Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

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#1 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-15 09:03 AM
... the 'expert' consensus was an INCREASE of .3% for April. So, the 'experts' were off by a full .8%. They deserve no credibility.

The numbers you refer are usually an average of number of "experts" who make them several months in advance, i.e., well before Trump attacked the world economy with the "most stupid tariffs" (that's according to even most MAGA tariff-sympathetic economists and "experts") ever seen.

The numbers, and the resulting "expert opinions", reflect much sharper slowdown of the economy than "experts" expected, solely due to businesses dumping existing inventory and volume discounts to businesses that rushed to stock on pre-tariff arriving inventory - IOW, caused by Trump's much higher and wider tariffs than businesses and sane "experts" expected. That's a one-off, and some prices for inelastic items will resume their upward movement, coupled with tariffs/taxes, while others may rise on demand shortages or drop for a month or two due to rising prices.

Then again, you probably approve of President who can not only institute what amounts to a "federal/national sales tax" of any size on any item, but also raise or lower it at any time for any reason (or any whim) at all? Trump lost whatever economic "credibility" he might have had even with people who generally support tariffs (for protectionist / "fairness" reasons), no matter how poorly economically "justified" they may be.

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#2 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-15 09:20 AM
Well I am SHOCKED. The 'experts' expected a rise in wholesales prices but instead, they were DOWN .5% from March. This is a HUGE deal. First, our 'experts' once again proved their forecasts are fueled by political bias and/or they have no idea how trade actually works.

Second, there is ZERO need for the Fed to continue holding interest rates high when wholesale prices are actually deflationary.

Again, you are using a single [one-off] variable for a single period of usually multi-months of economic indicators to make a sweeping economic policy statement / decision. Cherry picking volatile and "unadjusted for real life" indicators is "unwise," to put it mildly.

Also - first drop in 4 years - I wonder what kind of ------- had been running the show for the prior 4 years to bring such horrible results.

Considering the drop was undeniably caused by an abrupt and radical (and illegal) Trump's tariff/tax decision, contrary to even his economic disciples, we know who is the certifiable s**thead that is running the show now.

Here is just one of real experts, who successfully ran the largest active bond funds in the world (Allianz-PIMCO) - Mohamed El-Erian:
|------- "While quoting the central banker [Powell] verbatim, El-Erian asks if the concerns raised "Sounds familiar?" This two-word response by the renowned economist highlights how the Fed's messaging mirrors prior inflationary cycles and supply-side shocks over the years.

... [El-Erian is] alluding to the stagflation of the 1970s, a period El-Erian has frequently referenced in past commentary. He has warned that tariffs and trade wars risk creating conditions reminiscent of the Carter era, marked by low growth and high inflation.
-------|

Let's see other, more relevant and forward-looking numbers from the same and next days' reports:
April's Empire State Manufacturing went -1.1 to -9.2, Industrial Production lost 0.3%, Import prices +0.5% (future inflation indicator) and Consumer Sentiment for May dropped to 50.8 (-26.5% Y-Y, -30% since Jan. 2025) - all were expected to improve or stay stable.

How is that for being SHOCKED?

Curb your enthusiasm. And welcome to the "95% Club"!
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NBC Cancels Night Court, Suits LA

Whatever little "TV" I see, the writing is atrocious, the sound is mumbled, and topics are mostly just boring and uninteresting.

The weekly game shows, as pointed out, became so expensive to produce in the US, it's cheaper to pack the planes with contestants and fly them to Ireland (or Eastern Europe) and back.

Besides destroying many suppliers, service and peripheral movie businesses during the strike, the productions in Hollywood are down by "existential" levels.

www.wvia.org - Hollywood is facing an 'existential moment' as production levels plummet - 2025-05-10

www.hollywoodreporter.com - Los Angeles Film and TV Soundstage Vacancies Reach Historically High Levels | A new FilmLA report shows studios reporting the fewest number of onstage shoot days in recorded history. - HR, 2025-04-03

Maybe "Hollywood" unions should have Trump's "tariff solution to everything" ("the most beautiful word") to the rescue... or have another strike demanding production to be done only in the US, of course with "fair share" and "living wages" and banning AI (except James Cameron) and...

variety.com - Trump's Movie Tariff Appeals to Some in Hollywood Who Lost Jobs to Foreign Subsidies - Variety, 2025-05-14

www.hollywoodreporter.com - Cannes: What Ever Happened to Tariffs? - HR, 2025-05-14

deadline.com - James Cameron Wants To Use AI To "Cut The Cost" Of Filmmaking Without "Laying Off Half The Staff - Deadline, 2025-04-09

Two years ago the unions were "winning!" taking the cue from Shawn Fain and UAW... "Short term pain, long term gain!" they said.

What are they saying now - "bail us out"? Another "American" industry being destroyed, by pricing itself out?

"Are you not entertained!"
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#1 | Posted by Sycophant at 2025-05-13 10:54 AM
This is what Saudi's get for giving the Trumps billions of dollars.

#3 | Posted by REDIAL at 2025-05-13 11:07 AM
US policy has always been to let Israel have F-35 fighters but not give them to the Arabs so Israel stays ahead of the game.
I wonder if Saudi and Qatar have bribed Lewzer enough to change that policy? Israel is notably absent from this "tour".

