Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Kheirn]

So by now we've all heard Ford is cancelling production of one of their vehicles because of Trump's tariffs. You'll notice this thread started a week ago.

Trump decided to discuss the matters with Ford in a timely and professional fashion by tweeting a week later.

“Ford has abruptly killed a plan to sell a Chinese-made small vehicle in the U.S. because of the prospect of higher U.S. Tariffs.” CNBC. This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!

Except...no.

Ford responded in a timely and professional fashion, politely pointing out the car would cost even more to build in the USA because someone put tariffs on all the building materials. They were already building it in China to cut down on costs, which they felt was mandatory for a car they expected would only sell 50,000 or so a year. When building in China became counterproductive, this didn't magically lower the cost in the states.

This just shows once again that he has absolutely no idea how tariffs work.

[Dontrike]

Omarosa says the White House had a secret hashtag to talk about the 25th Amendment.

“You know, we had a little hashtag, #tfa, which now that I think about it, I’m a little embarrassed to tell you how often; when I went through my text chains from the White House, I saw the hashtag #tfa—25th Amendment,” she said.

.....

“Whenever [Trump] did something that was just so insane and so crazy and unhinged, when he would flip positions from one hour to the next, we’d just hashtag at #tfa and we’d keep moving,” Manigault-Newman said.

Woodward states that Trump almost started war last year during his tweet storms about NK.

According to journalist and author Bob Woodward, who spoke with CBS’ David Martin about the upcoming release of his new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, Trump almost tweeted a message that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un understandably would have interpreted as an indication that a U.S. attack on North Korea was imminent.

A military response by North Korea would have caused unimaginable destruction.

According to Woodward, the incident occurred in the context of a series of belligerent exchanges last year between the two leaders. These included Trump calling Kim “little Rocket Man” and threatening in a speech at the United Nations to “totally destroy North Korea,” and Kim’s response that Trump is a “dotard.”

Trump reportedly thought he was being clever with a “Rocket Man” tweet, telling former White House aide Rob Porter that it “may be my best ever,” CBS said.

Another tweet Trump wanted to send was unmistakably dangerous. “He drafts a tweet saying, ‘We are going to pull out dependents from South Korea ... Family members of the 28,000 people there,’” Woodward said.

So much insanity in so few words.

[Breccia]

This just shows once again that he has absolutely no idea how tariffs work.

Agreed. I thought it was especially damning when he said FORD would pay/not pay the tariffs. Companies never pay tariffs -- those costs are always shunted along to the consumer.

[Felya]

So much insanity in so few words.

You think that’s insane? According to your quote, there is someone who proof reads Trump’s tweets. As in, someone reads the insanity in so few words, then goes... well, this seems like a reasonable thing for a president to post.

[Fugus]

Agreed. I thought it was especially damning when he said FORD would pay/not pay the tariffs. Companies never pay tariffs -- those costs are always shunted along to the consumer.

One thing I just realized.

All these people who claim to have no issues with the tariffs because "It is creating Jobs" also tend to be the group who are against raising the minimum wage or having it at a living wage.

When the fact is the minimum wage boost would actually boost jobs and the economy (Unlike the tariffs) while also being cheaper to the consumers than the tariffs. These are people are pretty much cutting their nose off to spite their face on this one.

[Breccia]

These are people are pretty much cutting their nose off to spite their face on this one.

It's 100% the same with people insisting on coal over solar. Worldwide, green power is shitting all over coal in the free market. In fact, the UN found that the world wants solar power more than coal.

And gas.

And nuclear.

Combined.

“Yet again, this was a record year for new renewable power capacity being financed,” Francoise d’Estais from UN Environment’s energy and climate branch told The Independent.

“We had a record 157 gigawatts commissioned last year, far outstripping the fossil fuel generating capacity, which we estimated as 70 gigawatts.”

In just over a decade, concerted investment has increased the proportion of world electricity generated by wind, solar and other renewable sources from around 5 per cent to 12 per cent.

The global replacement of traditional fuels with renewables led to around 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions being avoided last year – the equivalent of removing the entire US transport system.

“The extraordinary surge in solar investment around the world shows how much can be achieved when we commit to growth without harming the environment,” said the head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim.

