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Posts posted by Brisketexan
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Just now, David Dennison said:
Money is money.
And you're at risk of losing a crapton of it the more business you do with a madman. Strategic, long-term disentanglement is the play.
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I mean, are there any words in the English language sweeter than "meat added?"
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3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:
I'd like to believe this, but I think the United States is a market none of them want to give up no matter how ridiculous its leader is.
Give it up? Of course not. Dramatically lessen their dependence on it? They'd be crazy not to.
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2 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:
"Arsonist takes credit for putting out fire he started."
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5 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:
Clone that. Then have her washed and bring her to my tent.
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So, imagine posting this. About yourself. Unironically.
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5 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:
Thinking that a 90 day tariff pause is going to suddenly change the fact that the entire world now hates our ass is a conclusion that only a cult member could process.
The negative consequences from that loss of confidence and friendship will unfortunately be long lasting and not soon repairable. it will also wind up being very, very expensive.
These. We just demonstrated that we are unreliable, pointlessly vindictive, indiscriminate psychopath. So, who out there wants to HELP that counterparty and do MORE business with them? Yeah, even fucking Kyrgyzstan is looking at us and doing this:
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Just now, Willfully Horn said:
The next punch Republicans delivered to my daughter’s future was yesterday. Interviewing for another position at UT Health, she learned her SS number has been flagged DEI, and that no university can hire her.
What does that even mean?
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32 minutes ago, C-Man said:
Which is why companies ain't bringing any of the shit he's talking about back over here because he'll just change his mind tomorrow, next week/month/year and then they're fucked.
Bingo again. Anyone with any life experience knows that the #1 way to do business with an unreliable and erratic trading partner is....don't do business with them.
And don't think that Europe hasn't learned the FUCK out of that lesson. First, they marched blissfully into being energy dependent on Russia, which then used that dependence to exert violent pressure and extortion against Europe. Follow that just a few years later with Trump, following the Russia script for all the trad we have with the EU and other trading partners.
The most important first step in doing business is "if at all possible, choose wisely when choosing who to do business with." Would you put your billions in capital investment in a new factory at risk, depending on the whims of an unreliable and erratic POTUS? You'd be batshit insane to do so. There is no business case to be made for "based on tariffs/protectionist US policies, spend the money to build a factory there."
Just now, TexArcher said:Everyone pointing and laughing at Trump right now is missing the point of the insane amount of money he and his cronies just made with this straight-up market manipulation.
And this. 100%. Remember, no matter what ELSE it is, it is ALWAYS about the grift.
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11 minutes ago, immamac said:
Africa is wild how underutilized they are, same as South America.
To some extent. Geography and transport creates difficulty. Central America is ripe for the picking -- actual ports, very close to American ports. Rail lines that already exist. Internal infrastructure (e.g., reliable power) is lacking....but that's part of the win-win. Guatemala gets better power supply and more and better jobs - both raising their living standards and removing the incentive to flee north for opportunity. We get goods assembled/manufactured 1500 miles away, in a country that is small and dependent enough that it CAN'T overly flex its trading partner hand.
There are SMART ways to handle trade. Declaring "all trade deficits are evil, and we're willing to wreck our economy and the global economy to prove it" is the dumbest thing ever.
We have a $30 trillion GDP.
We have a $1 trillion goods trade deficit (I'm using round numbers....and if I wanted to be ACCURATE, I'd say we only have around a $700 billion deficit, as we run a $278 billion SERVICES SURPLUS, but let's just stick with goods for easy numbers).
That's a 30-1 ratio. If we were a household with a $90k income, the equivalent would be a $3k "trade deficit" (more spent on goods than our trading partners, like HEB and Lowes, spend on us). Nevermind the absurdity of saying trade deficits are bad, period. The amount of destruction we're undertaking for something worth 1/30th of our GDP is insane. If you looked at any $90k household, and said "so, you spend $3k on goods that you don't get spending back on, leaving you with $87k in income".....the sane answer would be "cool....so what? And remember, I GET something for the $3k I spend -- groceries, hardware, what have you."
