Soon we will have to tell the story of the old woman who went to the cash register with three guacamoles in her hand, but when told the price, she could only afford two, and had to take one back to the stand.
I hope tariffs make Trump look bad, because he is, as a person, by far, the biggest authoritarian threat to our democracy.
However, I wonder how much damage from Tariffs will be offset by lower fuel prices. If he can start drilling, and if he also removes restrictions on Russian fuel imports, fuel prices may go down substantially--which will also reduce the price of most things we buy.
Personally, I'm willing to pay higher fuel prices to support the Ukraine democracy. But the fact may be that voters may see Trump as a success because they can point to lower fuel prices (very simplistically) the way they pointed to the price of eggs.
Ugh. I hate Trump. The Teflon Don. Is there no justice in this world?
Considering the fact that oil companies are already holding leases on land they can drill on, why would oil companies suddenly start drilling? They're the ones, with OPEC, controlling the gas prices. They're the ones who decide when to drill and how much. And they won't drill unless more drilling will help maintain their bottom line. As with tariffs, the Orange Snake doesn't know how the economy, specifically the oil economy now, really works.
Ah, thank you. I may have been seeing a simplistic picture. I thought that somehow there were protected areas that would be handed over to oil companies to allow them to drill more. And that they were just champing at the bit to get into those areas and start drilling. But it seems that perhaps they're not. I'll have to research this more. Thank you.
This really started a long time ago. Citizen's United was really just another chess move. Until we have term limits and we have public funding Soley for elections, this decline will continue. The billion plus for Harris didn't do the job and in reality it shouldn't have taken anything near that at all. If it really comes down to transgender sex bathrooms while the world is on fire, we're getting what we deserve and it's so sad for future generations.
1) Here’s something that I simply don’t get about Trump’s tariffs. Normally, tariffs are used as a protectionist measure to make foreign-produced goods more expensive relative to domestically-produced goods thereby encouraging consumers to buy the domestically produced goods and increasing the domestic manufacturing base (another of Trump’s stated goals). But Trump has claimed multiple times that his tariffs won’t cause any price hikes. So if the foreign-produced goods cost no more post-tariffs than pre-tariffs, why would that have any benefit to domestic manufacturers? And exactly how would the tariffs coerce the exporting countries into modifying their behavior in whatever way Trump desires? If the imported products aren’t any more expensive, then the consumers’ buying habits wouldn’t change and the level of exports wouldn’t change.
I thought the whole point of tariffs was to make the prices go up on those goods.
Here’s an honest question: is there any historical precedent where tariffs have not caused prices to go up on the tariffed goods? Or any precedent where the affected countries didn’t retaliate?
2) I, along with Materialist Gnostic, am glad I am not in politics and so can speak my mind. We have been told many times that one reason that Dems lost is because they called Trump supporters stupid or some such other invective. And I’m sure that is true in politics. But what do you say about those people who believe that the election was stolen (and, worse, believe that evidence has been produced to back up that claim), who say they are voting on “the issues” and ignore the biggest issue of them all – that the President-elect is a criminal who violated his oath of office, who glibly gloss over the more outlandish things that Trump proposes (like funding the federal government through tariffs – with enough left over for universal child care) because he’s “never going to do those crazy things” (yet still believe him to be a man who “tells it like it is”), who create all kinds of false equivalencies between Dems and Reps (such as that Dems “always complain” about elections they lose when the complaining that Dems do (Russian interference, for example) is simply not in the same universe to what Trump did (if the legally case votes had been counted correctly, he would have won)), or complain about Trump being a victim of the Deep State because the DOJ went after him and not Biden (ignoring the fact that Trump committed actual crimes while there is no evidence that Biden did not despite the best efforts of Jordan and Comer)? [Note: This is hardly a complete list. But I think you get the point.]
“Unserious” is the kindest word that I can think of.