Saudis are not getting F-35s, at least not yet. This is announcement of "big beautiful Trump deal" of the package Saudis have negotiated last year with Biden administration for 54 F-15EX initially and up to 200 overall, to add, replace and refit aging Saudi fleet of F-15SR.

Qatar AF was the first to use F-15EX under F-15QA name.

It's a hot item and the F-15EX wait list includes Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, SoKorea, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand...

There is also a grab bag of possible development of nuclear plants, AI, "tourism and leisure projects" etc., so the figures of "deals" will be as inflated as possible.

"Man of Peace" Trump, who pines for Nobel Peace Prize, wants Saudis to join Abraham Accords and negotiate some kind of "deal" with Iran, which became more difficult since his idiotic tariffs and bluster openly "united" China, Russia and Iran (after 50 years of 'Kissinger Doctrine' of keeping China and USSR/Russia antagonistic, which led to USSR's fall - "keep your enemies closer") against now common adversary / enemy.

Trump doesn't care about consequences as long as he can stay out of jail and stuff his pockets with as much money as possible and set up himself and his family in positions of power and free flow of "brand" royalties, dividends and fees from crypto and "brand" licensing.
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**
ied.eu - A Brief History of The 4 Industrial Revolutions that Shaped the World

www.history.com - How the Second Industrial Revolution Changed Americans' Lives

mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de - Third Industrial Revolution (began in 1950s) Brings Global Development - 2021

en.wikipedia.org - Information Age

fredblog.stlouisfed.org - Is the decline in manufacturing economically "normal"? - STL Fed, 2019

www.stlouisfed.org - Manufacturing's Share of Real GDP - STL, 2017
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#12 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-05-10 10:40 PM
Anyone with 'sticker shock' is the reason why the American economy is where it is today...

Reason for what? And "sticker shock" (inflation) is directly due to Trump-45+Biden+Congress throwing money at the economy and Trump's tariffs.

Just like US agriculture employment went from ~50% of US labor force in 1870 to ~33% in 1900 to ~1.5% in 2023, while supplying the nation with almost everything the population needs and significant exports to other countries (including China) who find their product desirable, the US manufacturing employment was reduced by automation (not "offshoring") while providing most of what the US needs and having significant exports of finished goods. Along with almost a third of $1T in accompanying service "trade surplus" to other countries.

Peak of manufacturing employment in 1970s - 19.5M people in 1979, 33% of labor force - was producing ~11% of real GDP (how is that for "efficiency / productivity"?); now 12.8M people in manufacturing account for 8.5% of labor force and is responsible for ~11% of real GDP, but is likely to slide lower still. Economies adjust for efficiency and productivity through automation and/or outsourcing when the costs of domestic production become untenable - IOW, when US labor "prices themselves out of the market."

"Money goes where it's welcome, and stays and multiplies where it's respected and appreciated."

Building a "Berlin Wall" trough tariffs doesn't work - we already saw predictable results here. "Industrial policy" doesn't work either - ask Biden.

No one is crying to "bring agriculture home" anymore but both left and right phony "populists" promise to "bring manufacturing home" to end "offshoring" because we have "empty factory towns" that couldn't adjust because they are not needed any more for various reasons, including younger population moving to city-centers for better education and service / professional jobs. It's not like we have a high unemployment because of "offshoring" - country has long moved on to service economy because "manu-facturing" (Latin: manufactura = making by hand) has been largely automated.

In 1960s computers were much more expensive than human labor; since 1980s human labor (union labor, in particular) became increasingly much more expensive relative to automation needed to produce better or higher quality output - hence, Third Industrial Revolution. **

Lutnick's "army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones - that kind of thing is going to come to America" is not "coming to America" - it's a fantasy in the times long past by the "globalism deniers" and believers in Trump Org "Central Committee economic planning" - it plays on the voters' economic illiteracy and ignorance of history, and party-line bros in particular, who put the "blame" on one or the other party / President / "the rich / elite" / "greed" for natural progress and adoption of technology, inventions and ingenuity.

No one is forcing you to buy "cheap crap" from China or any other country, you can still buy ugly expensive Cybertruck (65% built in US and Canada, 25% in Mexico, was planned for 80+% in Mexico Gigafactory but paused because... "Trump. will. fix. it") or any other "expensive crap" from anywhere. No one talked about being "ripped off" by availability of Japanese "cheap crap" from Epson, Citizen, Sanyo electronics or watches instead of US brands or expensive "high-precision" Swiss watches.

The worst monsters offer you the best dreams... Then you wake up.
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#10 | Posted by chiligordo at 2025-05-03 06:20 PM
Short term pain for long term gain.

Pain is obvious. What makes you think it's only short term? Because we'll get used to it, so won't feel it as much?

1. What exactly would constitute "long term gain" (even if achievable by businesses-killing, inflationary tariffs) because Trump has not defined it.
2. Expect about as much "long term gain" from Trump as was promised by his numerous failed businesses, including first DJT public company.

The trade deficits and resulting debt must be addressed or else Americans will end up picking cotton on Chinese-owned plantations.

This is nonsense - "[national] trade deficits" don't result in fiscal deficits and debt - you're conflating different things: real, government fiscal / budget deficits (government spending and having to borrow more money than it brings in from various sources) with purely statistical "[national] trade deficits / surpluses" (balance of trade, i.e., buying and selling goods and services by people and businesses who happen to live in "other" countries, mostly unencumbered by protectionist tariffs) - that's just parroting our seriously economically illiterate Influencer-in-Chief.

