Political Posts

[Dalal.Holdings]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

NO. It was NOT china who destroyed US manufacturing. It was destroyed by greedy US capitalists that looked for the cheapest labor available and fucked over US workers. China started from nothing but selling their asses to capitalists from the west, slowly using surplus proceeds with trade barriers and technology transfers to scale up their own industry. Its a miracle and probably the highest service any government has done to any country. That process took decades and benefitted from massive population scale, top down dictator approach without election or blocking senate whatever.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/030616/why-chinese-yuan-pegged.asp#:~:text=A currency peg is a,against a basket of currencies

 

“What Is China's Currency Peg?”

[Luke]

Now Trump wants to repeat that apparently while having less scale, less favor globally, WAY less eager workers that wouldnt put up with 30% of what asian workers have to put up with...just look at the TSMC fabs where US workers try to lawsuit themselves in because they are not hired... @cubsfan lives in a parallel world where just praising trump and "it will be worth it and great trust me bro" is the agenda but not reality.

[Paarslaars]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

Really, China?   China has 60% tariffs on US goods, but the US is the bully.  Gotcha 

 

If tariffs are so horrible, how did China grow at 10% per annum for decades?

 

Why don't they ditch them?

And all the others? This isn't about China, I'm not excusing China. But the US tries to bully everyone else, lots of countries that do not impose trade tarrifs on the US. And these countries will join forces with China, that is what a trade war is about...

[Luke]

3 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

The logic: Tariffs are only bad when the U.S. does them. China can tariff and peg their currency to an artificially weak level for decades and no complaints or much of anything from “freetraders” and economists

Yes and the irony is that trump at the same time says "we waaaant the dollar to be stronnggg, i love tesluurr".

 

He has the gigantic financial service industry and banks on his back that will not accept a chinese currency manipulation and is that really what you guys want now?

 

China has no private banking sector like the US, you would have to defund that too, you have to rebuild the entire economy and that will cause so many setbacks and throw the US back years. Its madness.

Edited April 3, 2025 by Luke

[Luke]

1 minute ago, Paarslaars said:

And all the others? This isn't about China, I'm not excusing China. But the US tries to bully everyone else, lots of countries that do not impose trade tarrifs on the US. And these countries will join forces with China, that is what a trade war is about...

Yep! China gonna benefit over the next years from this. As i said, trump just ruined decades of US international respect and nobody will ever get into an alliance with them again nor trust them. Would you do long term projects with trump?

[Luke]

NEWS: Macron said European companies must suspend planned investment in the United States after Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on American imports.

 

And this pushes China closer to Europe...exactly the opposite Trump would want.

Edited April 3, 2025 by Luke

[Luke]

Now Xi looks a lot better and more reliable with Biden gone and Trump back haha

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

His mechanism was an effective huge tariff on imports that would have immediately resulted in elimination of Trade deficit. It would have been massively more disruptive

 

Your "local market" analogy is irrelevant and deserves no further mention.

 

 

 

That's incorrect.  Buffett's method would have created a market for the certificates and balanced trade.  There would be no actual tariff other than the market price of the certificates.

 

In the present case, we have hugely varied tariffs for different countries.  Essentially you are not creating a free market on trade, but a gamed market that favors those with lower tariffs.

 

As a Canadian, I have an advantage now over some of these exporters into the U.S. because their tariffs are so ridiculously high!

 

This will have some of the same effect as Buffett's idea, but it is wildly chaotic, unbalanced, inequitable and actually is stifling trade.

 

Cheers!

[Parsad]

12 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

The logic: Tariffs are only bad when the U.S. does them. China can tariff and peg their currency to an artificially weak level for decades and no complaints or much of anything from “freetraders” and economists

 

Then go after China!  Why the blanket policy of punching everyone in the face?  Cheers!

[Sweet]

1 hour ago, lnofeisone said:

 

 Can you help me understand what makes this interesting? I thought it was a bunch of words that form sentences that don't really say a whole lot. Do we need manufacturing to take advantage of AI? I work in AI, and I can't fathom how manufacturing is going to enhance my experience or my productivity. His argument that AI will do everything but healthcare is ridiculous. It's like saying "we should stop doing research into medicine because further advances can cause shrinkage of what makes up 10% of our workforce today."

 

These tariffs are what they are. Trump is attempting to implement a tax cut while maintaining the appearance of a balanced budget. Today he wiped $2T from the S&P 500. 

Rather than me making the argument I’m going to link a PDF of a famous article from the former CEO of Intel Andy Grove.

 

It’s not exactly related to tariffs but it is about manufacturing jobs and production.  It’s about scaling in America and why that is important.

 

For the record, I’ve argued for trade restrictions and tariffs against certain countries (but not others), on certain products (and not others), for a long time.  But I think Trump’s implementation has been a disaster.

 

 

andy-grove_-how-america-can-create-jobs 2.pdf

[Sweet]

3 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Then go after China!  Why the blanket policy of punching everyone in the face?  Cheers!

Yep, China a few others.  This policy though is silly.

[Dalal.Holdings]

16 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

That's incorrect.  Buffett's method would have created a market for the certificates and balanced trade.  There would be no actual tariff other than the market price of the certificates.

 

The number of import certificates that would have been created would be equal to the dollar value of U.S. exports. Hence, U.S. imports would be forced to equal U.S. exports. The tradable value of the certificates would rise to a high enough level to achieve this which would be a massive tariffs on all imports. He even said this right in the article:

 

Quote

To import $1 million of goods, for example, an importer would need ICs that were the byproduct of $1 million of exports. The inevitable result: trade balance.

 

https://fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/

 

The U.S. currently imports > $1.1 Trillion more than it imports. Those $1.1T imports would be forced to disappear...that is, people sending good here would have to pay up for ICs (which would rocket in price) until they are all used up. 

