Political Posts

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, TB said:

@Parsad, CNN is not a reputable news organization anymore and its viewership is dropping significantly, the US population being around 340 million. The media business is curating news to its core audience and in the process has lost credibility

 

CNN has experienced a significant decline in viewership throughout 2024 and into 2025, continuing a multi-year downward trend.

 

By the second quarter of 2025, CNN's primetime audience dropped further to 538,000 total viewers and 105,000 in the 25-54 demo, representing a 13% decline in total viewers and a 15% decline in the demographic compared to Q2 2024

 

Another point of view on why the left wing media has lost credibility - https://youtu.be/v2xpRi12-Fk

 

 

 

How about Youtube India?

 

 

The Guardian?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/texas-floods-republicans-response-trump

 

The Irish Star?

 

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/trump-blames-favorite-scapegoat-texas-35522319

 

ABC News?

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-pushes-back-nws-criticism-texas-flooding/story?id=123544699

 

Cheers!

[adesigar]

Everything is fake news except Faux News.

[Hektor]

On 7/8/2025 at 12:05 AM, Parsad said:

 

No, Quebec isn't separating either.  Yes, they do have an investment program for immigration in Quebec, and you used to be able to move to any part of Canada.  They are trying to crack down on that or get Quebec to share the revenue, but I believe it is still available.  Cheers!

Does this mean something is (or was) brewing?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/09/canada-quebec-militia-armed-plot/

 

Canadian troops arrested in alleged plot to seize part of Québec

The suspects are accused of stockpiling an extensive arsenal and conducting military-style training while building an anti-government militia, police said.

 

Four Canadian residents, including active members of the country’s military, were arrested in an alleged armed plot to take over land in the Québec area, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday.

[Red Lion]

8 hours ago, adesigar said:

Everything is fake news except Faux News.

 

[changegonnacome]

10 hours ago, TB said:

viewership is dropping significantly

 

In the modern era, one can argue, that the accuracy and fidelity of news reporting has an inverse correlation with viewership figures.....more lies/BS = more clicks/views......less lies and BS and your viewership is going to drop.

 

Put another way a 'news' channel that shovels unsubstantiated bullshit to the public or maybe one 'side' of the political divide with no newsroom and close to zero cost 'news' infrastructure can expect increasing or very high ratings.....while a news organization attempting to operate down the middle-ish with standard ethics around story substantiation & story verification/sources with a hugely expensive newsroom overheads & boots on the ground....can perversely expect lower viewership.

 

I think the news 'business' is broken........if you care about accuracy, fidelity, standards etc.

 

It's a topsy turvey world we're headed into with synthetic AI generated news & amplification about to ramp up......suspect we are in a tough period for 'professional' news orgs......suspect things need to get worse, in terms of mis-information and its costs to soceity, before 'real' news gets valued properly again in the marketplace.

 

[changegonnacome]

43 minutes ago, TB said:

all I am saying is watching/quoting cnn (and some other outlets) now has the same connotation as watching/quoting fox news.

 

perhaps - though what I would say is that Fox news news...not opinion remains pretty good and fairly balanced albeit right leaning.....CNN news remains pretty good too albeit the line is blurrier cause they dont quite divide up the opinion journalists from the news journalists there.....what gets printed on cnn.com is kinda the news news filter they have.....on their evening shows they want to pretend the 'hosts' dont have liberal opinions but these are clearly East Coast liberal elites......to be fair to CNN most of their shows now when they move to a panel format come with conservative voices attached calling out liberal socialist bulshit....Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton do an excellent job....I more regularly hear the conservative viewpoint on CNN than I do the liberal viewpoint on Fox evening shows......the opinion shows on Fox tend to be echo chambers....a little less so on CNN albeit the conservative voice is in the minority with little 'help' from the host

[cwericb]

10 hours ago, Hektor said:

Does this mean something is (or was) brewing?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/09/canada-quebec-militia-armed-plot/

 

Canadian troops arrested in alleged plot to seize part of Québec

The suspects are accused of stockpiling an extensive arsenal and conducting military-style training while building an anti-government militia, police said.

 

Four Canadian residents, including active members of the country’s military, were arrested in an alleged armed plot to take over land in the Québec area, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday.

 

Article is behind a paywall but ...

 

What it means is that TWO guys who happened to be in the military had the dumb idea they were going to start some trouble and likely will spend a long time breaking rocks in some military prison. Not exactly a revolution. "Canadian troops arrested in alleged plot to seize part of Québec"... talk about hyperbole ... TWO guys? Really? Must have been a slow news day.

