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Cont: The Trump Presidency 11: Insert something funny

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carlitos said:
No, if you buy something from Mexico, you "lose" that money. That's how trade works. Leather jacket from Leon for $150? You "lose" $150, even if you wear the jacket. Drink $15 worth of tequila? You "lose" $15. Buy a Volkswagen assembled in Puebla? You "lose" full MSRP on that car you own. It's axiomatic. Wharton grads know this.
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To be fair to the economic genius, if one has mastered the art of not paying for goods and services, then any time one does part with money, it's a loss.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount)
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Trumpnomics: If you buy goods worth x dollars you will now have made a loss of x dollars. Only by exporting stuff is it possible to make a profit (you can never profit from importing things). Also, if you place tariffs on goods then that means those countries are now paying you more money than before.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a “profit making operation.” We build a Wall or.....

.....close the Southern Border. Bring our car industry back into the United States where it belongs. Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border......

.....Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money. Word is that a new Caravan is forming in Honduras and they are doing nothing about it. We will be cutting off all aid to these 3 countries - taking advantage of U.S. for years!
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Uhhh, I thought he renegotiated NAFTA and that was all signed and everything.

As for our money to Central American countries, stop the payments, by all means! That money goes to keep dictators in power.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

The United States looses soooo much money on Trade with Mexico under NAFTA, over 75 Billion Dollars a year (not including Drug Money which would be many times that amount), that I would consider closing the Southern Border a “profit making operation.”
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He wants to close the border so we can have home grown cartels making all that Drug Money? Interesting plan.

I guess that's Phase 2 of helping farmers through the tariff!
 
Garrison said:
Of course a smart person would wonder how much of that $75 Billion is raw materials, foodstuffs, components, etc. that ends up in US factories and shopping baskets. As I say a smart person would wonder about that...
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Donnie is probably referring to the difference in the value of U.S imports from Mexico in 2017 (estimated at $223 bn) and the value of U.S. exports to Mexico in 2017 ($144 bn). Below is a quote from a Congressional Research Service report, exactly the kind of thing people complain -- even within the Trump Administration -- Donnie can't be bothered reading.
Most studies show that the net economic effects of NAFTA, which entered into force in 1994, on both the United States and Mexico have been small but positive, though there have been adjustment costs to some sectors within both countries. Much of the bilateral trade between the United States and Mexico occurs in the context of supply chains as manufacturers in each country work together to create goods. Link
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In terms of economic activity and the U.S. economy, Mexico is an important partner. The "United States is, by far, Mexico's largest trading partner." Mexico ranks third as a source of U.S. imports, after China and Canada, second, after Canada, as an export market for U.S. goods and services and our third biggest trade partner overall. This is getting into territory that Trump knows little about, understands less and can do some real long-term economic damage. One can only hope the adults -- of both parties -- can rein him in before he turns all of America into Atlantic City.
 
Trebuchet said:
He can also, as I understand it, not sign it but not send it back either. It then becomes law in 10 days. I wonder if he knows that.
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Only if Congress is in session. If Congress has recessed, the President cannot return the bill. If the President doesn't sign in this case, it's called a Pocket Veto, and does not become law.
 
newyorkguy said:
Donnie is probably referring to the difference in the value of U.S imports from Mexico in 2017 (estimated at $223 bn) and the value of U.S. exports to Mexico in 2017 ($144 bn). Below is a quote from a Congressional Research Service report, exactly the kind of thing people complain -- even within the Trump Administration -- Donnie can't be bothered reading.


In terms of economic activity and the U.S. economy, Mexico is an important partner. The "United States is, by far, Mexico's largest trading partner." Mexico ranks third as a source of U.S. imports, after China and Canada, second, after Canada, as an export market for U.S. goods and services and our third biggest trade partner overall. This is getting into territory that Trump knows little about, understands less and can do some real long-term economic damage. One can only hope the adults -- of both parties -- can rein him in before he turns all of America into Atlantic City.
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The important thing to understand with Mexico/USA trade is that their top three exports are NOT strawberries, tacos and hand-stitched shawls. Their top three exports, totalling 80 billion combined, are Autos/Parts, Electronics, Machinery.

I know that you know manufacturing, so wanna guess how much of the profit from those exports stays in Mexico? I'd say "about enough to not run afoul of local tax inspectors; they pay as much out in fees to corporate as possible". That's how EVERYONE does it. The top exports, in order are Ford, Chrysler(FIAT), Chevrolet and Nissan. Last I heard, Ford had closed one of the factories that Trump was bitching about and took a loss at the end of '17 as a result.

But if you take the US companies (as there are a lot of Japanese and Koreans in there, particularly the second group), the "losses" are Ford USA buying from Ford Mexico, but then moving any profits back to....? Ford Corporate in USA. By segmenting their accounting it is very possible for the Ford Companies that are importing from Brazil or Mexico or Thailand to turn a nice nifty profit on those vehicles but show a loss at the manufacturing side.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Oh that's just a running joke I have about trying to find the ultimate state of something that is obviously being done recursively for sake of recursion I started back during the Jabba threads. The "Plank Hairsplit" and "The Plank Hijack" and so forth. We people start getting out of doing the thing by just... doing the thing again you have to force them out of the cycle.

Trump's entire strategy is to distract us from our current anger over what he's doing by doing something else that makes us equally or more angry so he stays in this weird twilight zone where we never made at anything he's doing long enough to get mad at him in an emotional sense. We're always in a constant transitional fugue state of getting angry about the next thing. It's weird and disturbingly effective.

Now sooner or later this will have a breaking point, you can't be recursive forever and that moment, not a policy or political thing, is what is going to take done Trump, the first thing he does that for whatever reason he can't immediately distract us from to the point where his opponent's anger is actually focused for more then a few days (or sadly few hours at this point.)

If the Dems really want to take down Trump that's what they got to do. Decide a single factor they want to take him on over... and don't let him distract them by doing something else outrageous. Don't let him pull the proverbial fire alarm.

Now how to do that? *Throws my arms in the air* Damned if I know.
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Did the midterms, where Democrats successfully made gains by focusing on healthcare while Trump tried to distract with the caravan, not happen?
 
From Joe Morgue, re focusing on one thing Trump does and not getting distracted:

Now how to do that? *Throws my arms in the air* Damned if I know.
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My guess is the “Trump Gallop” will eventually be defeated by some sort of Constitutional Crisis. If he ignores a subpoena or other court order, and then has Federal Marshals ready to execute said court order. Think Nixon and the court order for his tapes.

I think this is a likely outcome due to the fact that I think Trump has a very limited knowledge of how the separation of powers works, and has an inflated sense of his own power and what he can get away with.

But, *Throws my arms in the air* Lordy I’ve been wrong again and again, so I guess we just have to wait things out. In Trump’s go-to noncommittal phrase, “We’ll see what happens”.
 
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