Trump regrets not having added even higher tariffs

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

6 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

China simply does not buy enough from the USA to make that sort of difference.

Correct.  China would be fighting harder in this trade war but there is little left to tariff as they import so little. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Enthalpic said:

Correct.  China would be fighting harder in this trade war but there is little left to tariff as they import so little. 

I am always correct.  Something for the Canadian Bureaucrats to ponder.  (Hasn't slowed them down from being colossal screw-ups, though.)

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

They will buy elsewhere

https://app.tmxmoney.com/news/cpnews/article?locale=EN&newsid=26rrm&mobile=false

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 hours ago, JR EWING said:

the US is run by a phillandering lying despot

Well, at least everybody knows where you are coming from!  

but, in all candor, that truculence makes you a tad suspect in the objectivity department.  Just saying. 

[Jakridge + 122]

2 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I am always correct.  Something for the Canadian Bureaucrats to ponder.  (Hasn't slowed them down from being colossal screw-ups, though.)

I wouldn't go quite that far Mr van Eck, but you certainly have been on this thread!

By the way I predict that the Chinese Yaun will fall on Monday to its weakest level since early 2008 and Hong Kong will lead losses on the equity markets slumping more than 3%. Because of this I believe the Chinese vice-premier Liu He will indicate that the Communist nation is willing to negotiate with the US to prevent the trade war from further escalating.

Call it a hunch! 😆

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 minutes ago, Jakridge said:

I wouldn't go quite that far Mr van Eck, but you certainly have been on this thread!

Hey, that was just wry Canadian humour, responsively directed at the Canadian(s) posting here.  A bit of an "inside joke."  Just roll with it!

We don't take ourselves that seriously.  Neither does Enthalpic  (the Canadian I was responding to.) Cheers. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

7 minutes ago, Jakridge said:

By the way I predict that the Chinese Yaun will fall on Monday to its weakest level since early 2008 and Hong Kong will lead losses on the equity markets slumping more than 3%. Because of this I believe the Chinese vice-premier Liu He will indicate that the Communist nation is willing to negotiate with the US to prevent the trade war from further escalating.

Call it a hunch! 😆

Well, now that is interesting!  We shall see how it all plays out.  Should be quite the show!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

13 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

They will buy elsewhere

https://app.tmxmoney.com/news/cpnews/article?locale=EN&newsid=26rrm&mobile=false

 

That depends on if "elsewhere" produces what they want.

[David Jones + 84]

16 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Well, at least everybody knows where you are coming from!  

but, in all candor, that truculence makes you a tad suspect in the objectivity department.  Just saying. 

I can't speak to where the commenter that you responded to is coming from but the fact is that this US president is either a colossal liar or colossal idiot. If one wants to believe that he is not an idiot then he is a liar. Based on what he has said on many issues, it's impossible for him to have at least average intelligence (as in understand the basics of the issues he is commenting on) and someone who tells the truth.

[David Jones + 84]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 8:11 AM, Jan van Eck said:

Right now China is attempting to strike at key US political domains to undermine the Trump re-election campaign.  But that presumes that (a) Trump will seek the nomination for a 2nd term, and (b) there is no serious challenger from within the republican Party, and (C) that the Democrats run a marginal candidate that cannot garner votes from the general population.  And it also assumes that the affected vendors will not develop alternate markets for their products and will be unable to change their products to obtain new customers.  Those are all quite risky assumptions.

A) He loves the attention and is someone that has stamped his name wherever he could so I don't see him dropping out of a position of power voluntarily. He is a demagogue and would probably love to be a dictator (as suggested by his way of interacting with such people), how many dictators do we know that have actually stepped away from positions of power? Not many I'd venture.

B) The GOP basically revolves around president now (it's what he does and the GOP were daft enough to get involved with him), my guess is if they run someone else they'll have a much higher chance of losing because their core supporters want a show that's closer to some reality garbage (the GOP under this president reminds me of a Jerry Springer Show episode) rather than actual serious politics based on considered discourse. This president is not good at much but he's definitely excellent at turning American politics into a Jerry Springer offshoot for the amusement of his core supporters.