[Parsad]

12 hours ago, Hektor said:

Does this mean something is (or was) brewing?

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/09/canada-quebec-militia-armed-plot/

 

Canadian troops arrested in alleged plot to seize part of Québec

The suspects are accused of stockpiling an extensive arsenal and conducting military-style training while building an anti-government militia, police said.

 

Four Canadian residents, including active members of the country’s military, were arrested in an alleged armed plot to take over land in the Québec area, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday.

 

You always have domestic terrorist groups in every country...I'm sure there are dozens in the U.S.  This was a group of four...3 current military personnel...that were recruiting and trying to execute on their agenda or manifesto.  In this type of political climate, you will see more of this globally.  In the 1970's, there was the FLQ in Quebec, which were a hard line terrorist/separatist group that went through with a number of murders, bombings and kidnappings.  Nations have to always be vigilant against domestic terrorism.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

11 hours ago, TB said:

@Parsad - all I am saying is watching/quoting cnn (and some other outlets) now has the same connotation as watching/quoting fox news. One is branded as a partisan of a particular party if one watches one of these networks exclusively. I know you are rational about some of these topics.

 

CNN's general audience is younger...they have a huge viewership when you include all platforms.  They are falling and lagging FOX, MSNBC and a couple of others, but remain one of the largest news outlets in the world.  Also, Fox News isn't the problem, it's FOX's other shows that were incredibly partisan.  FOX News receives nearly as much criticism from Trump as CNN!  Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

Nuts to meddle in internal affairs with tariffs:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/09/economy/tariff-letters-trump

[changegonnacome]

 

Your are simply insane to think - for ultra low margin goods that anybody else except the consumer is going to pay for the tariffs - Shark Tank covered it well.....small businesses will go to the wall......domestic producers will raise their prices......tariffs are doing exactly what you would expect them to do which is act like a federal sales tax while introducing a whole bunch of tariff collection/sourcing/documentation friction into supply chains.....its quite something to watch a Republican administration introduce this tax & regulatory burden on businesses.....I'd expect it from a democrat

[Red Lion]

19 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

tariffs are doing exactly what you would expect them to do which is act like a federal sales tax while introducing a whole bunch of tariff collection/sourcing/documentation friction into supply chains.....its quite something to watch a Republican administration introduce this tax & regulatory burden on businesses.....I'd expect it from a democrat

 

What I think hardly anyone (except the trump administration) is saying, is that this federal sales tax is likely to significantly (fully?) offset the deficit impact of the tax reform that was just signed into law. 

 

It's also going to increase the relative attractiveness of domestic manufacturing at the same time that we just fully reinstated 100% bonus depreciation. We also just put in a 100% deduction for the new building of production property. 

 

I know no one wants to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but is it possible that between tariffs and the new tax law, that we have a new deficit neutral tax regime which provides huge incentives to re-shore manufacturing?

 

Will we do massive investments in sock and underwear factories in the USA? Probably not. But for higher margin manufacturing, this seems like an incredibly good setup to invest in production capacity.

 

Let's say Gavin Newsom becomes president in 2029, do you think he's going to roll back all these tariffs? Especially if the investment in production helps spur wage growth among non-college educated Americans sometime before 2029? Right now he's rolling back medicaid for illegals and trying to rework CEQA. So I'm not holding my breath.  

 

 

[cubsfan]

52 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

 

What I think hardly anyone (except the trump administration) is saying, is that this federal sales tax is likely to significantly (fully?) offset the deficit impact of the tax reform that was just signed into law. 

 

It's also going to increase the relative attractiveness of domestic manufacturing at the same time that we just fully reinstated 100% bonus depreciation. We also just put in a 100% deduction for the new building of production property. 

 

I know no one wants to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but is it possible that between tariffs and the new tax law, that we have a new deficit neutral tax regime which provides huge incentives to re-shore manufacturing?

 

Will we do massive investments in sock and underwear factories in the USA? Probably not. But for higher margin manufacturing, this seems like an incredibly good setup to invest in production capacity.

 

Let's say Gavin Newsom becomes president in 2029, do you think he's going to roll back all these tariffs? Especially if the investment in production helps spur wage growth among non-college educated Americans sometime before 2029? Right now he's rolling back medicaid for illegals and trying to rework CEQA. So I'm not holding my breath.  

 

+1 - That was the plan, and it seems some exporters are eating the margins.

But if you read the WSJ during March, April, May - there was no way that could happen.

