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Spain17989 Posts
On July 30 2025 10:23 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:On July 29 2025 17:53 Gorsameth wrote:
"America taxes itself in humiliating move to the EU"
sorry buddy, still not seeing it. EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us. German steel? Dead. German cars? Made in Hungary. German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania. German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders. except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Tariff = lose-lose is an oversimplification. For example the EU's 10% tariff on cars. Is the EU also too stupid to realize that tariff = bad or perhaps they think the protection it offers to domestic auto companies outweighs any negatives to their consumers? Clearly the EU thought it was "good" to have a tariff against US cars but if a US tariff against EU cars is automatically bad then I'd like to hear some reasoning for the discrepancy.
Haven't we gone over this a million times? If you are interested in home-growing an industry, then tariffs are a way of doing this. In the case of cars, it's clearly just German and French lobbying to protect VW and Renault from foreign competition, but maybe that is also worthy: I don't know how competitive they'd be without the tariffs nor how important it is to maintain car manufacturing in Europe. But the EU deemed it important and slapped a tariff on cars. What they *didn't* do is slap a tariff on cars, steel, plastic, car parts and semiconductors all at once, because that would be extremely counterproductive.
So yeah, if Trump had tried to protect the automotive industry by slapping tariffs on European cars, we'd grumble, Germany would declare the world was ending, and we'd all agree that the US just wants to foster an ailing car industry, probably with a dig at Tesla in there somewhere. But if anything, the tariffs will hurt the American car industry: European cars will be imported at a 15% tariff. While American cars will be manufactured with almost exclusively imported stuff, which are also tariffed at 15% or more. And if there's some international supply chain happening in the manufacturing (with Canada and Mexico for instance), then the tariffs might actually be applied multiple times.
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On July 30 2025 05:25 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 00:01 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 22:57 Acrofales wrote:On July 29 2025 22:35 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 22:11 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 22:00 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:
[quote]
EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us.
German steel? Dead.
German cars? Made in Hungary.
German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania.
German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders.
except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Well, thank you for finally acknowledging what I said 2 pages ago, EU loses, US citizens lose, it's a bad deal for everyone. If that’s what you were trying to express when you said Trump won and was a great dealmaker then I think the responsibility for me not understanding your post lies with you. If you say something that appears completely false (Trump is a great deal maker), I educate you on why that’s false (he thinks trade is zero sum and will construct deals that hurt him a lot and think they’re good), and you subsequently declare that you always meant the thing I literally just taught you then we’re going to get nowhere with this. I said Trump looks as a great deal maker because he struck a deal where he's giving nothing and getting stuff back with no retaliation. For Trump, who cares about 2 things, looking good and getting tariff revenue, he struck a great deal. You can write books about how he's dumb or doesn't understand how tariffs are overall bad, but these were his motivations and he achieved both of his goals. Again, this is pretty simple. If the deal was flipped everyone would be floored. If the deal was the same but with no tariffs on either side everyone would praise EU for making the tariffs go away while promising some vague stuff. As it stands, he got 10 % (on average) tariff increase at no extra cost for him, something he wasn't able to get with China because China is actually playing hardball. Does Trump look like a great deal maker? I mean... maybe? But the EU doesn't and shouldn't care about that. The EU's job isn't to make Trump look bad, it's to get the deal that will best serve EU citizens. Did they manage that? I don't know. As I said above, this deal is terrible. But if you're negotiating with a madman who is insisting on shooting you both in the foot and the only choice he's giving you is the caliber, and whether you whip out your own pistol and shoot you both in the other foot as well... then maybe it's okay that you kept the caliber fairly small and chose not to draw your own pistol. Of course, if the foot-shooting goes on long enough, then maybe it would've been better to tell the madman to pull out the biggest shotgun he can find, and join him with your own shotgun. Initially it'll be far far worse, but maybe it'll also stop sooner. But neither you nor I know what the future holds here. You're advocating the shotgun so that he doesn't "win", which is just a really weird stance, especially if you understand, as you claim to do, what Kwark pointed out: nobody here is winning anything, and the EU isn't aiming to win, they're aiming to keep their own feet as whole as possible. I might be a huge pessimist, but I think there is no reason to think this will stop any time soon. He just got elected. In 2016 we had "but Hillary won the popular vote". He won it now. He won with immigrants. He's still sitting at better approval rating then in his first term at the same time despite doing much more drastic shit. Americans love this shit. They want to be the big boss and they obviously love bullying and throwing their weight around. Everyone, including the EU is praising him, giving him these wins and hoping he goes away. Don't get me wrong, I hope he dies, yesterday. I hope US can snap out of it. But I don't think they will. Have you heard what JD Vance has to say about Europe? If we don't stand up to this shit we are going to get crushed. We are going to get crushed by not only US, China has been taking our cake for a while now, this is making them salivate. I understand what you are getting at, and I am saddened to see people take such a reflexive approach to dismissing your concerns. I often find people hate Trump so much they don't let themselves internalize what is going well for him and they refuse to view the world through the deeply tragic and broken culture that dominates political power struggles. Trump didn't win because he had a good plan to make people's lives better. Similarly, Trump's "wins" do not necessarily need to improve American lives either. The goal of his negotiations is to harm other countries and position himself to acquire more wealth, fame, and power. Whether Trump is an idiot or not, it is impossible to escape how much harm he has managed to do to various countries and political efforts. People can label him however they like, but the effect he has on the world will not be diminished by our own condescension.