3) I am shocked, shocked I tell you to hear that Boris Epshteyn was monetizing his influence with Trump with potential cabinet picks. My first reaction when reading this was that Trump would approve since that’s exactly what he would have done. But then I realized that Trump wouldn’t be happy because someone else is making money off of him, and he’s not getting a cut.
Never mind manufacturers. People were crying about the price of eggs, and other groceries. Considering that we import over half of our fruits and vegetables from Mexico, all of our coffee and tea from other countries, etc., tariffs will increase the cost of our food dramatically.
Agree with you and the danger of tariffs but on a different note, I think that djt’s campaign staff is keeping him out of sight because he has dementia and they don’t want anyone to see that before the inauguration!
Re: Boris Epshteyn. I’m wondering if this “investigation” by the Trump team has anything to do with the fact that it was Boris Epshteyn who convinced Trump on that airplane ride back to Florida to nominate Gaetz for AG. I had never heard of Boris Epshteyn before reading an article after the nomination blew up that recounted how Don Jr and Boris were the ones who turned the tide for Gaetz while flying back from DC with Gaetz on the plane and Boris being the one who fixed the deal in the end. The article then spent a paragraph or two explaining who Boris Epshteyn was and how he was entangled in Trump’s inner circle. It also recounted how Epshteyn has spent years lobbying for Russian businesses to get inside the US market, and how many Russian business owners he represents and has done so for YEARS.
Boris Epshteyn was born and raised in Moscow and came to the US with his parents when he was a teenager. He went to school with Eric Trump and has used his Trump family connections to make tons of money. He has been advising Trump himself for many years. Curiously, his name hasn’t come up in coverage of Trump (to my knowledge) before this Gaetz debacle. It seems likely that this “investigation” into his “shady dealings” and his pay-to-play racket is only happening because he pressured Trump into nominating Gaetz and it was a spectacular public failure. Now Boris has to be punished and his pay-to-play racket is “discovered”. I mean, really, who knew this happening? Who knew that he’d been doing this for years? Quelle surprise!!!
Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels, which have been seizing farms and clearing protected woodlands to plant their own groves of what locals call “green gold.”
More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan, preying on wealthy orchard owners, the laborers who pick the fruit and the drivers who truck it north to the United States.
“The threat is constant and from all sides,” said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.
After seizing control of the forest in March, the Viagras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging $250 a hectare in “protection fees.”
I need to break down Kendrick vs Drake. So many layers. So many parallels with Trumpism.
First, Kendrick is like the Black Panther for Black Americans. A real-life superhero, taking down one of the "Trumps" of their community, Canadian rapper Drake, 100% lyrically, all on the strength of his pen and creativity. Legit poetic justice, he is a true genius.
K-Dot destroyed Drake's career over the course of this year, by releasing a strategic series of devastating diss tracks. Kendrick anticipated every move Drake would make, and he had an immediate response. Kendrick exposed Drake for the fraud that he is.
Kendrick ended the career of (financially) the most successful rapper in the 21st century. Drake is an industry plant, plucked from the acting industry and made into a successful rapper through coaching and management. He is a corporate made parody of hip-hop itself. And his audience is mostly young and white, the people with cash to burn. Drake is also credibly accused of predatory behavior like his associates, Trump & Diddy.
Kendrick Lamar, on the other hand, was born and raised in Compton, and is a dedicated family man. Only been with one woman his whole career who he openly adores, and has two kids. No one knows if they're married or not. He wrote an album (Mr Morale) that talks a lot about how to be a good man and a good father.
Kendrick is authentic hip-hop. Drake is manufactured, corporate hip-hop, which is naturally predatory. K-Dot is defending and protecting his people by destroying Drake.
Another fun fact from Google AI: 85% of the lumber used in construction in the US is imported from Canada. But then, a lot of the framers will have been deported. :-)
Correction, Google AI now states that about 1/3 of the lumber used in construction in the US is imported from Canada.
