$38,000,000,000,000

[kyredneck]

Tariffs that rebalance trade and bring back industries are an excellent start.

I hope so, looks good right now. The (simple) strategy of 'reciprocal tariffs' could pan out to be quite benign in the long run and benefit the U.S. greatly.

 

[Cathode]

I hope so, looks good right now. The (simple) strategy of 'reciprocal tariffs' could pan out to be quite benign in the long run and benefit the U.S. greatly.

And as for China’s leverage on rare earth minerals.

We have a massive stockpiles of mined rare earth here, and mineral sands, people are excited by the processing plants opening up.
Australia can provide the rare earth minerals America needs I think, we have huge mining and processing industries in place already.

 

[MMDAN]

It took the United States only 2 months and 10 days to increase the national debt from $37 trillion to $38 trillion.

I remember when the national debt was less than $1 trillion.

In 1980 (the year I started high school) the national debt was 908 billion.

 

[MMDAN]

Yea....a dollar just ain't what it used to be anymore.

So true. In Revelation 6:6, we read - And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, (day's wage) and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” That verse seems to indicate a time of scarcity coming when a loaf of bread would cost a days' water, which highlights the economic challenge that will be faced during that time.

 

[Cathode]

So true. In Revelation 6:6, we read - And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, (day's wage) and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” That verse seems to indicate a time of scarcity coming when a loaf of bread would cost a days' water, which highlights the economic challenge that will be faced during that time.

What it suggests is a fully managed centrally controlled economy, where wages are paid in daily subsistence rations.

Either this will be the result of a miserable communist style takeover or, some great disaster will have taken place destroying food production worldwide and governments will be forced to seize and ration food to their populations to prevent famine.

In the first authoritarian scenario it seems to be an entirely plant based ration. Wheat and barley being mentioned.
Today we see climate Marxists pushing a “plant based “ food diet to save the planet. Stalin starved millions in Ukraine for his political ends.

In the second scenario of a natural disaster causing global famine, we already have historical precedents. The year without a summer in Europe caused by volcanic eruption, ended in crop failure and wide spread famine that killed millions.
Atmospheric particulates blocking out the sun can be caused by volcanism, nuclear war, asteroid impact debris and worldwide fire events.

 

[KenH]

Ken, what are your thoughts about States/Commonwealths that allow the fusion Ballot?

Don't really have an opinion about that kind of fusionism.

I am more interested in the fusionism that used to exist back when I was a kid and as a young adult. The fusionism associated with Frank S. Meyer, and that reached it zenith with the election of 1980 of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States and his reelection in 1984. Meyer advocated both free markets and virtue, while maintaining that virtue could not be enforced by the state but had to be the result of individual, not collective, action. It was a way of uniting elements of the conservative movement and the libertarian movement back then. His book, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, published in 1962, became the lodestar of my philosophy of government. This is my favorite quote from the book:

"The state therefore has two natural functions, functions essential to the existence of any peaceful, ordered society: to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assault, and to judge in conflicts of right with right. It has a further third function, which is another aspect of the first, that is, to protect its citizens from assault by foreign powers. These three functions are expressed by three powers: the police power, which protects the citizen against domestic violence; the military power, which protects the citizen against violence from abroad; and the courts of law, which judge between rights and rights, as well as sharing with the police power the protection of the citizen against domestic violence.
…
But since this institution must possess a monopoly of legal physical force, to give to it in addition any further power is fraught with danger; that monopoly gives to the state so much power that its natural functions should be its maximum functions."

After the fall of the Soviet Union, fusionism continued for a while but during the 2000s started receding. It pretty much no longer exists nowadays.

 

[KenH]

Tariffs that rebalance trade and bring back industries are an excellent start.

I still side with President Ronald Reagan on the subject of tariffs. He did place some narrowly targeted tariffs on Japan, but he was loathed to do even that, for in the long run they hurt American workers and consumers. Here is a five minute radio address President Reagan gave on April 25, 1987:

If standing with people such as Ronald Reagan in support of free markets and free trade make me anachronistic, so be it.