There's not a single part of this approach that isn't utterly stupid, built on a foundation of stupid, and creating an eternal historical monument to stupid.
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I don't even think disentangling from China is a good idea. In my opinion, it's in the best interest of the global economy for the US/Chinese economies to remain as entangled as they are. To me, it's ridiculous to care even a little bit about how much US debt they hold. Who gives a shit?
I agree and disagree in part. There are definitely some strategic items on which we should disentangle and reshore (not just re China: see chips, and the CHIPS Act to do so). But when it comes to stitching shoes, and screwing iPhones together and such, that can and should happen elsewhere. Personally, I’d love it if we incentivized more of that happening in Central America, which would help on MANY fronts (easier shipping, less strategic vulnerability, and better employment there reduces immigrant outflow).
But we are doing the opposite of strategic thing here. Everything is as dumb as possible.
FFS, admin mouthpieces are saying BOTH that this approach will bring back manufacturing jobs…and that those factories will be fully automated, with almost no jobs….just so. Fucking. Stupid.-
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No, it doesn't fully explain it at all but it's a big part of it.
It both is and isn’t. Take the slavery and over-the-top repression out of the mix, and China would have similar market power to what it has now.
But that ship has sailed. The power to use commerce to disentangle from China or get China to alter its way is no longer really available to the rest of the world.
We pissed away everything.
Everything.-
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13 minutes ago, immamac said:
but their only other option is to develop in house and that takes WAR or decades to get back to par with what the US has to offer, and so the process of weaning off will take a while and be fairly painful.
Yet the US is providing ironclad proof that continuing to depend on the US will be even more painful, maybe fatal. The objectively interesting and ironic thing is that our idiot leadership is talking about how the US public has to "take its medicine and suffer to get us where we need to be." They are WRONG with respect to the US, but their actions are making that lesson RIGHT with respect to everyone else.
In 10 years, the entire non-Chinese/Russian aligned world should be flying Eurofighters and Saab aircraft instead of F-35s and such, as just one example. It's going to take time for European development and production to get there.....but get there they will. Because it's the only rational choice. If a choice is painful....but it is the ONLY rational path....then people can and will endure pain.
Our choice, inflicting great pain and much more to come, is completely IRrational. So nobody is going to join us on that path.
And this:
QuoteThe trade war will undoubtedly hurt the Chinese economy. But I honestly don’t think Xi cares. He sees this correctly, as a historic opportunity to destroy U.S. global influence.
We have handed China a gift, and unprecedented opportunity. They can and will exploit it.
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4 minutes ago, Armybrat said:
Just stay clear of the meat market & the deli.
Or, hey....free circumcisions!
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8 minutes ago, immamac said:
I'm asking wtf is China gonna do, how do we think this plays out and what moves do they have besides "nuh uh"
China will do two things:
1) Pivot away from the US as a trading partner.
2) Pivot TO the EU and others as a trading partner. All China has to do in that respect is "not be as shitty and batshit as the US." And that's a low fucking bar.
Sure, there's some short-term pain for China. China can bear it, they are much tougher than we (Americans) are, and they play a long game. And China will have to be friendlier/more favorable than they would like in building new/enhanced trading relationships with others. So be it, that's short term. Once they get their hooks in, then they can start playing more hard ball . . . 10-20 years from now.
We are squandering everything. And I don't use the term "everything" hyperbolically. I mean, literally everything.
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As a male, the primary item I use for emotional support is my penis. Because I am a shallow thinker and a simple man.
So, I think we should all start shopping at HEB with our dicks out, and if anyone says anything, bristle and claim discrimination against our emotional support dong.
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1 minute ago, Tuco said:
OMG, she has a friend who uses coupons. She really has her pulse on poverty in America.
Also, I don't think she really understood The Emperor's New Clothes.
Yes to all of this.
