Hello and good evening all.. John, yes!!! "The Odyssey" Absolutely love the idea of "MUST READ BOOK LIST"
I think this epic poem, Greek poem, is BRILLIANT for Current Time events.
BRAVO John and team, although John, I believe this is your insight.
I can't wait, carry on.... I think in the theme of the odyssey of loyalty, human struggle, is win! Cheers! I really like this community. Sending all best wishes
They do have ways of fighting back though, they dominate production of many essential products.
Already the tax on phones and computer products has been dropped because it would make the products too expensive. But now, with only dropping the tax on computer products means that US companies have to pay the tax on rare earths or computer parts meaning they cannot compete and the US only imports the final manufactured products, the opposite of the aim.
Also, the west has almost zero production many essential things like rare earths, meaning they can limit them which would cause a few years of pain, certainly heavily damaging the US tech industry (the golden goose) and actually all industries could be heavily impacted, almost all use things that they have total production dominance.
The tariff guy needs to be sacked and someone that actually understands the situation take over.
Yes, tariffs could work. They need to be targeted correctly to bring industry back. Trump needs to state which industries come back and also give them tax breaks or set up help (mainly just allowing them to build without all the crazy laws), the carrot and the stick.
Also, friendshoring needs to be a key part because the US is too rich and wages too high to compete in low tech production like steel and rare earths or even cars. Countries need to be given a choice, and the countries that are inside need legal and political controls to limit outside influence and imports to ensure local production controlled by the US.
1) before you heavy tax things like rare earths, you need to have some production base, fund that production base first.
2) target taxes to individual industries and have carrots to get them to move to the right places.
3) choose friendshore countries to produce your low tech non essential products, they have low tax, the rest has the high tax (because otherwise they just reroute trade through their friend countries).
4) some important products like rare earths or steel, wages are too high in the US, but are essential and so must be placed in strong ally countries like Mexico and other strong relationships should be developed, with some US legal political control to stop regime change or other sneaky takeovers.
5) get all the allies to stop the wto who and un, forming a new set of institutions for the allies that governs it fairly and can’t be taken over by enemies.
Yes, this is the end of globalisation, but what comes next?
The US isn’t big enough and doesn’t have regions with low enough wages to produce everything itself. It wouldn’t want to, these jobs are not high enough paid in the modern day for Americans.
So, what’s the plan? Which countries does Trump want in the new alliance? And who will join? As you say, the Anglosphere countries are likely wanted and aligned, but maybe not the UK if the EU is not inside. Japan is 100% in, most likely South Korea too, maybe the Philippines. Vietnam and South East Asia will likely try not to join either side but I think China will take them as their feeder manufacturers like Mexico to the US.
Why has the US not already ensured that Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean are only theirs? Need to do that.
The EU and South America could be on the US side, but if the US plays it wrong will go neutral. Which is happening. And maybe their best choice? Put yourself in their shoes, if they can sit out and trade with both they could win. The right combination of carrot and stick is required to make this work, it is essential that we see these plans soon.
Even though the tariffs have thrown a massive spanner in my works, I'm lucky in a sense as I haven't started manufacturing in China yet, which means I can pivot, but many start ups already have and for them they're going to hurt immensely, literally to bankruptcy.
A quick Grok search shows something like 3m people in the USA work for companies that import from China, so one would hope Trump knows what he's doing (see one Hulsman, John, for the Trump whispering here!).
Some macro:
As John says, this isn't about allies per se, this is about seeing who wants to free trade with the chairman of the board (the USA) on a fairer-terms basis (which surely means almost everyone, unless you're an ideological clown show with TDS, or you're China) and also isolating China to get them to play fair, because they're the absolute worst of all cheats.
It's a bold move, but Trump holds most of the cards primarily because the world will side with him, and not Xi, and Xi will probably come to realise this regardless of how much he knows he can hurt USA in return.
And as much as the e.g. EU scream orange-Hitler, they'll also come to realise the actual authoritarian is Xi, and not Trump, and it's the EU who unfairly block the USA from their market (so Trump has a point, in other words!).
So:
1. Trump wants lower tariffs because he doesn't like the USA being taken advantage of (and lower tariffs will increase global trade, and economic growth for all in the long run - so it's not the end of globalisation, just a re-ordering of it).
2. Trump wants China to start playing fair because they screw the little guy, screw big companies, screw the USA and screw the world.
3. Politicians aren't capable enough nor brave enough to take on this awfully bad actor, but Trump is.
4. He's doing it via unorthodox policy that has created immediate, massive action (where trade deals with a single country can literally take decades to negotiate, he's doing +70 deals within a couple months of being in office).
Everyone should really be lining up to thank the guy (at least for his efforts, if not yet results!).
Apparently after after the 2008 crash hit I think something like 3 million jobs were lost in the UK. But apparently as we came out of the crash, about 4 million jobs were created. So you cited 3 million people who are exposed to China in the US. Creative destruction should mean that they lose their jobs, but new ones are created as things are moved towards US production.
Hello and good evening all.. John, yes!!! "The Odyssey" Absolutely love the idea of "MUST READ BOOK LIST"
I think this epic poem, Greek poem, is BRILLIANT for Current Time events.