C) The Democrats may or may not go with someone that's more radical, I'm not sure if that's good or bad in terms of the results but I do know that the GOP have themselves to blame for this development.

"What China is doing is risking permanently being removed from the US customer lists.  Because America and Americans are so technically innovative, that is a risky bet to place.  Not one I would do. "

The elements of American culture that are the most innovative are under heavy attack under this administration and the mentality that it brings. My guess is that American innovation will suffer significantly and the repercussions will be felt for decades especially if this administration and similarly positioned GOP admins continue in the future.

At the end of the day, China may end up better off as they are put in a position to innovate more themselves which may lead to them actually producing more unique technology and could give them a leg up where previously they were basically followers (ripping tech of others usually means you're one step behind) while America retreats from the global stage assuming that this new wave of America First get's it's way in the long run.

Edited August 27, 2019 by David Jones

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

I am no expert in economics but I have coffee once a month with an economist--now in his eighties--who once won the Nobel Prize in Economics. He assures me that no one has ever won a trade war. Never. I thought he must surely be wrong. But it turns out that 1,028 economists signed a petition back in 1930 urging Herbert Hoover not to sign the Smoot-Hawley Act, which issued tariffs.  

Couple history with the fact that China is willing to take the pain and I believe this current trade war will very likely conform to history. As most of you know, China has literally thousands of tiny utility plants called "teapots" where coal is burned to generate electricity. Never mind that they use that electricity to charge their lithium car batteries! They're going to suffer from these tariffs . . . probably a lot more than the US will. But the very existence of these teapots explains their transitionary move in the world's economy--in many ways, they are stuck. Yes, they are moving fast, especially in technology, but there are still areas in their culture that are primitive. 

I'm an American, a patriot, and I was raised to follow the president off the cliff, if necessary. But this seems to be a reckless endeavor with no good end. The Midwest farmers are at wit's end. They have their silos full of last year's soybeans and replanted . . . soybeans . . . thinking this would be ended by the time of harvest. The floods will result in fewer soybeans this year but they absolutely have to find a market for them: protein loses about 15% a year. There is only so much that federal aid will do. To expand this to oil, China is buying plenty of crude from Russia, who is willing to discount it to curry favor and is already in bed with China on this One Road/One Belt Initiative--the New Silk Road. Saudi Arabia is willing to fill any void and if we sanction them, well, other OPEC countries with nothing to lose will step in. In a nutshell, I believe that Xi's tactics will be to frustrate President Trump to the point of enraging him, making him say and do ever-reckless things. Xi memorized the playbook written some 1500 years ago: "The Art of War." He has especially studied the "Illusion and Reality" chapter (chapter VII). I strongly suspect he has also read "The Art of the Deal," so he more or less knows Mr. Trump's playbook too. 

Despite my personal desires as an American, I don't think this will deviate from the history that "nobody wins a trade war." My greatest fear is that it will wear down the American farmers, then the oilmen and women; that the relatively "unhinged" reactions by President Trump will lose him others who had previously supported him (after all, ordering American companies out of China seemed pretty outrageous to most folks, even if it was obviously a negotiating tactic). Mr. Xi thinks all of this will work in his favor, take the pain for another year and there'll be someone easier to deal with. Nobody asked me, but if they did, my advice would be to declare an emergency meeting, decide on a course of action whereby both sides declare a victory and watch the stock market move up 20%, oil up at least 10%, and get rid of all those damn soybeans! You want to get tough on China? Well, send a navy to cruise around those manmade islands they threw up in the South China Sea, building on top of horsts; ask Apple to put some fake gibberish in their phones, I don't know. But this trade war looks to me more and more like a gift to the Democrats. We all know where there leads.