In fact, "[national] trade deficits" actually allowed / subsidized disinflationary expansion of our economic growth and helped finance fiscal budget deficits, and firmed up USD as world's "reserve currency" through non-inflationary growth of US money supply. Trade "deficits" is a non-issue, a "fake problem":

drudge.com - Bipartisan Bill to Give Congress More Power over Tariffs

drudge.com - Fact Check: Trump's False Claims About Tariffs

drudge.com - Is Trump Trying to Engineer a Recession?

scholar.harvard.edu - Truth About Trade Deficits / "Fake Problem" - [PDF, 3 pgs] - October 7, 2018

www.cato.org - Ignore the Politicians: Trade Deficits Don't Really Matter - Aug 29, 2024
"This is a fallacious claim because trade deficits don't really matter - not between countries and not between you and your local grocery store."

Trump's weird obsession / bizarre "idee fixe" with "trade deficits" is just a distraction from US budget deficits and his family self-dealing with crypto (including using his position and US Treasury to increase and pump his crime family's holdings) which also stands to benefit from destruction of USD as "reserve currency" from his policies - "Trump crypto-fascism" gets a literal meaning.

www.latimes.com - What will Trump's tariffs 'liberate' us from? - LAT, 2025-03-31

www.latimes.com - Democrats decry the 'chaos' of Trump's trade war but are OK with some tariffs - LAT, 2025-04-13

Even Trump's two main tariffs hawks, besides being wrong on substance and long-term consequences, can't agree on reasons for them:
blog.irvingjimenez.com - Trade Differences in the Approaches of Navarro and Miran - 2025-04-21

Shows how much bullcrap all these "strategies" are.

1970s - "Back to the future"

Play stupid games - win stupid prizes
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www.thedailybeast.com - Fox Biz Expert Warns Trump's Tariffs Have U.S. on Brink of Recession | The president's "weak negotiating hand" has left markets "on edge" - 2025-04-25, TDB

|------- Donald Trump's tariffs have left the U.S. teetering on the edge of a recession, with even Fox News hosts voicing their concerns about the president's import levies.

"We need people to buy our debt, and China supplies us with a lot of cheap goods," he said. "We can see inflation rise up dramatically. And Xi [Jinping] knows this."

... "Beijing has also warned countries not to do trade deals with the U.S. that exclude China - or else. ... Beijing's threat has resonated in a way that it never previously did. U.S. diplomatic sway is ebbing."

... Meanwhile, big box CEOS have warned Trump that his trade policy will result in "empty shelves" unless his dramatically changes course in the coming weeks.
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"Winning"? Art of the Bulls**t is not working with the big boys in the real world.

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nypost.com - How Team Trump is working overtime to close face-saving trade deals - 2025-04-25, NYP

|------- Team Trump is looking for a face-saving off-ramp in its global trade war, and they're ready to announce a deal-in-kind with at least one trading partner...

How that manifests itself is unclear, but my sources are led to believe that actual deals - i.e. signed agreements even with the most friendly of trading partners caught up in the Trump maelstrom - are probably not happening anytime soon.

What is more likely is a series of public announcements...
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nypost.com - Trump team needs a trade deal to stop investor panic - 2025-04-21, NYP

|------- About 10 days ago, an increasingly confident Scott Bessent began telling Wall Street executives that he was on the verge of removing the big dark cloud hovering over the US markets and economy: The Treasury Secretary said he was making significant progress in cutting trade deals with India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia...

But that was last week, and there are still no deals...

The trade war wasn't supposed to go down this way.

... "The White House needs trade deals done quick with a negotiation path established with China..."
-------|

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nypost.com - Start talking trade deals, Mr. President - and end the tariff meltdown - 2025-04-07, NYP Ed. Board
|------- Mr. President, take "yes" for an answer.

... "We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

It's exactly the sort of agreement that would make President Trump's tariff wars a success ...

But is the administration even answering the phone?

... Peter Navarro... and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggest that these overtures are for naught.
-------|

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** Charles Gasparino's book "Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors" (2005) - en.wikipedia.org - highly recommend for the budding investors who don't quite understand what the roles of different "financial analysts" are on Wall Street and in the financial "infrastructure" layers and hierarchy.
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#6 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-24 06:39 PM
China's economy is collapsing and the speculation inside the country is that Xi may lose control of the CCP.

Chinese economy has been "collapsing" for years, because of failed BRI and wild overinvestment in real estate and what are now "ghost cities" - not unlike our poor investments in "manufacturing infrastructure."

In the latest move, countries like Vietnam are ending the Chinese trans-shipments to hide the true country of origin.

Korean and Chinese-owned factories in North Vietnam, like Goertek, Luxshare, etc., are already part of Apple's supply chain and didn't need to "hide country of origin." India couldn't ramp up and has much higher manufacturing costs.

#12 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-24 08:02 PM
... due to the Chinese economic collapse kicked off by Trump's tariffs his first time around.

... Hard facts - China has already lost the trade war. The latest news is Foxconn moving their iPhone manufacturing to India and Vietnam causing a few million more Chinese to lose their jobs.

Apple and Hon Hai/Foxconn have been trying to move their supply chain and manufacturing to India, Vietnam and elsewhere for years. If you've ever been to Shenzhen (China's 'Silicon Valley') and seen Foxconn's factories, they are highly automated and there aren't "millions of Chinese" working there. Foxconn - Taiwanese co, and world's largest EMS, dwarfing (3x) 3 largest US + 1 Canadian EMS combined - has been replacing iPhone factory in Shenzhen with other customers.

