Comments
By niklasbuschmann 2025-04-097:284 reply Many people here were so confident a few days ago that the tariffs were just some 4d chess to get interest rates down, despite this not making any sense.
I'm not sure the current lot are capable of 2d chess. See penguins for example.
Also see "I’d like to apologize to bricks for calling Peter Retarrdo dumber than a sack of bricks. That was so unfair to bricks." - E Musk
I'm afraid the President's critics aren't always capable of critical reading. Consider:
> Ten-year Treasury yields have risen 39 basis points to 4.38% this week alone as prices tumble.
Ok, but the recent high point for 10-year yields was 4.79% on January 13. Why is this 4.38% alarming? And why is a brief intraday spike above 4.5% (in a foreign market) newsworthy? This reads like someone was looking for bad news to report.
By kzs0 2025-04-0915:18 I think that has to do with the rate at which it moved no?
By QuesnayJr 2025-04-097:43 I never even understood what the theory was supposed to be for why it would lower interest rates.
You can only run a trade deficit if the country you are trading with is a net investor. Part of that investment is going to be in the form of bonds. If you force a cut in the trade deficit, you cut the demand for bonds, which lowers their price and raises their interest rate.
By procaryote 2025-04-097:415 reply It's interesting that conspiracy theorists nowadays are looking for hidden plans for how the government might be working in our best interest, in spite of appearances
The weird thing is how conservatives get to play both the "federal government is inherently evil" and "look at all the stuff we're doing with our power over the federal government" cards at the same time, often for the same events.
By ryandvm 2025-04-0914:02 As always, Republicans are their own best argument for limited federal government.
Is it weird to be consistent? The "federal government is inherently evil" is a principle that doesn't magically go away when small-government people get in to power.
The argument never was nor will be that [this thing] is bad when [the wrong people] do it; the argument is that [this thing] is bad. There isn't an expectation that a right wing government will somehow transcend the realities of government. The ideal social contract with the politicians - from the liberal part of the right wing - is that they do whatever it is that motivates them to take on the job and that is tolerated to some extent - but in exchange they shrink the size and scope of the government bureaucracy.
Obviously the ideal is a distant dream at this point, but the principle lingers. It is the only realistic option.
By const_cast 2025-04-0914:361 reply > The "federal government is inherently evil" is a principle that doesn't magically go away when small-government people get in to power.
In my experience it’s exactly this. The principle vanishes quickly, because none of those “small government” people were really so. The primary small government faction in the US is conservatives. They’ve been, for a few decades now, VERY large government. Bordering on fascist.
They just lie, because it’s easy and none of their constituents care. You have better odds of hell freezing over than conservative constituencies holding their representatives accountable. When you’re in that situation, you’d be stupid not to lie.
To expand on this, shrinking the bureaucracy isn’t shrinking the government. Because, if you had read the agenda in project 2025, you’d know that the intention is to then concentrate those powers in the president.
That’s not smaller gov, that’s bigger. You’re creating a monarch.
I’m not sure why this comment was killed. Completely accurate assessment. Republicans are only “small government” until states try to do something they don’t like. (Support trans athletes or undocumented immigrants? Have fun getting all your federal funding pulled.) And the monarchy of the executive is something they’ve been eagerly proselytizing for years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
By const_cast 2025-04-0919:051 reply It’s unpopular because conservatives hate it when you tell them what their representatives are doing. Again, they’re allergic to accountability!
To this day, millions deny the impact of project 2025. Like it’s some made up liberal strawman.
Guys, half the writers are in his cabinet. He’s following it to a tee. I don’t think we could’ve asked for a more perfect establishment Republican if we tried.
They’re not some little guys dismantling the system. They ARE the system.
By tastyface 2025-04-0919:27
By pwatsonwailes 2025-04-098:32 Not mutually exclusive. "We're incredibly powerful and government is evil" and "we're absolutely going to use governmental power now we have it to fuck shit up that we don't like", is totally a position those in government can take.
The key is in the idea of governance and who's governing. Any and all governance which has happened by those the people in power don't like (basically the other team) is what is labelled bad.
The only question is, ultimately, is their governance sane and sensible? From the perspective of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
And no. No it isn't.