[Buck Coker 0]

I was beginning to worry.  Partial information is not enough.  Does anyone remember the events that affected the poorer countries, when USA began ethinol added to USA motor fuel.

What about the response when we stopped oil delivery to Japan?

Well, we had an effect.

Point is we are talking bigger numbers.  But not looking to go to war.

We are in a new phase, a new equilibrium.  Does any one doubt the USA will prevail?

We have quite a few strings we can pull.

China & friends have some also.

If their CYBER ATTACK has any effect....we have a response.....depending on the magnitude of attack.

Apparently, other conflicts were initiated while we were asleep.

KOREAN guy needs to push his ;ittle red button on live TV

......and nothing happens.

 

 

 

 

 

[JR EWING + 123]

On 8/26/2019 at 11:01 PM, Jan van Eck said:

Well, at least everybody knows where you are coming from!  

but, in all candor, that truculence makes you a tad suspect in the objectivity department.  Just saying. 

Truculence, thats a very big word for a canadian to use. Try servient i.e. the canadian position in its relationship with the US. A tad higher than "poodle" as the UK is. 

I think its very clear where i,m coming from.

I'm not American or Canadian and im not in favour of the imperialist behaviour of past, present or future. 

One thing is certain, the US place at top of table is being seriously eroded. Thank goodness.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:50 AM, David Jones said:

the fact is that this US president is either a colossal liar or colossal idiot.

David, I think what you are overlooking is that he is a politician in training, and is being a fast learner. 

First, all those guys lie.  Politicians don't even think of it as lying.  They think of it as "information management."  

Second, rather than being a total "idiot," although it comes across that way, what you really have is a highly complex management system that is in organic growth, and thus is not being run or controlled in the conventional sense.  Most of what we think of as "government" simply runs by itself, is effectively out of control, or "rudderless" as they would say in aviation.  Think of some big blob of bacteria growing in a petri dish.  It just takes off and grows without any outside direction, except inputs such as heat and food.  In the political sphere, the inputs are tax dollars and bureaucrat bodies (continuous hiring).  Democrats are perfectly happy, in the USA context, to just let that blob in the petri dish keep on growing, the blob hires more people and consumes more resources, so Democrats increase tax loads, preferably on the rich, to pay for the blob.  The Republicans (and the independent Libertarians) see this as disastrous, adopt the policy of "starve the beast," and divert that tax revenue stream into either tax cuts or military spending, which is highly capital intensive.  The big advantage of military spending is that it is politically unpalatable, inside the USA, to oppose  (everybody likes it), and as the tax cash is sucked up, there is that much less to go hire more bureaucrats, which serves the real purpose, starving the beast government of bodies.

Trump actually does understand this, and although he has these tons of personality defects, including the most obvious one of narcissism (he is not exactly a humble guy, now is he?), what he has learned from his reality-TV operation is that politics is a lot of showmanship, and of rabble-rousing, and he is good at that.  He also really does want to "starve the beast," so he pushes through big tax cuts and tries to chop the payroll, albeit with little success. Does he "lie"?   Objectively, sure he does.  But what is really happening is an effort at information management.  IN that sense, remember the incident when Senator Ted Kennedy was out in some auto, drinking, with a sweet young thing (Mary Jo Kopechne) driving out over that small wooden bridge to the beach in Chappaquiddick - he went off the side of the bridge, escaped, left her in the car submerged, and she eventually drowned).  Kennedy then swam across the channel to the main island and got to the party house there, sopping wet, and announced, "Get me Markham!"    

Who was Markham?  He was the PR guy, the information management specialist.  Markham was put in charge of manufacturing a cover story that would float past the police and the press.  In retrospect is looks obvious that Kennedy and Mary Jo were going to the beach for some sex on the sand dunes.  Markham's job was to make sure that that aspect never surfaced (or got credibility).  Is it lying to say:  "We weren't going to the beach to screw"?  Well, possibly, but hey, these guys are politicians - even when they aren't. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 8/26/2019 at 4:39 PM, Uvuvwevwevwe Onyetenyevwe Ugwemuhwem Osas said:

The "talking heads" in the media never bother to do any fact checking.
They just keep repeating talking points.

