Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123380411#Comment_123380411

According to what's available on the 'net, Vance, who comes from a long line of culturally Protestant Scots-Irish Americans from Appalachia, was baptized Catholic in August 2019. See his "hillbilly elegy" memoir or an essay from in "The Lamp" in 2020, if you want more info. I HAVE NOT read either article by him. I understand converts are harder to shift again once they've changed their faith-beliefs.

kneemos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381814#Comment_123381814

They got the name Hillbillies because a lot of Scot/Irish settled in the Appalachian mountains area and being protestants of course a lot of them were called William.

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123380981#Comment_123380981

Trump has spent his entire life bullying and shafting contractors. To him the rest of the world are just a bunch of subbies that need the US to survive and he's going to show them who's boss. The US is Trump Inc. and China is just another window or HVAC supplier he's going to shaft. He's in for a rude awakening.

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381433#Comment_123381433

It won't matter, its over for Tesla, and Musk. Europe is done with them. There is a deal on the offing to reduce tarriffs on EV's from China. China is done with him and Tesla. Australia and Canada are finished too. It might slow the bleed but the wound is fatal.

poop emoji

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381831#Comment_123381831

Not just Europe

The Tesla latest results were absolutely horrendous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381556#Comment_123381556

This is Tulipmania territory of a company

swiwi_

AOC would get absolutely trounced. She would win places like New York but all the rural states not a hope. Would be an utterly stupid selection.

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381871#Comment_123381871

Still under investigation for fraud in Canada and a recall of millions of vehicles not yet factored in either. If I had a portfolio of stocks and my fund manager was holding Tesla I'd be looking to have him sectioned.

poop emoji

Intel to cut 20% of workforce

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-cut-over-20-workforce-004251026.html

we are in for months and months of American carnage

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381801#Comment_123381801

Her race or sex has little to do with it tbh. A opponents have successfully painted her as a communist that hates America. She has strident uncompromising views and that makes her a polarising figure. And unlike DJT she isn't able to escape it by having people think "she doesn't actually believe that".

The policies that she favours have no hope of being accepted more moderate Trump supporters. This is a group that must be at least partially flipped to win the election.

Blaming her sex or race is a cop out, an excuse to avoid looking at the real reasons. She won't be successful nationally because her policies firmly put her in one camp. She has no chameleon like ability to even speak to the other side, a skill that most US politicians that have national appeal possess.

poop emoji

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381891#Comment_123381891

PE ratio of 136!

For what is no longer a growth company, yet another quarter of sharp decreases as per my link above and no revenue growth

I just see India slapped 100% tarrifs on foreign EVs a few minutes ago

Run run far away

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381831#Comment_123381831

I’m not sure even an outright sale of Tesla to another car manufacturer thus distancing it from Elon, would save the company- Tesla’s name is muck all over the world now

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381924#Comment_123381924

No, its done. They're even falling way behind on battery tech which Musk had hoped was going to be the big thing. Let others make cars but they'll use our batteries. Thats not going to happen and the build quality is crap. The cybertruck was a joke. His HGV was a wash. And theres no chance of self drive ever being a thing in Tesla. A company built on lies and broken promises. Hes the male version of Elizabeth Holmes. A one man Enron

EltonJohn69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381831#Comment_123381831

trump is going to flood Space X with government money, that will keep Tesla afloat

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381941#Comment_123381941

It will for a while, but eventually it'll fail once he either falls out with Trump or a new admin gets in. Space X future is not assured either. Their satellites are failing at an astounding rate and he has competition from Bezos, with the Europeans and Chinese entering the arena now as well.

Ash.J.Williams

To beat trump you need someone with enough ammo to essentially slag him , his family and his cabinet to the point of humiliation, viewers watching at home should be laughing hard.

kneemos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381892#Comment_123381892

They're under pressure from competitors apparently. Probably more to do with layoffs than Trump.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381941#Comment_123381941

Irrelevant. Trump has less than four years to do as President. When he goes, Musk will have created very strong political pressure to amputate his grotty company from the state.

feelings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381892#Comment_123381892

Very little if anything to do with Trump. All to do with successive CEO failures… Paul Otellini, Brian Krzanich, Robert Swan, Pat Gelsinger etc. they all ruined the company in one form or another.

Lip-Bu Tan has an incredibly tough job ahead of him and job losses were inevitable after years of mismanagement under the former CEOs. I do not see him lasting long.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381977#Comment_123381977

I'd imagine that US Funding to SpaceX will primarily prop up SpaceX itself, and thereafter Elon. I somehow doubt he'd divert any of the SpaceX money over to Tesla, especially since there's no amount of money you can throw at an image problem like that in order to actually fix it.

SpaceX may hobble along for a while longer than a failure of Tesla. Their function as a NASA contractor gives them a lifeline, but most of their other operations bleed an insane amount cash for very little return. I suspect SpaceX be the hill Musk finds himself on when the sky eventually falls on his head.