 

[KenH]

People cry Smoot Hawley when the US imposes tariffs but forget that countries imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades have prospered wonderfully.

Would you rather be a consumer in a country that you characterize as "imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades", or a consumer in the United States?

 

[KenH]

Might be time to break dirt on a country farm, grow potatoes and tobacco, get some good mules to pull the plough.

Way back in the 1970s when I was in college, there was a joke among my closest friends about moving to north Arkansas and digging taters.

 

[KenH]

K, so you've spelled out the mess we're in, give some solutions.

My proposal, and I will use rounded numbers to make the math easier, is this:

The yearly deficit is $2 trillion. In year one, reduce spending and/or raise revenue to reduce the yearly deficit by $400 billion to $1.6 trillion. Year two do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $1.2 trillion. Year three do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $800 billion. Year four do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $400 billion. Year five do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $0. And from then on, if the Congress wants to spend more money than current revenue, raise more revenue; or if the Congress wants to reduce revenue below the level of spending, then cut more spending.

 

[Cathode]

I still side with President Ronald Reagan on the subject of tariffs. He did place some narrowly targeted tariffs on Japan, but he was loathed to do even that, for in the long run they hurt American workers and consumers. Here is a five minute radio address President Reagan gave on April 25, 1987:

If standing with people such as Ronald Reagan in support of free markets and free trade make me anachronistic, so be it.

If you practice free market economics and your rivals don’t, you lose and they win.

China had tariffs on America for all the decades America practiced “ Free trade “.

This is why China rose at America’s expense, now China is not just a rival, it’s a threat.

 

[Cathode]

Would you rather be a consumer in a country that you characterize as "imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades", or a consumer in the United States?

So a guy goes into a hardware store when tariffs are 110% on China. The Chinese hammer is $180.
Does the guy say ‘I got to spend all this for a hammer, gee inflation is killing us ‘

No, he buys the hammer next to it, made in a country that has a 10% Tariff on it or better yet, he buys an American made hammer with no tariff on it.
Cheaper alternatives show up on the shelves.

Targeted tariffs don’t have to lead to high inflation.

 

[KenH]

If you practice free market economics and your rivals don’t, you lose and they win.

Incorrect. Would you rather be a consumer in the China or in the United States? The American people have been winning over the Chinese people for decades under free market economics compared to the State Capitalism the government of China practices.

China, Europe, etc., are economic competitors, and to whatever extent that they are economic "threats", it is because the United States has been abandoning free market economics during the 21st century. The way to deal with an economic "threat" is for the United States to stop moving toward larger and more intrusive government as it has been doing during the 21st century, and instead heed the quote by Frank S. Meyer in my post #26 above and the radio speech by President Reagan that I posted in my post #27 above.

 

[KenH]

Targeted tariffs don’t have to lead to high inflation.

The classic definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. Restricting trade restricts the amount of goods, so unless the amount of money is also restricted, prices will rise.

This talk about making more stuff in the United States is ignoring that, currently, it takes years to erect a factory and staff it; plus this talk is ignoring the fact that new factories would not be operated by a massive human workforce, but by AI and its robots, with only whatever workforce it required to keep them operating. New factories are not going to be staffed by millions of Americans putting tiny screws into smart phones.

 

[Salty]

I don't think we are talking about the same time I fusion!
I am talking about a fusion ballot where a candidate is on 2 or more party lines.

 

[Cathode]

The classic definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. Restricting trade restricts the amount of goods, so unless the amount of money is also restricted, prices will rise.

This talk about making more stuff in the United States is ignoring that, currently, it takes years to erect a factory and staff it; plus this talk is ignoring the fact that new factories would not be operated by a massive human workforce, but by AI and its robots, with only whatever workforce it required to keep them operating. New factories are not going to be staffed by millions of Americans putting tiny screws into smart phones.

