. So cheap power is the location driver in that industry. It is hard to compete with dirt cheap Canadian hydro power, so they are building a white elephant. The sugar is in the construction grift.
Betty Cracker
Breaking news on MSNBC of the “Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ” variety: It was just announced that Justice Ginsburg has had recent cancer treatments. They say it was “treated definitively.” They say she “responded well.” Please, FSM…
mrmoshpotato
@TenguPhule: We’re ruled by a chicken sandwich now?
catclub
as someone always puts it: Whee!
Miss Bianca
@jl: I actually could have used a capital gains tax cut last year, when I sold my house. Too little, too late for me, Donny. But if course small fry like me are not who DT is looking to appease.
btw, could we start referring to Trumpers as the DTs? It’s a little thing, but it evokes so much.
jonas
@Betty Cracker:
Yup. Have yet to read anything suggesting — despite all their griping and grousing — a major shift among white midwestern farmers away from Trump. I guess they’ve decided to dance with the one who brung ’em. To the bitter end. It turns out going bankrupt under a crazy bigoted idiot white president is preferable to making an honest living under a black president.
Chetan Murthy
@rikyrah:
This is imbecilic. It’d be like me claiming some Ayurvedic medicine can cure brain cancer.
Chyron HR
@Chetan Murthy:
“This I know, for Bernie Sanders tells me so.”
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
Foreign exchange traders think he will try to get the treasury to intervene to weaken the dollar. As they say: “Good luck with that.”
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: There is nothing Warren could say that would satisfy Ms. Nagle.
catclub
@Miss Bianca:
How small are those fry? Isn’t there a lifetime $500K exemption on capital gains from selling a home? Have you shot past that?
Chetan Murthy
@Chyron HR: *cough* Read Dean Baker’s work on this. I barely pay attention to Wilmer.
catclub
@Chetan Murthy: Hating on the TPP was completely bipartisan in 2016. I wonder if China was funding a lot of the
info against it?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
And this is where Nagle loses me, unfortunately:
I am not on board with rejection of science in favor of “just knowing.” By anyone. That’s how we’ve ended up with fucking measles epidemics in 2019.
I am perfectly fine with American Indian nations saying that they are the sole arbiters of who is and isn’t a member of their nation. I’m fine with them saying that membership and affiliation is more important than DNA. But I am not okay with them rejecting science because they just “know” who does and doesn’t belong.
Miss Bianca
@jonas: The cartoon version of this scenario in my head is scary and funny at the same time. Like Elmer Fudd as envisioned by Stephen King.
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca: “Here’s JOHNNY!”
Kelly
@TenguPhule: @sukabi:
No one can call in or or otherwise demand cash for Treasury debt. They can only sell it on the open market.
patrick II
@L85NJGT:
So there is a payoff, just in Russian infiItration of our political system, not profits. They don’t seem to be playing by the capitalist playbook either.
Chetan Murthy
@catclub:
Again, I’m not “hating” on the TPP. But this “oh, the TPP would have solved this problem” just ignores that it was a giant transfer of wealth to those who have too much already, and that since our rejection, the remnant TPP seems to have become better in this regard.
Giving it to the poor in the neck every time, is no sound basis for national trade (or any other) policy. Or at least, it shouldn’t be one we reflexively support as Dems.
TenguPhule
@mrmoshpotato:
Isn’t it obvious?
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
And all you fucking stupid farmers supported him until the LEOPARDS ATE YOUR FACES.
TenguPhule
@Kelly:
Uh no that’s not true. Treasuries can be redeemed for cash from the US Treasury once they hit their due date like any other bond. Typically though what happens is that the funds are simply rolled over into new Treasuries.
glory b
@Betty Cracker: My critique of her holds. She is more than a bit enamored of herself. I think this exercise thing is false (anyone ever watch the videos of her and her trainer? He’s doing all the work). I agree with her positions, but she certainly should have taken a lesson from Justice Marshall and retired when Obama had a majority.
If she can’t make it to the end of Trump’s term we will go down in flames. Angry Black lady retweeted someone who said we are fooling ourselves about the judiciary as it is. Trump & Co are appointing very conservative, very young (7 years out of law school, no distinguished career to speak of, are you kidding me?) judges that we will be saddled with for the next 30-40 years. More than any other president (once again, ____ Jill Stein/ stay at home voters, looking at you Sanders campaign people, Turner, Gray ,etc.) in the history of the country.
