Chronicles of 2025

Investing / Others
1142

I can understand what Trump wants to do (bring back manufacturing) but I don’t think he can do it because it takes a long time (this is exactly what China has done and taken decades to do it) and the US political cycle is too short to make these long term changes. And I think the US consumer is too soft to be willing to endure the pain of making this transformation.

Plus, they need to do it bit by bit. How do you expect to have local manufacturing if you tariff all the components you need so that you can’t make a profit? China had to slowly climb up the value chain and live through decades of continuing economic repression to achieve this being forced to ‘eat bitterness’ for a brighter economic future not even for themselves, but their progeny.

9 Likes
1143

Deng Xiaoping set up China’s economic miracle in the late 70s, early 80s, carefully, strategically and conservatively.

1144

The whole story is so dumb. I mean, the Headquarter of 99% of the problem is in the US. They could just ring Nike’s CEO and tell him/her ot stop producing shoes there and start doing it in the US instead of crashing the markets. Also it won’t happen or the shoes might cost way more. Maybe with the help of Tesla’s robots they can automate it and make it cheaper. It would be easier to just put tariff on tankers..

Also I wonder how much money Vietnamese people spend on US services. Does it count watching ads on youtube?

1145

Made in China 2025 - Wikipedia took roughly 10y to move up the value chain.

(from pure factory to leader in many areas)

1146

Look at GDP per capita, there’s no way the trade is balanced. If the US is not happy from benefiting of cheap labor, it’s their loss?

1 Like
1147

Whereby ‚go for it‘ may translate to paying $400 for a pair of sneakers (as some expert just said on TV), and lowering labor standards, as in:

It‘s a brave new world.

2 Likes
1148

Maybe they could send the kids to Vietnam for factory training?

2 Likes
1149

this was aired SIXTEEN YEARS AGO :slight_smile:
They still don’t listen.

2 Likes
1150

Ray Dalio wasn’t too far off this time -
Some months ago he was talking about a “changing world order”.
(which I most often cynically dismiss, but this situation certainly smells that way (if it persists))

1 Like
1151

Well a broken clock is right once a cycle.

6 Likes
1152

Anyway. I’m assuming as my base case that the 10% tariffs stay and most of the reciprocal ones drop except for China and a handful of others.

1153

In the meantime -:

Mr. Trump said that he had spoken to officials in Europe and Asia and that they were “dying to make a deal.” He reiterated that Europe had treated the United States badly and added that “there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis.”

1154

I think this is what will happen. Not in the next few days, but maybe until summer or fall.

Countries making deals investing into the US, leading to their tariffs dropping to 10%.

The 10% might only drop in 3½ years though.

1155

interesting, I’m really pessimistic about the tariffs dropping now, but after the midterms I’m somewhat optimistic about congress finally revoking the law trump uses.

1 Like
1156

Literally a gang boss forcing to pay protection money. A criminal is the most powerful man on earth.

Is this how people felt when Hitler started doing his thing?

4 Likes
1157

Maybe in beginning it was like “yay awesome, we will be rich on expense of others “

And then slowly the definition of “we” kept becoming smaller and what the rest could do also became insignificant

5 Likes
1158

I think the tariff exist for two reasons.

  1. to help his russian boss. Why no tariff on russia? Because there are already sanctions, no wait, because they are in peace talks. So why Ukraine has sanctions?
  2. to control the US. They control the news (apparently?), they have a hold on universities ( the thing about protests, if true), I’ve heard something about law companies but didn’t read anything factual, Now they expect ot get calls from companies to make deals. Why should it be Vietnam to make deals and not nike/whoever?
1159

At least 50% of the news. Just check out foxnews.com and be impressed that there is not a single negative comment about the stock market in any headline today.
Not even a neutral observation of “stock market is down today”, nada.

1 Like
1160

image
image1080×1350 195 KB

5 Likes
1161

I don’t think so. We are already past a crossroads.

Oh yes it is.

I found this article very interesting and it has brought me to my opinion of both ‘having voted for’ and ‘going back’: The American Age Is Over - by Jonathan V. Last

1 Like