What a stupid strawman. The claim is "the government is too powerful, that power is easily abused, it wastes your money on pointless 'woke' things, and we are cancelling it all".
By bmicraft 2025-04-0910:23 If they're so concerned about abuse, why are they abusing it more than anybody else?
By Gibbon1 2025-04-098:39 Some guy that writes about politics wrote something that stuck with me 'a lot of people think they are in on the grift'
By NikkiA 2025-04-098:56 Conspiracy theories have always just been a form of confirmation bias. They theorise what matches the reality they want to have.
By candiddevmike 2025-04-0912:18 > in spite of appearances
Or disappearances, in some cases
Low interest rates isn’t in the common persons interests, it’s in the interests of those who own and those who have relationships with people close to the money faucet
Low rates very much in the interests of people who want to get mortgages.
(Interestingly, because of the very long mortgage duration, US homeowners are very insulated from interest rate shocks. But it will show up in consumer credit, car payments etc.)
Low rates are also expansionary for the economy in general.
By Ekaros 2025-04-098:35 Actually I think moderate rates are best for mortgages. Low rates just push prices and thus down payments to sky as have been seen. And that is no good. Moderate rates keep prices at cost of building. In the end monthly payment is what matters.
By griffzhowl 2025-04-0912:373 reply > despite this not making any sense.
Most commentary, for and against, has been exclusively on the economics, and from that perspective it makes little to no sense. But I've seen suggestions in a couple of places that there are relevant "national security" motivations, or to put it bluntly, a greater freedom to wage war - or at least to put oneself in a position where the threat of it would be more realistic. Decoupling the US economy from the rest of the world, but especially from China, makes sense if the strategic cost-benefit analysis sees a significant potential for war with that country. It's a commonplace of international relations, and intuitively obvious, that the more integrated are the economies of two countries, the less likely they are to start wars with each other (no doubt there are exceptions, but as a rule...). That doesn't have to mean anything imminent or indicate concrete plans on the part of US, but it's plausibly a factor in the overall calculations.
In fact, the economic interdependence of the US and China had seemed to be a big reason to remain hopeful that there wouldn't be a war between them, among other reasons of course. Reducing this interdependence seems to destabilize this situation. The unfortunate fact is that I can't see the US military establishment just peacefully allowing China to become more militarily powerful than itself. I'd be happy to hear other perspectives on this, I'm far from an expert and haven't seen this angle discussed much.
> It's a commonplace of international relations, and intuitively obvious, that the more integrated are the economies of two countries, the less likely they are to start wars with each other
This is indeed a common way of thinking and intuitively obvious but I think it has also been proven wrong by the war in Ukraine. We sanctioned Russia as hard as we could and it 3 years later they're still there.
Withholding some nebulous service industry from a country that's mostly reliant on primary and/or manufacturing is probably not a strong enough deterrent to a sufficiently motivated political force. It might be that it just puts service industry reliant countries at a disadvantage.
Drone warfare is another piece of the puzzle, both how they are employed in the Ukrainian war as well as in the red sea blockade. The west is also at a disadvantage here compared to, say, China. When was the last time you saw a drone-dragon lightshow outside of Shenzhen?
We thought we had world peace through commerce but it was probably an illusion. I think everyone is rethinking the last 150 years of history right now.
By griffzhowl 2025-04-0914:541 reply Just as a matter of logic, you can't prove wrong a rule of thumb that admits exceptions by pointing to an exception. There can always be reasons why, despite economic integration, other factors take precedence, e.g. perceived existential risks can push countries into war despite foreseen economic shocks.
In the case of Russia, while there were subtantial sanctions, it was still trading natural gas to the EU, and I believe they still are. China and India also helped Russia (and themselves) tremendously by buying huge quantities of discounted hydrocarbons, and I think it's plausible that there were indications before the war that such deals would be available.
As an aside about drones, a striking number of new companies established over the last handful of years in several European countries are military drone specialists. By now it's quite obvious why. In the future I guess there'll be a new slew of companies specializing in counter-drone tech.
By EdiX 2025-04-0917:49 I don't disagree, but you're just explaining why it doesn't work.