Trump effect returns.

• Apple announced a $600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing and workforce training as it brings additional components of its supply chain and advanced manufacturing back to the U.S. — along with an American manufacturing program to incentivize its suppliers to make their products in the U.S.
• Project Stargate, led by Japan-based Softbank and U.S.-based OpenAI and Oracle, announced a $500 billion private investment in U.S.-based artificial intelligence infrastructure.
• NVIDIA, a global chipmaking giant, announced it will invest $500 billion in U.S.-based AI infrastructure over the next four years amid its pledge to manufacture AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time.
• Micron Technology, the sole U.S.-based manufacturer of advanced memory chips, announced a $200 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing and production of advanced memory chips — including construction of a second chip fabrication facility in Boise, Idaho, and modernizing its Manassas, Virginia, facility.
• IBM announced a $150 billion investment over the next five years in its U.S.-based growth and manufacturing operations.
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced a $100 billion investment in U.S.-based chips manufacturing.
• Johnson & Johnson announced a $55 billion investment over the next four years in manufacturing, research and development, and technology — including a $2 billion dedicated manufacturing facility at the FUJIFILM site in Holly Springs, North Carolina.
• AstraZeneca announced a $50 billion investment for medicines manufacturing and research in the U.S.
• Roche, a Swiss drug and diagnostics company, announced a $50 billion investment in U.S.-based manufacturing and research and development, which is expected to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs and more than 12,000 jobs including construction.
• Bristol Myers Squibb announced a $40 billion investment over the next five years in its research, development, technology, and U.S.-based manufacturing operations.
• Amazon announced a $20 billion investment to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Pennsylvania, creating at least 1,250 new high-skilled jobs, a $10 billion investment to build new data centers in North Carolina, and has committed to a $4 billion investment in small towns across America, creating more than 100,000 new jobs and driving opportunities across the country.
• Eli Lilly and Company announced a $27 billion investment to more than double its domestic manufacturing capacity.
• Vantage Data Centers announced a $25 billion investment to build a mega-scale 1.4GW data center campus in Shackelford County, Texas — which will employ more than 5,000 people across construction and ongoing operations.
• United Arab Emirates-based ADQ and U.S.-based Energy Capital Partners announced a $25 billion investment in U.S. data centers and energy infrastructure.
• Google announced a $25 billion investment in data center and AI infrastructure.
• Blackstone announced a $25 billion investment in digital and energy infrastructure across Pennsylvania.
• Novartis, a Swiss drugmaker, announced a $23 billion investment to build or expand ten manufacturing facilities across the U.S., which will create 4,000 new jobs.
• Hyundai announced a $21 billion U.S.-based investment — including $5.8 billion for a new steel plant in Louisiana, which will create nearly 1,500 jobs.
  • Hyundai also secured an equity investment and agreement from Posco Holdings, South Korea’s top steel maker.
  • Hyundai later increased its total U.S.-based investment to $26 billion.
• John Deere announced plans to invest $20 billion over the next decade in American expansion, production, and manufacturing.
• United Arab Emirates-based DAMAC Properties announced a $20 billion investment in new U.S.-based data centers.
• France-based CMA CGM, a global shipping giant, announced a $20 billion investment in U.S. shipping and logistics, creating 10,000 new jobs.
• Sanofi announced it will invest at least $20 billion over the next five years in manufacturing and research and development.
• Venture Global LNG announced an $18 billion investment at its liquefied natural gas facility in Louisiana.
• GlobalFoundaries announced a $16 billion investment to boost its U.S.-based chip production, including expanding existing plants in New York and Vermont.
• FirstEnergy Corp. announced a $15 billion investment in infrastructure enhancements.
• Stellantis announced a $13 billion investment in the U.S. — the largest single investment in the company’s history — to expand its U.S.-based production by over 50%.