Thank you, sometimes it seems like we are all living in parallel realities so it's nice to see that there are people who are able to look at this through a lens that is not just: "Trump did this so it's automatically stupid and good for the other side".
On July 30 2025 10:20 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 05:25 Mohdoo wrote:On July 30 2025 00:01 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 22:57 Acrofales wrote:On July 29 2025 22:35 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 22:11 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 22:00 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government.
Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Well, thank you for finally acknowledging what I said 2 pages ago, EU loses, US citizens lose, it's a bad deal for everyone. If that’s what you were trying to express when you said Trump won and was a great dealmaker then I think the responsibility for me not understanding your post lies with you. If you say something that appears completely false (Trump is a great deal maker), I educate you on why that’s false (he thinks trade is zero sum and will construct deals that hurt him a lot and think they’re good), and you subsequently declare that you always meant the thing I literally just taught you then we’re going to get nowhere with this. I said Trump looks as a great deal maker because he struck a deal where he's giving nothing and getting stuff back with no retaliation. For Trump, who cares about 2 things, looking good and getting tariff revenue, he struck a great deal. You can write books about how he's dumb or doesn't understand how tariffs are overall bad, but these were his motivations and he achieved both of his goals. Again, this is pretty simple. If the deal was flipped everyone would be floored. If the deal was the same but with no tariffs on either side everyone would praise EU for making the tariffs go away while promising some vague stuff. As it stands, he got 10 % (on average) tariff increase at no extra cost for him, something he wasn't able to get with China because China is actually playing hardball. Does Trump look like a great deal maker? I mean... maybe? But the EU doesn't and shouldn't care about that. The EU's job isn't to make Trump look bad, it's to get the deal that will best serve EU citizens. Did they manage that? I don't know. As I said above, this deal is terrible. But if you're negotiating with a madman who is insisting on shooting you both in the foot and the only choice he's giving you is the caliber, and whether you whip out your own pistol and shoot you both in the other foot as well... then maybe it's okay that you kept the caliber fairly small and chose not to draw your own pistol. Of course, if the foot-shooting goes on long enough, then maybe it would've been better to tell the madman to pull out the biggest shotgun he can find, and join him with your own shotgun. Initially it'll be far far worse, but maybe it'll also stop sooner. But neither you nor I know what the future holds here. You're advocating the shotgun so that he doesn't "win", which is just a really weird stance, especially if you understand, as you claim to do, what Kwark pointed out: nobody here is winning anything, and the EU isn't aiming to win, they're aiming to keep their own feet as whole as possible. I might be a huge pessimist, but I think there is no reason to think this will stop any time soon. He just got elected. In 2016 we had "but Hillary won the popular vote". He won it now. He won with immigrants. He's still sitting at better approval rating then in his first term at the same time despite doing much more drastic shit. Americans love this shit. They want to be the big boss and they obviously love bullying and throwing their weight around. Everyone, including the EU is praising him, giving him these wins and hoping he goes away. Don't get me wrong, I hope he dies, yesterday. I hope US can snap out of it. But I don't think they will. Have you heard what JD Vance has to say about Europe? If we don't stand up to this shit we are going to get crushed. We are going to get crushed by not only US, China has been taking our cake for a while now, this is making them salivate. I understand what you are getting at, and I am saddened to see people take such a reflexive approach to dismissing your concerns. + Show Spoiler +I often find people hate Trump so much they don't let themselves internalize what is going well for him and they refuse to view the world through the deeply tragic and broken culture that dominates political power struggles. Trump didn't win because he had a good plan to make people's lives better. Similarly, Trump's "wins" do not necessarily need to improve American lives either. The goal of his negotiations is to harm other countries and position himself to acquire more wealth, fame, and power. Whether Trump is an idiot or not, it is impossible to escape how much harm he has managed to do to various countries and political efforts. People can label him however they like, but the effect he has on the world will not be diminished by our own condescension. I found it embarrassing, particularly Light's copium. To just take one small aspect of the damage Trump/Biden has done, there isn't a viable plan from the opposition party for women to regain their bodily autonomy in our lifetimes. Think about that. People were born with a right that they lost under a Democrat president and neither of the two parties they are supposed to vote for is offering a viable path to getting that right back before it's irrelevant for them personally. They'd be righteous to demand that right back with a gun pointed at anyone denying it to them.
I personally don't like to focus on that, because I think it's largely counter productive to spend most of the time attacking the opposition.
I do, however, absolutely acknowledge (and I believe most people here would agree, even tho you personally think they are all superfans of establishment Democrats) that the party is absolutely lost and rudderless.
