we're amazon

Originally posted by Arvaos:

What does America make nowadays?

Very little. And these tariffs are going to wake up the world that they can do everything among themselves and don't need anything from us anymore.

They don't even make those MAGA hats, even those are made in China.

Originally posted by Arvaos:

What does America make nowadays?

1.4 Trillion

All that military crap Europe's gotta buy from the US for Ukraine now...in perpetuity.

That is why Norway is freaking out over the tariffs even though they import really nothing from the United States. We want that $2 Trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund they got...

Originally posted by Arvaos:

The EU sells more goods to the US, a surplus of €154bn, thanks to cars and medicines, while the US has a sells services, reflecting the success of its banks and tech companies in Europe.

France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, said the tariffs are “a catastrophe for the United States and for US citizens”.

What does America make nowadays?

Then why is the EU freaking out? This shouldn't matter, right?

Originally posted by oldirty`:

Originally posted by Arvaos:

What does America make nowadays?

1.4 Trillion

Most of that being

surprise surprise

in defense budgets i.e. selling planes trains and war game vehicles to other countries.
or
sell their services of a runaway military budget to help with some...."target practice"

Originally posted by Vox:

They don't even make those MAGA hats, even those are made in China.

I want the Make America Go Away hat.

Eeh? Bankers? Why does Europe need U.S. bankers when Switzerland is just kind of right there as the banking capitol of the world? Also, the goods trade deficit is $235.6 billion.[ustr.gov]

Once you factor in services that narrows down to $48 billion[policy.trade.ec.europa.eu] which is perhaps as narrow can be expected, but it's still a slow bleed if it's not a cyclitic arrangement of trading surplus and deficit positions. If the U.S.A. just continually spends, it runs out of money eventually.

Cookware, blankets, furniture, baking soda, Artic Gear, Shoes, Hats, Clothes, Drinkwear, Boomerangs, Cotton, Coffee, Cards, Play Pits, Robes, Candles, Coolers, Leather, Timber, Boots, Skincare Products, Slate, Tools, Drums, Notebooks, Candy, Lamps, Makeup, Water Filters, Sporting Goods, Teddy Bears, Bicycles, Watches, Rugs, Steel and Iron.[www.allamericanclothing.com]

I tried to exclude anything too gimmicky from that list, but also it's not just the items on that list. For instance, they mention Nordicware and All Clad for pans, but I also know Lodge makes some cast iron cookware. Joseph Abboud makes designer clothes, shoes and accessories. L.L. Bean makes boots and possibly other stuff.[www.llbean.com] See's Candies is pretty famous for selling boxes of assorted chocolates, and Ghiradelli makes chocolate bars 'n such.

Intel C.P.U.S. used to be made in the U.S.A. up until last year when Intel basically self-deported their product to Taiwan, but thanks to the C.H.I.P.S. act, and possibly also the tariffs, Taiwan Semiconductor plans to open up shop in the U.S.A. meaning the U.S.A. will make C.P.Us. again.

There are still Goodyear Tires.

Dunno where this idea that the U.S.A. is a service economy comes from really. Americans are, or at least were, proud of the stuff that they made with their own two hands.

They used to make just about everything. C.R.T. televisions with Thomson tubes. Video game consoles like the Coleco (short for the Connecticut Leather Company), Atari, Commodore and Suzo-Happ in the annals of video game history (even if Suzo-Happ derived their products from Il in europe).

And I mean man, do you remember World War 2? No? Yeah, that's fair, basically everybody from then is dead, but still, the women of America banded together to fill the void the men left when they went off to fight.[www.life.com]

You hear about Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Benjamin and you think maybe the U.S.A. was the technological zeitgeist of the 20th century, especially in the earlier half of it. But it squandered that by outsourcing the labor and teaching the Asians how to make it cheaper and better.