And Trump is still promising the people waiting for coal to magically make a comeback (while playing disco on their 8-tracks, no doubt) that somehow "Clean Coal" (doesn't exist) will return and make them all rich and happy and bring puppies. The US is already closing coal plants faster than they're making new ones, and we've been doing that for years. That, combined with a death of coal demand overseas, is why those jobs aren't coming back. Saving a few cents by dumping coal sludge directly into drinking water, or letting them emit more air pollution (yes, the irony of Trump saying Clean Coal exists while rolling back air quality standards is well known), won't be enough help to overrule the massive turn of technology in the last 5/10/50 years.

[Thekri]

It's 100% the same with people insisting on coal over solar. Worldwide, green power is shitting all over coal in the free market. In fact, the UN found that the world wants solar power more than coal.

And gas.

And nuclear.

Combined.



And Trump is still promising the people waiting for coal to magically make a comeback (while playing disco on their 8-tracks, no doubt) that somehow "Clean Coal" (doesn't exist) will return and make them all rich and happy and bring puppies. The US is already closing coal plants faster than they're making new ones, and we've been doing that for years. That, combined with a death of coal demand overseas, is why those jobs aren't coming back. Saving a few cents by dumping coal sludge directly into drinking water, or letting them emit more air pollution (yes, the irony of Trump saying Clean Coal exists while rolling back air quality standards is well known), won't be enough help to overrule the massive turn of technology in the last 5/10/50 years.

Well, this is a bit misleading actually. I understand what it looks like to a someone that isn't in the industry, but this is very close to what my current job description is, and I assure you, it is a lot more complicated then that. You are correct that coal isn't "coming back", however coal isn't really going away particularly fast either, and all of this renewable boom isn't killing coal power plants, at least for power generation.

What is killing some coal power plants is newer gas turbines, which are cleaner and more efficient (But much more expensive), and some new nuclear development. The vast majority of coal plants are going to be producing for a long time though. The thing people don't understand with wind and solar is that 157 gigawatts of wind and solar power doesn't replace 157 gigawatts of coal and gas power. It replaces 0 gigawatts. The reason for this is how our grid operates. The grid does store electricity, it doesn't have the capability, instead, electric production always has to be within 3% of electrical consumption, and always on the high side (IE. 0-3% more then usage). If production dips below usage, you get brownouts, if it dips far below, you get rolling blackouts. In order to manage this, electrical companies produce two types of power:


#1 is baseline energy. This is basically the amount of energy that is always going to be needed no matter what. IE, the Los Angles are always is going to need at least X amount of watts at its lowest point. This is energy you can always produce, because you can always use it. So it needs to be cheap, and it needs to produce the same amount all the time. Hydroelectric, geothermal and Nuclear are the cheapest, "Best" sources of baseline energy. They don't ramp up very well, but they produce a lot of cheap and constant power.


#2 is variable production. This is much more expensive, but still cheaper then energy storage. This is production that has to spike up and down wildly in a semi-predictable basis. To give you an idea how weird this gets, Britain uses up to 3 gigawatts more energy in a 10 minute period after a popular soap opera or soccer game ends, because people boil tea. That means they need to produce 3 gigawatts more energy for 10 minutes, then drop back down. This is where coal and gas comes in. Both of those scale very well, so while they can be used for baseline energy, they are best here. Basically to make more electricity, you throw in more coal, spin more turbines, get more electricity. Then when you need less, you slow it down.


Now here is the problem, solar and wind are neither. You can't really control when, or how much energy either of those make. When the wind blows hard, you get lots of electricity, if it stops blowing for two days, you have no electricity. This is ok in the small scale, when it flows into batteries, but it doesn't work on our grid. If you have 10 gigawatts of wind in west Texas, flowing to Dallas and Houston areas, you need 10 gigawatts of gas or coal to back it up for when that doesn't work. Because big cities tend to use electricity without paying attention to if the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. This does mean those coal plants burn less coal though, because they don't need to be running when the wind is blowing, but it doesn't mean you can get rid of them. So coal miners are still kind of screwed, because you have less coal going to the same number or more of coal plants.

[Cthulhu 2020]

One thing I just realized.