That'll work out fine- the perfect circle of collapse for the building industry. Both the lumbar AND the labor for home construction gone in one stroke- poof! Brilliant move, Mr. Trump. There's no extreme housing shortage at all.
IT’S NOT GUAC! Please call it what it is: guacamole. Jeez I’m so tired of modern linguistic laziness. “Veggies” is merely annoying. “Guac” sounds like something you’d need to scrape off your shoes. It’s not hard to pronounce. It’s delicious. Enough already.
Oh geeze. Posted comment THEN saw your post. GUILTY. The Guacamole I used to make was never 'guac' . TBH hearing/reading that - I think of guano....ya know...batshit. And I am no fan of what has happened to language usage . I am a numbers person, NEVER woids (!). I blame the media to some extent.
Everyone and their mothers knew Boris stunk to all high heavens. The orange one is mad because he didn't get to dip his big fat beak. Whatta rookie mistake.
Tariffs - here we go again, dammit!
This a serious question, maybe a service member can answer. Is it difficult to obtain a Nexus letter from the military? I've read that it shouldn't be hard on the website, but what is the reality? Especially if someone has a General Discharge on their record? It's not me.
Edit - Maybe I should've said how difficult is it to get the approval. I guess the letter has to be written by a doctor. Pardon my ignorance.
We all knew Boris was dodgy. This proves it! One of orange guy's defense attorneys stepped down because of that shill. Don't recall the attorney's name, there were so many. Said ol' Boris kept getting in the way.
We don't fight morons because we will win. We fight morons because they ARE morons.
Soon we will have to tell the story of the old woman who went to the cash register with three guacamoles in her hand, but when told the price, she could only afford two, and had to take one back to the stand.
Liking the comment from Materialistic Gnostic.
I hope tariffs make Trump look bad, because he is, as a person, by far, the biggest authoritarian threat to our democracy.
However, I wonder how much damage from Tariffs will be offset by lower fuel prices. If he can start drilling, and if he also removes restrictions on Russian fuel imports, fuel prices may go down substantially--which will also reduce the price of most things we buy.
Personally, I'm willing to pay higher fuel prices to support the Ukraine democracy. But the fact may be that voters may see Trump as a success because they can point to lower fuel prices (very simplistically) the way they pointed to the price of eggs.
Ugh. I hate Trump. The Teflon Don. Is there no justice in this world?
Considering the fact that oil companies are already holding leases on land they can drill on, why would oil companies suddenly start drilling? They're the ones, with OPEC, controlling the gas prices. They're the ones who decide when to drill and how much. And they won't drill unless more drilling will help maintain their bottom line. As with tariffs, the Orange Snake doesn't know how the economy, specifically the oil economy now, really works.
Ah, thank you. I may have been seeing a simplistic picture. I thought that somehow there were protected areas that would be handed over to oil companies to allow them to drill more. And that they were just champing at the bit to get into those areas and start drilling. But it seems that perhaps they're not. I'll have to research this more. Thank you.
The Orange Snake does want to open protected areas, and the companies would bid on them. But again, they'll only drill if it doesn't hurt them. Check this out: https://cepr.net/is-drill-everywhere-good-news-for-the-oil-industry/
This really started a long time ago. Citizen's United was really just another chess move. Until we have term limits and we have public funding Soley for elections, this decline will continue. The billion plus for Harris didn't do the job and in reality it shouldn't have taken anything near that at all. If it really comes down to transgender sex bathrooms while the world is on fire, we're getting what we deserve and it's so sad for future generations.
Pay for promotion around Maro Lago. Now who could have seen that grift coming?! :)
A few comments...
