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Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III

Quin_Dub

This thread is for the continuing discussion of Donald Trumps's presidency in the US and any related matters.

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derb12

On another note, the Manafort trial has been postponed by a week but a list of 5 witnesses given temporary immunity has been released. One of them is a fella called Conor O’Brien who used to work for KWC.
I wonder if he’s Irish, especially with that spelling of Conor.

Leroy42

kunst nugget wrote: »

That's never going to happen. If Britain crash out of the EU, which is looking more and more likely, America is going to completely ride the UK when it comes to any trade deal because they'll have the upper hand and the UK will be desperate.

But this is Trump we are talking about.

Trump loves to claim he makes deals, the actual details aren't really his thing.

So, Trump comes and offers a FTA with the UK, all bells and whistles, and the UK have little option but to accept it.

It works on both sides regardless of what the actual deal is. Trump gets to claim he is the best deal maker ever, and the UK get to claim a massive victory in the brave new post Brexit world.

By the time the realities of the deal come to light those politicians will be off the stage.

And we know that Trump loves to do things just to get a rise out of people. He would like nothing more than put the EU's nose out of joint.

weisses

ELM327 wrote: »

My post was a straight one line answer to a straight one line question.
No need for the rhetoric.

Do you seriously believe that making these goods on US soil with all the extra costs that go ends up cheaper for the consumer then the imported goods with a higher tariff ?

weisses

amandstu wrote: »

I think the idea is for it to boost the local economy .I doubt goods can be made cheaper although perhaps they can in some cases if the manufacturing methods evolve.

That "idea" may not be why the tariffs were introduced though. I feel they have been introduced for political (and personal) gain.

I wonder what type of work force they need to hire to operate the production lines and work the lands

irishash

derb12 wrote: »

On another note, the Manafort trial has been postponed by a week but a list of 5 witnesses given temporary immunity has been released. One of them is a fella called Conor O’Brien who used to work for KWC.

Another is John Brennan, former CIA director.

So I am a little ignorant on why people such as these need immunity. Is it to do with actions they did while in former posts that may be considered as legally shaky?

Anybody know why immunity is granted here?

amandstu

weisses wrote: »

amandstu wrote: »

I think the idea is for it to boost the local economy .I doubt goods can be made cheaper although perhaps they can in some cases if the manufacturing methods evolve.

That "idea" may not be why the tariffs were introduced though. I feel they have been introduced for political (and personal) gain.

I wonder what type of work force they need to hire to operate the production lines and work the lands

Robots? Prisoners? **Anti globalists working for free?

**The Trump family and hangers on?

Zubeneschamali

irishash wrote: »

Anybody know why immunity is granted here?

The witness agrees to testify on condition their testimony is not used to prosecute them.

So these 5 witnesses are worried that their own actions might be held to be illegal, that they might go down with Manafort.

Captain Obvious

robinph wrote: »

And we don't know who it is that has been given immunity from prosecution already. Could be that Muller has already effectively "pardoned" Cohen, so Trump can't do it in order to try and get him to keep his mouth shut.

There were five names released weren't there? All financial sector people. Prevailing theory is they are the ones who processed the various transactions and the like.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Economic nationalism (ie tarrifs) are hit and miss. Some sectors gain, some don’t.

And if Chinese goods are too expensive then companies may build in the US. Plenty of counties use this kind of economic protectionism including the EU. Or use it to protect industry or agriculture.

In fact there’s a guy in prison in Ireland for importing garlic as apples, or onions.

Wasn't it actually large scale tax fraud to the tune of €1.6 million?

ELM327

weisses wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that making these goods on US soil with all the extra costs that go ends up cheaper for the consumer then the imported goods with a higher tariff ?

Well clearly that depends on the current price disparity and the level of tariff doesnt it.
A 50% tariff may work out cheaper to build in US even with more expensive labour costs

Sn@kebite

I always thought irish people were very down to earth types. But the amount of pretentious, sycophantic, self-important millenial nonsense in this thread is awful.

The votes split down the middle for Trump / Clinton because of a backlash again the established liberal elite. Multimillionaire lefties like hillary complaining about the lack of transgendered toilets on university campuses while Trump shouts about am we I can jobs being shipped to China. It is this type of "out of touch" attitude of clinton which people seemed to not be convinced by.

Hillary runs as a democrat and at the same time comes from a corporate boardroom, takes backhanders from fossil fuel and pharmaceutical corporations. All while being connected into the cronyist/lobbyist political system within the US. In other words she is a republican in a Democrat's clothing. When a white male is a lobbyist and corporate the Dems call this the "white male Patriarchy" but as as everything is the same except the sex changes to female it's suddenly "an inspiration to women!".

These millionaire liberals are are outraged at this cronyism except when they are doing it.

