Florida State Seminoles

[hedge]

Struggling farmers call for new bailout as Trump delivers new caps-heavy threat to China

Farmers across the U.S. are bracing for financial ruin from president Donald Trump's tariffs unless taxpayers bail them out.Extreme weather has already wiped out millions of dollars in crops in recent weeks, and Trump's trade war threatens to cut off markets with China and Mexico for their crops...

www.rawstory.com www.rawstory.com

[innocentbystander]

Struggling farmers call for new bailout as Trump delivers new caps-heavy threat to China

Farmers across the U.S. are bracing for financial ruin

(shrugs)

Then they know exactly how middle America with empty factories and hollowed out middle class with a total loss of future and dreams have felt for the last 40 years. Ruined farmers in Iowa will get no sympathy from anyone living in Youngstown, Utica, or Erie.

[Jungle Rat]

"we'll agree to disagree on that"

The dude spends half the year down in Hilton Head or wherever it is. Seems like he hasn't had to have a boring ass 9-5 job in a long time. That qualifies as pretty smart in my book. I mean, I'm sure everybody is some kind of idiot in their own way, but figuring out how to not have to work and also living pretty well, that's what I call smart...

I'm touched. I've been down here full time since late 21.

[Jungle Rat]

ECat hates my investing savy.

[Tree]

You should invest in a lobotomy.

[hedge]

“… For foreign sellers of all manner of goods, including cars, cognac and Scottish tweed, the dollar’s steep slide is a double whammy, compounding losses caused by President Trump’s import levies. For central banks around the world, the rapid strengthening of their own currencies heaps pressure to cut interest rates more aggressively.

IMG_6433.jpeg (370.63 KiB) Viewed 409 times

Because of its role as the primary currency used for global trade and finance, swings in the dollar have significant global consequences.

“For exporters, you’re not getting the currency eroding some of the tariff impact for the end U.S. consumer,” said Derek Halpenny, the London-based head of global markets research for the Japanese bank MUFG. “It has a bigger negative impact for sure.” …”

[hedge]

“… The decline in the dollar has come as a surprise to many. Economic textbooks teach that foreign currencies tend to weaken when economies are hit with tariffs, helping to make goods cheaper to offset the cost of the levies.

Instead, investors have reacted to Trump’s back-and-forth trade policies by dumping U.S. assets, unwinding huge bets they made in recent years on the idea that the U.S. would economically outshine the rest of the world. As investors sell U.S. dollar assets, they recycle them into home currencies, pushing up their value.

The slide in the dollar has fueled questions about the damage to the American economy from Trump’s shift in trade policy and whether the currency will remain a haven for investors in times of market stress. …”

[hedge]

Don't worry, IB and Tree (and Trump) know all about this kind of stuff, they carefully considered all of this before alienating our closest allies and flip-flopping several times (with more expected in the future) on tariffs...

[hedge]

IMG_2670.jpeg (743.23 KiB) Viewed 405 times

[hedge]

[innocentbystander]

Don't worry, IB and Tree (and Trump) know all about this kind of stuff, they carefully considered all of this before alienating our closest allies and flip-flopping several times (with more expected in the future) on tariffs...

As Bridget Phetasy has said in many of her “dumpster fire podcasts”, I don’t careif about tariffs.

[hedge]

“… Here’s what Trump and his sycophants don’t understand about international trade: It’s not about what you can sell, it’s about what you can buy.

Think for a minute about the finances of individuals. Why do people work? Not to be able to boast that they ran trade surpluses with their employers — “Hey, they paid me a lot, and I hardly bought anything from them.” No, people sell their labor so that they can afford to buy stuff.

…
But what matters in a trade war is the fact that China can fairly easily find other agricultural suppliers, buying soybeans from Brazil instead of Iowa.

By contrast, the United States will have a hard time replacing many of the goods it imports from China. Furthermore, many of the goods we buy from China are industrial inputs rather than consumer goods.

So Trump has started a trade war that will disrupt our own supply chains. Remember Covid and its immediate aftermath? Remember how shortages spread through the economy and fueled inflation? Those days are about to come back, inflicting especially large damage on the manufacturing sector Trump claims he will revive. …”

paulkrugman.substack.com
Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War
His people don’t know what they’re doing or what they want
paulkrugman.substack.com paulkrugman.substack.com

[innocentbystander]

I dispute utterly anything written by Paul Krugman. Any “economist” or “academic” that has never done anything outside of academia or politics is not someone who can understand anything at the grassroots level enough to fully understand what is happening in the world. Krugman’s point about the USA needing China to get things is all the more reason why we need to manufacture here and not China. It seems Paul Krugman has not learned anything about what happened during Covid with our international supply chain.

[hedge]

I'd like to whip you with a chain from International Supply...

[hedge]

Vehicle Supplies Are Dwindling as People Race to Buy Everything but Teslas

Tariffs have people concerned about the price of cars.

Phones and electronics aren’t the only things that people are rushing to buy before the dreaded tariff tax hits, thanks to the Trump administration’s ongoing trade war with the world. According to research from Cox Automotive, the supply of new and used vehicles is starting to dwindle as consumers rush to secure a car before the price tag skyrockets.

The analysis shows that the supply of new vehicles on the market, calculated by using an estimated daily sales rate, crashed from 91 days in March to just 70 days this month. The supply of used vehicles was already lower than usual, with just 43 days worth available, but that has dipped to 39 days since the tariffs took effect. That aligns with Cox’s sales data, which shows that new vehicle purchases are 22% higher than the usual pace for this time of year, and total sales are up nearly 10% on a year-to-date basis. Used vehicle sales are just a little behind, still up 7% this year compared to 2024.