> the strategic cost-benefit analysis
Is there anything pointing to this supposed thorough analysis really being done behind the doors? Genuinely asking, because for now in my opinion from POTUS communications I don’t make me think there is and this comment is another instance of trying to make something irrational rational.
By griffzhowl 2025-04-0915:051 reply No specific evidence, just that the State department and the analysis branches of various agencies still exist and are staffed by professionals whose job it is to conduct such analyses. It's not out of the question that some of these might have filtered up and in some way influence decisions.
If the tariffs remain in place then one result that is guaranteed is that they will reduce trade between the US and the rest of the world, and reduce the most with the most tariffed countries. Whether that's rational or irrational I guess is the question I'm asking, and I'm looking for reasoned opinions either way
By _DeadFred_ 2025-04-0918:111 reply Trump has talked about his tariff idea since the 80s, and talked to Oprah about it way back when we lived in a completely different world. I'm not sure his 80s era plan is based on 2025 dynamics that somehow filtered up to him in his first months of office.
By griffzhowl 2025-04-0918:481 reply Fair point. It's reasonable to conclude that a lot of the impetus is coming from Trump himself. On the other hand, the Biden admin quietly kept Trump's first-term China tariffs, even though they reversed many other Trump policies. So that suggests some involvement of the wider foreign policy establishment that's continuous over changing administrations
By _DeadFred_ 2025-04-109:05 Or just shows that anti-China sentiment is politically popular in the U.S.
I think the strategic angle is important, but I doubt it's part of a long-term plan to start a war with China. I think the more likely concern is that if the US becomes too dependent on Chinese manufacturing, China could impose sanctions on the US to control US foreign policy.
And a similar concern applies if the US lacks the manufacturing capability to wage wars with its own resources. Something we already saw that when we ran out of ammo because of the war in Ukraine.
By griffzhowl 2025-04-0914:29 Thanks, that's probably a more sober and probable assessment. It could make sense for reducing potential Chinese leverage over US. I think if the point were to shore up defense-critical industries, though, then direct support for those industries would make more sense and be considerably less disruptive than these tariffs.
It seems to me the core issue at hand is that Trump has made a grave strategic error in terms of who really holds more cards in the trade battle, specifically with China.
This bond lever - the threat to abruptly shut off US debt supply - is just one of them. But China can also simply manage far more easily without US imports than the US can manage without Chinese imports. And for any given pain threshold, China can bear that far longer than the US will, because of the authoritarian control the government can exercise.
And then from a geopolitical point of view, even if China loses they win - because the rest of the world fully views this as an act of betrayal and lunacy by the US and the more negative the outcome the better China looks by comparison as a reliable, rule following partner on the world stage.
Basically what I see here is that we have a game of poker where China holds nearly all the cards and Trump is just pushing more and more chips onto the table.
By notahacker 2025-04-098:03 There's also the simple fact that there are an awful lot of countries other than the US for China to export to, and some of them are busy looking for new suppliers (especially since lots of "made in the USA" products have tariffs on their constituent parts). And China is much better equipped to change manufacturing priorities, and directionally the shift would be up the value chain....
By tim333 2025-04-0912:23 >strategic error in terms of who really holds more cards in the trade battle, specifically with China.
I'm not sure who has cards is the problem so much as launching an unnecessary trade battle in the first place.
If you really wanted to onshore industrial production you could have announced sane policy in advance to give people time to build factories in the US etc. without a trade war needed.
By optimalsolver 2025-04-098:332 reply Bankrupting a business where you have a mathematically insurmountable edge is actually impressive.
By wahnfrieden 2025-04-098:391 reply It would be useful for laundering.
By ac29 2025-04-0914:31 Large casinos are very expensive to build and operate. Even if they have favorable gross margins (the house edge), its pretty easy to lose money net of expenses.
By trilbyglens 2025-04-0912:06 Also, don't forget to factor in the reality that many Chinese people live at and expect a far lower standard of living than Americans do. Americans by in large are some of the most spoiled and entitled people on this planet who think that getting a new TV every year is a necessity for life
> error in terms of who really holds more cards in the trade battle, specifically with China.