It's leadership is laughable and geriatric, the ones that aren't old and are being pushed to the forefront like Hakeem Jeffries or Richie Torres are empty suits with no message and horrible political instincts who got where they are by sucking up to the party elders and interest groups.
The even worse, senator tier consisting of such gems like Chuck "my primary goal is to defend Israel" Shumer or John "I had a stroke and now I'm basically a republican neocon" Fetterman should be primaried and removed as soon as possible.
None of that really changes the fact that the US political duopoly doesn't really allow for a different party and that Democrats are our best chance to emerge from this fascist mercantilist nightmare with someone relatively benign at the helm, and this is where we differ.
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United States42682 Posts
On July 30 2025 14:24 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 10:36 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 10:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:On July 29 2025 17:53 Gorsameth wrote:
"America taxes itself in humiliating move to the EU"
sorry buddy, still not seeing it. EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us. German steel? Dead. German cars? Made in Hungary. German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania. German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders. except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Tariff = lose-lose is an oversimplification. For example the EU's 10% tariff on cars. Is the EU also too stupid to realize that tariff = bad or perhaps they think the protection it offers to domestic auto companies outweighs any negatives to their consumers? Clearly the EU thought it was "good" to have a tariff against US cars but if a US tariff against EU cars is automatically bad then I'd like to hear some reasoning for the discrepancy. German lobbying. The discrepancy is German lobbying? German lobbying is bad? Germans are stupid to not realize they are hurting themselves with tariffs? Care to explain?
Not sure why you immediately jumped to “Germans are stupid” but maybe some are.
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Yes germans are stupid. Von der Leyhen and her top 1% family will stay rich. Friedrich Merz is a BlackRock Manager and only became chancellor because Merkel kicked him out of this chance 20 years ago.
vdL just fell up the ladder, because of Family connections. Merz took over the conservertives after being ousted for 20 years.. he is a household name to boomers and Gen X.. and "you know me" already won multiple elections for Merkel, and Kohl.
Mercedes reacts to slowing china business (It was fine while it lasted all those 10 years from which 3 were covid!)
and tariffs by announcing a cut in german workforce by X% and production capacity by 10%.
They won't make more cars in the US (tariffs on steel and aluminium), they just aim to cut costs in slowing markets and up the margin by selling less cars.
So Tariffs don't really help. They just make the CEOs "duck and cover" and hope the 15% just is a number to work with for the next 3 1/2 years.
If germans love anything, it's stability and predictability. Rather earn 15% less from the NA Market on the few cars that are shipped and not made there, then not knowing what the tariff rate will be next wednesday.
Trumpstein files:
Maxwell will testify - for a full pardon or a re-instation of the Acosta-guarantees to Epstein's co-conspiritors to go free.
I don't even now how you can construct MORE conflict of interest into a president. I am all out of ideas.
Trump "I am not in the files, I can assure you. Maybe I am in the Files but only twice. And I if it was more than that the democrats planted it.. but didn't release it because I wasnt in the files. I also like to watch 15 year olds get naked and think about Ivanka's boobs."
Can make a deal with a high profile wittness/child sex trafficker, who now is in daily talks with Trump's DOJ
to keep his name out of her testimony.
WOW.
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We jump to "its stupid" not because its Trump, but because universal tariffs are stupid.
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Nobody jumped.
Trump is dumb on his own, and tariffs are a tool
You can protect some of your critical economy with tariffs from becoming too depended on importing stuff. Import regulations - or tariffs.
Slap Tariffs on stuff you don't make, you are not good at making and you will just impede one of the pillars of wealth generation: Trade.
Amercians have made a buttload of money selling Stuttgart made Porsches and Mercedes to other americans.
Now they will make a buttload less.
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United States42682 Posts
Vehicle tariffs do harm EU consumers who are barred from competitively priced imported vehicles and they do harm EU workers who, in a hypothetical in which people prefer imported cars, would better use their labour making products for export. That’s why they exist. If left to their own devices participants within the economy will make the choice that appears most rational to them. Tariffs distort that, they add arbitrary costs to some options to push people towards the option they wouldn’t normally pick. It absolutely does harm to consumers.
Blackjack is, of course, Blackjacking. He supposes a contradiction (how come it’s only bad when Trump does it) and demands that someone defend it. The economic theory is clear, it’s always bad for consumers. There are national strategic reasons for them and there are reasons to protect vulnerable industries but the consumers are never helped by taking their preferred option away.
The reason the EU has car import tariffs is because the consumers don’t set the policies, business has a seat at the table.
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On July 30 2025 10:26 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 10:20 GreenHorizons wrote:
To just take one small aspect of the damage Trump/Biden has done, there isn't a viable plan from the opposition party for women to regain their bodily autonomy in our lifetimes.
Think about that. People were born with a right that they lost under a Democrat president and neither of the two parties they are supposed to vote for is offering a viable path to getting that right back before it's irrelevant for them personally.
They'd be righteous to demand that right back with a gun pointed at anyone denying it to them. What does the political party of the current president have to do with SCOTUS making that ruling?