Got to admit, I always gave her a bit of side eye for being SUCH GREAT FRIENDS(!!!) with Scalia. I would not even spit in the direction of anyone whose goal was to undo my life’s work. Not to mention bring such misery to the masses.
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Nope.
Kelly
@Kelly:
Correcting this to: No one can call in or or otherwise demand cash for Treasury debt before it’s due date. They can only sell it on the open market.
Kay
He gets worse every week. It really is true though- you don’t notice the decline as much as you might if it was all in one month.
He’s slightly worse every week. Every once in a while there’s a lurch downward where one of the lashes out or says something racist but if you put it on a line it would mostly just slope gently downward from first day to today.
Betty Cracker
@Chetan Murthy: Also, no one is claiming that the DNA test proved Warren is “Cherokee” — it proves she has Native American DNA from a distant ancestor. AFAIK, there’s no such thing as “Cherokee DNA.” Warren apologized and repeatedly acknowledged that tribes are the only arbiters of membership.
TenguPhule
Speaking of hopeless causes.
jonas
@TenguPhule: Exactly. Trump was supposed to ruin the lives of Guatemalan refugees, not white men in Missouri. What gives?
Miss Bianca
@TenguPhule: Hell, some of them are supporting him even AS the leopards eat their faces.
John Revolta
@catclub: I’m glad it isn’t just me who didn’t quite see how that statement didn’t
make sense. “We’re growing too much stuff, and also it’s getting harder and harder to keep doing it!”
TenguPhule
@Miss Bianca: I assume that’s because it didn’t stop at their faces but continued on to their brains.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: One of my uncles is a Great Patriot Farmer who supports Trump. I can’t imagine him ever admitting he was wrong or not voting for Trump in 2020. Maybe he’ll shut up and stay home — that’s the best we can hope for.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
I was talking with my mom (who has a case of Fox News Brain Worms) about tariffs.
Mom: “And the president is getting China to pay those tariffs!”
Me: “No, that’s not true. The tariffs are paid by the people who import Chinese goods into the US, and those increases are paid by the consumer.”
Mom: “No, the Chinese government is paying, and because of that, intellectual property theft is way down!”
Me: “Mom, I’m the guy at my company who LITERALLY WRITES THE CHECKS TO CUSTOMS & BORDER PROTECTION TO PAY THE TARIFFS. Last year we paid $6 million dollars to the US Gov’t for Trump’s tariffs!”
Mom: “Well, that’s your opinion.”
* sigh * Brain worms and leopards, what’r’you gonna do?
John Revolta
@John Revolta: Arrggh. DID make sense. Or didn’t NOT make sense. Wevs.
Also, not to worry. RBG only has to hang on until November, because of the longstanding legal precedent of “A President can’t nominate a SC Justice in his last year in office”. No backsies, right? RIGHT??
Brachiator
@donnah:
I have not watched any news stories or been anywhere near the Internets until a few minutes ago, and the first thing I see is news about Trump.
Yeah, blown way past crazy town covers it.
I can’t imagine what the end of the day will be like.
OTOH, is the news about a Koch brother dying correct. That’s one down.
rikyrah
@glory b:
And, he was able to have those slot due to the obstruction of the Turtle during 44’s Administration.
It is because of the judges that those on the left who made this Administration possible because of their purity, will NEVER BE FORGIVEN.
WE told them about The Court, and they told us that we were trying to ‘ scare’ them.
Phuck ’em.
dww44
@Betty Cracker: I “said a little prayer” when I heard. Please please, to all the gods that there are, let her make it to Jan 21, 2021.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: And yet I’m still the asshole for saying that it is inexcusable, on her part, that she did not retire in Obama’s first term.
The GOP has this working the judiciary shit figured out to a science. What in the fuck is our excuse for not getting it?
catclub
OT: megan McAarglebargle at the WAPO is making sense, and had no ‘but the democrats are worse’ exemption to here op-ed.
Origuy
@catclub: Canute knew what he was doing; showing his flattering courtiers that his power had limits. Trump hasn’t an atom of humility in his body.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yup. The first “lefty” who claims that I’m trying to blackmail them when I point out that the Supreme Court is in serious jeopardy of being lost for a generation gets punched right in the goddamned throat. ?