BRAVO John and team, although John, I believe this is your insight.
I can't wait, carry on.... I think in the theme of the odyssey of loyalty, human struggle, is win! Cheers! I really like this community. Sending all best wishes
They do have ways of fighting back though, they dominate production of many essential products.
Already the tax on phones and computer products has been dropped because it would make the products too expensive. But now, with only dropping the tax on computer products means that US companies have to pay the tax on rare earths or computer parts meaning they cannot compete and the US only imports the final manufactured products, the opposite of the aim.
Also, the west has almost zero production many essential things like rare earths, meaning they can limit them which would cause a few years of pain, certainly heavily damaging the US tech industry (the golden goose) and actually all industries could be heavily impacted, almost all use things that they have total production dominance.
The tariff guy needs to be sacked and someone that actually understands the situation take over.
Yes, tariffs could work. They need to be targeted correctly to bring industry back. Trump needs to state which industries come back and also give them tax breaks or set up help (mainly just allowing them to build without all the crazy laws), the carrot and the stick.
Also, friendshoring needs to be a key part because the US is too rich and wages too high to compete in low tech production like steel and rare earths or even cars. Countries need to be given a choice, and the countries that are inside need legal and political controls to limit outside influence and imports to ensure local production controlled by the US.
1) before you heavy tax things like rare earths, you need to have some production base, fund that production base first.
2) target taxes to individual industries and have carrots to get them to move to the right places.
3) choose friendshore countries to produce your low tech non essential products, they have low tax, the rest has the high tax (because otherwise they just reroute trade through their friend countries).
4) some important products like rare earths or steel, wages are too high in the US, but are essential and so must be placed in strong ally countries like Mexico and other strong relationships should be developed, with some US legal political control to stop regime change or other sneaky takeovers.
5) get all the allies to stop the wto who and un, forming a new set of institutions for the allies that governs it fairly and can’t be taken over by enemies.
Yes, this is the end of globalisation, but what comes next?
The US isn’t big enough and doesn’t have regions with low enough wages to produce everything itself. It wouldn’t want to, these jobs are not high enough paid in the modern day for Americans.
So, what’s the plan? Which countries does Trump want in the new alliance? And who will join? As you say, the Anglosphere countries are likely wanted and aligned, but maybe not the UK if the EU is not inside. Japan is 100% in, most likely South Korea too, maybe the Philippines. Vietnam and South East Asia will likely try not to join either side but I think China will take them as their feeder manufacturers like Mexico to the US.
Why has the US not already ensured that Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean are only theirs? Need to do that.
The EU and South America could be on the US side, but if the US plays it wrong will go neutral. Which is happening. And maybe their best choice? Put yourself in their shoes, if they can sit out and trade with both they could win. The right combination of carrot and stick is required to make this work, it is essential that we see these plans soon.
All fears well and truly acknowledged.
Some micro:
Even though the tariffs have thrown a massive spanner in my works, I'm lucky in a sense as I haven't started manufacturing in China yet, which means I can pivot, but many start ups already have and for them they're going to hurt immensely, literally to bankruptcy.
A quick Grok search shows something like 3m people in the USA work for companies that import from China, so one would hope Trump knows what he's doing (see one Hulsman, John, for the Trump whispering here!).
Some macro:
As John says, this isn't about allies per se, this is about seeing who wants to free trade with the chairman of the board (the USA) on a fairer-terms basis (which surely means almost everyone, unless you're an ideological clown show with TDS, or you're China) and also isolating China to get them to play fair, because they're the absolute worst of all cheats.
It's a bold move, but Trump holds most of the cards primarily because the world will side with him, and not Xi, and Xi will probably come to realise this regardless of how much he knows he can hurt USA in return.
And as much as the e.g. EU scream orange-Hitler, they'll also come to realise the actual authoritarian is Xi, and not Trump, and it's the EU who unfairly block the USA from their market (so Trump has a point, in other words!).
So:
1. Trump wants lower tariffs because he doesn't like the USA being taken advantage of (and lower tariffs will increase global trade, and economic growth for all in the long run - so it's not the end of globalisation, just a re-ordering of it).
2. Trump wants China to start playing fair because they screw the little guy, screw big companies, screw the USA and screw the world.
3. Politicians aren't capable enough nor brave enough to take on this awfully bad actor, but Trump is.
4. He's doing it via unorthodox policy that has created immediate, massive action (where trade deals with a single country can literally take decades to negotiate, he's doing +70 deals within a couple months of being in office).
Everyone should really be lining up to thank the guy (at least for his efforts, if not yet results!).
Great food for thought Simon; Happy Easter and what a time to make sense of all of this-as one era passes into another
Likewise Happy Easter John, enjoy the down time (if you're getting any, all things Trump and tariffs considered!).
Apparently after after the 2008 crash hit I think something like 3 million jobs were lost in the UK. But apparently as we came out of the crash, about 4 million jobs were created. So you cited 3 million people who are exposed to China in the US. Creative destruction should mean that they lose their jobs, but new ones are created as things are moved towards US production.
Exactly, so-important a term the increasingly left-wing Economist has a section named after the guy who coined the phrase..