Biden didn't even try to make a SCOTUS that would make a different ruling for one. Didn't campaign on/present a viable path to fix it either.
While a relevant (particularly as far as public perception) fact, it's not really one of the key aspects/points raised in that post anyway.
Those were that thanks to mostly Trump/Republicans malice (but also Biden/Democrats incompetence, among other things) millions of people lost their right to bodily autonomy, and they don't have a party (between the two) to vote for with a viable plan to get their right back in their lifetime (let alone their reproductive years).
My point also isn't that socialism is a magic cure for that problem, part of my point is that you can't hope to deal with that problem if you can't actually face it (like Light with the polling). Trump is doing multi-generational damage, more favorable in the eyes of the voting public than Democrats with a higher approval rating than his first term at this point, and that's after a failed insurrection. Meanwhile, the ostensible opposition party isn't even trying to offer a reasonably viable plan to stop it, let alone repair the damage he's already caused.
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On July 30 2025 17:34 KT_Elwood wrote:
Trumpstein files:
I hope this term / portmanteau becomes the norm, or at least goes viral.
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United States24680 Posts
On July 30 2025 19:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 10:26 micronesia wrote:On July 30 2025 10:20 GreenHorizons wrote:
To just take one small aspect of the damage Trump/Biden has done, there isn't a viable plan from the opposition party for women to regain their bodily autonomy in our lifetimes.
Think about that. People were born with a right that they lost under a Democrat president and neither of the two parties they are supposed to vote for is offering a viable path to getting that right back before it's irrelevant for them personally.
They'd be righteous to demand that right back with a gun pointed at anyone denying it to them. What does the political party of the current president have to do with SCOTUS making that ruling? Biden didn't even try to make a SCOTUS that would make a different ruling for one. Didn't campaign on/present a viable path to fix it either. Such as? The only argument I recall at the time was that Biden should perhaps expanded SCOTUS by several seats and appoint more justices (beyond Jackson) to vote against things like overturning Roe vs Wade. Unless that is the main argument, it seems disingenuous to blame Biden or emphasize how Biden was in power when Roe vs Wade was overturned. There are more reasonable ways to blame the democrats, but let's also not forget that we are comparing a party that puts in people who vote to overturn Roe vs Wade to a party that puts in people who vote against that.
While a relevant (particularly as far as public perception) fact, it's not really one of the key aspects/points raised in that post anyway. I think that's a good point, that if you focus on optics and drop how reasonable you are by one or two levels (as the public is often wont to do, especially when losing rights), then the fact that the Dems had a good deal of federal control at that time is an irony that illustrates how ineffective they are at opposing the other party's long-term efforts. Although, I didn't interpret your post as "let's think about how many voters are seeing this" so much as "let's look at how things are," hence my confusion.
Those were that thanks to mostly Trump/Republicans malice (but also Biden/Democrats incompetence, among other things) millions of people lost their right to bodily autonomy, and they don't have a party (between the two) to vote for with a viable plan to get their right back in their lifetime (let alone their reproductive years).
While I'm not going to argue that voting for democrats is a cure-all solution, the fact remains that "loss of right to bodily autonomy" would not have occurred if a good chunk of votes for republicans over the past 30 years went to democrats instead. The United States effectively voted for "let's lose the right to bodily autonomy" despite the opposition party's platform being "we will appoint judges who would never take away the 'right to bodily autonomy.'" You can certainly argue, "yeah, but that party still sucks because it supports XYZ, etc" but that's a different complaint than "Democrats in power in 2022 (other than SCOTUS judges) didn't prevent the loss of this specific right."
My point also isn't that socialism is a magic cure for that problem, part of my point is that you can't hope to deal with that problem if you can't actually face it (like Light with the polling). Trump is doing multi-generational damage, more favorable in the eyes of the voting public than Democrats with a higher approval rating than his first term at this point, and that's after a failed insurrection. Meanwhile, the ostensible opposition party isn't even trying to offer a reasonably viable plan to stop it, let alone repair the damage he's already caused.
- The fact that republicans got enough votes to seize control to this extent with this MAGA base in control
- The fact that democrats aren't providing the illusion that they will solve all the country's problems if they get back into power immediately.
This isn't about the democrats meaningful resisting. It's about them convincing the USA they are (i.e., fooling), which they are probably sucking at.
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On July 30 2025 19:44 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 19:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 30 2025 10:26 micronesia wrote:On July 30 2025 10:20 GreenHorizons wrote:
To just take one small aspect of the damage Trump/Biden has done, there isn't a viable plan from the opposition party for women to regain their bodily autonomy in our lifetimes.
Think about that. People were born with a right that they lost under a Democrat president and neither of the two parties they are supposed to vote for is offering a viable path to getting that right back before it's irrelevant for them personally.