US farmers lost soy and sorghum sales (again), since China can easily source them from Brazil and Argentina. China is now buying LNG from Russia instead of US.

Millions of US jobs are at stake as VARs/VADs are or will be closing their shops if they can't replenish their inventories with Chinese or other cheap enough components.

Hard fact is that everybody loses from trade wars, but the US has most to lose, including trust, good will, and USD status as "reserve currency."

If China already "lost" why are CEOs of S&P500 asking Trump to stop it? Why is Charlie Gasparino **, Fox biz commentator and NYPost columnist, saying we lost it, and begging Trump to save face by "declaring victory" and back off trade wars?

But, due to your blind hatred of Trump - you can't seem to understand these things. Doesn't matter - reality is reality regardless of how much your plug your ears and bury your head in the sand.

That's "Apprentice" TV version. Reality: replace "blind hatred" with "blind adulation of 'golden calf' Trump" and you'll be on right track.

Can you explain what is the end goal of the stupid tariffs, and what "winning" trade wars in global economy looks like? Because Trump didn't, except saying that "America was treated very badly and was taken advantage of" which is economically illiterate and literally and figuratively stupid.

Far from playing 3D/4D chess, Trump is can't see beyond his half-moves. Peter Navarro and Stephen Miran are the same kind of economic charlatans, claiming "new financial theories" as Stephanie Kelton (Bernie's/Biden's economic guru) was with her "MMT doesn't cause inflation and deficits don't matter."

www.mercatus.org - Straight Talk about Economic Illiteracy - [PDF, 6 pgs]

www.realcleareducation.com - Combating Economic Illiteracy - 2024-11-08
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#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-07 12:58 AM
WE are winning! All of US! Say THANKS PWESIDENT TWUMP!!

The reason you think "we" are winning is because you don't understand the game, and in all of the excitement of "Winning!" you lost the sight of the end-game - you're just one of the "apprentices" who buy DJT "vision" and stock and meme-coins... and HODL until they eventually go to 0... just like suckers who bought into his "brand" before.

Your attention is being focused [by Trump] on the "battle of tariffs" while it's only a tool that's supposedly is going to solve the "problem" of "trade deficits" and, of course, at the same time to make the US "rich" by collecting huge tariff duties and revive and protect jobs in US "manufacturing" - these are supposed to be the end goals of the "game" according to Trump, no?

That assumes that 1. the USA only has "trade deficits" because it's been "taken advantage of / raped" by countries with high tariffs that make US goods too expensive to import; and 2. the USA can import enough goods that taxes / tariffs on them will compensate for shrinking real inflation-adjusted GDP and higher costs to consumers.

Both assumptions are demonstrably wrong, because, as I pointed out here (drudge.com), after decades of world-wide free-trade agreements (WTO and some bilateral/multilateral FTAs, like Mercosur, NAFTA/USMC or whatever Trump will want to call it next, etc.), we already have nearly tariff-free world trade.

98% of world trade is governed / covered by WTO and these FTAs. Tariffs are the red herring by Trump to "win" his usual Apprentice s**tshow for his MAGA cult.

ustr.gov - The United States has comprehensive free trade agreements in force with 20 countries, separate from WTO

en.wikipedia.org - [Incomplete] List of World's Multilateral and Bilateral Trade Agreements, Areas and Zones

Trump wanting to re-make most of them into bilateral agreements will change absolutely nothing in "trade deficits" and if, for example, we get ZERO TARIFFS with every country (YAY!), we'll have the same situation we have now - same high (or higher) "trade deficits" and no income from Trump's "External Revenue Service" and no "protection" for our manufacturing sector employment - IOW, this would not solve any "problems" he told you we have and would "lose" every one of supposed goals he told you he would accomplish using tariffs for "trade wars" and in the process alienate consumers and potential consumers of our trading partners and allies.

In fact, the best thing many of these countries can do is call Trump's bluff and hand him the "win" of ZERO TARIFFs immediately - it will either not make an iota of difference from current trade or will make "trade deficits" worse. Since "trade deficits" is a phony issue anyway, nobody (except maybe some US exporters) will notice or feel any difference, but at the end of the year the embarrassing numbers will show up. At least, that's the best case scenario for US economy.

Tariffs or not, you can't force people to buy from the source they loathe, given they have the alternatives. That's why Trump couldn't find contractors to work with him and banks to finance his ill-conceived short-term splashy "projects" and how his businesses went bankrupt.

How is that for "Winning!" the game you have no idea you're actually playing? Or maybe you're just being played and someone is screwing with your brain?

If you keep your eyes on the ball instead of chasing every "squirrel" or "shining object" Trump throws out, you might keep you sanity and your money. If not, you'll be just one of many Trump cult zombies.
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#2 | Posted by et_al at 2025-04-03 05:32 PM
Yeah, well good luck with dat.

Interesting recent development, from unexpected(?) source:

"The first known lawsuit against President Donald Trump's tariffs has been filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of a Simplified, a Florida-based home goods and stationary company, who is arguing that the president "unlawfully" overstepped his authority to impose the levies.

The lawsuit is challenging Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), which requires extensive investigations before sanctions can be imposed. Trump has used opioid trafficking from China as a reason for the "emergency" tariffs against the country.

