This has to be a joke

steevc 2 days ago

The guy loves attention and the media tends to help him with that. I don't believe much he says. A lot of it is probably not legal and changing the law is not so easy. Tariffs get paid by the buyers so anyone buying imported goods may be worse off. The US won't suddenly re-grow a manufacturing industry.

Prepare for chaos!

0.06 VYB

3 votes

meno yesterday

there is no way Trump doesn't know this basic fact by now.. this is why I'm strongly leaning towards this whole thing being a distraction.

0.03 VYB

edicted 2 days ago

I didn't pay too much attention to Trump the first time around.
Trump 2.0 might be a little more interesting with RFK and Musk running amuck.
The tariff thing is kinda funny and assumes we actually have the infrastructure to make these products in house... we... don't. But hey you never know maybe 3D printers go hogshit wild and we can start building some of this stuff ourselves.

0.02 VYB

meno yesterday

Maybe after massive chaos a technological revolution will lead us to the future we see in "Back to the Future II" after all...

But first, shit has to hit the fan big time

zekepickleman 2 days ago

Just smoke and mirrors.

Anything that is imported is done sow because it is unavailable or prohibitively expensive. So! The costs of everything that American businesses need internationally to grow will go way up one way or another. Catastrophic for the smaller players. If they pay 20% more (assuming those tariffs are enforced and collected at a 100% rate), that extra 20% will go to the government and big business (which effectively own the government) and the rich get even richer.

Assuming this goes the way people who know economics know it will, the US economy will tank, and bail outs will go out. The last time this happened (with Trump!) the overwhelming majority of those bail out dollars stayed with corporations and rich folks and didn’t make it anywhere close to the people.

He wants to crash the economy so that wealth divide gets even more immense, again.

This is what happens when people fall for hype from a proven snake oil shill, the fiscally uneducated choose the leader, and being a bully is disguised by being tough.

0.03 VYB

meno yesterday

He wants to crash the economy so that wealth divide gets even more immense, again.

if you are right bro, I hope you are wrong... But, if you are right, then it's civil war... there is just no way people would put up with this shit

0.11 VYB

zekepickleman yesterday

I am not so sure about that. They bought his lies and stupidity in the campaign and will most likely buy them when he blames any negative results on Sleepy Joe, immigrants or someone else.

Not to beleaguer the conversation but can you imagine what would happen if Mexico and Canada became part of the US like he is saying should happen? First of all he couldn't tariff them anymore. Second, all those "illegals" from the south he loves to demonize would suddenly be citizens and he would have to sort out a rickety infrastructure of people who would rebel against the laws. Third, Canada is mostly like the west coast in its voting. With all those new democrats, they would never win an election again.

Such embarrassingly ignorant knee-jerk sentiments with zero thought about the future and their effects.

0.02 VYB

dbooster 2 days ago

We also now have counties talking about seceding from states. See: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/14/indiana-general-assembly-bill-allows-illinois-counties-succeed-join-indiana/77696471007/ (basically several IL counties said they would look into seceding from IL and IN voted to allow them to join). We have already had Trump claim foreign nations as part of America and suggest renaming geographic features. I'm not surprised by anything at this point. I should research buying some alcohol company stock... because I think I won't be the only one drinking more these next four years.

0.03 VYB

meno yesterday

What is happening?

Idk man, I may be a few years away from the fifth floor, but I feel like anything that can happen is happening right now.

How is this even a thing?

valued-customer yesterday

Tariffs are paid at the sale, like a sales tax. They're added to the purchase price Americans pay for products imported from countries taxed with tariffs.

I'm all for it - as long as income taxes are eliminated completely. Otherwise it's just double taxing us, and I'm agin' it.

Thanks!

meno 17 hours ago

I'm all for a simplified tax system. What you suggest makes sense, but the way it's being proposed would be simply triple taxing American citizens into poverty.

0.10 VYB

IMG source - Peakd.com - The Outer Light

valued-customer 17 hours ago

If this was the only information that was available that would indeed suggest that. However, my recollection is that during the campaign there was some furor that arose over the proposed elimination of the income tax completely by the Trump campaign. Since wages aren't defined as income, which is defined as return on investments, the income tax should never have applied to wages at all, and the IRS is a criminal enterprise IMHO.

However, I am under no illusions that anything good will come from the USG, and rhetoric that sounds good is the best we're going to get while we're taxed to death, burned to death, and subjected to 1000 cuts that all lead to death.

In this screencap the expenditures of taxpayer funds are revealed to be used to effect the opposite purpose government claims funds it seizes from taxpayers will be used for. Instead of providing useful and beneficial fire protection with the funds taken from property owners, arson is imposed on those property owners and they are financially harmed, if not killed with their own money. However I do not believe it is incompetence or ineptitude that causes such contradictory consequences, but malevolence and evil intention. These parties aren't moronic incompetents unable to tie their shoes. They are Machiavellian masters of public manipulation that use our money against us and convince us it was an accident before doing it again, and again. That is what the record shows, and common sense suggests from the massive financial support from oligarchs funding these officials' campaigns. Those oligarchs didn't become oligarchs by supporting morons, and it is ridiculous to think they continually succeed at hiring competent personnel to run their business operations but always support complete idiots to run government, when it is proved over and over that the supposed idiots lie constantly. Idiots can't lie their way out of a paper bag, but these smooth criminals take our money every freakin' year.

Over time government is corrupted as criminals serially attack it's personnel and institutions, eventually completely taking it over. Sir John Glubb showed in The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival that there is a life expectancy of ~250 years, and the USA is 248 years old presently. We are clearly in the terminal stages of rot from within prefacing collapse and replacement.

However, as Caesar showed by creating from the Roman Republic the Roman Empire, which persisted for ~200 years after replacing the republic, it is possible to reconstitute such an empire and start the clock over. Far be it from me to prophecy what is to come, as I am a humble carpenter banging my thumbs for my supper, but, despite all appearances, the world may not end tomorrow (or on Jan. 20).