BF2S Forums Investment

On the on hand I like to think Trump is now sitting there with his calculator adding up all the money he thinks his tariffs are going to deliver, not understanding that they'll probably deliver a net zero.
Hitting one completely co-dependent country, China, with tariffs (is 'tariffing' a word?) is one thing, there's not much they can do.
Hitting the whole world is another, there's no choice for them but to hit back, or collectively turn their backs and divest from trade with the US.

On the other this is a distraction from the game plan which is to separate Americans from their personal and national wealth.
"Hey, if you don't have a reason to trade with foreign countries you don't actually need dollars do you? Anyway, they've already been forcibly traded for TrumpCoins after your bank went bust.

Well the starting point is no doubt Trump believes 'they' will just pay the tariff and not put up the price. All win for him.
In practice, and very obviously, someone somewhere has to find that money from somewhere.
Typically its going to be the manufacturer or importer and they are going to pass that cost on or stop manufacturing or importing.
Its hard to believe Trump is actually stupid enough to think this could work but I think its actually possible.

It does seem that Team Trump is pursuing both economic and military chaos, assuming they will come out on top holding all the land and all the gold.
Or that everywhere except America will be reduced to a wasteland so even if they go down they'll still look good comparatively.

The Neo-cons have been going on about cauldronisation forever, Netanyahu is doing it, maybe this is global cauldronisation and Trump is the ultimate useful idiot.

Yeah I don't know.

When China put tariffs on Aus there was a collective gulp, followed by "OK fuck off then" and people found new markets and/or scaled back a bit.
It was painful but got done.

I mean, if America wants to pay 25% more for Australian beef thats fine, if not the chinese and japanese will buy it.

But yeah, you can just retool your industry overnight and for nothing.

A question is whether 'Made in America' will mean made in a lights-out factory set up and maintained by Singaporeans using Taiwanese equipment and zero local labour.

What I remember the Thatcherite and Reaganite pro-offshoring crowd saying was "We should get rid of these grubby industries which no-one wants, and focus on what we are good at"
Turned out to be pretty much nothing.

I think they thought they could run the economy on services and the City of London, locking out the grubby proles from the profit centres.
It can almost work but people do unavoidably need manufactured goods, building materials, energy etc and if you're importing all that you need to sell an awful lot of nebulous services to pay for them.

People still don't seem to understand that balance of trade does matter and value addition is the core of a working economy, not trading.

lol.

https://x.com/tyler_a_harper/status/190 … 7OKnIcMVqg

*taps sign*