They'd be righteous to demand that right back with a gun pointed at anyone denying it to them. What does the political party of the current president have to do with SCOTUS making that ruling? Biden didn't even try to make a SCOTUS that would make a different ruling for one. Didn't campaign on/present a viable path to fix it either. Such as? The only argument I recall at the time was that Biden should perhaps expanded SCOTUS by several seats and appoint more justices (beyond Jackson) to vote against things like overturning Roe vs Wade. + Show Spoiler +Unless that is the main argument, it seems disingenuous to blame Biden or emphasize how Biden was in power when Roe vs Wade was overturned. There are more reasonable ways to blame the democrats, but let's also not forget that we are comparing a party that puts in people who vote to overturn Roe vs Wade to a party that puts in people who vote against that.
Correct. Failure was probable, but he also didn't even give the impression of trying.
Show nested quote +While a relevant (particularly as far as public perception) fact, it's not really one of the key aspects/points raised in that post anyway. I think that's a good point, that if you focus on optics and drop how reasonable you are by one or two levels (as the public is often wont to do, especially when losing rights), then the fact that the Dems had a good deal of federal control at that time is an irony that illustrates how ineffective they are at opposing the other party's long-term efforts. Although, I didn't interpret your post as "let's think about how many voters are seeing this" so much as "let's look at how things are," hence my confusion.
Show nested quote +Those were that thanks to mostly Trump/Republicans malice (but also Biden/Democrats incompetence, among other things) millions of people lost their right to bodily autonomy, and they don't have a party (between the two) to vote for with a viable plan to get their right back in their lifetime (let alone their reproductive years). While I'm not going to argue that voting for democrats is a cure-all solution + Show Spoiler +, the fact remains that "loss of right to bodily autonomy" would not have occurred if a good chunk of votes for republicans over the past 30 years went to democrats instead. The United States effectively voted for "let's lose the right to bodily autonomy" despite the opposition party's platform being "we will appoint judges who would never take away the 'right to bodily autonomy.'" You can certainly argue, "yeah, but that party still sucks because it supports XYZ, etc" but that's a different complaint than "Democrats in power in 2022 (other than SCOTUS judges) didn't prevent the loss of this specific right."
Show nested quote +My point also isn't that socialism is a magic cure for that problem, part of my point is that you can't hope to deal with that problem if you can't actually face it (like Light with the polling). Trump is doing multi-generational damage, more favorable in the eyes of the voting public than Democrats with a higher approval rating than his first term at this point, and that's after a failed insurrection. Meanwhile, the ostensible opposition party isn't even trying to offer a reasonably viable plan to stop it, let alone repair the damage he's already caused. Same idea as the previous... the biggest problems aren't how ineffectual Democrats actually are today. They are: - The fact that republicans got enough votes to seize control to this extent with this MAGA base in control
- The fact that democrats aren't providing the illusion that they will solve all the country's problems if they get back into power immediately.
This isn't about the democrats meaningful resisting. It's about them convincing the USA they are (i.e., fooling), which they are probably sucking at.
Democrat ineffectualness (if we assume them to be our only hope to stop the US's march deeper into fascism) is certainly a huge problem. So is the US politicians general bipartisan support of fascist/fascist enabling policy
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On July 30 2025 17:22 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 14:24 Broetchenholer wrote:On July 30 2025 10:36 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 10:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:On July 29 2025 17:53 Gorsameth wrote:
"America taxes itself in humiliating move to the EU"
sorry buddy, still not seeing it. EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us. German steel? Dead. German cars? Made in Hungary. German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania. German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders. except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Tariff = lose-lose is an oversimplification. For example the EU's 10% tariff on cars. Is the EU also too stupid to realize that tariff = bad or perhaps they think the protection it offers to domestic auto companies outweighs any negatives to their consumers? Clearly the EU thought it was "good" to have a tariff against US cars but if a US tariff against EU cars is automatically bad then I'd like to hear some reasoning for the discrepancy. German lobbying. The discrepancy is German lobbying? German lobbying is bad? Germans are stupid to not realize they are hurting themselves with tariffs? Care to explain? Not sure why you immediately jumped to “Germans are stupid” but maybe some are.
First, can you be less of an asshole? Seriously, just try once not to be an asshole.
On July 30 2025 18:00 KwarK wrote:
Vehicle tariffs do harm EU consumers who are barred from competitively priced imported vehicles and they do harm EU workers who, in a hypothetical in which people prefer imported cars, would better use their labour making products for export. That’s why they exist. If left to their own devices participants within the economy will make the choice that appears most rational to them. Tariffs distort that, they add arbitrary costs to some options to push people towards the option they wouldn’t normally pick. It absolutely does harm to consumers.
Blackjack is, of course, Blackjacking. He supposes a contradiction (how come it’s only bad when Trump does it) and demands that someone defend it. The economic theory is clear, it’s always bad for consumers. There are national strategic reasons for them and there are reasons to protect vulnerable industries but the consumers are never helped by taking their preferred option away.
The reason the EU has car import tariffs is because the consumers don’t set the policies, business has a seat at the table.