 

Great point about Gavin Newsom!

[changegonnacome]

4 hours ago, Red Lion said:

I know no one wants to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but is it possible that between tariffs and the new tax law, that we have a new deficit neutral tax regime which provides huge incentives to re-shore manufacturing?

 

I'd say the following - one - I'll give Trump the benefit of the doubt there is a certain logic going on here that could work beatufully......but the issue with him has never been good ideas per se.....its always execution.

 

But what I would say is that there's a central tension or dichotomy going on here still that just hasn't been resolved.

 

 (1) if tariff's are really a nothing burger in terms of the general price level (inflation) such that they get lost in the data.......which is what the WH talking points are right now......there is no manufactoring tariff led renaissance coming to the US cause why...and it really just nets out at like a ~1% federal sales tax on imported goods with one or two new factories to claim as a phalic victory about....or

 

(2)the tariffs are a something burger and whichs means they are generally going to flow through to US businesses and consumers (with the associated pain)....which is a basis for a domestic manufactoring renaissance.

 

all these things cant be true at the same time IMO...........to me given the genereal retreat to 10% with a tonne of carve outs in most of MOU's being called trade deals.......the situation is trending towards (1).....a federal sales tax of about 1% on goods which falls hardest on imported goods......and you get some factories at the margins that will function as PR events for tariffs but when you zoom out and look at the aggregate data US manufacturing will not increase and imports will remain a very large part of consumption. As I said above.....just a sales tax.

[whiskybravo]

4 hours ago, Red Lion said:

 

What I think hardly anyone (except the trump administration) is saying, is that this federal sales tax is likely to significantly (fully?) offset the deficit impact of the tax reform that was just signed into law. 

 

It's also going to increase the relative attractiveness of domestic manufacturing at the same time that we just fully reinstated 100% bonus depreciation. We also just put in a 100% deduction for the new building of production property. 

 

I know no one wants to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but is it possible that between tariffs and the new tax law, that we have a new deficit neutral tax regime which provides huge incentives to re-shore manufacturing?

 

Will we do massive investments in sock and underwear factories in the USA? Probably not. But for higher margin manufacturing, this seems like an incredibly good setup to invest in production capacity.

 

Let's say Gavin Newsom becomes president in 2029, do you think he's going to roll back all these tariffs? Especially if the investment in production helps spur wage growth among non-college educated Americans sometime before 2029? Right now he's rolling back medicaid for illegals and trying to rework CEQA. So I'm not holding my breath.  

 

 

By Jove, I think you’ve got it!  

[whiskybravo]

7 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

I'd say the following - one - I'll give Trump the benefit of the doubt there is a certain logic going on here that could work beatufully......but the issue with him has never been good ideas per se.....its always execution.

 

But what I would say is that there's a central tension or dichotomy going on here still that just hasn't been resolved.

 

 (1) if tariff's are really a nothing burger in terms of the general price level (inflation) such that they get lost in the data.......which is what the WH talking points are right now......there is no manufactoring tariff led renaissance coming to the US cause why...and it really just nets out at like a ~1% federal sales tax on imported goods with one or two new factories to claim as a phalic victory about....or

 

(2)the tariffs are a something burger and whichs means they are generally going to flow through to US businesses and consumers (with the associated pain)....which is a basis for a domestic manufactoring renaissance.

 

all these things cant be true at the same time IMO...........to me given the genereal retreat to 10% with a tonne of carve outs in most of MOU's being called trade deals.......the situation is trending towards (1).....a federal sales tax of about 1% on goods which falls hardest on imported goods......and you get some factories at the margins that will function as PR events for tariffs but when you zoom out and look at the aggregate data US manufacturing will not increase and imports will remain a very large part of consumption. As I said above.....just a sales tax.

It’s all about China.  As Oren Cass outlined China’s economic strategy harms American security and prosperity.  Decoupling is not enough.  The US needs partners who also decouple from China and it must use the leverage of access to the American market to accomplish that.

[Red Lion]

24 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

I'd say the following - one - I'll give Trump the benefit of the doubt there is a certain logic going on here that could work beatufully......but the issue with him has never been good ideas per se.....its always execution.

 

Well it sounds like we are basically on the same page. I do have to say, I personally think Trump 2.0 > Trump 1.0 in terms of execution. It's still early days, so he's got plenty of room to hang himself, but so far most of the naysayers have been wrong. 

 

I'm not an economist, and maybe I'm missing something, but as to your second point, if this all just comes out in the wash and we see no huge impact on inflation, I still think there's going to be a meaningful incentive to onshore production. 

