2025 American Political (ob-?)Scene
- Thread starter JRT
- Start date
Monash
Military Professional
I wouldn't exactly call it an alliance. More like a single issue joint initiative. The only unifying principal is their mutual opposition to Trumps tariff's. Hell it would actually make sense for ALL the other nations who are going to be hit by them to as far as possible also join in some form of collective action!
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Officer of Engineers
Military Professional
The fact that 3 countries who hate each other can do any joint action should be worrying, especially in an anti-American action.
DOR
Voter
Iran, China, ... who else ya got?
DOR
Voter
Cutting the federal workforce to reduce federal spending is a really dumb idea.
In this decade, the average size of the federal workforce is 2.94 million. That’s the same as in the 1990s, and lower than in the 1980s.
In this decade, the average size of the federal workforce is 1.8% of the labor force. That’s 0.4 percentage points lower than in the 1990s, and 0.8 points lower than in the 1980s.
Cutting the federal workforce to reduce federal spending is a really dumb idea.
In this decade, the average size of the federal workforce is 2.94 million. That’s the same as in the 1990s, and lower than in the 1980s.
In this decade, the average size of the federal workforce is 1.8% of the labor force. That’s 0.4 percentage points lower than in the 1990s, and 0.8 points lower than in the 1980s.
Cutting the federal workforce to reduce federal spending is a really dumb idea.
Monash
Military Professional
They do all like money though and that's what's at stake. So strange bedfellows it is.
Officer of Engineers
Military Professional
And Taiwan should worry. Why would Tokyo or Seoul answer American call to arms, even if it is to backfill American obligations when Beijing attacks? The anti American action fucks the strategic picture up the ying-yang
Bigfella
Well-known member
Russia & China will be overjoyed at Trumps ongoing attacks on collective security. There is no way to know what impact 4 more years of this sort of behaviour will have and how much will be capable of repair.
Europe at least has some existing frameworks that can be harnessed to collective security and the resources to make them credible. East Asia does not. This is very bad. As you say, even if the US chooses to defend Taiwan, other nations may not be prepared to help. Time to dig trenches. Hopefully China doesn't take advantage.
Monash
Military Professional
On the other hand the economic consequences of Trumps tariffs for America will become pretty apparent long before his four years are up, say within the next 6 to 12 months. Inflation, supply shortages, job losses should start to feed into the system pretty quickly. While the US can eventually rebuild it's domestic manufacturing bases to replace imported goods that's going to take far longer than fours years to achieve. For example even if America's steel companies placed orders today its going to be about two years at least before the first new production lines start operating. And it's doubtful they could produce all of the new capacity they're going to need even that quickly because of bottlenecks in component supply.
The only good news is that as quickly as things are going to go south the solution is also a quick fix i.e just start rolling back the tariff's in a controlled manner so that global businesses get certainty again. The hard part? Convincing Donald to do it. But then Trump has flip flopped so often in the past he well may just claim he's 'taught the world not to mess with America' or some similar BS and then claim credit for fixing things!
DOR
Voter
Poor Thinking at USTR
From the very beginning, the US Trade Representative’s explanation of how, and why, tariffs have been imposed runs into some fairly serious flaws. [[https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations]]“While models of international trade generally assume that trade will balance itself over time, the United States has run persistent current account deficits for five decades, indicating that the core premise of most trade models is incorrect.”
==Or, the data may be calculated in a manner that is wildly out-of-date. That’s being addressed in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) on-going revisions to give greater weight to different parts of the supply chain.
For example, if simple white T-shirts are produced for $10/dz, and imported at a 20% tariff rate, the landed cost (excluding shipping and other factors that would not change in this example) is $12. Add a Nike logo, and the value soars, to say, $40/dz. Now, the landed cost is $48, even though the royalties for the use of the logo are entirely domestic.
“The failure of trade deficits to balance has many causes, with tariff and non-tariff economic fundamentals as major contributors.”
==Another major contributor: economic evolution away from lower value-added activities.
- Farming, fishing, forestry, and mining are the primary sector of an economy: taking things out of the earth (ocean) and selling them.
- Manufacturing, construction, and utilities such as electricity or water are secondary. This is where economists tell underdeveloped nations to aim: adding value to the (say) forest trees through processing. Selling logs is a low value-added business; selling furniture, or paper, is much, much more valuable in terms of jobs and taxes.
- At the tertiary level we have trade (wholesaling, distribution, retailing), finance (banking, insurance, and equity and bond markets), media (branding, advertising, merchandising), legal services, education, healthcare, and a whole slew of other high value-added services. This is where highly developed economies live: in the higher-than-primary, and higher-than-secondary economic sector.
Manufacturing _ _ Imported _ _ _ Private
Employment _ _ _ _Goods _ _Consumption
(% of Private) _ _ _ Prices _ _ _ _Prices
1950s _35.4% _ _ _ _2.1% _ _ _ _ 2.5%
1960s _32.9% _ _ _ _2.1% _ _ _ _ 0.8%
1970s _28.1% _ _ _ _6.4% _ _ _ _13.2%
1980s _22.3% _ _ _ _5.0% _ _ _ _ _3.1%
1990s _17.7% _ _ _ _2.3% _ _ _ _ -1.1%
2000s _13.0% _ _ _ _2.1% _ _ _ _ _2.0%
2010s _10.3% _ _ _ _1.5% _ _ _ _ _0.1%
2021-24_9.8% _ _ _ _3.6% _ _ _ _ _1.9%
Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/
Officer of Engineers
Military Professional
Another freaking pause! EXCEPT for Canada and Mexico! And China. The China Trade War is full blown on!
I swear Trump is just toying with the world economies
I swear Trump is just toying with the world economies
Monash
Military Professional
Of course he is. Look forward and see what's going to happen. Every time some random world leader does something that annoys Trumps. Tariffs on that country go up, by a random amount (depending on how annoyed he is). Another random world leader calls him a genius & kisses ass? Tariffs go down for that country (by a random amount dependent on how much said leader puckers up). It will be chaos. We'll all be getting nightly tariff rate reports in the news, the same way we get weather reports now.
Officer of Engineers
Military Professional
Which states that he knows what he's doing! He may not know all the ins and outs of his actions but this is preciesely what he wants!
Officer of Engineers
Military Professional
I'm going to say this. Trump will usher in free trade across the globe. There's frankly no other option! Within 4 months of his Presidency, he created world wide turmoil like no other and EVERYONE is trying to correct it AND the ONLY CORRECTION is free trade. Witness the CUSMA, he adhere to it!
Trump is not the idiot we think he is.
Trump is not the idiot we think he is.
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tbm3fan
Defense Professional
Monash
Military Professional
I don't think he's and idiot. Unfortunately I do think that (A) he has a very fragile ego and (B) he is incapable of controlling his emotions or reacting on them when angry, frustrated or contradicted in public. Those are not ideal characteristics in anyone holding a position of power let alone the President of the Untied States.