4Chan User Claims to Be Behind MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Hoax

[SERWIN + 749]

On 8/26/2019 at 11:31 AM, JR EWING said:

Apparently the russians got trump elected or at least thats the tripe being splattered all over the wire since 2016. Either way i didnt infer a direct interference and if i gave that impression it was not intended. Many things make and break a leader. Higher costs at the till for people with shallow pockets and getting goaded into a war can easily derail a president and he knows it well. Hes more keen to sort this out than the chinese but they have his pscchology worked out and are playing it. They are goading him. And hes throwing temper tantrums as he does. It probable destroying his golf game too. Hes very very predictable. 

I don't think that the Russians had any real effect on the election of Trump. How do I know that you ask? I was driving truck all throughout the election campaign and I can vouch for the fact that everywhere I went there were campaign posters up in peoples yards and on businesses and bill boards for Trump, and every once in a LONG while I would see a Hilliary poster. The support that was clearly evident for Trump was astounding all across this nation.....

[JR EWING + 123]

Yet she won the popular vote without the posters you are saying.

[John Foote + 1,135]

On 8/26/2019 at 8:57 AM, ronwagn said:

We had a Liar in Chief for eight years and you didn't even notice.

Eight, only eight? In my lifetime were I can recall anything of a president, those that don't lie are the exception. Carter by most accounts was honest, and his self-righteous helped ensure the Democrats revolted, figure head charged by Teddy, leaving the fractured party easy pickings for Reagan though I think Nixonian economics, combined with Middle East folly that doomed Carter.

The only thing unique in more recent history is the amount of animosity from the cultural side of things. Overt politeness used to be the order of business on the top level, and that is not the case today.

LBJ, Nixon, off the chart liars. Reagan was too detached from the dailies. But it was his group importing drugs and selling arms to Iran to finance Central American efforts. As was later confirmed, Reagan probably told the truth when he couldn't remember, although Bush41 certainly knew. Clinton's ability to distort the truth is legendary. 

So nothing new. Why I crave good governance more than whatever lies that spew out whatever candidate. 

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

23 minutes ago, John Foote said:

Clinton's ability to distort the truth is legendary

"Well, it depends on what the meaning of the word is is"      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0

This was Bill Clinton testifying in front of a grand jury on the Monica affair.  Brilliant!  Classic lawyer.

See Also:   https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1998/09/bill-clinton-and-the-meaning-of-is.html

Edited August 30, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[Elon Musk + 15]

On 8/26/2019 at 6:46 AM, Jan van Eck said:

President Trump announced that he regrets not having increased tariffs on China even further.  He also announced that Japan will be taking more farm products, specifically corn.  That should take the sting out of losing the China soybean business.  I predict this will continue until tariffs hit 100%.  Does anybody predict what this does to the international containership trade? 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/trump-regrets-not-raising-tariffs-on-china-higher-white-house-says-idUSKCN1VF0F0

Should be interesting to see how this plays out with U.S. crude shipments to China. Does anyone have any predictions?

It's already declared that on 1st Sept that 100% of Chinese goods will have tariffs unless Trump gives an extension. I'm not sure the market has fully priced this in so there may be some turmoil come Monday which is why I've closed out my open positions on Friday. Not sure if its already priced in or not. The dip in oil Friday after I closed may be related although it seems to be more linked to demand drop from Florida hurricane and the more Russian output than expected.

The 100% of goods tariffs is mentioned (about half way I think) in this interview with Steve Bannon but I can't remember where he said it sorry. If anyone watches it please let others know :). I also wonder if this will impact apples new iPhone release in Sept and higher prices for imported phones from China.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xDQs5M7lHw

Edited August 31, 2019 by Elon Musk
Add clip where 100% tariffs mentioned

[Elon Musk + 15]

7 hours ago, JR EWING said:

Yet she won the popular vote without the posters you are saying.