This isn't 1v1 though. Maybe there was a time when US vs the rest would work, but now?
The problem is this isn't about import / exports of physical goods.
Once tariffs and bans happen on digital goods, services, etc the US is toast. Has Trump forgotten about them? China is already onto things like US films.
Game studios, Disney, Netflix, Hollywood, etc are all on the firing line.
Even sports like NBA, major league, etc would all crash. A large part of their income is from advertisements and broadcasting deals overseas.
I can imagine Amazon's AWS (or MS, Google etc) can be banned in Europe in same way Huawei tech was banned. That will hurt US economy.
Even if local alternatives may be lacking now, we can subsidize them for some time so they grow on scale, and thats more than enough for us, we don't need to be cheapest on the market. If we are reliable rest of the world will come to us too. Don't forget US vs EU are 2 mammoth +-comparable economies, and EU has more 100 million additional citizens.
4D chess move would be banning for example ASML machines for any US-related business, let's see how orange man handles his emotional swings.
This is all just a tremendously stupid set of moves. The problem is, people in current US power circles are visibly not smart, you can see it daily. So they inevitably fuck up things, and with massive moves massive fuckery flies to all of us. There is almost 0 chance things will end up as they are publicly spoken of - there are 2 options, dumb as fuck as I wrote or actually some sort of nefarious plan for trump's clan and cronies to get massively richer and suck a lot of money from markets and everybody and their pensions.
Actually I hope its the latter, smart evil can be somewhat reasoned with, pure dumb arrogance not so much you just have to keep licking that ar*ehole and pray for the best.
By ndsipa_pomu 2025-04-0915:22 > I can imagine Amazon's AWS (or MS, Google etc) can be banned in Europe in same way Huawei tech was banned. That will hurt US economy.
I'm surprised that with the current shenanigans around DOGE and security that Europe hasn't banned them as I don't see how they can be considered GDPR compliant if the data can be plundered whenever Trump and his menagerie decide that they want to look for dissenting opinions.
US-related businesses are the only buyers of ASML’s most advanced machines. The 300 million American customers are worth at least 3-4 times as those 400 million in the EU.
So, while China has better cards than the US, the EU has no cards at all.
By re-thc 2025-04-0911:07 > US-related businesses are the only buyers of ASML’s most advanced machines.
Only because the US requested it i.e. banned China.
And who's US-related again? Oh you mean those that have to pay >30% tariffs? Are you sure they're related?
> So, while China has better cards than the US, the EU has no cards at all.
No? EU can just sell ASML to China instead.
By pwatsonwailes 2025-04-098:36 A strategic error would imply he actually has a strategy. No-one doing anything in American government right now has a strategy.
As long as he gets to play as much golf and watch as much TV as he likes, he doesn't seem to care much. I don't think anyone bought Trump, I think he's just signing whatever is put in front of him and taking credit for it so he can go back to playing golf.
Possibly true.
China has had net positive tariffs against the USA for decades though. Obama tried to use the WTO to label them as a currency manipulator. Trump tried some tariffs the first time around but they just raised theirs higher to keep the imbalance.
Not saying the current strategy is a good one. But America has lost the entire supply chain, racked up huge debts, and a dollar that encourages more and more consumption. Doesn't something have to happen eventually, before the problem gets worse?
Sure, yes, the fact that the US now is in a weak position built up over decades is just the reality that has to be faced.
The path out of it is painful - starting with reducing US debt, and using a full complement of measures to diversify sources of goods and services (including bringing them domestically where it makes sense). It's something you do over a decade, in partnership with your allies, not a week on your own.
> Sure, yes, the fact that the US now is in a weak position built up over decades is just the reality that has to be faced.
It's misinformation to say the US is in a weak position. It's not. It's just gone on to do other things. When we talk about these trade deficits do we include streaming services, television shows, films, games and whatever else?
> (including bringing them domestically where it makes sense)
It doesn't, that's the point. Would you rather have factories with workers below the minimum wage or industries like the NBA?
> factories with workers below the minimum wage
China made that choice in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has progressed ever since and is now powerful enough to be able to stand up to the United States.
You have a warped view of what manufacturing is and how it can be built upon that is closer to children's cartoons than reality.