All these people who claim to have no issues with the tariffs because "It is creating Jobs" also tend to be the group who are against raising the minimum wage or having it at a living wage.

When the fact is the minimum wage boost would actually boost jobs and the economy (Unlike the tariffs) while also being cheaper to the consumers than the tariffs. These are people are pretty much cutting their nose off to spite their face on this one.

They believe that Keynesian economics is a farce written by the (((globalist))) agenda to screw over companies and rewards lazy people.

But we've already established those kinds of people are completely detached from reality.

[Breccia]

Yet another GOP House member is resigning.

He wants to spend more time being governor of Florida.

[Kiri]

That is basically how he thinks deal-making works. Keep screwing over the other party until they acquiesce. It's both why he thinks "trade wars are good and easy to win" and why his foreign policy has been so disastrous overall.

Yeah, that is obvious. And to me, that is actually a proof of something positive - that there is someone who is reining him in. Without someone to tell him off, he would be directly threatening force at anyone who opposes him in that regard by now.

[Redwyrm]

Yeah, that is obvious. And to me, that is actually a proof of something positive - that there is someone who is reining him in. Without someone to tell him off, he would be directly threatening force at anyone who opposes him in that regard by now.

Unfortunately that could be seen as both a good and bad thing. It's good that there's at least someone helping to prevent disaster. On the other it's making Trump look better than his impulses would actually make him look.

You can't tell how bad someone is at driving if there's someone remote driving the car and all the person in the driver seat (Trump) does is honking the horn.

[Vizardlorde]

Yet another GOP House member is resigning.

He wants to spend more time being governor of Florida.

Marco shouldve done the same thing to spend more time being president. . Seriously though It wont make that much a difference cause the morons in his district will vote for another one just like him.

[Thepersona]

Agreed. I thought it was especially damning when he said FORD would pay/not pay the tariffs. Companies never pay tariffs -- those costs are always shunted along to the consumer.

Well, this depends.
Tariffs (that are nothing more than an import tax) behave like any other tax: Who takes the brunt of the burden depends on the prize elasticity of the product. The more inelastic, the higher the % of the burden is shifted towards the consumer (ie: the prize goes up in almost the same amount of the incresed cost, per unit).

Now, does Twitler Tang know that? obviosuly not.

[Bullettime]

Trump administration threatening to sanction countries if the ICC investigates possible US warcrimes in Afghanistan.

[Paranoid Android]

The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...880272896?s=19

Another day, another dumb shit tweet from the president.

Once more trumpkins you follow this idiot. Just embarrassing.

[Noxx79]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...880272896?s=19

Another day, another dumb shit tweet from the president.

Once more trumpkins you follow this idiot. Just embarrassing.

For those who don’t know:

A) that’s a lie (trumps tweet)
B) completely irrelevant - it’s like comparing the number of tackles made in the football games yesterday to the number of home runs hit in the baseball games.

[Nigel Tufnel]

For those who don’t know:

A) that’s a lie (trumps tweet)
B) completely irrelevant - it’s like comparing the number of tackles made in the football games yesterday to the number of home runs hit in the baseball games.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...880272896?s=19

Another day, another dumb shit tweet from the president.

Once more trumpkins you follow this idiot. Just embarrassing.

e.g.,

40% of women have hurled footwear at a man
50% of bank robberies take place on Fridays

[Breccia]

A) that’s a lie (trumps tweet)
B) completely irrelevant

And, yes,

C) The 4.2% value is for a quarter. Specifically, a quarter involving a lot of government budget purchases (so, we're buying things from ourselves and doing so with debt) and a lot of people rushing out to get stuff before the tariffs were applied. Something big would have to change for 4.2% to last the year.

[Deleted]

Trump administration threatening to sanction countries if the ICC investigates possible US warcrimes in Afghanistan.

absolute cunts

[Paranoid Android]

For those who don’t know:

A) that’s a lie (trumps tweet)
B) completely irrelevant - it’s like comparing the number of tackles made in the football games yesterday to the number of home runs hit in the baseball games.

e.g.,

40% of women have hurled footwear at a man
50% of bank robberies take place on Fridays

Thanks people. I spaced out and forgot to add context to his tweet. My one point was 100 years when the correct time period should have been 10 years.