Electoral college was setup for this exact reason to stop a major city or cities in a few states deciding what happens to the 50 states. The USA is a republic not a democracy technically.

Edited August 31, 2019 by Elon Musk

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:50 PM, David Jones said:

I can't speak to where the commenter that you responded to is coming from but the fact is that this US president is either a colossal liar or colossal idiot. If one wants to believe that he is not an idiot then he is a liar. Based on what he has said on many issues, it's impossible for him to have at least average intelligence (as in understand the basics of the issues he is commenting on) and someone who tells the truth.

And yet, even considering all you have said, he is doing a damn fine job!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

3 minutes ago, Elon Musk said:

Electoral college was setup for this exact reason to stop a major city or cities in a few states deciding what happens to the 50 states. The USA is a republic not a democracy technically.

People who do not understand the reasoning behind the Electoral College system, and do not bother to educate themselves, will forever decry foul play when their candidate losses an election.

The same applies to those who scream democracy without realizing that the US has always been a republic.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 11:59 PM, Jan van Eck said:

It cannot.  China has zero ability to influence the US elections, outside of the very small constituencies of union dock workers at West Coast ports.  Those then to be in States that typically have their Electoral College delegates vote Democratic, so the decrease in Asian trade, which might be calculated to depress dockworker numbers and wages, is not going to be a factor in the delegates to the Electoral College.  

Even if dockworkers were to be solidly Republican, an unlikely prospect, and they were all terminated and the docks closed, also an unlikely prospect, and then voted Democratic as a revenge vote against Republican Trump collapsing the China trade, it would have zero difference.  California, with the largest ports at Los Angeles and San Diego, votes Democratic anyway, and all delegates to the Electoral College are already Democrats.  So, where is the influence?  There is none. 

What is not mentioned in the latest round is that China now imposes a 25% tariff on American cars, and a 5% tariff on US-made car parts.  But aside from Buick, which manufactures cars inside China, there is no large trade of imported US cars anyway.  The big hit will be likely to Tesla, which has bet the company on manufacturing the Model 3 inside China, and will likely need auto parts from its US suppliers. Will Tesla fold as a result?  Probably.  But other poor management decisions will contribute more to Tesla collapse than whatever China dreams up.  Tesla only survives  because zealots keep handing it money.  By any metric the company is hopelessly upside-down and has no possibility of becoming self-sustaining by developing positive cash flow.  Its China gambit was the Hail-Mary Pass, and that looks like it is headed for the scuppers. 

Will Buick  (General Motors) take a big hit due to the China auto parts tariff?   Probably not. The Buick is a niche product directed at wealthier Chinese buyers, who have the cash to buy it even if the price creeps up by 10%.  So the reality is that the tariff is a paper tiger. 

China can hit the US soybean production to cause trouble in the short term, but I predict that US agriculture is flexible enough to switch to other crops.  The US today is the literal breadbasket of the world.  It produces vast volumes of food, both grains and meats, and will continue to do so.  You will see soybeans follow where corn has gone: into animal feed, as the planet continues to drift towards a meat diet.  Even there, with a crop largely expanded just for China, the Chinese government has minimal leverage.  It can and will cause some short-term disruption, but that remains local and transient.  The bigger hit will be to the Chinese themselves, forcing more reliance on grains (rice) from the Southeast and from Indochina.  Those are self-inflicted wounds. 

I think that Soy prices would have fallen anyway, due to Swine Flu wiping out 20% of Chinese pig pop'n?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Wombat said:

I think that Soy prices would have fallen anyway, due to Swine Flu wiping out 20% of Chinese pig pop'n?

You raise a very interesting point.  Thank you for pointing that out.