> China made that choice in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has progressed ever since
So you're saying that China has grew out of manufacturing because a lot of it is moving out of China. In the same way the US has also moved out of manufacturing ages ago.
> is now powerful enough to be able to stand up to the United States
How do you conclude that the ONLY thing China did is manufacturing?
> You have a warped view of what manufacturing is
No, it goes to show you know very little about the world. It's not all just manufacturing. That's definitely not all that China does. If it was you wouldn't have to ban Huawei and Tiktok.
Do you know how many games come from China now? A lot of US and EU game studios are at least partly owned by Chinese companies e.g. Tencent.
>China has grew out of manufacturing because a lot of it is moving out of China
China's Manufacturing Production [1] and Industrial Production has increased year-on-year for the past 10 years, excluding abnormal events such as Covid, so where are you getting your data? If you meant to say that they are transitioning to a higher level of manufacturing, instead of the sweatshops they were associated with in the 90s, this is true. But it was the low-level manufacturing that allowed them to build up both the capital and the skill necessary to advance further and further.
Hell, you've got a naval empire (the United States) that is currently unable to come even close to the Chinese ship-building capabilities - their output dwarfs the US by 232x [2]. It's not something that happened overnight and it's certainly not something that was strategically planned out 30 years ago - it is a slow process that started with low-level outsourcing and allowed China to grow into the behemoth it is today.
Sooner or later the US was going to have to deal with this fact and it seems like that time has come. Whether or not there's a plan, whether or not it will even work - I have no clue, you have no clue and neither does anyone on this forum.
Also, to counter another point you made - "When we talk about these trade deficits do we include streaming services, television shows, films, games and whatever else?" - you can't fight a war with an economy based on streaming services, TV shows and games.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/china/manufacturing-production
[2] https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/chinas-shipbuildi...
> so where are you getting your data?
Is this how we came up with the "magical" tariffs formula? Look at some data, interpret it in a random way and off we go?
You don't say that [1] shows the average growth was 6.56% in China vs 9.28% in Vietnam [3] vs 10.33% in Bangladesh. So then relatively, it's not exactly "growing" is it?
If China was still explicitly growing manufacturing the numbers would be much higher. Is it actually focused on manufacturing or are there other triggers? E.g. US banned Huawei, so they had to go back home and manufacture. E.g. US is banning AI and other exports so China has to make their own. I'd say US is increasing China's manufacturing rather than China!
[3] https://tradingeconomics.com/vietnam/manufacturing-productio...
[4] https://tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/manufacturing-produc...
[5] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/manufactu...
> Hell, you've got a naval empire (the United States) that is currently unable to come even close to the Chinese ship-building capabilities > Sooner or later the US was going to have to deal with this fact
Why? Does the UK need to deal with this "fact" too then? The US has a naval empire that the UK is no where close to in capabilities. Based on your logic, the EU would have to band together to revive the British empire and deal with the US?
I wouldn't want this. The US wouldn't want this either. So what fact is the issue?
>relatively
Why are you suddenly, when faced with data that doesn't fit your narrative, using that word when it was nowhere to be found in the original discussion?
>Why? Does the UK need to deal with this "fact" too then?
If the interests of UK and China ever seriously clashed and led to a conflict, yes, they would. I can't believe that military capabilities and force projection in the modern world need to be explained on a website meant for professionals.
By re-thc 2025-04-0911:50 > Why are you suddenly, when faced with data that doesn't fit your narrative, using that word when it was nowhere to be found in the original discussion?
The world is always relative. Otherwise if you want it in absolute terms, the US is the world's 2nd largest global manufacturer. What manufacturing do you need to bring back then?
> If the interests of UK and China ever seriously clashed and led to a conflict, yes, they would
Who clashed with who? The US has no real conflict with China. Most US companies and citizens are happily using China made products before the tariffs. Lots of US companies sell to China. Where's the issue?
Oh you mean what's been said by certain political parties and the media for their own gains?
> I can't believe that military capabilities and force projection in the modern world need to be explained on a website meant for professionals.
Exactly right. As if the military is ONLY about the navy. Then don't slice and dice it as you please. Who says the US is weak? I didn't.