You went to lengths arguing with Jankisa that he was wrong assuming that the tariff negotiations went rather bad for the EU because they were objectively worse for the US. Which is a stupid take in itself because the EU would of course prefer to not have any burdens on their exports, no matter if it fucks over someone else more. And that Trump could not have "won" the negotiations because he shot himself in the foot with them. So tariffs are bad because they make stuff more expensive for the economy that imposes them.
The natural counter was then if the EU was also really stupid for tariffing foreign cars because they too have tariffs on cars in effect and you explained the difference between US tariffs and EU tariffs is german lobbying. As you before argued that tariffs are always bad and shooting yourself in the foot, you must believe that germans are stupid because they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. And as you love making one liners whenever you believe you have to use the most condescension possible for the stupidity of the question, i wanted to know what your great explanation was for why german lobbying was needed or executed despite the obvious knowledge that those tariffs are just bad for the economy.
It's the issue with most of the discussion on the forum lately. People will read posts looking for the one angle where they can "technically" win an argument against a position that the other person did not specifically say they did not have.
In this case, the whole argument with Jankisa about why he believed the EU was bullied despite him never claiming tariffs were great or the US would profit immensely or Trump is a genius or whatever. He was just making an observation that the EU did not manage to make Trump rethink the tariffs and did not negotiate the 15% that they got hit with initially down at all. Which is a valid point. But then you make him instead hold positions he never had because he was not using the correct language despite very well understanding the implications.
Same with the immigration discussion between KwarK and MagicPowers where MPs position was perverted to the point of being completely unrecognized and then the same thing happening back to KwarK.
There are very few people as guilty of this as KwarK in this forum. I cannot believe i am agreeing with BlackJack but in this case of arguing forum discussion mentality he is spot on:
On July 24 2025 07:24 BlackJack wrote:You don't have to pitch your stance. You can probably infer from my post history that my position aligns with yours and not with MP's "lets not enforce laws or the border" position. My objection is your insistence on framing MP's argument in the least charitable way, e.g. that he wants to keep the undocumented around so that we may exploit them and not because he doesn't want to see them rounded up and sent to "detention facilities" or "death camps" depending on who's doing the naming. Good. Me neither. Argue that then. Not wanting people without legal status to stick around so that they can be exploited is reasonable. What's not reasonable is insisting that the guy that is against any and all deportations wants workers that we can exploit by threatening them with deportation.
Back to the topic. I think it is disingenuous to frame Tariffs as bad because free trade best. Free trade is a tool that might work best in a system of checks and balances with mostly good natured actors. It has brought a lot of wealth to a few countries that made it very clear they would not accept anything but free trade. Do we really believe that Bangladesh has profited from free trade because they were allowed to use childlabor to be the cheapest place to make mickey mouse bodies for american babies? Or do we think Africa should be thankful that they get all the chicken garbage that europe does not want to eat frozen and exported to them? Guess the congolese consumer profits from having the choice of eating chicken feet cheaper then any actual congolese chicken could be raised and so they should be grateful that the the congolese chicken farmer is not able to suvive because he should really work in a sweatshop that makes something for export so that he can buy his chickenfeet from the importer.
Capitalism needs losers and those losers in our current time can only be kept if the countries that provide the resources and crude products are kept as poor as possible by taking all the money they make and funneling it back to the already rich countries. So i find it kinda hard to accept the general point that tariffs are always bad because they hurt the choice of the consumer, as if the consumer is only interested in monetary arguments when deciding what to buy. And as if the consumer is always benefitting more from having the cheapest option available because productivity is the only measurement determining whether a business should fail or not.
Now, the argument here is not whether the DR Congo should raise tariffs or not, the argument was about Europe and the US. In that vein, today Daimler has contributed US tariffs as a reason why their profit has dipped by 69% ( nice( as DJT would say, 600%, numbers, that are not even thought possible). Because of that i am sure they will let go of even more people because of course the workforce expenditure is what is holding them back, capitalism. And i am sure the people let go will just love to hear that it's really the US that is hurting themselves and if only the EU had not installed tariffs on US cars they would now be able to buys a Ford F1 or whatever for 10% less.
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@Broetchenholer thank you, it's honestly exhausting to have to be subjected to this, especially when it comes with a level of snark and condescension and follows you through different threads.
I understand these are ancient grounds we are writing in and there's a ton of history and reasons why people approach certain discussions and posters and how they talk, but this strawmaning and bad faith arguments are honestly exhausting.
I think the point that Capitalism needs losers is spot on, Trump sees the world like this and he's trying to impose his vision of the world on everyone else. For decades EU and US were close allies, trade was seen as a net positive for everyone no matter the volume on either side and everyone prospered, because both sides understood the mutual benefits. Trump doesn't see it like that.
US had a trade deficit (just in goods, mind you) with EU so EU is taking advantage of the US and US is the loser, so, naturally he'll show them. He'll get Ursula to regurgitate this insane worldview as a justification for the trade deal looking terrible for the EU, in his golf club, on a Sunday to humiliate Europeans.
I'll try to express my issues with this and then get shat on because "tariffs are stupid" and my back of the napkin math wasn't up to the high standards of this forum.