The lawsuit contends that Trump has not shown that his actions are "necessary" or tailored to address a drug trafficking emergency. In fact, lawyers note, Trump has said the actual reason for the tariffs is to reduce a trade deficit.

In any case, the IEEPA allows for asset freezes, trade embargos and similar sanctions, but not tariffs, the suit argues.

The law "authorizes presidents to order sanctions as a rapid response to international emergencies. It does not allow a president to impose tariffs on the American people ... Presidents can impose tariffs only when Congress grants permission," the suit states.

"Congress passed the IEEPA to counter external emergencies, not to grant presidents a blank check to write domestic economic policy," it states.

"In the IEEPA's almost 50-year history, no previous president has used it to impose tariffs. Which is not surprising, since the statute does not even mention tariffs, nor does it say anything else suggesting it authorizes presidents to tax American citizens," the lawsuit notes.

NCLA is a right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network is aiming to halt Donald Trump's tariff plan.
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#12 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 05:08 AM
-Of course Congress want 'more power'. They can't peddle the influence without the power.
It's sort of their own fault for paying themselves only 174K+tip. Most can make more than that on just one selfdeal.

No, actually they want to claw the power back, as Congress should have never delegated it to Executive / President in the first place, albeit with good intentions - to facilitate rapid execution of it in case of "product dumping" at costs below export country's production and negotiating trade agreements - which have not caused problems, until Trump decided to grossly abuse it - just like he did with many other laws in his personal-business-political-scam_artist life, which got him impeached twice and should have put him in prison, if not for the gross incompetence of Biden, DOJ, federal and state prosecutors and help from corrupt judges and lawyers.

"In recent years, Presidents Trump and Biden have exercised an aggressive level of executive authority to raise tariffs on imported goods. Most of these tariffs have been implemented under broad authority delegated by Congress to combat unfair practices or national security. As a result, tariff revenue as a share of total tax receipts peaked in 2019 over the last eighty years, surpassing levels not seen since the mid-1970s."

Ah, mid-70s, when we last had [national] trade surplus... and high inflation + stagnant growth ("stagflation") and "malaise" - why not re-live those "good times"?

.
|------- The constitutional authority to levy taxes, including customs duties (tariffs), indisputably rests with Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This authority is fundamental to the government's ability to fund its operations, including national defense, public services, and infrastructure spending.

Until the early 1930s, tariffs, like all other tax rates, were determined by Congress. The enactment of the Trade Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot-Hawley Act, exposed some of the risks of imposing large tariffs to protect American workers. Smoot-Hawley Act imposed the second-highest tariffs in American history, targeting agricultural imports to protect American farmers. The act triggered a global trade war - by 1933, U.S. exports had fallen by at least 60% - and deepened the on-going macroeconomic crisis. This would also be the last act implemented by Congress to set tariff rates.

On the heels of this disaster, Congress began a decades-long trend of ceding the authority to lay and collect customs duties to the executive branch. Importantly here, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1934 granted authority to the president to impose tariffs if imports were found to threaten national security.

The Trade Act of 1974 granted the president new authority to negotiate trade agreements and adjust tariffs, while also creating mechanisms to protect U.S. industries and workers. Section 201 provides a mechanism for the U.S. to protect domestic industries from serious injury caused by import surges, and Section 301 grants authority to the U.S. Trade Representative (a cabinet-level position) to take action against foreign countries that violate trade agreements or engage in practices that are deemed unfair. -------|
.

These kinds of far-reaching decisions should never be left to a single person, just like the right to Presidential pardon (which is unfortunately in the Constitution) which clearly leads to temptation and/or corruption, and needs to be abolished / remedied by Constitutional Amendment... which after what we saw it having been abysmally abused by Trump and Biden recently (but also by Presidents before them) should not be that difficult.
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#8 | Posted by itchyp at 2025-04-04 04:10 AM
OK I know how to settle this. Make the law to apply the same tariffs on the same products that other countries charge us.

Settle what? What "problem" is Trump (and you) are trying to solve?

For example, do you think Canada's 40M people should buy the same amount of "stuff" from US, as 340M buy from Canada. Also, in case you didn't know, excluding oil trade, USA has trade "surplus" with Canada. So, should the companies in the US buy oil somewhere else because Trump can't do kindergarten-level math?

Trade deficits are not the [national] problem - countries, for the most part, don't trade with other countries. People in the US, having for the long time the fortune of the world's largest economy and being prodigious consumers of US-made and foreign-made goods (which are often cheaper and/or better-made or have better/bigger/attractive brands that consumers want) keep buying more of smaller economies' goods, while people in smaller economies keep buying more advanced US services (USA has substantial service trade surplus vs the "rest of the world") and particular products (e.g., technology, military etc.) where we have what David Ricardo called "comparative advantage" (see Paul Krugman's excellent essay Ricardo's Difficult Idea - web.mit.edu - TL;DR: "Free trade good").

drudge.com

drudge.com - Is Trump Trying to Engineer a Recession?

Since 1980s we have been importing disinflation from other countries, initially too poor to buy our products (or debt), but growing and becoming richer and more capitalist in the process, e.g., "Made in" Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India, China (since Deng Xiaoping), Vietnam etc., while at the same time supplying them with non-inflationary expansion of USD, thus maintaining / expanding "reserve status" of USD and promoting more trade, which increases our service and manufacturing, i.e., "expanding the global economic pie" rather than trying to grab larger share of smaller one.