 

Bonus depreciation + full write off on investment in production property + let's call it 10% less of a tariff barrier than the competition is going to be a significant incentive for a number of manufacturers. If prices were to wash, but we see a greater share of domestic manufacturing AND a domestic growth CapEx cycle, I think it could work out well. 

 

I'm not predicting this amazing outcome, but I'm not ruling it out either. And it seems like the default position is to always call Trump an idiot who only got to where he is on nepotism, and then dial back and redirect the criticism after history sometimes proves him right (e.g. Trump 2.0 foreign policy ex tariffs). 

 

[changegonnacome]

5 hours ago, Red Lion said:

Let's say Gavin Newsom becomes president in 2029, do you think he's going to roll back all these tariffs?

 

Can only answer that question if the voting public meaningfully observe the price of things they buy to have gone up as a result of tariffs.....if they do....it becomes an election issue.....if not........its a sales tax that never comes of because its a tax on the population that is effectively hidden from view

[cubsfan]

Unleashing energy production and cutting regulations will also provide big boosts to the economy.

[changegonnacome]

2 hours ago, Red Lion said:

I'm not an economist, and maybe I'm missing something, but as to your second point, if this all just comes out in the wash and we see no huge impact on inflation, I still think there's going to be a meaningful incentive to onshore production. 

 

Bonus depreciation + full write off on investment in production property + let's call it 10% less of a tariff barrier than the competition is going to be a significant incentive for a number of manufacturers. If prices were to wash, but we see a greater share of domestic manufacturing AND a domestic growth CapEx cycle, I think it could work out well. 

 

I'm not predicting this amazing outcome, but I'm not ruling it out either.

 

Yeah you cant have your cake and eat it too......if there's a huge incentive to on-shore....its BECAUSE tariffs made it that way....for them to make it that way they've got to hurt domestically here first (the tariffs)........in almost every deal that matters with our largest trading partners your seeing a big retrenchment back to 10% with a bunch of carve outs....in practise it likely works out at mid-to- HSD effective......I've seen in my job the cost delta on American production versus foreign production in a bunch of industries and I can assure you these manufactoeres didn't move offshore for a 10% delta....and they aren't moving back because a 10% spread has tigthened. Ironically when I've looked at these figures wages tend not be too bad whats a killer for American manufactoring is benefits....specifically the cost to provide healthcare to staff (it truly is the American tapeworm).

 

For sure your going to get some factories opening....they will get headlines......Trump will get the CEO to say it was because of Trump's tariffs, regulatory reform, taxes.....

 

What you wont see Trump standing beside is factories closing down cause copper or steal or aluminium or even China intermediate goods went through the roof for them and they could no longer compete in the international market........

[Spekulatius]

This “it’s all about China” has been debunked as Trump has instituted high tariffs on Japan and Korea and now Brazil. Granted, the tariffs with Trump are spot rate as they can change daily but it’s not exactly allies and neutral countries toward the US. 

[Parsad]

15 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

This “it’s all about China” has been debunked as Trump has instituted high tariffs on Japan and Korea and now Brazil. Granted, the tariffs with Trump are spot rate as they can change daily but it’s not exactly allies and neutral countries toward the US. 

 

35% now on Canada as well from August 1st.  It's actually pushing those countries to do more business with China, among others, rather than do more business with the U.S.  Cheers!

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-puts-35-tariff-canada-003831560.html

 

 

[nwoodman]

2 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

35% now on Canada as well from August 1st.  It's actually pushing those countries to do more business with China, among others, rather than do more business with the U.S.  Cheers!

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-puts-35-tariff-canada-003831560.html

 

 

Yep, all sorts of fascinating unintended consequences.

 

https://timeleft.now

 

 

[dwy000]

10 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

35% now on Canada as well from August 1st.  It's actually pushing those countries to do more business with China, among others, rather than do more business with the U.S.  Cheers!

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-puts-35-tariff-canada-003831560.html

 

 

Wasn't there supposed to be 90 deals in 90 days and 200 countries were begging for deals?  Still not a single one signed and doesnt look like very many are even returning calls.  

[Viking]

21 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

35% now on Canada as well from August 1st.  It's actually pushing those countries to do more business with China, among others, rather than do more business with the U.S.  Cheers!

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-puts-35-tariff-canada-003831560.html

 

Why does it feel like I have seen this movie before? I continue to think the only way to understand what Trump is doing is to view it through the lens of a good old fashioned shakedown from the mafia.