I bet women's orgs like NOW, Feminist Majority and all other corporate rich white feminists were rubbing their hands with glee wanting hillary to get in and send millions to those organisations while white feminism(Sandberg, Steiner, Wolf et Al. ) stabs minority women in the back.

The Democrats gambled and tried to be clever. They wanted to have two consecutive minority presidents and rub it into the GOP's face for Centuries. They didn't put winning office first they put the liberalpoint scoring first. This would not have happened if they put Sanders up.

They gambled, they lost so cry me a river.....

Leroy42

ELM327 wrote: »

Well clearly that depends on the current price disparity and the level of tariff doesnt it.
A 50% tariff may work out cheaper to build in US even with more expensive labour costs

That is true, but then the costs of the products themselves must go up. So the consumer gets hit. Leading to inflation. Leading to real wage decreases.

I

ELM327

Leroy42 wrote: »

That is true, but then the costs of the products themselves must go up. So the consumer gets hit. Leading to inflation. Leading to real wage decreases.

I

Absolutely the customer will get hit, which is why I would not be for these tariffs.
But as the leader of the free world, Trump gets to make his own decisions.

spacecoyote

ELM327 wrote: »

Well clearly that depends on the current price disparity and the level of tariff doesnt it.
A 50% tariff may work out cheaper to build in US even with more expensive labour costs

Yes, potentially cheaper to build in the US, but still more expensive than it was before he created the mess.

So, if it cost $1 before, and now it costs $1.50, due to a 50% tariff, and it costs $1.40 to produce in the US. You're now getting it cheaper in the US, relative to the tariff price, but more expensive relative to where you were before.

They had a piece on CNN about a nail factory in the rust belt recently & how they were being hurt by the tariffs. They had a staff of 500, but have had to shut down parts of their plant & let go of 80 people because of the steel tariffs.

They are losing massive amounts of business because their raw material costs have jumped due to Trumps trade war.

That's a direct hit to the area of America that swung the election. He might be able to ride it our short term, but unless there is progress, there is surely only so much pain that these people can take.

Add to that Trump's annoyance at the Fed over potential rate hikes. If you suddenly start creating inflation due to increased costs, what do you think the Fed are going to do to control that inflation...you guessed it...hike rates some more

Leroy42

ELM327 wrote: »

Absolutely the customer will get hit, which is why I would not be for these tariffs.
But as the leader of the free world, Trump gets to make his own decisions.

Again true, but as citizens of the free world we are free to question him on them.

There is very little evidence, and very few appear to be arguing, for tariffs. The main problem being that the other side will usually retaliate. So the idea of tariffs sounds great, who would be against making home produced goods more competitive? But the reality is always very different.

Tariffs, by their nature, are a distortion of the market. By making the imports more expensive there is no incentive for local producers to innovate or be more efficient.

But that is for a different thread, and I really don't think Trump is thinking to that level of detail anyway.

ELM327

spacecoyote wrote: »

Yes, potentially cheaper to build in the US, but still more expensive than it was before he created the mess.

So, if it cost $1 before, and now it costs $1.50, due to a 50% tariff, and it costs $1.40 to produce in the US. You're now getting it cheaper in the US, relative to the tariff price, but more expensive relative to where you were before.

They had a piece on CNN about a nail factory in the rust belt recently & how they were being hurt by the tariffs. They had a staff of 500, but have had to shut down parts of their plant & let go of 80 people because of the steel tariffs.

They are losing massive amounts of business because their raw material costs have jumped due to Trumps trade war.

That's a direct hit to the area of America that swung the election. He might be able to ride it our short term, but unless there is progress, there is surely only so much pain that these people can take.

It would depend then on price elasticity. Can the market take $1.40 as a price in a sustainable way? If so then the jobs and manufacturing has been moved back to the US and the tariff was successful. If not then it hasn't

Again: I'm not in favour of these tariffs or tariffs in general as they block free trade.

Zubeneschamali

ELM327 wrote: »

Can the market take $1.40 as a price in a sustainable way? If so then the jobs and manufacturing has been moved back to the US and the tariff was successful.

Successful in the sense of 40% inflation on this item.

Now add all those 40%s up - it's a tax on US consumers to subsidize non-viable US jobs.

Phrased that way, Republicans would be much less keen.

ELM327

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Successful in the sense of 40% inflation on this item.

Now add all those 40%s up - it's a tax on US consumers to subsidize non-viable US jobs.

Phrased that way, Republicans would be much less keen.

Successful in terms of Trump's stated aim of bringing back blue collar jobs.

I feel the need to highlight this again:

ELM327 wrote: »

Again: I'm not in favour of these tariffs or tariffs in general as they block free trade.

Leroy42

Again, I think we are all thinking far too deeply about this.