Also, I still want to see her RATs.
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14 minutes ago, immamac said:
except that China has been erratic and insane for the entire time, people just dealt with it because it was literally "slaves over there".
China is not erratic and insane. China is asshole. Strategic asshole, but not insane and unpredictable asshole. China is Houston drivers: homicidal, assholish, but with a purpose -- hauling ass from point A to point B at all times. The US under Trump is Austin drivers: will stop in the middle lane of the freeway because they just now decided their exit is the one three lanes over.
I much prefer dealing with Houston drivers, because "strategic homicidal asshole" is predictable, and that allows ME to drive strategically.
15 minutes ago, 'stache said:Let’s suppose they were open to negotiation on legitimate topics, why would they have any trust if an agreement was reached? We’ve already shown that we just go back and forth on this shit, see Canada and Mexico.
This also offers opportunity. If everyone knows that "deals" with Trump are just words you say to make his ego feel good, then fuck it, make a "deal" with him, and don't keep it. What's that, Donnie, you'll drop tariffs on me if I promise to move my shoe factories to the US? Sure thing. I am commissioning a blue-ribbon panel to study the proper formation and composition of the committee to evaluate how to make that happen, with a plan to be developed in the next 4 years.
Walla. Trump proclaims victory, and he brought manufacturing back. And I go about my business as usual, except maybe I set up some pointless panel to issue periodic reports with pretty pictures and graphs to make Trump happy, and those reports mention the "Donald J. Trump Shoe Factory of American Victory" a few times.
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1 minute ago, immamac said:
It would be a massive gamble that China would magically convert everyone who loathes doing business with them in a snap call.
All China has to do is "not be an erratic and insane fucking asshole." Seriously. That's the play. They don't have to be trustworthy. They just have to be "the most trustworthy large economy that others can deal with." And they do that by simply....not being the US. China has a massive opportunity right now. Helping us destroy ourselves even more is a great long-term play for China, which actually CAN weather some short term pain for long-term gain (market share, relative credibility, reliability, etc.).
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3 minutes ago, pantone159 said:
If we did try and default on paying them, that would cause an economic disaster that would make this current one seem like chump change. So we will probably try that next.
There is a 100% chance that he will threaten to do that, repeatedly. There's a 90% chance he does so within the next week.
He is -- quite literally -- a fucking insane madman with a 100 or lower IQ. He's an insane moron. And we've given him full and unchecked control of.....the planet.
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1 hour ago, Firemans4Horn said:
“Trust him, he knows what he’s doing”
Just substitute "The United States" for "TMTG," and you have a dead-on, balls-accurate disclosure there.
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How long until multiple countries simply ban travelers from the US, or impose hefty (read $$$) visa requirements on American travelers?
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1 minute ago, aggie08 said:
I'm very quickly moving from laughing at the absurdity of all this in a "we fucking deserve this" manner to anger and sadness for all the irreparable damage we're doing to our future and any remaining goodwill we have left...for fucking nothing.
Added the emphasis that makes this so fucking horrific. It's just goddamned tragic. This country and economy is being wrecked, never to fully recover.....for no sane reason whatsoever.
Markets still falling like whoa
in Business and Markets
Posted
This. The "problem," as repeatedly stated by the administration and its mouthpieces, is that we have trade deficits (for goods....note how they are silent on services, for which we run a trade SURPLUS) with many countries. That's it. That's the problem. Now, they attribute that to "cheating" and such, but "cheating" is just the mechanism they blame for creating the "problem" - that problem being "we buy more goods from Vietnam than Vietnam buys from us." The "problem" is fucking dumb, stupid, and idiotic. A trade deficit per se is not a problem. It is a state of relationship between two trading partners who have differing needs and resources. I will always run a deficit with HEB. That deficit is not only not a problem, it is a mutually beneficial arrangement.
This whole conversation, using only the words of the administration itself, is dumb layered on stupid layered on moronic topped with insanity icing.