The vehicle supply is low despite the fact that auto dealers stocked up ahead of Trump’s tariffs, which placed a 25% import fee on cars at the start of April after a brief month-long reprieve to allow companies to prepare. While Trump backtracked on some of his tariffs, the ones on vehicles remain in place, and a similar penalty will be applied to imported car parts starting in May, which is not exactly going to help with the whole plan to ramp up American production since many of the parts and materials needed to make cars still come to the country from over a foreign border.

But while most car dealerships watch their inventory start to trickle down and spots sit empty thanks to a chokehold on the supply chain, Teslas seem readily available if you’d like one. Reuters reported that Tesla sales in California, the company’s biggest market, are down 15% during the first quarter of 2025. That’s about in line with data about the company’s global sales, which are down 13%, the lowest they’ve been in three years. The slowdown in sales has cut into the company’s dominant share of the electric vehicle market, as it has dropped below a 50% share in California, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla’s sales struggles are unique among EV producers. According to Bloomberg, sales of all other electric vehicles have increased 35% since the start of the year. And while it’s true that the EV market has started to catch up to Tesla’s head start, it really seems like Elon Musk may have singlehandedly destroyed the brand’s reputation with his endless shitposting and frontman role in the federal government demolition crew at the Department of Government Efficiency. Say what you will about the “attacks” on Tesla dealerships, but they’re target-rich environments since they seemingly can’t sell those cars.

https://gizmodo.com/vehicle-supplies-ar ... 2000590220

[hedge]

Remember Michael Jordan's retort when asked why he doesn't take sides in politics? "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Musk has basically alienated half the country and now Tesla stock is worth less than half what it was in December. Obviously he could only get a fraction of what he paid for Twitter if he tried to sell it, but who would buy it? He paid $44 billion for it, Fidelity valued it at $9 billion last September, but I doubt anyone would buy it at that price. Yep, the guy is a genius...

[innocentbystander]

Great that vehicle supplies are dwindling. This is good. Fuck automakers who only build parts for cars in Asia and Mexico. Build them here you cheap fucks.

This is Trumpenomics working as planned. We have to short the supply of imported crap to force business to do what they must to help rebuild the USA middle classes. I am very pleasantly surprised that this shortage has happened so quickly.

[aTm]

Tesla should sue him to try and get the $0 back that a judge ordered be his compensation for doing the job of CEO.

[hedge]

Why no one should call undocumented immigrants ‘illegals’

“Stop calling them undocumented immigrants. They are ILLEGALLY in our country and they are not citizens. They are aliens … Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pig.”

This is a Facebook comment from one of my most recent articles that I wrote about allowing undocumented people in South Texas to travel in order to have access to health care and precious family moments. Over the past two years, I have written about 20 immigration-related articles, and I receive many comments like the one above almost every single time I publish something.

These comments are often followed by the direct or implied message that because they are “illegals” or “illegal aliens,” they have no rights and whatever punishment or horrible condition follows after them entering this country is justified. Obviously, that logic is incorrect because anyone in the United States has some amount of rights.

For example, undocumented immigrants have constitutional protections like the right to due process and protection from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to a court hearing on immigration status, and they are protected by federal wage laws. Undocumented immigrants have the right to attend public primary and secondary schools and a number of states, including Washington, allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses to drive legally and purchase insurance. Outside of being legally misleading, the term “illegal” has become incredibly dangerous because of how dehumanizing it is.

My grandparents, my mother and I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, a border area in South Texas that has effectively been a binational community for generations. The Rio Grande Valley was literally built on the backs of hardworking undocumented immigrants. As a result of the Rio Grande Valley’s binational nature, I grew up and went to school with people who were undocumented. I have seen that they are good people. I have seen that they are honest people. But most importantly, I have seen that they are people.

So much of that crucial sense of humanity is lost when people refer to them as “illegals.” When people refer to undocumented immigrants as “illegals,” they stop seeing them as humans and start seeing them as criminals that have inherently harmed society. People start to believe that an undocumented immigrant’s very existence is illegal. As families were separated, as a father and his daughter washed up dead on the banks of the Rio Grande and as we continue to hold families in horrid detention conditions, there is a significant portion of the voting populace that believes that is all OK because those people are “illegal.”

That is exactly why Americans must retire the use of “illegal” in reference to undocumented immigrants. The term is not just offensive, in just the past year it has been used to rationalize injustice, inhumane treatment, and, at times, death. As a result, it is a term that should be viewed as a slur.

Unfortunately, the word “illegal” is powerful and resonates with a base of people that is looking for an explanation for America’s shortcomings, so news organizations and politicians use it with almost no ensuing outrage.

We seem to have just accepted that a huge group of people can use the term with absolutely no recourse. If we are ever going to systematically treat immigrants humanely or make coherent immigration policy, we need to get everyone to acknowledge that no one’s existence is illegal, and that will take true

It will take politicians explaining to their constituents that undocumented immigrants who are in this country actually do have rights, and we must guarantee those rights are respected even when they know that message may not be received well. It will take news organizations refusing to use the power of the word “illegal” to drive views and instead focusing on reporting the objective truth regarding undocumented immigrants. Finally, it will take all of us making sure that politicians, news organizations and members of our community are held to these standards. The U.S. has shown this character before as we addressed racial, gender and LGBT discrimination head on, and we can do it again.

The first step in getting to sensible immigration reform is eliminating our use of the word “illegal” so we can all see immigrants as the people they are, and while the president may be unwilling and unable to fix our broken immigration system, it is a challenge that our next president will surely have to face.

[aTm]

Do you actually believe that mushy garbage, faggoth?