blastdoor

rob53 said:

Why in Texas? People thought Apple's products were getting too expensive, just wait for products coming out of Texas. They will break everyone's budget. Who in Texas will actually work at this manufacturing facility? Will everything be automated? Where will the people for these 20K come from, India? Who's going to build the facility? Not the hardest workers from south of the border. trump made sure of that.

I bet Texas is cheaper than NJ;

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/amd-is-in-talks-to-sell-usd4-billion-ai-server-assembly-plants

We are likely to soon find out if these tariffs are a shakedown for bribes or if Trump is really serious about them. 

foregoneconclusion said:

blastdoor said: The real difference -- and it's critically important to understand-- between then and now is that back then there was a system for selecting presidential candidates that was mostly run by elites, not the masses. Candidates were selected by party machines in the proverbial smoky back room. That process eliminated radical candidates and presented the populace with two mostly sane and reasonable, though still importantly different, choices. 

Gutting regulations and handing out tax cuts to the rich and corporations isn't anything new in the Republican party. They've been doing it for the last 45 years. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and Trump are all the same in that regard and it always leads to higher income inequality and an economic crisis. Despite how predictable it is, a large percentage of the voting public still hasn't figured it out. 

It is a crime against reason and evidence to say that Trump is the same as those other presidents. He is radically worse. If you can't perceive that then you are a big part of the problem with America. 

foregoneconclusion said:

Laying off hundreds of thousands of federal workers + gutting regulatory control + tariffs on major trading partners + yet another giant tax cut for the rich/corporations = another economic crash. It's just a matter of how soon it happens. It's also what the billionaire class is hoping for. 

https://theweek.com/articles/460179/charts-how-rich-won-great-recession

They should be careful what they wish for. The Great Depression resulted in FDR, and his policies essentially saved capitalism in the west, even though he is reviled by many in the billionaire class (and those who serve them). But it could have resulted in a more revolutionary outcome (as in French or Russian), which might not be so good for the billionaires. A lot of people across the political spectrum (but not in the top 1%) see Mangione as a hero, or are at least sympathetic to him. An economic collapse would supercharge that kind of sentiment. Musk might need a droid army to protect him at that point. 

The Trump administration's position on Ukraine clarifies that Trump is more aligned with Putin than NATO and the NATO countries are figuring that out. Europe needs to rearm and push back on the Trump administration hard, along every dimension possible. 

The challenge for Europe is that it's not entirely clear that there really is anything called "Europe," nor is it clear that "Europeans" (if they exist) care about democracy any more than Trump voters do. 

We shall see!