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US Politics the 2025 trump presidency thread

kris66 said:
JD Vance didn't receive a great reception at a Vermont ski resort today. Quite a few protesters who shouted obscenities and held up signs telling him to go ski in Russia. Lol
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Well, just who *could* have actually thought that the people who have repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders to the senate over the years just might not bend over to prostrate themselves to kiss and worship at the feet of vance and the rest of his MAGAts when he so graciously gifted them the opportunity to do so? I mean... don't they know that jd and dear leader and elmo and any of their various minions and supplicants are better than any single and all Vermonters combined and that it is a great privilege for the state to be blessed with their presence? What a bunch of ingrates. They should know their place!
 
SvnLyrBrto said:
Well, just who *could* have actually thought that the people who have repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders to the senate over the years just might not bend over to prostrate themselves to kiss and worship at the feet of vance and the rest of his MAGAts when he so graciously gifted them the opportunity to do so? I mean... don't they know that jd and dear leader and elmo and any of their various minions and supplicants are better than any single and all Vermonters combined and that it is a great privilege for the state to be blessed with their presence? What a bunch of ingrates. They should know their place!
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President Musk to you sir.
 
from the hannity interview:

"MR. MUSK: Yeah. I mean, I haven’t asked the president for anything ever.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s true.
Q And if it comes up, how — how will you handle it? (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: He won’t be involved.
MR. MUSK: Yeah, I’ll — I’ll re- — I’ll recuse myself if it is a conflict.
THE PRESIDENT: If there’s a conflict, he won’t be involved.
MR. MUSK: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: I mean, I wouldn’t want that, and he won’t want it."

FAA staff reportedly ordered to find funding for deal with Musk’s Starlink

corruption.

alasdair
 
The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model shows a possible negative quarter for the first quarter. Two negative quarters in a row are considered a recession.
Trump and Musk want to revise how we measure GDP so as to not include government spending.

Understanding Gross Domestic Product (GDP)​

The calculation of a country’s GDP encompasses all private and public consumption, government outlays, investments, additions to private inventories, paid-in construction costs, and the foreign balance of trade. Exports are added to the value and imports are subtracted.1

www.investopedia.com

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Formula and How to Use It

Gross domestic product is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within a country during a specific period.
www.investopedia.com www.investopedia.com

So, we're gonna do that differently than the rest of the world as well.
We knew he'd try to hide it.
 
brokedownpalace10 said:
The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model shows a possible negative quarter for the first quarter. Two negative quarters in a row are considered a recession.
Trump and Musk want to revise how we measure GDP so as to not include government spending.

Understanding Gross Domestic Product (GDP)​

The calculation of a country’s GDP encompasses all private and public consumption, government outlays, investments, additions to private inventories, paid-in construction costs, and the foreign balance of trade. Exports are added to the value and imports are subtracted.1

www.investopedia.com

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Formula and How to Use It

Gross domestic product is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within a country during a specific period.
www.investopedia.com www.investopedia.com

So, we're gonna do that differently than the rest of the world as well.
We knew he'd try to hide it.
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Meanwhile, he's pumping crypto and sending stocks into a tailspin. I imagine this will further inflate the value of various cryptocurrencies which him and his sons will continue to exploit. Further, they sacked the guy at the SEC - Gary Kindler iirc - who was trying to moderate the growth of crypto, so there's no one policing this shit.
 
I note that Canada and Mexico are instituting retaliatory tarriffs. China already paid tarriffs but these have been increased so China has also instituted tarriffs on US products. I don't think this is a surprise to anyone. The stock market responded but figures from a few days are not a good long-term indicator. It's when inflation feeds through the the American consumer that people will understand that tarriffs don't affect the profitability of businesses, they affect the cost to the consumer.

Last week I mentioned that one result of the war in Ukraine was that unaligned nations who had bought Russian systems had witnessed the underperformance. Certainly a number of large buyers have been looking elsewhere. Being the worlds biggest arms exporter, this would initially seem like an oppotunity to increase that market share.

But I see India has noted that US politicians were and are dictating how and where US arms SOLD to other nations can be used. You might wonder how they could do so. Well, with those big, high-tech systems, you don't just buy the item(s), you buyl a package that includes spares and support. So there is a long-term partnership between buyer and seller. Failing to bow to US political pressure could see the vital long-term support be stopped.

It appears that India has chosen not to purchase the F35, possibly the most expensitve piece of materiel that the US exports (I don't know if nuclear submarines are exported - if so, they would be the more costly). One of the reasons given was that if politicans in the US can dictate how and where India employed it's F35s, it essentially makes them unreliable for non-technical reasons. In a worst case scenario, worse than useless since if they DO have F35s, they don't have the alternative.

Right now Russia isn't even able to built enough of it's modern F35 competitor (the Su57) in significant numbers. So India is actually after buying the right to produce the Su57 under licence. That way even if the design is Russian, they can operate their varient without that long-term relationship.

I'm sure there are many factors involved and I'm not asserting that political interference was the only reason for them choosing to manufacture a licenced design. But it will take time so see if other unaligned nations who might have bought US arms will be looking elsewhere.

Once again, it just shows that geopolitics is complicated.
 
alasdairm said:
it's really important to stress that china hasn't paid anything.

it's more accurate to say that u.s. importers of goods from china already paid tariffs but these have been increased (from 10% to 20%).

alasdair
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Sorry, An oversight on my part. Indeed, ultimately it's the consumer who pays the higher price.

It's certainly not going to stop Chinese products being sold in the US. However you slice it, the low wages common in China mean that products that are made by unskilled or semi-skilled workers will still end up being cheaper than the same product being made within the US.

Inflation can take a while to feed through to consumers but I for one wonder what will happen to the price of Apple products, to give one example. I know components are supplied by many nations but the final products are all produced in China. I presume Apple does make a large profit from their hardware so in theory is better placed to absorb increased costs. The question is, will they do so?
 
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