I think it would be good for us all to remember that the other side of these conversations are not horrific assholes that want to humiliate each other, just normal people airing their grievances with the way the world is going amongst people we likely agree on 90 % of the issues, I know, for myself, despite some time having my inner asshole slip out I do try to discuss here in a way that wouldn't end a real life conversation because I'm being an asshole.
With that being said, I do feel like in real life if someone had the approach KwarK does they'd have very, very few friends left. Obviously he's not the only one, and I do count myself as one of the offenders, but that's my opinion.
For those times that I am an asshole, I'd like to offer my apologies to everyone involved.
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What Trump does is not sound policy according to capitalist logic. Neither his basis for these tariffs nor the tariffs itself. It is sound logic if your a mercentalist or mafia-extortion racket trying to extort money from whoever you can tho.
Go on with your capitalism bad mantra but please be aware, it's really not fitting here.
Also... Plenty of people, iirc including Kwark, stated several times that Tariffs don't have to be bad but that BLANKET tarrifs pretty much are allways bad (these are not tariffs on blankets btw.).
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I like how from that you got "Capitalism bad" and "defending blanket tariffs" and managed to throw in condescension.
Holy straw man batman!
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Yeah but nobody was arguing that tariffs were good. That's the point. Jankisa was arguing that the EU was losing the negotiations and then people told him that this is not true because somehow the EU apparently won the negotiations because the EU will hurt more from it (????).
Neither did i mantra that capitalism bad, or Jankisa, but i assume you mean me. What i said was, that free trade is a great thing for the countries with a level playing field that use mostly the same regulations and values. But then there are countries who are so disadvantaged by global trade that they would be much better off by not allowing certain imports in. This is not necessarily a problem with capitalism or free trade, it is a problem of regulations and laws. But capitalism seems to be especially fond of abusing countries where the people are so unprotected and poor that they have to get abused to stay alive. So, free global trade is always best* should come with the small print: *unless the country is in the global south
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But capitalism seems to be especially fond of abusing countries where the people are so unprotected and poor that they have to get abused to stay alive
Nah, thats a perk that every system we tried on a scale larger than your imediate community did plenty fine. Arguably capitalism is/was nicer than all the system that came before it or tried to overcome it (atleast the iterations we could observe).
I don't even know if i gave my 2 cents on this "deal"... My point of view is:
There is not even a deal, at most it is a framework?
15% tariffs is less than Trump wanted earlier on so... He wins? What? Why? Because the EU wasn't "we blanket tariff you back"? Do you want to pay more for your stuff or what? What scenario would you guys made go "the EU won?".
Von der Leyen made some "promises"... One isn't contrary to what the EU was on the way of doing anyway (energy imports) and the other the EU can't even do? Also the numbers are pure fantasy?
She licked Trumps ass a good bit, like Japan did, like the UK did, like everyone did and does... It's just what works on the moron. I'm no fan of strong-man rethoric so I couldn't care less about this.
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On July 30 2025 22:23 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +But capitalism seems to be especially fond of abusing countries where the people are so unprotected and poor that they have to get abused to stay alive Nah, thats a perk that every system we tried on a scale larger than your imediate community did plenty fine. Arguably capitalism is/was nicer than all the system that came before it or tried to overcome it (atleast the iterations we could observe). I don't even know if i gave my 2 cents on this "deal"... My point of view is: There is not even a deal, at most it is a framework? 15% tariffs is less than Trump wanted earlier on so... He wins? What? Why? Because the EU wasn't "we blanket tariff you back"? Do you want to pay more for your stuff or what? What scenario would you guys made go "the EU won?". Von der Leyen made some "promises"... One isn't contrary to what the EU was on the way of doing anyway (energy imports) and the other the EU can't even do? Also the numbers are pure fantasy? She licked Trumps ass a good bit, like Japan did, like the UK did, like everyone did and does... It's just what works on the moron. I'm no fan of strong-man rethoric so I couldn't care less about this.
Yeah but i do not need to compare capitalism and free trade with feudal economies because...we live in capitalist times? I would rather prefer my shoes not be sewn by a 12 year old in Bangladesh, but that does not mean i am for a command economy or mercantilism. I am merely saying that i believe there are countries in our current world that would longtime benefit from enacting tariffs to protect their local markets because these tariffs would result in more choice for the customer and more general quality of life.
I think the EU would have had methods to hurt the US back quite significantly, eg. an internet service tax. That said, i think a win for the EU would have been if they had negotiated the tariffs down to below 10 % with some bullshit about investment. Negotiating from 20% to 15% after being threatened with 30% and then 50% does not seem super great. But i will admit that negotiating with someone who does not understand the basic underlying principles of the topic and does not feel the impact of his bad decisions is hard. That's probably why the deal is neither seem super great nor super bad by most people. Doesn't mean Trump did not acheive what he wanted, even if the US will suffer from it. But those two are not related, deals can be win/win, lose/lose and lose/los/win.
