jfabula1

michelb76 said:

9secondkox2 said:

And I’ll take Donald trump and Bessent any day over some dude on the internet named “stabitha.”

But seriously. There are so many ways to look at this. It definitely exposes predispositions. If you already hate Tru p, you’ll work to find the pessimistic angle. If you already like him, you’ll work to find the positive angle. And if you’re just a simple common sense guy, you’ll work to can appreciate what he’s trying to do while retaining the ability to see where it may go wrong - but also retain tje ability to see where it may go right. So far, for common sense folks, tje goal is admirable, results are mixed with the short time in action, and the pivot seems to preserve both the American tech company as well as the inherits of the action to begin with. The downside of all of it is of course the “short term pain” of stock volatility and posdible higher prices. But that was always a known quantity. Not some surprise. But the long term gain of fair trade is what the goal is. And it’s certainly at the very least worth the attempt. If it wasn’t trump, it would be someone else. The status quo is not sustainable without ceding our economy and leading status in the world. As one of the few truly free places in the world, this matters. We are all her for all things apple. They’re a great company. Another reason their great is that they stand for human rights, privacy, security, etc. on top of making the best stuff on earth. But take away the foundation of freedom upon which they operate and things go south. We see a microcosm in the EU and China. Hopefully, with the bold moves being made on the big stage, that’s as far as it goes. 

If Europe decides to bond together and increase production and trade amongst themselves, they no longer need the US for 90% of the stuff and will have a much larger market than they would ever have had with the US. In reality they need very little US products because most of those are low quality and don't adhere to European standards and regulations. (cars, food) They trade with the US because of allyship. That's going to go out the window fast now. Europe has a reliance on US tech companies, but work is underway to reduce that. BRICS countries removing reliance on the dollar will absolutely hurt the US for generations. A next president is not going to be able to correct this. The damage done to the US in the past months will take decades to recover, if ever. There is no short term pain, only long term pain. There is a lot of gain for those in power though, but that's a very small group.