Everything’s stupid and nothing matters.

If you’re going to start a war, you better know for a fact that you can win. Trump thinks he knows, but he doesn’t know shit.

The US has a terminal disease: hubris. This is what it’s like to live in an empire in decline.

The US and allies control WTO, and China was only allowed trade on WTO terms after they accepted to follow the WTO standards, basically designed by USA

That means nothing, anymore. Those standards are meaningless, China holds most of cards, now. Any attempts to reign in China have been half hearted at best, and often undermined by the US itself. As tough as people have tried to sound in their rhetoric about China, the fact is American corporations and consumers continue to do business with them because it’s just too good of a deal for them.

and American politicians have openly stated how they need to prevent China from expanding their influence.

Well, they have failed, spectacularly, and that was true LONG before even Trump’s first term, let alone these tariffs.

This is the stupidest article I’ve read about the tariffs, and that’s saying something because I’ve read some doozies.

The author makes it sound like the US and the rest of the world were building a coalition to take on Chinese control of the global economy, before Trump’s tariffs came along and ruined everything. That’s horse shit.

The article even mentions Vietnam specifically. Do they not know that Vietnam is also a Marxist-Leninist state? Vietnam has taken many cues from China. Vietnam is trying to become a manufacturing hub, similar to China, and the relationship that Vietnam has been building with the US is one of trade that is similar the relationship the US has with China: they (China/Vietnam) make the stuff, we (the US) buy the stuff.

I agree that Nintendo was ahead of the curve when it came to expanding portable gaming, but the only reason the switch sold so many units, and ultimately got so many games ported to it, was because of Nintendo first party titles. If you look at the best selling switch titles, the vast majority of them are Nintendo games. Without Nintendo first party titles, the switch would have been far outsold by better devices.

This is what Trump wants. He wants the market to drop and/or a recession. Why? To force the Fed to drop rates back to essentially zero. Once that happens, expect a blistering turnaround in the market. Everyone and their great aunt will be borrowing money at ultra low interest to buy stocks. The stock market will explode, maybe crypto, too. Inflation will skyrocket. It will be nuts.

It’s not convoluted at all. It’s extremely simple: if you want to (edit: legally) play first party Nintendo titles (or other exclusives), you MUST buy a switch. If you don’t care about Nintendo exclusives, there’s absolutely no reason to own a switch. That has been true of every, single Nintendo console ever released… except for the Wii. People bought a Wii so they could play a motion control game with Grandma once or twice, and then just let the console sit and collect dust.

It makes sense, when you think about it. The US offshored a lot of our production to countries with lower taxes, fewer regulations, and, most importantly, cheaper labor. That put downward pressure on wages for American workers in the same fields, as they were having to compete with foreign workers who were paid less, often in much poorer nations where the cost of living was also much lower.

This offshoring did result in cheaper products for consumers, being imported from foreign countries, but it came at the cost of American manufacturing jobs. Most experts didn’t think that was a problem, as they theorized that as economies developed and became more advanced, there would naturally be fewer people working in manufacturing and more people working in service jobs. The idea, seemingly, was that poorer countries would always handle the world’s manufacturing while rich countries would mostly do desk jobs. This, however, doesn’t appear to be the case, and people are starting to realize that domestic manufacturing is always going to be necessary, even, and especially, for national security reasons. Even Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, acknowledged this in a pivotal speech he gave to the Brookings Institute in April of 2023.

Trump’s tariffs are a clumsy, oafish attempt to get people to buy American and bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, a goal that he and Biden shared. However, Trump is, predictably, going about it the wrong way. A massive shift in economic policy like that, needs to be done carefully and tactfully, so to cause as little economic instability as possible. Trump prefers taking the more aggressive and potentially harmful (at least in the short term) route.

I understand why workers support this, though, because I get that American workers don’t necessarily want to have to wait for a lengthy transition process before they can get better paying manufacturing jobs. But, their impatience might hurt them. Consumers aren’t going to start paying higher prices for American made goods, just because of the tariffs. Consumers want good quality products at affordable prices. If American companies can’t provide that, the tariffs aren’t going to accomplish anything.

I expected better

Then you’re a fucking idiot.

I hope things improve here in the US, but at some point there’s really nothing else to do but leave. There’s a point where the US simply becomes a lost cause. I don’t know if we’re there yet, but I don’t feel like things are heading in the right direction.