98% of the world trade is governed / covered by WTO and/or other FTAs. Most tariffs are either on goods we don't sell in significant quantities in particular geolocation (governed by their specific rules, like medical content, trademarks etc. or there is no sufficient demand for import) or have been exempted for particular negotiated reasons and don't significantly affect either irrelevant [national] "balance of trade" or GDP - at most about 0.50 one-time increase in GDP - definitely not worth all the noise, let alone world-wide trade war which will alienate long-time trading partners, re-route major supply chains away from the [no longer reliable, if not outright "hostile"] US suppliers

How is that "abuse" and "rape" of the USA, when we have been the biggest beneficiaries of generally free trade?

Even CNBC's Jim Cramer, who has been against "free trade" and is for what he calls "fair trade" and tariffs, railed against Trump's idiotic trade war: www.thedailybeast.com - Jim Cramer Hits Trump With Kiss of Death as 'Liberation Day' Looms - 2025-04-01

So Trump needs to change the hard-won free-trade (aka "capitalism") world order (to our detriment) because Prof. Peter Navarro put a bug in Trump's hole in the head where brain should usually reside, and Trump thinks that he "invented" something new, that "no one has ever seen before." It also, along with trying to expand crypto's role in US economy (and self-dealing, as usual), jeopardizes "reserve status" of USD, with serious implications for US economic well-being.
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#10 | Posted by dutch46 at 2025-03-31 12:07 PM
As I read the headline, the image of a snake devouring it's own tail instantly came to mind.

Ouroboros. Interesting visual, but analogy is not incongruous, especially in financial engineering.

As I've said here before, Musk's purchase of "X/Twitter" entity was never planned to be stand-alone, but rather a leveraged stage 1 for merger with another platform, most likely with financial or sales component - trying to emulate the Chinese all-in-one apps/ecosystems like Tencent or Alibaba.

X/Twitter was never going to go public, but xAI most likely will, at high enough valuation (Musk "proposed" the combo of xAI and X is now worth ~$80B) - not bad for a glorified search engine chatbot, trained on X-"wisdom" and disinformation. For comparison, OpenAI just closed a round of investment at valuation of $300B.

Guess what happens when xAI goes public - all personal debt Elon assumed with the purchase of Twitter will become debt of public company shareholders, allowing Musk to participate in public company riches while "sharing" the huge debt with people buying the common stock.

This is EXACTLY, only on much larger scale, the scam Donald Trump pulled when he used his [father's] name and reputation for ~$1B in personal loans for 2 casinos that he was certainly going to default on, then folded one into DJT / Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts public company, then did the same with another one... and poof, his personal debt disappeared and became "property" of the unsuspecting suckers aka DJT shareholders.

www.congress.gov - As its stock collapsed, Trump's firm gave him huge bonuses and paid for his jet - WaPo, June 12, 2016 [PDF, 5 pgs]

|------- It was promoted as the chance of a lifetime: Mom-and-pop investors could buy shares in celebrity businessman Donald Trump's first public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Their investments were quickly depleted. The company known by Trump's initials, DJT, crumbled into a penny stock and filed for bankruptcy after less than a decade, costing shareholders millions of dollars, even as other casino companies soared.

In its short life, Trump the company greatly enriched Trump the businessman, paying to have his personal jet piloted and buying heaps of Trump-brand merchandise. Despite losing money every year under Trump's leadership, the company paid Trump handsomely, including a $5 million bonus in the year the company's stock plummeted 70 percent.

Many of those who lost money were Main Street shareholders who believed in the Trump brand, such as Sebastian Pignatello, a retired private investor in Queens. By the time of the 2004 bankruptcy, Pignatello's 150,000 shares were worth pennies on the dollar. ...

Trump said he "made a lot of money in Atlantic City," adding, "I make great deals for myself." ... -------|

This is also what current DJT Media and Technology stock is - worthless vessel to "make deals" and transfer money into Donald's pockets, not to mention his family "legitimate" crypto ventures and meme coins to "create" and launder money.

The scam is repeatable. Ouroboros indeed.

Money for nothing and kicks for free
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"Hell hath no fury like a 'tribe' scorned."

Latest poll data on Elon Musk stuns CNN political analyst Harry Enten: "even MAGA voters are starting to get fed up with Musk"

"I have rarely ever seen any change of perception as dramatic as this one. I mean, Elon Musk's net favorable rating, it's dropped from +24 to -19 overall from 2017 to 2025. ... He used to be beloved by Democrats at +35. Look where it is now. -91 points on the net favorable rating.

That is a movement of over 120 points in the negative direction, falling through the floor. Now, among Republicans, he has gone up from +18 to +51, but that doesn't at all make up for the gap that the Democrats have completely fallen off the rails for Elon Musk, and among independents, that drop has been from +17 to -17."

... "I mean, you can see this in terms of new registrations for Teslas in the United States. Car registrations in 2024 versus 2023. ... Down 5%. I was interested, did that movement continue into the new year? Absolutely. If anything, it accelerated. ... New car registrations down 11 percent. And this has occurred as other EV carmakers have seen their registrations go up. And it has also occurred as Tesla's registrations and the people buying Teslas worldwide has also dropped. It's not just a U.S. phenomenon."

