Explain how to mesh that with "the stock price must go up each quarter, no matter what"
Is this similar to violent crime? A lot of right wingers bemoan the increasing amount of violence in "blue states and cities". Except, almost by any way you can measure it, violent crime has been on the decrease for years now. Is racism becoming worse, or are you just becoming more aware of it?
I thought it was HP inkjet printer cartridges? I think that's around $60 trillion per gram, isn't it?
I find it increasingly hard to tell the difference between a mastermind playing 7D chess with the world, and someone just acting randomly and implementing all kinds of policies at a whim.
Man, if Musk is tanking this hard, I am not sure he's going to get re-elected.
If tariffs cause a rise in US production
This is one of the problems with the Trumpian approach to tariffs. I don't know if you hadn't noticed, but there's remarkably little manufacturing in the USA for quite some time now, but let's play this out.
The cost to set up a laptop manufacturing firm in the US is anywhere from $50,000,000 to $200,000,000. Then, you've gotta acquire all the raw materials and components to assemble the laptops, let's call that another $500,000,000. Then, of course, you've gotta staff the place, and this is in a country where we do not have a lot of people that are experienced in manufacturing. Let's call that another $100,000,000. By the time you add in R&D, logistics costs, legal and compliance (because the US is a bit more stringent than China in this area), you're talking about $1 - $3 BILLION in costs.
Now, out of the few people / companies that have enough money to actually set up a laptop manufacturer in the USA, think about how confident they'd have to be to pull this off. The largest problem is, if you spend your billion dollars and build this factory and then the next week Trump removes the tariff, you're instantly competing with foreign firms again, and you're going to be going under pretty fast.
I'd say this tariff would have to be in place at LEAST 10 years before anyone gets confident enough to spend the massive amount of money and effort quoted above. When you think about how many millions of laptops are going to get sold between now and then, it's pretty clear the American consumer is going to take a huge bath in the meantime.
Like so many things Trump is doing, this tariff is supposed to piss off China but just ends up fucking the consumer. Trump and his billionaire friends don't care if a laptop is an extra $200. That's change they can find under the couch. For your average American trying to make ends meet, that $200 sure as fuck would be useful.
So go ahead, vote Republican to "own the libs". Just don't be surprised when the sudden pain you feel in your wallet is very real.
The interesting part of the story is not so much that Tesla is losing -- it's who is winning. Electric vehicles are in MASSIVE demand throughout the world. The USA has responded more or less by putting an iron curtain in place against BETTER electric vehicles produced elsewhere. Sure, our governments use some scary words around Chinese imports, but look at their cars in isolation, especially BYD. By almost any metric you can imagine, BYD products are superior. The USA is temporarily putting their head in the sand about China. However, make no mistake, in other markets where there is FAIR competition, America's lunch is getting eaten. This cannot go on forever. Hopefully our US auto producers get their heads out of their ass and start competing instead of relying on tariffs to level the playing field. Tarriffs can make Tesla competitive domestically, but if you want to dominate the world, this is almost certainly not the way forward.
As someone that was at the protest, at no point did I think it would result in the war stopping. It was still worthwhile, however. In retrospect, the war was so much worse than any of us knew at the time and also based on flimsy and/or no evidence of WMD. Business as usual in America. We'd do it all over again today, I have no doubt.
Folks, listen closely, okay? Nobody understands tariffs better than me. Believe me, they’re tremendous, tremendous tariffs. And now Walmart – yes, Walmart, great company, big stores, huge – they’re telling you that YOU, the great American people, will be paying for these tariffs. And you know what? That’s fantastic news. Incredible. Let me tell you why.
First, it’s about sacrifice. The greatest country in the world doesn’t rise without its amazing, hardworking patriots chipping in a little bit more. And trust me, when you pay a little extra at Walmart for your cheap, uh, Made-in-China toasters, you’re not just buying a toaster. You’re buying FREEDOM, folks. You’re sticking it to the Chinese economy. No one else could get that deal done, okay? Only me.
Second, we’re BUILDING here, okay? When American families dig a little deeper into their pockets, that’s money going back into our economy. It’s like… MAGA economics, so smart you wouldn’t believe it. All of a sudden, Americans will say, "Hey, why am I buying Chinese stuff? Let’s buy American!" And BOOM – jobs. Factories humming. Steel, coal, maybe even wood, I don’t know. Beautiful stuff.
Third, let’s talk winning. When we pay these tariffs – our tariffs – we’re showing the world who’s boss. China thinks they’re so smart. So clever. Well, joke’s on them. We’re so good at tariffs, we’re making YOU pay them instead of them. Genius move, right? They won’t even know what hit them. Tremendous strategy. They’re probably shaking in Beijing.
And look, folks, I hear you. “But sir, sir, what about the prices?” And I say this: are you willing to pay a little more at Walmart to make America the GREATEST it’s ever been? I think you are. And if you’re not, then maybe you like China too much. Sad!
So remember, every time you spend a little extra at Walmart – and it’s a GREAT store, by the way, I love it, fantastic – just think of it as making a donation to America. To freedom. To ME – your favorite president – who is bringing the best tariffs, the best deals, and the best America you’ve ever seen.
God bless tariffs. God bless Walmart. And God bless the United States of America. MAGA!
In a bizarre turn of events, it seems the reclusive nation of North Korea has finally succumbed to the intense chip envy brought on by China's recent announcement of its approved CPU list. In an effort to keep pace with neighboring rivals, Kim Jong-un ordered the immediate development of a state-of-the-art microchip. And thus, 'The Juche Chip' was born - named after North Korea's philosophy of self-reliance.
After months of hard work, North Korean engineers presented their masterpiece: a CPU so advanced, it can run MS-DOS smoothly on Windows ME. This revolutionary breakthrough in computing technology also boasts an impressive clock speed that's roughly equivalent to the rate at which time moves inside a Pyongyang prison cell. With the Juche Chip, users will never have to worry about lagging, overheating or any other technical issues because their system will freeze before such problems could even arise.
Depending on scale. Is the surface of the lake flat?
Once you experience true level you will never go back.
This is one of the reason that the USA being heavy handed with Chinese is going to bite us in the ass. While in the USA, we bury our heads in the sand and GM, Tesla and etc. all crank out $95,000 giant trucks/SUVs, some companies in China are making very, very affordable vehicles. These aren't necessarily garbage either -- there's models available for almost any price point.
What WOULD be really smart and forward thinking is if in the USA, the domestic brands also make some affordable models to get EV more popular. However, they are addicted to fat profit margins, and thanks to all the protectionism, they don't need to worry about offshore models being "better".
While other nations either develop and/or import affordable EVs, we're effectively banning them. This is all going to end up with a giant wake up call for American auto-manufacturers when the protections/tariffs are ultimately lifted and they HAVE to compete.
I think it would be great if the tariffs came with huge incentives for domestic manufacturers and motivated them to be competitive. Instead, it's just letting them segment the market for a few years and make a killing. Who loses? The people...