Brachiator
@jonas:
He’s keeping them happy with government welfare, the $12 billion plus he is paying them to make up for the losses he caused with his stupid trade wars with China.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
And even the unhappy ones are still willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt because they still believe he will give them what they want in the long run.
trollhattan
@Mom Says I*m Handsome:
Dear god, that’s one rough road you travel.
“I hate this rough road–here are some boulders to strew across it to smooth things out.”
Would have thought Walmart (et al) would be wielding its considerable influence on Republicans to fend this insanity off. Funny, how that seems to not happen.
Tehanu
@The Moar You Know: S
From your keyboard to God’s screen…
BTW, there’s a nice take on the Emperor Norton in Barbara Hambly’s novel Ishmael.
Miss Bianca
@Mom Says I*m Handsome: So, based on this exchange, if your Mom says you’re handsome, then…?//
On a more serious note…damn, just…damn.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: It’s a good thing that the first lefty of my acquaintance who *did* pull that “I won’t be blackmailed!” crap with me did it via the Book of Faces. *And* had moved to another state. Because yeah…I might have an arrest record now, otherwise.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
But, don’t you dare call it WELFARE…
After all…they are Patriot Farmers, remember?
Lips pursed.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Yes, he is selling them the lie that he will make a post BREXIT trade deal with the tiny UK which will make up for the loss of Chinese markets.
I don’t understand why the Democrats are simply saying that they disagree with the president on the economy instead of loudly proclaiming that the president is incompetent, and that GOP Congressional support for the president’s policies is harming the nation.
Maybe they are saying it and I am just not seeing it. But this is more important than trying to read tea leaves to predict the next recession.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: Scalia probably congratulates himself regularly for dropping dead close enough to the end of PBO’s second term so McConnell could steal the seat.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
They do. It gets about 5 seconds of airtime and then is quickly forgotten under the onslaught of “LOOK AT WHAT TRUMP IS DOING NOW”.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
I like to think he’s too busy being violated by demons in the Abyss.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Fuck ’em. It’s not just welfare, a lot of them are committing welfare fraud.
And a lot of these fools will not only tell you that they deserve free government money, they will say that it’s not enough!
mrmoshpotato
@TenguPhule: No. Chicken sandwiches aren’t as bugfuck crazy or bastards.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t understand why you couldn’t.
Elizabelle
@glory b: Agreed.
And I don’t believe the people who say McConnell never would have allowed the seat to be filled. Revisionist.
We will never know. Bad gamble though, RBG.
Hoodie
They also sent the expertise. If you believe that the Chinese have been winning the trade war, it took them thirty years to get the upper hand. That is what is so dumb about Dumbshit’s claim that winning trade wars is easy – we already know it takes decades of painstaking planning and execution. Those farmers will be on the dole for a long time, as Brazil will burn down the rest of the Amazon to provide soybeans and beef to the Chinese. The point should not be to bring back the old manufacturing base, because that would likely entail a malinvestment in obsolete or nearly obsolete technologies. The Chinese already have that infrastructure, let them keep it. We need to develop expertise in newer stuff that they have yet to exploit and keep that here. Bring their best brains here and have them stay.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: It’s not welfare if you’re white! /S
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Then you weren’t paying attention. Even before McConnell outright broke the rules the GOP was already doing everything they could to delay or deny Obama’s other SC nominees from being appointed and our side had to push hard to get them in.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: Not quite sure I savvy what you’re saying here.
Ramalama
This tweet by journalist Dan Froomkin sprang to mind apropos of…everything.
https://twitter.com/froomkin/status/1164218866458927105
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
I might have just missed a joke. Usually, if you sell a house, you can take advantage of the preferential capital gains treatment. But if you are saying that it would have been nice to use Trump’s super duper capital gain proposal, yeah, that would be fantastic for some people.
Ladyraxterinok
@kindness: As a Christmas shopper in the early 90s, I noticed most of the reasonably priced gifts and decor items were made in China. I remember saying to myself ‘If China didn’t exist , we’d have to invent it’. Ie, our consumer society couldn’t exist without China,,,,or its equivalrnt.