All that sure sounds a heck of a lot more satisfying than sorting computer files and helping Europe do its taxes but still ending up short in a soul crushing office job with nothing tangible to show for it with feelings of shallowness and emptiness. It's easy to create something you can hold and be proud of it. The U.S.A. was proud of what it had and is ashamed that it lost it. Perhaps especially the automotive industry.

Sure doesn't really help the Europe Union's case when their top exporter is Germany, and the one of the main things Germany sends out is its cars.

Everybody is impressed by the Mercedes Benz and I suppose Americans think "Gosh darn, why can't we make something so nice anymore? We used to be on top of this!" A painful reminder of what was once had but lost. And yeah, the automobile was basically invented by Carl Benz in the first place, but Henry Ford is the one who popularized it through mastery of the production techniques that allowed it to become widespread and affordable.

The U.S.A. has the largest trade deficit in the world, and in trying to balance that out, European luxury cars are an easy choice of things to impose a trade barrier against in the U.S. market in order to give domestic product some room to grow because cars struck at the very heart of U.S. manufacturing culture, most people can't afford them, and the few that do can likely afford to pay the tariff without batting an eyelash if they really have their heart set on a particular model, but it doesn't hurt to encourage the wealthy to shop around if price can in any way persuade them to buy a Cadillac instead. Same goes for the Italian Porsche when compared to Ford Mustangs or Chevrolet Corvettes. Though really Mercedes is planning to increase production in the U.S.A. anyway so whatever I guess.

Originally posted by Fumo Bnnuy n Frends:

Originally posted by oldirty`:

1.4 Trillion

Most of that being

surprise surprise

in defense budgets i.e. selling planes trains and war game vehicles to other countries.
or
sell their services of a runaway military budget to help with some...."target practice"

Oh no, that figure comes from stuff like netflix and goggle etc. no physical goods.

well they were before they started kidnapping canadians... now they're scumbags

Americans watching their economy be destroyed by someone who had multiple past bankruptcies and failed casinos, "This is fine".

Originally posted by causality:

Americans watching their economy be destroyed by someone who had multiple past bankruptcies and failed casinos, "This is fine". :winter2019coolyul:

I find it perticularly hilarious how the canadian french have been unsuccessful at destabilizing the canadian economy in the past century but within about a year have managed to destroy the maine B&B industry...

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Originally posted by Arvaos:

What does America make nowadays?

Very little. And these tariffs are going to wake up the world that they can do everything among themselves and don't need anything from us anymore.

Perhaps, but it's not a zero sum game necessarily. It is hypothetically possible that after a period of hardship everybody could restructure their trade in a way that makes more sense than what the status quo was. I mean trade is trade. There are always two parties in a trade.

Originally posted by Affronter:

Originally posted by Vox:

They don't even make those MAGA hats, even those are made in China.

I want the Make America Go Away hat.

I mean, I think it's fairly evident that America is already trying to go away without being made to do so. Tariffs are kind of its way of saying it needs to close its the wallet after acting like a kid in the candy store and focus on itself for a while.

Oh, and I forgot Koss headphones[onmilwaukee.com].

Originally posted by causality:

Americans watching their economy be destroyed by someone who had multiple past bankruptcies and failed casinos, "This is fine". :winter2019coolyul:

MAGA says Trump is a diabolical genius, the second coming of Christ to save the world.

I had a conversation in another thread, and it ended up with MAGA is just asking for a pay raise, but is avoiding asking their employers directly, and also avoiding raising the minimum wage.

If the economy is razed to the ground, then you get equal opportunity and equal pay in the rebooted economy. Just gotta ban TikTok, and not pause the ban. Oh, wait,...

Trump bans TikTok.
https://www.axios.com/2020/08/07/trump-order-ban-tiktok-45-days

Oh, wait. Trump pauses TikTok ban.
https://www.axios.com/pro/tech-policy/2025/01/21/trump-tiktok-extension-executive-order

Originally posted by Tonepoet:

Tariffs are kind of its way of saying it needs to close its the wallet after acting like a kid in the candy store and focus on itself for a while.

That is, or was, how they were conceived by Republicans, anyway.