Reminder that Trump and Peter Navarro’s views on trade are so insane that Navarro had to invent another economist to cite in five of his books.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And China just effectively cut off rare earth export to the US https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6715237

This is what China has been doing for at least a decade, trying to get control of these minerals. It is why Trump is eager to make deals with Russia.

China was exporting these rare earth minerals for the past decade, until Friday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s clearly not about tariffs. It’s about eliminating trade deficits. And the only way to do that is to crater American demand. And how do you crater American demand?

Make Americans too poor to buy imported goods.

Then they are succeeding!

I've been trying to convince people to stop buying voluntarily but most people will just not stop consuming for some reason, even if they don't need new stuff.

We are addicts.

Q4 2024

"Total household debt increased by $93 billion to reach $18.04 trillion in the fourth quarter, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. Aggregate delinquency rates ticked up 0.1 percentage point (ppt) from the previous quarter to 3.6 percent of outstanding debt in some stage of delinquency. Mortgage balances rose by $11 billion to stand at $12.61 trillion at the end of December. Transition into serious delinquency, defined as 90 or more days past due, remained stable for mortgages, but edged up for auto loans, credit cards, and HELOC balances. Auto loan balances saw an $11 billion increase to $1.66 trillion in the fourth quarter, while credit card balances increased by $45 billion from the previous quarter to reach $1.21 trillion at the end of December."

https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc

Soon, not only will we not have money to buy imported goods and domestic goods, the banks will go bankrupt too. Guess banks should have been nicer to Donnie D**chebag.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s clearly not about tariffs. It’s about eliminating trade deficits. And the only way to do that is to crater American demand. And how do you crater American demand?

Make Americans too poor to buy imported goods.

Then they are succeeding!

I've been trying to convince people to stop buying voluntarily but most people will just not stop consuming for some reason, even if they don't need new stuff.

I don't mean to be overly rude but why are doing that? Nobody likes a busybody, even if they might agree with you.

Anonymous wrote:It’s clearly not about tariffs. It’s about eliminating trade deficits. And the only way to do that is to crater American demand. And how do you crater American demand?

Make Americans too poor to buy imported goods.

Then they are succeeding!

I've been trying to convince people to stop buying voluntarily but most people will just not stop consuming for some reason, even if they don't need new stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And China just effectively cut off rare earth export to the US https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6715237

This is what China has been doing for at least a decade, trying to get control of these minerals. It is why Trump is eager to make deals with Russia.

Rare earths are very common. There are more than enough sources in the US to last thousands of years. The refinement of rare earths is dirty low margin business that the Chinese have invested in. They keep the prices lows which keeps competitors out of the market.

Trump like you have no idea what rare earths are, how common they are and why china is the largest producer. Russia has nothing to offer the US.

Anonymous wrote:And China just effectively cut off rare earth export to the US https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6715237

This is what China has been doing for at least a decade, trying to get control of these minerals. It is why Trump is eager to make deals with Russia.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently they’re doing Maoism?

I said two months ago that this feels like the Cultural Revolution. Force all the scientists and anyone with an education to work on farms - or factories.

Trump is talking about five year plans. Remember who else had five year plans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China

A lot of people died when China did it. Guess people here weren't satisfied with a mere million deaths from COVID. We'll see, I guess, how bad this gets here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently they’re doing Maoism?

Bessent apparently thinks highly trained PhD statisticians, infectious disease specialists, cybersecurity experts, contracting experts, and so on would serve the country better stamping widgets or working in a sweatshop.

What an idiot to want to waste valuable resources like that.

Nah. We’ll see a brain drain. Trump seems determined to continue this course that has no point and the GOP in congress is good with it. They’ll be ruling over a dung heap.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently they’re doing Maoism?

Bessent apparently thinks highly trained PhD statisticians, infectious disease specialists, cybersecurity experts, contracting experts, and so on would serve the country better stamping widgets or working in a sweatshop.

What an idiot to want to waste valuable resources like that.

Happy to see so few Americans sharing this completely insane view.

And China just effectively cut off rare earth export to the US https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6715237

It’s clearly not about tariffs. It’s about eliminating trade deficits. And the only way to do that is to crater American demand. And how do you crater American demand?

Make Americans too poor to buy imported goods.

Apparently they’re doing Maoism?

Anonymous wrote:

What are they even doing then? I know it’s pointless to ask but still.