1) Here’s something that I simply don’t get about Trump’s tariffs. Normally, tariffs are used as a protectionist measure to make foreign-produced goods more expensive relative to domestically-produced goods thereby encouraging consumers to buy the domestically produced goods and increasing the domestic manufacturing base (another of Trump’s stated goals). But Trump has claimed multiple times that his tariffs won’t cause any price hikes. So if the foreign-produced goods cost no more post-tariffs than pre-tariffs, why would that have any benefit to domestic manufacturers? And exactly how would the tariffs coerce the exporting countries into modifying their behavior in whatever way Trump desires? If the imported products aren’t any more expensive, then the consumers’ buying habits wouldn’t change and the level of exports wouldn’t change.
I thought the whole point of tariffs was to make the prices go up on those goods.
Here’s an honest question: is there any historical precedent where tariffs have not caused prices to go up on the tariffed goods? Or any precedent where the affected countries didn’t retaliate?
2) I, along with Materialist Gnostic, am glad I am not in politics and so can speak my mind. We have been told many times that one reason that Dems lost is because they called Trump supporters stupid or some such other invective. And I’m sure that is true in politics. But what do you say about those people who believe that the election was stolen (and, worse, believe that evidence has been produced to back up that claim), who say they are voting on “the issues” and ignore the biggest issue of them all – that the President-elect is a criminal who violated his oath of office, who glibly gloss over the more outlandish things that Trump proposes (like funding the federal government through tariffs – with enough left over for universal child care) because he’s “never going to do those crazy things” (yet still believe him to be a man who “tells it like it is”), who create all kinds of false equivalencies between Dems and Reps (such as that Dems “always complain” about elections they lose when the complaining that Dems do (Russian interference, for example) is simply not in the same universe to what Trump did (if the legally case votes had been counted correctly, he would have won)), or complain about Trump being a victim of the Deep State because the DOJ went after him and not Biden (ignoring the fact that Trump committed actual crimes while there is no evidence that Biden did not despite the best efforts of Jordan and Comer)? [Note: This is hardly a complete list. But I think you get the point.]
“Unserious” is the kindest word that I can think of.
3) I am shocked, shocked I tell you to hear that Boris Epshteyn was monetizing his influence with Trump with potential cabinet picks. My first reaction when reading this was that Trump would approve since that’s exactly what he would have done. But then I realized that Trump wouldn’t be happy because someone else is making money off of him, and he’s not getting a cut.
In country manufacturers will inevitably raise their prices to those of the materials with tariffs. Wait for it.
Never mind manufacturers. People were crying about the price of eggs, and other groceries. Considering that we import over half of our fruits and vegetables from Mexico, all of our coffee and tea from other countries, etc., tariffs will increase the cost of our food dramatically.
Agree with you and the danger of tariffs but on a different note, I think that djt’s campaign staff is keeping him out of sight because he has dementia and they don’t want anyone to see that before the inauguration!
Re: Boris Epshteyn. I’m wondering if this “investigation” by the Trump team has anything to do with the fact that it was Boris Epshteyn who convinced Trump on that airplane ride back to Florida to nominate Gaetz for AG. I had never heard of Boris Epshteyn before reading an article after the nomination blew up that recounted how Don Jr and Boris were the ones who turned the tide for Gaetz while flying back from DC with Gaetz on the plane and Boris being the one who fixed the deal in the end. The article then spent a paragraph or two explaining who Boris Epshteyn was and how he was entangled in Trump’s inner circle. It also recounted how Epshteyn has spent years lobbying for Russian businesses to get inside the US market, and how many Russian business owners he represents and has done so for YEARS.
Boris Epshteyn was born and raised in Moscow and came to the US with his parents when he was a teenager. He went to school with Eric Trump and has used his Trump family connections to make tons of money. He has been advising Trump himself for many years. Curiously, his name hasn’t come up in coverage of Trump (to my knowledge) before this Gaetz debacle. It seems likely that this “investigation” into his “shady dealings” and his pay-to-play racket is only happening because he pressured Trump into nominating Gaetz and it was a spectacular public failure. Now Boris has to be punished and his pay-to-play racket is “discovered”. I mean, really, who knew this happening? Who knew that he’d been doing this for years? Quelle surprise!!!