If you want less consumption, and pay off debt, maybe ... raise taxes?
By XajniN 2025-04-0910:50 No one wants less consumption, you want to pay less taxes. The only way to reduce taxes is to reduce spending.
By ajross 2025-04-0916:03 > Doesn't something have to happen eventually, before the problem gets worse?
The linked article is LITERALLY pointing out that the "something" you want to "happen" is in fact making exactly the problem you're talking about WORSE.
I don't get it, I just don't get it. We're all getting poorer, very rapidly, on every imaginable axis: higher domestic prices, lower international demand, higher interest rates (the linked article), lower asset valuation in US dollars, loser US dollar value globally. Literally everything is worse. And you're still digging for some kind of coin that might have some shine on the other side that you missed.
By pjc50 2025-04-098:13 > dollar that encourages more and more consumption
Under consumerist capitalism, more consumption is generally considered to be a good thing. See all the people complaining about the price of eggs under Biden. I wonder how they're doing.
The tariffs mean that Americans will be able to afford less stuff. That's the stated objective: buy more expensive American goods rather than cheaper imports. It remains to be seen how a country which got started around a riot against import taxes is going to handle this.
By ArtTimeInvestor 2025-04-096:594 reply It's hard to say where the lower bound for the value of American companies is now. Is it zero?
Usually one could estimate the absolute minimum of future earnings.
But the current administration seems to be set on redirecting those earnings away from investors towards the government. And I don't see what could limit the extent to which they do so.
The absolute lower bound is probably domestic consumption?
Which is still a huuuuuuuuuuuuge market
By SideburnsOfDoom 2025-04-097:421 reply When the parts can't be imported, then the question is: domestic consumption of what?
By pwatsonwailes 2025-04-098:361 reply Potatoes?
By SideburnsOfDoom 2025-04-098:56 Sure, even in North Korea with "Juche" (1) extreme self-reliance, there is some domestic consumption. Of potatoes, even (2). It's not that domestic consumption will go to zero.
But the point is that domestic consumption is not constant. It can decrease, it can substitute more basic goods. Such as potatoes.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_production_in_North_Kor...
By intermerda 2025-04-097:151 reply > It's hard to say where the lower bound for the value of American companies is now. Is it zero?
Come on, it's definitely not zero for most of the companies, even if tons of small businesses go bankrupt.
> But the current administration seems to be set on redirecting those earnings away from investors towards the government. And I don't see what could limit the extent to which they do so.
The objective of the current administration is to implement fascism. Companies can operate and make profit, as long as it’s allowed by the government. See the blackmailing of law firms and tech companies for examples.
Ironically, Thomas Sowell made that argument back when Obama dared to give Americans healthcare - https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/06/12/socialist-.... And he also rang similar alarm bells during the Biden administration - https://www.foxnews.com/media/thomas-sowell-systemic-racism-.... But he has offered nothing more than milquetoast commentary about tariffs being bad when it comes to the current administration.
By ArtTimeInvestor 2025-04-097:192 reply
Why make a profit? How is an Apple that gives billions of dollars to investors (many of them abroad) better for Trump than an Apple that gives those billions of dollars to the Government which he controls? Tariffs are one way to redirect those profits.Companies can operate and make profitApple has ~30% margin, so they will just increase prices. If real SHTF with sales (since iphone 16 has had lukewarm sales already and they have 0 new shocking transformative products), they can start chipping down that part, but its a long way to go to reach competition.
Who pays for all this, as always, is common people, getting poorer. More specifically middle class, poor don't buy money-making devices from ie Apple, and rich will either stay rich or get richer if positioned well.
By ArtTimeInvestor 2025-04-099:131 reply Why do their 30% margin make you predict they will increase prices? What if they had 3% margin?
By jajko 2025-04-099:24 Their stock would collapse, nobody in power there wants that.
By robocat 2025-04-105:39 > Apple that gives billions of dollars to investors (many of them abroad)
Yeah and much of the revenue comes from abroad too. You could at least try to show a balanced view
the U.S. still counts for around 40 percent of Apple’s net sales
By oldpersonintx 2025-04-097:50 [dead]