We spent 76-77 in Nfld CA. IIRC correctly, the US was not importing much from China at that time. So I noticed stuff from China in the stores. I bought 6 or so kitchen tut owels made in China. They’re still in great shape after 40+yrs–colors still bright, only 1 with a small (torn into) hole.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ruckus: In the 80s I talked with retired (from state u) engineering profs. They were really discouraged about the future of engineering in US.
They got a lot of international students enrolled in their programs. The problem was that many came from families/cultures where you weren’t to demean yourself by working with your hands. So many didn’t have even some basic experience to prepare them for lab work. At that time still many Americans going into engineering had grown up making things, digging in the dirt, etc.
These retired guys said the Americans in their programs often didn’t go on to get advanced degrees. Those just helped getting faculty jobs, and the Americans knew they could make much more money in the private sector.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: So they wondered where the future teachers would come from to train new generations of engineers.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah:
I literally cannot articulate how little I give a shit about this issue.
sm*t cl*de
@StringOnAStick:
Revenge for the Opium Wars?
Ladyraxterinok
@Chetan Murthy: What about the extension of the copyright? The project gutenberg webpage welcomed every visitor with an explanation about how the TPP rules would force them to take down many of the works they carried at their site. I believe the copyright in CA does not extend as long as it does im n the US.
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok: Project gutenberg IN CANADA
Bill Arnold
I read this as saying that any American companies that do not comply will not be considered “great American companies” by the D.J. Trump administration, and may be punished to the extent enabled by the Executive Branch regulatory/law enforcement/etc apparatuses, subject to compliant right-leaning judicial review.
A threat, in other words. An early step on the path towards a fascist corporatist system.
Corporatist economic system (wikipedia sorry):
J R in WV
@James E Powell:
Now wait… I find it entertaining. Think how much money was earned by the great SciFi film Aliens — when the small Alien burst out of that guy’s chest !!! Woah !!! Enertaining to the MAX!!
That doesn’t mean it isn’t a horror film, and that we’re all living through it in real time. But it IS entertaining. Sadly entertaining!
J R in WV
@JPL:
When I had my colonoscopy, they used IV Fentanyl… a great drug in a medical situation. But what you say… Trump has no concept of medical vrs street drug. W A S Fuqed.
Bmaccnm
@swbarnes2: Tell the truth, I am a nurse in a labor unit, and that was my first reaction. In my field, we use fentanyl because, unlike morphine, when used correctly it is very, very predictable. There’s not another quick acting narcotic that can replace it for my purposes. The vulgar yam can’t really mean to limit fentanyl imports, can he?
Ruckus
@Ladyraxterinok:
It isn’t even the engineers. It’s people like me who make things with our hands, industrial things. Machinists, welders, fabricators, mold makers. It doesn’t take as big a percentage of the population as it once did, just like farmers, but it’s still necessary work and can be a decent living.
This week I worked on tooling for airplane parts manufacturers, next week it could be medical device manufacturers, or commercial product manufacturers. We make almost no finished parts and I’ve made maybe 300 or less in the last 6 1/2 yrs. Over half of that was in 3 days. We mostly make tooling for other companies to make products. There aren’t a lot of people coming into the field, not that is such a new thing but it’s gotten worse over the last few decades. We have more people and fewer interested in process, only in money and how to get it. Can’t always blame them but still there is a reason why it’s happening.
Ruckus
@Bmaccnm:
Today, who knows. Tomorrow he may be on to some other level of bullshit. He has no follow through, He gets pissed about people dissing him, no matter who they are. He’s like a 12 yr old held back for disciplinary issues being stuck in 3rd grade. He’s not any more mature than the rest of the class but he is more powerful and has limited understanding of that, and understands no responsibility for his words or actions.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
BUT: if we have majorities in the House and Senate, AND a Democratic president, it is a trivial legislative exercise to change the number of justices that sit on the Supreme Court, That is NOT a constitutional factor, it is legislative law.
So the newly elected President could appoint 4 or 6 new Justices, putting the Trumpian Justices in their place — back into the minority.
Not to mention the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh for lying during his hearings. Or impeaching Clarence for not recusing himself from cases involving his right wing nut job wife, Virginia. Either of which would be legitimate.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Four more years of POTUS D.J. Trump?
SWMBO
@geg6: https://youtu.be/WlWmCXihec4