Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

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Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Consumer confidence rebounded in May after five straight months of declines as President Trump dialed back his aggressive stance on tariffs against China. The latest index reading from the Conference Board was 98 in May, well above the 85.7 seen in April and the 87.1 economists had expected. The expectations index surged off its 13-year low seen in April, reaching 72.8 May, far above the 55.4 in the month prior. This marked the largest month-over-month increase for that metric since May 2009. read more


Thursday, May 22, 2025

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told shareholders during a virtual meeting Wednesday (May 21) that the tariffs the President Donald Trump administration imposed on imported goods have not affected sales. "We also haven't yet seen any meaningful average selling price increases," Jassy said, according to a Wednesday Reuters report. "When you have 2 million sellers, they're not all going to take the same action." read more


WASHINGTON (AP) " The number of Americans filing unemployment claims last week fell slightly as businesses continue to retain employees despite growing economic uncertainty over U.S. trade policy. Applications for jobless benefits fell by 2,000 to 227,000 for the week ending May 17, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's pretty close to the 230,000 new applications analysts forecast. read more


Tuesday, May 20, 2025

The number of OnlyFan creators in 2020 was ~450K. By the end of 2024, that number had risen to over 4M with about 50% of them in the US. So, while the US jobs market and real economy suffered under Biden's incompetence - the jobs for sex workers (both male and female) boomed. This was fueled by a huge demographic of incel liberals unable to meet women in the real world due to social anxiety, fear of catching covid, and their grotesque physical appearances and personalities.


For generations, colleges around the U.S. fueled local economies, creating jobs and bringing in students to shop and spend. read more


Comments

Apple has committed to investing $500B in the US in terms of development teams and expanded manufacturing - just not for the iPhone - YET.

www.apple.com

As to whether the iPhone will come back, it doesn't matter too much actually. Apple will do the same calculation that they always do - the cost of tariffs vs. the labor increase vs. potential for further automation.

In my calculations, the 25% tariff would be roughly the same as Apple simply paying their assembly line people ~$24/hour. This is based on a $1000 selling price, 60% gross margin (product cost is ~$400 of which labor is ~$40 - assumed 8-10 hours of Chinese labor at $4/hour wage). If they use American labor at 6x the rate (~$24/hour) the cost would be ~$525 vs. $500 with a 25% tariff - and this is before any additional automation to reduce the labor hours required.

So, seems Trump is giving Apple the chance to do the right thing and simply move manufacture here. Up to them - but, if they choose not to, they can either eat the tariff or raise prices and lose market share.

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