"Part of the reason is who buys EVs... The share of EV owners who are Republicans, just 20 percent. When you're falling with Democrats, falling with independents, you're giving up a large share of the market. And that is a big reason why Tesla is struggling..."

www.rawstory.com
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#100 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-21 08:49 PM
Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio: Definition, Formula, and Examples
...
The price-to-earnings ratio compares a company's share price with its earnings per share. Analysts and investors use it to determine the relative value of a company's shares in side-by-side comparisons.

Not really, sell-side analysts may do so, but not real (buy-side) analysts and investors.
www.investopedia.com

First, [trailing] earnings (E in P/E) could be and have been easily manipulated.

Second, reducing valuations to single flawed ratio which does not give a full picture of company's internals and future prospects and, therefore, stock value is a bad investing practice. That's why you may see a stock falling after earnings call when the "company beat the [projected] earnings" as the internals or guidance don't meet expectations.

Third, "forward" earnings is a conjecture, an average of projected company earnings for next fiscal year by sell-side analysts (whose job usually is to "not piss off the company's CEO and CFO" to keep company management interested in their firms' investment services, like loans, market making or underwriting new stock issuance, etc.) so is mostly an unreliable and very variable number, depending on data sources used and analysts' changing earning projections (and PTs) often during fiscal year.

.

#102 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-03-21 08:59 PM
What does that mean?
Roughly speaking, the forward P/E of Tesla is about 10 times more than that of Toyota. So, investors seem to expect Tesla to grow ten times more quickly than Toyota going forward.
But, there's an interesting aspect in the numbers ...
The trailing P/E vs forward P/E for Toyota shows an increase, indicating that investors expect Toyota to increase its rate of growth in the future.
While, for Tesla, the trailing P/E vs forward P/E for [Tesla] shows an decrease, indicating that investors expect Tesla to slow its rate of growth in the future.

Apologies for the deep dive here ....

It's... wrong, upside down and the other way around.

First, rate of earning growth is a different and separate ratio - PEG (Price to Earnings Growth = P/EG ), not direct comparison between P/Es of companies, especially in different industries; e.g., tech sector stocks usually have higher PEG than car industry stocks. PEG of 1.0 means P/E reflects actual [trailing] earnings growth. Lower PEG usually indicates either a more attractive price or faster growth, higher PEG means overvalued relative to current or potential earnings growth.

TSLA was pushed as "high tech, high growth" stock, not as a car company.

Second, lower / decreased "forward" P/E means average projected Earnings are higher than "trailing" TTM (Trailing Twelve Months) Earnings relative to current Price.
Vice versa, higher / increased "forward" P/E means future Earnings projected to be lower than current / "trailing" relative to current Price.

TM --- P/E = 7.56 ..... FP/E = 8.70 ..... PEG = 0.35 / 1.54 (5-yr)
TSLA - P/E = 122.56 ... FP/E = 65.94 ... PEG = 4.61 / 3.02 (5-yr)

Anyway, "forward" P/E is basically a fantasy, TTM P/E is too flawed and superficial, to make any sort of investment decisions or comparisons based on them.
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By comparison, Tesla's value makes no sense. It offers nothing that Toyota doesn't also offer.

Tesla value never made any sense - Toyota's stock is cheaper and better not just on P/E basis (P/E alone is subjective, may depend on many factors so is not sufficient to determine relative value), but:
Toyota's gross, operating and net profit margins, ROI, ROE are all better than TSLA's (not even counting "carbon credits" which accounted for 68%-100% of TSLA EBITDA profits) and Toyota has 3+x sales of TSLA (85% of GM+Ford combined), yet its market value is only 1/3 of latest TSLA MV, and only 1/8x of TSLA price/revenue, even after TSLA lost more than half its MV from Dec. 2024 peak.

The only reason for absurd valuation was Musk hyped as the "man of vision" and Tesla as the "tech, not car" company, with sell-side "financial analysts" raising PT with rosy scenarios of new "fantastic" capabilities and treating it as a "futuristic" tech company, so TSLA stock was the only way hoi polloi were able to participate in that "vision", providing Musk with a private currency to invest in / buy other tech products (AI, FSD, robotics)...

That's why he was/is frantically looking to buy [real] companies / tech while this currency still has/had absurdly oversized value, and was protected from [and probably denied capital to] better, cheaper competition:

www.newsweek.com - Biden Doesn't Want Cheap EVs From China. What Does That Say About U.S. Climate Policy? - 2024-04-10
|------- "When I think about climate change, I think jobs." Climate policy, in [Biden's] view, is an opportunity to unlock more union-friendly, high-paying manufacturing jobs in climate tech like EVs and batteries. It's also a way to shore up political support in manufacturing-dependent states, such as Michigan. -------|

Where are UAW and Shawn Fain now? Players change, but the "game" stays the same:

michiganadvance.com - UAW's embrace of Trump tariffs could lead to disaster for its members - 2025-03-20
|------- "There's been a lot of talk of these tariffs "disrupting" the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don't want to pay their fair share... The UAW is in active negotiations with the Trump Administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster. We look forward to working with the White House to shape the auto tariffs in April to benefit the working class. ... -------|

Meanwhile, record numbers of "working class" are defaulting on their auto loans:

www.bloomberg.com - Americans default on car loans at record rates - 2025-03-06

Elon may do just fine, especially after taking over government's resources:

www.washingtonpost.com - Elon Musk's business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding
|------- An additional 52 ongoing contracts with seven government agencies - including NASA, the Defense Department and the General Services Administration - are on track to potentially pay Musk's companies an additional $11.8 billion over the next few years...