 

This disappearance of $1.1T in imported goods would be massively more disruptive and cause prices of the goods that do make it into the U.S. to rise much more. 

Edited April 3, 2025 by Dalal.Holdings

[Dalal.Holdings]

12 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Then go after China!  Why the blanket policy of punching everyone in the face?  Cheers!

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/trump-tariffs-on-india-how-is-country-economy-impacted-what-is-modi-doing

 

China is not the only offender. U.S. has long had among the lowest of barriers of even our friends

[Spekulatius]

8 hours ago, Spooky said:

It's funny, everyone saying the US needs manufacturing back for national security as a justification or the US needs high value manufacturing but hates on the Biden administration. Their approach was so much better than this, recognizing which areas are important (semi-conductors), passing the CHIPS act to spur investment in the US in this industry, and then placing targeted export controls on the most cutting edge technology to China while still allowing most competition between the two nations.

 

These lazy broad based tariffs are not going to achieve the ends the US is seeking. There is a deficit of strategic thinking. It will just reduce US trade and make US companies less competitive in the long run.

Well maybe we get the cotton and textile industry back,  but who is going to provide the cheap labor? We could import the labor from Bangladesh and Vietnam  with immigration since they have not much to do at home with these tariffs?

Maga for the win!

Edited April 3, 2025 by Spekulatius

[rogermunibond]

@thepupil

[Dalal.Holdings]

23 minutes ago, Luke said:

NEWS: Macron said European companies must suspend planned investment in the United States after Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on American imports.

 

And this pushes China closer to Europe...exactly the opposite Trump would want.

 

Yes, China can continue to steal EU's IP and destroy auto and the rest of their industry. China is also arming Putin.

 

If that's the partner they want, then let them go for it.

[Dalal.Holdings]

It's not going to be the end of the world unless you loaded up on P/E > 30 AI stocks, crypto, or other similar garbage assets. Recessions will still occur. U.S. stocks were trading at ridiculous levels for a long time.

 

Maybe the U.S. will no longer be a > 70% consumption oriented economy. Maybe that will revert to something a bit...healthier.

 

If you made money while the sun was shining, good, but you can't get > 20% returns every year forever. The signs were all there: PLTR, MSTR, Mag 7, crypto, etc etc

 

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2019/may/historical-u-s-trade-deficits

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by Dalal.Holdings

[thepupil]

3 minutes ago, rogermunibond said:

@thepupil

 

I admittedly don't know how to read this given the various abbreviations. Care to spell it out. 

[flesh]

Is there a link to the Buffett/fortune article? I’d like to read it. 
 

Also, I see everyone is quite confident about their opinions. I’d love to see some predictions.. what will happen with trade gdp tariff rates between countries.. recessions etc and this way we can look back in in a few years and see what happened. 

[gfp]

Just now, flesh said:

Is there a link to the Buffett/fortune article? I’d like to read it. 
 

Also, I see everyone is quite confident about their opinions. I’d love to see some predictions.. what will happen with trade gdp tariff rates between countries.. recessions etc and this way we can look back in in a few years and see what happened. 

 

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf

[Parsad]

14 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

The number of import certificates that would have been created would be equal to the dollar value of U.S. exports. Hence, U.S. imports would be forced to equal U.S. exports. The tradable value of the certificates would rise to a high enough level to achieve this which would be a massive tariffs on all imports. He even said this right in the article:

 

 

https://fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/

 

The U.S. currently imports > $1.1 Trillion more than it imports. Those $1.1T imports would be forced to disappear...that is, people sending good here would have to pay up for ICs (which would rocket in price) until they are all used up. 

 

This disappearance of $1.1T in imported goods would be massively more disruptive and cause prices of the goods that do make it into the U.S. to rise much more. 

 

The certificates would be essentially similar to carbon tax credits.  I don't see ballooning tariffs on industrial polluters by using those, and they spur green energy projects and developments.  The system worked...it wasn't chaotic and targeted the egregious violators, while allowing development of traditional and non-traditional industries.  

 

Buffett was talking about doing the same thing, but with trade.  The effect would have been discerningly different...one was a chainsaw, the other a scalpel.  Are we seeing a pattern here?!

 

Cheers!

[Dalal.Holdings]

3 minutes ago, gfp said:

 

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf

 

Amusingly, this was written when the trade deficit was a fraction of what it is today. Buffett's solution would have almost instantaneously eliminated the deficit which would have been far more disruptive and hit all our trading partners equally (unlike now where we hit the biggest violators like China the hardest).

[Parsad]

12 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

Yes, China can continue to steal EU's IP and destroy auto and the rest of their industry. China is also arming Putin.

 

If that's the partner they want, then let them go for it.

 

I highly doubt that direction will make China weaker and the U.S. any stronger.  But hey, fill your boots!  Cheers!

[rogermunibond]

@thepupil

 

US agricultural products to top five export markets face tariffs 12 to 21%

 

US non-agricultural products to top fix export markets face tariffs 2.5 to 6%

 

The claim of 60% is not a tariff.  It's the undervaluation of the RMB based on the Fx peg that PBOC.  It's somewhat dubious IMO.

 

***************

Keynes back in Bretton Woods released that having one currency be the dominant reserve would create imbalances.  He promoted something called the bancor that would substitute for any one nation's currency.  The US negotiator, Harry Dexter White, was vehemently opposed to this and he convinced the US officials and FDR that having the USD as the reserve currency would be advantageous.

[Dalal.Holdings]

1 minute ago, Parsad said:

 

I highly doubt that direction will make China weaker and the U.S. any stronger.  But hey, fill your boots!  Cheers!

 

My point is that Europe or Japan or Korea or India isn't going to run to China as an alternative to the USA. For obvious geopolitical reasons.