Trump isn't thinking about inflation, or the consumer. He is focused on his Twitter followers and Fox News. Thats it. Long term for Trump is next week.

dr.fuzzenstein

ELM327 wrote: »

Absolutely the customer will get hit, which is why I would not be for these tariffs.
But as the leader of the free world, Trump gets to make his own decisions.

Well, people have voted for Trump because
A: Sticking it to the Libtards and
B: MAGA
But also "Fcuk you, gimme money!". And that will prove crucial.

Some people vote for him because they are die hard Republicans, and as another poster has said, would vote for a dog if it was the GOP canditate.
These are very hard to convice to vote otherwise, because no matter how much they hate Trump, they hate the Dems even more. But not impossible.
Next are the Trump fanbois. They would walk off a cliff, slaughter their firstborn and endure anything in the name of their Messiah. They are a small cohort of mentally ill lunatics and cannot be swayed, so they can be safely ignore in any battle for votes.
But there are the people who decided that, notwithstanding Trumps hugely obnoxious persona, his obvious political incompetence, compulsive lying and very obvious corruption, they liked him more than Hillary Clinton.
These people are the ones who voted Trump because they want something.
If they now find that they are worse off because of an idiotic tradewar kicked off by a lunatic on ideological grounds (the WORST sin ANY politican can EVER commit), they will switch over to anyone on the other side in a heartbeat.

It is the sad truth about today's society. We don't give two sh*ts about the plight of other people, social injustice, inequality, the destruction of our planet or a corrupt leader that stands for all the above, but we will IMMEDIATELY drop any politican like a hot potato as soon as he says "this will cost you more money, but".

TL/DR:
Yes, he gets to make his decisions, but those may come back to haunt him. As long as Trump displays the same level of self awareness as his supprters (i.e. absolutely none whatsoever), this will come back to bite him.
He may ride on a wave of massive overconfidence, arrogance and hubris at the moment, but I don't think he is aware that eventually this wave ends in some rocks.

Captain Obvious

ELM327 wrote: »

But as the leader of the free world, Trump gets to make his own decisions.

Hate to break it to you but that title no longer really applies. You can't be a leader of the free world if no other country is following you.

mcmoustache

Sn@kebite wrote: »

I always thought irish people were very down to earth types. But the amount of pretentious, sycophantic, self-important millenial nonsense in this thread is awful.

I don't think you understand what those words mean.

dr.fuzzenstein

mcmoustache wrote: »

I don't think you understand what those words mean.

It's cut'n'post. Get some handy catchprases like the above, stick them in a blender, press a button and Hey Presto! you're sticking it to the libtards. :rolleyes:

ELM327

Captain Obvious wrote: »

Hate to break it to you but that title no longer really applies. You can't be a leader of the free world if no other country is following you.

I hate to break it to you, especially since given your moniker you should be aware of this already, but it never was a title.

It's a descriptor that has been used for US presidents (even the bad ones like Carter) for as far as I can remember.

derb12

irishash wrote: »

derb12 wrote: »

On another note, the Manafort trial has been postponed by a week but a list of 5 witnesses given temporary immunity has been released. One of them is a fella called Conor O’Brien who used to work for KWC.

Another is John Brennan, former CIA director.

So I am a little ignorant on why people such as these need immunity. Is it to do with actions they did while in former posts that may be considered as legally shaky?

Anybody know why immunity is granted here?

No it’s someone called James Brennan. If John Brennan of the CIA was involved it’d be even bigger news!!

listermint

ELM327 wrote: »

Absolutely the customer will get hit, which is why I would not be for these tariffs.
But as the leader of the free world, Trump gets to make his own decisions.

That moniker disappeared with the DoDo's

It has no relevance in 2018

ELM327

listermint wrote: »

That moniker disappeared with the DoDo's

It has no relevance in 2018

With the Dodo's what?

listermint

ELM327 wrote: »

With the Dodo's what?

Really do i have to explain what a dodo is.... ?

ELM327

listermint wrote: »

Really do i have to explain what a dodo is.... ?

Considering you used the genitive tense, the " ' " in "Dodo's" (sic) is used to refer to possession. Therefore there should be a noun next.

listermint

ELM327 wrote: »

Considering you used the genitive tense, the " ' " in "Dodo's" (sic) is used to refer to possession. Therefore there should be a noun next.

Oh, your one of those.

ok then, I will modify my response in future to take account of this new normal.

Blowfish

ELM327 wrote: »

Successful in terms of Trump's stated aim of bringing back blue collar jobs.

It won't be, because (as usual) Trump is clueless about what actually has been happening. Manufacturing did not go to China, in fact manufacturing in the US is pretty much the highest it's ever been.

What actually happened is that the low skill manufacturing jobs were automated out of existence. The rust belt manufacturing jobs are never going to come back, for the simple reason that they no longer exist.