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United States42682 Posts
On July 30 2025 20:24 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 17:22 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 14:24 Broetchenholer wrote:On July 30 2025 10:36 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 10:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:On July 29 2025 17:53 Gorsameth wrote:
"America taxes itself in humiliating move to the EU"
sorry buddy, still not seeing it. EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us. German steel? Dead. German cars? Made in Hungary. German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania. German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders. except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Tariff = lose-lose is an oversimplification. For example the EU's 10% tariff on cars. Is the EU also too stupid to realize that tariff = bad or perhaps they think the protection it offers to domestic auto companies outweighs any negatives to their consumers? Clearly the EU thought it was "good" to have a tariff against US cars but if a US tariff against EU cars is automatically bad then I'd like to hear some reasoning for the discrepancy. German lobbying. The discrepancy is German lobbying? German lobbying is bad? Germans are stupid to not realize they are hurting themselves with tariffs? Care to explain? Not sure why you immediately jumped to “Germans are stupid” but maybe some are. First, can you be less of an asshole? Seriously, just try once not to be an asshole.
I didn’t say, suggest, or imply that Germans were stupid. That would be a stupid thing to imply, everyone knows Germans have made huge contributions to the expansion of human knowledge over the years. But if you, a German, feel the need to jump in and straw man my view as “Germans are stupid” then you can’t subsequently whine if I partially agree with you. You were looking for a reason to be offended and found one in your own words, I wasn’t involved, you wanted to get upset.
On July 30 2025 20:24 Broetchenholer wrote:
As you before argued that tariffs are always bad and shooting yourself in the foot, you must believe that germans are stupid because they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot.
1. I didn’t argue that tariffs are always bad. That’s yet another attempt to put words in my mouth.
2. I don’t believe that Germans are stupid. I also don’t believe that industry lobbyists speak for an entire nationality. But again, if you really want to get offended by your idea that Germans are stupid then it’s your prerogative. Just don’t drag me into it.
3. Not all EU residents are Germans. If my argument is that German lobbying is making the EU is shoot its residents in the foot then that does not imply that they foolishly wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. They could want to bar Spaniards from buying cheaper imported cars in favour of German ones. The interests of German industry and of the rest of the EU residents are not necessarily aligned.
4. Not all Germans are car industry lobbyists. The interests of car industry lobbyists and all Germans are not necessarily aligned. If I suggest that German lobbyists have encouraged a particular policy then that is not a statement about the intelligence of the German people.
5. Nobody has to be stupid. People working for the German car industry can rationally want to force everyone to buy German cars without being stupid. This can be an objectively bad policy for the EU as a whole and still become policy without anyone being stupid. The good of the group and the good of subsets of individuals within the group need not be aligned.
This whole discussion of stupid Germans is absurd. Nobody but you is arguing that Germans are stupid and I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to convince me that they are. I believe Trump to be stupid because of all of the things that he says and does. He's an individual. No part of my observations and conclusions about Trump can be extrapolated to the population of Germany.
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United States42682 Posts
On July 30 2025 22:23 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +But capitalism seems to be especially fond of abusing countries where the people are so unprotected and poor that they have to get abused to stay alive Nah, thats a perk that every system we tried on a scale larger than your imediate community did plenty fine. Arguably capitalism is/was nicer than all the system that came before it or tried to overcome it (atleast the iterations we could observe). I don't even know if i gave my 2 cents on this "deal"... My point of view is: There is not even a deal, at most it is a framework? 15% tariffs is less than Trump wanted earlier on so... He wins? What? Why? Because the EU wasn't "we blanket tariff you back"? Do you want to pay more for your stuff or what? What scenario would you guys made go "the EU won?". Von der Leyen made some "promises"... One isn't contrary to what the EU was on the way of doing anyway (energy imports) and the other the EU can't even do? Also the numbers are pure fantasy? She licked Trumps ass a good bit, like Japan did, like the UK did, like everyone did and does... It's just what works on the moron. I'm no fan of strong-man rethoric so I couldn't care less about this.
Velr is correct.
Trump walked into the room and declared that he was going to shoot himself in both feet and bleed all over the EU's house.
For some reason people in the EU think that for the EU to win then they should threaten to go to America's house and shoot themselves in the chest because that's somehow more.
The problem with that logic is the implicit assumption that what is being demanded is something that a reasonable person would actually want. That assumption normally works because why would you be insistent about something bad but there's always the edge case where the person demanding it could just be an idiot.
This is that edge case where the person declaring that they got what they wanted is still a loser.
Retaliating is the approach China took. Trump threatened to harm America a lot in a way that harmed China a little, China threatened to harm China more in a way that harmed America some, and they went around in circles until they approached MAD. But China, like Trump, cares a lot about appearances.
EU technocrats have different priorities than Chinese nationalists. They'll talk Trump down from shooting himself in both feet to shooting himself in one foot and they won't shoot themselves at all. This is what winning looks like when you're dealing with an idiot. You don't want to win on their terms because they're proposing a shooting yourself contest and deciding whoever ends with the least blood is the winner.
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EPT
