The US Hamster Wheel

[TheGreenGoblin]

[TheGreenGoblin]

Amen to the French and the Brits. What have the fecking Americans or the bloody Australians ever given us..

[llondel]

I see peaches are on the menu now. Moscow Mitch is going to act like a petty dictator again and has already said that the jury foreman will be colluding with the defendant so it definitely won't be a fair trial.

[Slasher]

Why the markets are rightfully ignoring all this impeachment nonsense.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/12/19/her ... house.html

Note: CNBC makes a mountain out of any tiny molehill for its own ratings purpose and any of its general investment advice should be ignored, but the crux of the above is quite correct.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I loved the Mirage F1 - it was the only AD aircraft the Tornado F3 could beat in a straight dogfight in every respect With all the others we had to use devious bastardry.

[BenThere]

Dogfights are history. It's all ball bearings now.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Yup. It was fun while it lasted!

[Boac]

It's total crap, isn't it? Ranting at a conference in Florida for conservative college students:

"....we’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody, I know. It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly—very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere."

"You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint—fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right?"

Be proud. I understand the video of the 'address' is available on YouTube if you want a real hoot.

[Slasher]

It just gets betterer and betterer for Trump and the Repubs in 11 months time without The Donald having to say or do a thing.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/2 ... ers-089617

[Slasher]

Hey Boac...you’re a bit slow today. Usually you take the bait in a snap!

You must be still full of Xmas grog. Good to see.

[Boac]

Not sure what you were expecting, Slash? You know my views on the Dems. Sorry to spoil your anticipation.

[Boac]

Good news for the US? From 'The Quartz':

"US president Donald Trump’s tariffs appear to have hurt US manufacturing more than they’ve helped it, according to a study by the US Federal Reserve Board released this week.

The paper, which the authors call the first comprehensive estimates (pdf) of the tariffs’ effects on manufacturing, concluded that the tariffs led to fewer jobs in the sector, as their negative effects outweighed the benefits. Manufacturers were supposed to get a boost from the protection against practices by US trading partners Trump has deemed unfair. Instead they were hampered by rising costs and retaliatory tariffs.

To figure out the tariffs’ ultimate net benefit or cost, the study weighed three different measures: the protection US manufacturers got against foreign imports, the additional costs of materials they need to import to make their goods, and how much retaliatory tariffs reduced their competitiveness in the markets they export to.

Different industries felt the effects to varying degrees. Producers of aluminum, electrical lighting equipment, furniture and cabinets, semiconductors, and iron and steel enjoyed the greatest protections against imports. Meanwhile, among those hardest hit by their reduced competitiveness overseas were producers of magnetic and optical media, leather goods, aluminum sheet, iron and steel, and automakers.

Manufacturers working with aluminum and steel also saw their prices rise the most. According to the paper, the new tariffs accounted for 17.6% of costs for makers of aluminum sheet, and 8.4% of the costs for steel products manufactured from purchased steel. In some cases they found the rise in prices far outweighed any competitive edge the industry received.

In fact, weighing all factors together, the authors wrote, “We find the impact from the traditional import protection channel is completely offset in the short-run by reduced competitiveness from retaliation and higher costs in downstream industries.” Notably, the industries most exposed to the tariff increases saw relative declines in employment.

One factor the paper did not look at was the uncertainty created by the tariffs. Experts have blamed that uncertainty for the country’s slowing growth.

The authors also acknowledge they can’t say what the long-term consequences of the tariffs will be. They could differ from the results so far. For now, however, “the results indicate that the tariffs, thus far, have not led to increased activity in the US manufacturing sector,” they write.

They say the results offer lessons on tariffs as a trade policy tool, as well: Their effectiveness at boosting domestic manufacturing isn’t so straightforward in a world of globally interconnnected supply chains."

[John Hill]

Meanwhile, down on the farm..

In other words, small family farms (90% of all family farms) are in deep trouble normally. These latest shocks are helping to drive up farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides, as Chuck Jones wrote earlier this year at Forbes.com

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherma ... 98aa225b39

[BenThere]

Not all farmers are doing badly, John Hill. Our family stead is in the Thumb of Michigan. Farmers there have been in clover for several years. The prosperity there is palpable. They don't buy new Mercedes, but new John Deeres. And they want to buy more land which has gone from $3000/acre to $6000/acre in just a few years. I've also seen a growing local developing industry of specialty farms on a few acres, growing asparagus, berries, garlic, and any of a number of other exotic produce that will grow in Michigan. To summarize, the overall economic vibe in Huron County, Michigan is exuberantly optimistic, and they are all Trump voters.

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/2 ... n-michigan

[John Hill]

New tractors is not the whole story Ben. Michigan farmers received subsidies from Trump which seems odd in a climate of palpable prosperity! Are we actually talking about the same place?

https://www.mlive.com/news/g66l-2019/07 ... odity.html

NZ farmers buy new tractors too and all manner of bright coloured machinery but they dont need subsidies to do it.

[BenThere]

My knowledge is anecdotal about the condition of farmers in the Thumb of Michigan. I just talk to people, mostly old friends I've known since childhood. Over the years I think that has given me a pretty good feel for the pulse of the agricultural economy up there.

The only subsidies I have ever heard mentioned are the corn subsidies via ethanol mandates that caused a lot of acreage to leave beans and grow corn in the last 20 years. There was also the land bank, which incentivized farmers to leave their land fallow, take government payments and enjoy the free money. More than a little of that fallow land became pot farms.

Today, the land bank is much smaller, farmers have smiles, not frowns, on their faces as far as I can tell, and the county seat, Bad Axe, Michigan is a thriving marketplace, with a big Wal-Mart, and many merchants supplying the farmers' needs.

[prospector]

Not surer if this is the right thread for this article, but American foreign policy is mentioned a quite a few times in the very disturbing report on Hong Kong riots.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/477215-woke-br ... aign=Email

[barkingmad]

“but American foreign policy is mentioned quite a few times” in the book ‘Rogue State’ by William Blum. A sobering read which puts it all in context.

[Boac]

Ah well - the 'god-given' Chump has the impeachment distraction he needed. There goes the Nobel Peace prize however. The steady build up of US Forces in the M E has been obvious for a while - it's called 'bringing them home', I think.

I guess we are all in for a rough time and terrorism will undoubtedly flourish on US soil. My sympathies to those Americans who will suffer.

[barkingmad]

“those Americans who will suffer” = all kfirs in western countries?