I fully share your loathing of European free-loading

Europe didn’t choose to be a vassal to the US, it happened because the continent was devastated by WW2. Europe needed help from the world’s sole superpower, especially for defense against the common enemy of the Soviet Union.

But that era is over. Europe is no longer rebuilding from WW2 and the Soviet Union is gone. I think Europe is beginning to realize that being under the thumb of the US is not a place they want to be. I fully expect Europe to work to liberate itself from US dependence.

Every group of people need to have autonomy and independence, and the right to self-govern. No people should have to fear violence and repression from another group.

Donnie doesn’t have a stable policy

That seems to be the case.

Trade wars could cause countries to “go back to being insular,” Bhatia said, which could cultivate “spurts of patriotism that translate into people spending more locally in their own nation.”

Consumer spending on goods and services account for around two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product. There is therefore is a “high probability” that a tariff-induced increase in domestic expenditure will cause the country’s GDP to “do better than you anticipate,” Bhatia said.

None of that sounds all that bad, to me, but Americans have gotten very used to buying cheap goods imported from foreign countries where labor and other costs are much lower. The whole point of tariffs is to make those foreign made goods more expensive so that American made goods can better compete with them on price, but that doesn’t result in things getting less expensive for consumers (or producers, for that matter, since they’ve also gotten used to cheap, foreign made parts and components). Prices will go up, and if they go up too much American consumers might stop buying.

Or will they? Americans be shoppin’, and I’m not sure how high prices would have to go for them to stop. I don’t know where people get the money to just keep consuming, but they do, somehow.

Edit: I think there is the threat of American producers trying to keep prices from going up too much by finding ways to suppress wages for workers and by just making products crappier, since their primary focus will be squeezing every possible penny of profit out of every sale.

Two decades of mostly uninterrupted neoliberal rule.

I’m sure they matter to you.

They do. The question is: do they matter to you?

Particularly the concerns of charlie kirk

I don’t know why you keep bringing up Charlie Kirk. I know next to nothing about him, I don’t listen to him. I don’t know, or care what he thinks about, well, much of anything, really.

And your wing of the party has made it crystal clear that they are uninterested in helping anyone poorer than the “good billionaires” they toady up to.

It’s not my wing of the party. I don’t have a party, which is why I said I wanted to build a new Leftist movement: one that is interested in the concerns of the working class people. But, what folks like you don’t understand, is that most working class people are not concerned about whether or not trans women are allowed to participate in women’s sports. They are concerned about paying their rent, feeding their families, affording medical care, and other day-to-day, material issues. I choose to focus on those issues. You can focus on whatever you want, I don’t care. My new Leftist movement won’t include people like you, because you’re not helping anyone, and I don’t think you care to. You would accept widespread harm, so long as you could go on performing as a social justice advocate.

I have nothing more to say to you. I’m really not interested in reading another one of your vapid, banal responses about Charlie Kirk, or whatever other nonsense you might come up with. I’m going to go actually try to make the world a better place.

I’m not the one deflecting. You never answered my question: should the concerns of non-trans people also matter to the Left?

Yes, this thread is about trans issues, specifically the question of whether or not trans women should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Do you realize how privileged you have to be for that to be a major concern? Poverty, destitution, illness, these are problems that millions of people face everyday, yet you won’t even acknowledge them because “that’s not what this thread is about.” You’re no Leftist.

I don’t side with charlie kirk regarding trans people, for one. Discussion’s about trans people.

When did I even once mention trans people?

If I dare to disagree with you and charlie kirk, I need to have a solution for every last one of the world’s ills?

When did I even once mention Charlie Kirk?

Is that all you think the Left is? Trans issues? There’s nothing more to the Left than matters pertaining to trans people? You do realize that there are many billions of people on the planet who are not trans, and that their concerns matter as well?

How do you know that you’re to my left? You don’t know me. What makes you so far left, anyway? Are you a Marxist, anarchist? What? You wanna gate keep the left, let’s do it. Give me your specific socioeconomic, sociopolitical ideal, and details about how you think it can be achieved. I’m dying to hear about your grand plan to change the world and usher in utopia. Come on, we’re all waiting for you. The future of humanity is in your hands, your plan had better be good.

No, dingus, I don’t.