Without the credits, Tesla would have lost more than $700 million in 2020, marking a seventh-consecutive year with no profits. With the credits, the company reported a $862 million profit. ... -------|
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Capitalism has not been good to Trump; capitalism was 'very nasty' to Trump; Trump 'failed at capitalism, very very quickly, bigly' and often... Peter Navarro stepped in with "neomercantilism" which appeals to Trump because it suits him to a T:

www.investopedia.com

www.econlib.org

* Mercantilism was the dominant economic system during 16th - 18th centuries
* Mercantilism was based on the idea that a nation's wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and reducing imports (trade surplus)
* It's characterized by the belief that global wealth was static and that a nation's economic health relied heavily on its supply of capital (due to rarity of precious metals)
* Due to the nationalistic nature of mercantilism, nations frequently used military might to protect markets and supply sources
* Mercantilism was replaced by free-trade economic theory in the mid-18th century

1. The Belief in the Static Nature of Wealth
2. The Need to Increase the Supply of Gold
3. The Need to Maintain a Trade Surplus

4. The Importance of a Large Population
5. The Use of Colonies to Support Wealth
6. The Use of Protectionism

"Of the false tenets of mercantilism that remain today, the most pernicious is the idea that imports reduce domestic employment."

.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish - lifetime outcomes of Trump's "deals" which destroyed many of his and others' businesses, capital and billions of $$ for gullible investors banking on his "brand" and fake cultivated ('Art of the Deal') "tough negotiator" persona, and financiers / partners / contractors wanted nothing to do with him when his "deals" unraveled.

He was always "Art of the Con" huckster, a fake "celebrity tycoon," bailed out time and again by money-laundering Russian government and mafia.

'Art of the Deal' writer Tony Schwartz - www.newyorker.com - 2016-07-25
|------- "I put lipstick on a pig. I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is." ...

If he were writing "The Art of the Deal" today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, "The Sociopath."

Trump appeared to have convinced himself that he had written the book. Schwartz recalls thinking, "If he could lie about that on Day One - when it was so easily refuted - he is likely to lie about anything."

"I play to people's fantasies. ... People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. ... I do it to do it. ... I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks."
-------|

Trump wasn't even third candidate to host "Apprentice" - truly successful business people declined "reality TV" buffoonery.

www.nytimes.com - The Star-Making Machine That Created 'Donald Trump' - 2024-09-14

www.vice.com - The Long, Strange Beef Over Who Actually Invented 'The Apprentice' - 2019-11-14

www.newyorker.com - How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success - 2018-12-27

"... Burnett has also spoken about his desire to make a television show with Vladimir Putin."
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** |------- The world's most popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are infected with Russian Pravda Network disinformation.

Kremlin-Backed Disinformation Network "Pravda" Targets AI Chatbots to Spread Propaganda

A sophisticated disinformation network originating from Moscow, ironically named "Pravda" (Russian for "truth"), formed in April 2022, is employing a novel tactic to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda: targeting the data ingested by artificial intelligence chatbots. Rather than focusing on human audiences, Pravda floods search results and web crawlers with fabricated narratives and distorted information, aiming to contaminate the datasets used to train large language models (LLMs). This insidious strategy allows Russian propaganda to infiltrate the very core of Western AI systems, influencing their responses and potentially shaping public perception.

This targeted attack on AI was foreshadowed by John Mark Dougan, an American fugitive residing in Moscow and a known Kremlin propagandist. Dougan, speaking at a conference of Russian officials, asserted that manipulating AI narratives offered a powerful avenue for spreading Russian influence globally.

Pravda network, functions as a sophisticated laundering operation for Kremlin propaganda. ... The network spans over 150 websites in dozens of languages, targeting audiences in 49 countries. The sheer volume of content produced - an estimated 3.6 million articles in 2024 alone - underscores the scale of this operation. The world's leading AI chatbots have repeated false narratives trafficked by the Pravda network 33% of the time.

"By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how LLMs process and present news and information" ... which results in massive "amounts of Russian propaganda - 3.6M articles in 2024 - are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda."

The Pravda network achieves its impact through strategic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics. Despite having minimal organic reach among human audiences, the network's focus on SEO ensures its content ranks highly in search results. This makes it more likely for AI chatbots, which rely on web crawlers and indexed content, to encounter and incorporate the network's disinformation. This underscores the need for more robust mechanisms within AI systems to identify and filter out unreliable sources, particularly those engaging in manipulative SEO practices.

The implications of this AI infiltration are far-reaching. By corrupting the datasets upon which AI models are trained, the Pravda network aims to influence the very fabric of online information. This poses a significant threat to the integrity of information ecosystems and underscores the urgent need for AI developers to implement safeguards against such manipulation.

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Data poisoning by Russian dezinformatsiya, then spread over by Putin's army of troll-bots... many of which are present on this site.

kcsgroup.com - Russian 'dezinformatsiya': the anatomy of Russian disinformation campaigns

* Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, disinformation campaigns have been used to spread confusion and mistrust surrounding the virus, its origins and the safety of vaccines.

* It was revealed this year that President Putin has implemented the revision of history textbooks to reflect and justify the Kremlin's reasoning for invading Ukraine.

'Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.' - Joseph Goebbels
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