As for Tesla. There's no fixing that problem beyond a total rebrand/rename of the mark and distancing Musk from it as much as possible. For the next few years, we're going to have a cohort of Tesla owners who for the most part are driving one because it is beyond their means to change car yet (or are stuck with the car for other reasons), or you'll have MAGA fanboys buying Teslas as a statment of support. The problem with both situations is that the former group is not going to sink any more money into the company, and the latter group have the knack of not being able to affort Teslas, or are even oppsed to the idea of buying EVs.

Both cases spell the eventual end of Tesla as an independant car marker. They'll either shutter, or get absorbed by an established motor company and possibly rebranded to them. The functioning main-stream models of Tesla might keep going for a bit, while CyberTruck owners will be the butt of car jokes for time immemorial for investing so much money in rusting fault-riddled hulks that will never be street-legal in most of the world.

But the ultimate consquence would be to Elon. The vast bulk of his percieved wealth is based on the meme-stock valuation of Tesla. It's not actually cash in his hand, and he's borrowed heavily using those shares. If those shares become useless, his wealth will be slashed faster than anyone else in human history. He'll still be wealthy, but nowhere near wealthy enough to blagg his way out of the humiliation he'll likely feel. With any luck, that will get him to feck off away from the public attention, and spare us his destructive stupidity.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382009#Comment_123382009

Intel is a basket case. I believe Intel will be taken over. Reducing workforce numbers/costs will make it more attractive to a takeover or merger or even partial selloffs.

10000maniacs

Trump has backed down on Chinese tarriffs. "They won't be coming down to zero but they will substantially reduced."

All China needed to do was sit back, watch the shitshow and wait for Trump to fold.

Thats what every other country needs to do.

Funny that the buyers of big tech stocks knew this 24 hours before everyone else.

The NASDAQ rose substantially yesterday morning without any news being announced.

Trump also backed down on Powell as well. Denying that he was attempting to fire him or wished him gone.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382092#Comment_123382092

”Large demands or unrealistic demands” has been a well known negotiation tactic for decades- but it’s not used much unless the entity proposing it holds all the cards and a long term relationship isn’t important.

Trump has misused this tactic and for little if any benefit - I get he was trying to get a better position for America but he could have done so with less fanfare and noise. He’s damaged his own economy and now countries are more wary of doing business with America and are seeking new more stable trade agreements elsewhere - his “strategy” is just plain backfiring - and as for ending the Ukraine war, he’s only out for what he can get- it would be better if Russia and Ukraine just sat down together now- it would cost Ukraine a lot less that’s for sure

10000maniacs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382133#Comment_123382133

You mean like this?

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123380023#Comment_123380023

That's a pattern that's repeated all over the world. Well, the "developed" world, at least. We saw the same thing in relation to Brexit voting patterns - those who could, potentially, most benefit from the EU voted themselves out of it, because "reasons".

It's exactly the same in France. Before I moved here, I made a deliberate decision to seriously consider economically disadvantaged regions because they typically enjoy more government support, theoretically making my personal Euros go further; and that's exactly how it worked out.

Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to the politics that came with the territory, and now find myself surrounded by LePen voting far-rightist ignorant peasants. They'll happily take EU grants for their farms and their factories with one hand, then complain about the Bosch buying up all the houses and closing those same factories when they go on strike for three months out of every twelve, and proclaim that the sooner we leave the EU the better.

They gnash their teeth and howl about the unfairness of it all when the local rural school is reduced to one last teacher because their aren't enough children to justify a second … but they'll rant and rave about any suggestion that we might house half a dozen immigrant families that'd triple the number of children and revitalise a long-dead local economy.

It's not just in America that the "two short planks" demographic attribute the consequences of their own small-minded stupidity to miscellaneous others.

… But I've long held a belief that we Europeans are kinda responsible: we spent a few centuries exporting all our social misfits, undesireables, and mé-féiners to the "New World" so it was only a question of time before their numbers would reach a critical mass and blow us all up.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381892#Comment_123381892

Didn't they just cut a substantial % a couple of months ago?

poop emoji

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382276#Comment_123382276

They did, now another 20%

A lot of American giants like intel and Boeing were teetering on edge of bankruptcy but now Trump is pushing them over the edge

yagan

Intel sold off a 49% stake in their Irish Fab last summer to some global wealth fund.

everlast75

Reporter: “Peter Navarro said that it’s perfectly possible to do 90 deals in 90 days. We haven’t seen one just yet. How soon might we see a deal?”

Karoline Leavitt: “We now have 18 proposals on paper…”

More utter second hand car salesman, snake oil bullsh1t.

I will die not knowing why and how on earth the American public looked at Trump in 2024 and thought "that's the guy who I trust with the economy for the next four years"

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382448#Comment_123382448

On your last sentence, to quote Goethe, if we cannot learn from thousands of years of recorded history we are living hand to mouth.

Just heard a good summation, the USA is fighting over 190 trade wars, everyother country in the world is only fighting one each.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123381981#Comment_123381981

I actually think Walz was very capable of doing that but the Democrats seem to have reigned him in as an attack dog at the time.