Guac Lords? Avocado Cartel?
This article is 5 years old so may not reflect today's reality. Will the cartel (selling thru legal channels) absorb the tariffs?
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-11-20/mexico-cartel-violence-avocados
Nov 2019, LA Times.
Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels, which have been seizing farms and clearing protected woodlands to plant their own groves of what locals call “green gold.”
More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan, preying on wealthy orchard owners, the laborers who pick the fruit and the drivers who truck it north to the United States.
“The threat is constant and from all sides,” said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.
After seizing control of the forest in March, the Viagras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging $250 a hectare in “protection fees.”
-------------
I need to break down Kendrick vs Drake. So many layers. So many parallels with Trumpism.
First, Kendrick is like the Black Panther for Black Americans. A real-life superhero, taking down one of the "Trumps" of their community, Canadian rapper Drake, 100% lyrically, all on the strength of his pen and creativity. Legit poetic justice, he is a true genius.
K-Dot destroyed Drake's career over the course of this year, by releasing a strategic series of devastating diss tracks. Kendrick anticipated every move Drake would make, and he had an immediate response. Kendrick exposed Drake for the fraud that he is.
Kendrick ended the career of (financially) the most successful rapper in the 21st century. Drake is an industry plant, plucked from the acting industry and made into a successful rapper through coaching and management. He is a corporate made parody of hip-hop itself. And his audience is mostly young and white, the people with cash to burn. Drake is also credibly accused of predatory behavior like his associates, Trump & Diddy.
Kendrick Lamar, on the other hand, was born and raised in Compton, and is a dedicated family man. Only been with one woman his whole career who he openly adores, and has two kids. No one knows if they're married or not. He wrote an album (Mr Morale) that talks a lot about how to be a good man and a good father.
Kendrick is authentic hip-hop. Drake is manufactured, corporate hip-hop, which is naturally predatory. K-Dot is defending and protecting his people by destroying Drake.
Another fun fact from Google AI: 85% of the lumber used in construction in the US is imported from Canada. But then, a lot of the framers will have been deported. :-)
Correction, Google AI now states that about 1/3 of the lumber used in construction in the US is imported from Canada.
That'll work out fine- the perfect circle of collapse for the building industry. Both the lumbar AND the labor for home construction gone in one stroke- poof! Brilliant move, Mr. Trump. There's no extreme housing shortage at all.
IT’S NOT GUAC! Please call it what it is: guacamole. Jeez I’m so tired of modern linguistic laziness. “Veggies” is merely annoying. “Guac” sounds like something you’d need to scrape off your shoes. It’s not hard to pronounce. It’s delicious. Enough already.
Oh geeze. Posted comment THEN saw your post. GUILTY. The Guacamole I used to make was never 'guac' . TBH hearing/reading that - I think of guano....ya know...batshit. And I am no fan of what has happened to language usage . I am a numbers person, NEVER woids (!). I blame the media to some extent.
Easier to use in a Headline.
Everyone and their mothers knew Boris stunk to all high heavens. The orange one is mad because he didn't get to dip his big fat beak. Whatta rookie mistake.
Tariffs - here we go again, dammit!
This a serious question, maybe a service member can answer. Is it difficult to obtain a Nexus letter from the military? I've read that it shouldn't be hard on the website, but what is the reality? Especially if someone has a General Discharge on their record? It's not me.
Edit - Maybe I should've said how difficult is it to get the approval. I guess the letter has to be written by a doctor. Pardon my ignorance.
Unfortunately there is only one way to put it. As HL Mencken observed so long ago, the majority of voters are morons.
We all knew Boris was dodgy. This proves it! One of orange guy's defense attorneys stepped down because of that shill. Don't recall the attorney's name, there were so many. Said ol' Boris kept getting in the way.