 

[Cathode]

• Gilead Sciences announced an $11 billion boost to its planned U.S.-based manufacturing investment.
• AbbVie announced a $10 billion investment over the next ten years to support volume growth and add four new manufacturing plants to its network — including a $195 million investment to expand its U.S.-based drug production capacity.
• Merck & Co. announced it will invest a total of $9 billion in the U.S. over the next several years after opening a new $1 billion North Carolina manufacturing facility — including in a new state-of-the-art biologics manufacturing plant in Delaware, which will create at least 500 new jobs.
• PPL announced a $6.8 billion investment to expand grid capacity and modernize transmission.
• CoreWeave, Inc., announced a $6 billion investment in data center expansion.
• Westinghouse announced a $6 billion investment to build ten large nuclear reactors in the U.S.
• Pratt Industries announced a $5 billion investment to create 5,000 new manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
• South Korea-based Hanwha Group announced a $5 billion infrastructure investment at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard to boost local shipbuilding.
• GlobalWafers, a Taiwanese silicon wafer manufacturer, announced a $4 billion investment in its U.S.-based production.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific announced it will invest an additional $2 billion over the next four years to enhance and expand its U.S. manufacturing operations and strengthen its innovation efforts.
• Clarios announced a $6 billion plan to expand its domestic manufacturing operations.
• Belgium-based drugmaker UCB announced a $5 billion investment in a new U.S.-based factory.
• Ford announced it will invest $5 billion across its Kentucky and Michigan manufacturing plants to deliver a new midsize truck and advanced batteries.
• General Motors announced it will invest $4 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing as it shifts more vehicle production from Mexico to the U.S., including in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee.
• Mitsubishi announced a $3.9 billion investment in energy.
• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a leader in biotechnology, announced a $3 billion agreement with Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies to produce drugs at its North Carolina manufacturing facility.
• Kraft Heinz announced a $3 billion investment to upgrade its U.S. factories — its largest investment in its plants in decades.

 

[Cathode]

More Trump onshoring and jobs.

• GE Appliances announced a $3 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing, onshoring 1,000 jobs and expanding its plants across five states.
• NorthMark Strategies, a multi-strategy investment firm, announced a $2.8 billion investment to build a supercomputing facility in South Carolina.
• Biogen announced a $2 billion investment in North Carolina-based manufacturing.
• Mars, Inc., announced a $2 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing operations.
• Kimberly-Clark announced a $2 billion investment to expand its U.S. manufacturing operations, including a new advanced manufacturing facility in Warren, Ohio, an expansion of its Beech Island, South Carolina, facility, and other upgrades to its supply chain network.
• Chobani, a Greek yogurt giant, announced $1.7 billion to expand its U.S. operations.
  • $1.2 billion to build its third U.S. dairy processing plant in New York, which is expected to create more than 1,000 new full-time jobs.
  • $500 million to expand its Idaho manufacturing plant.
• Corning announced it is expanding its Michigan manufacturing facility investment to $1.5 billion, adding 400 new high-paying advanced manufacturing jobs for a total of 1,500 new jobs.
• First Solar announced the inauguration of its $1.1 billion high-tech manufacturing facility in Louisiana, which projected to directly employ over 800 people.
• Carrier announced an additional $1 billion investment in its U.S. manufacturing, innovation, and workforce expansion, which is expected to create 4,000 new jobs.
• GE Aerospace announced a $1 billion investment in manufacturing across 16 states — creating 5,000 new jobs.
• Hikma Pharmaceuticals announced a $1 billion investment to expand its U.S.-based manufacturing and research capabilities.
• Anduril Industries announced a $1 billion investment for a new autonomous weapon system facility in Ohio.
• Live Nation Entertainment announced a $1 billion investment to build 18 new live music venues across the U.S.

 

[Cathode]

Still going.

• Williams International announced a $1 billion investment for a new high-volume aviation gas turbine engine manufacturing facility in Okaloosa County, Florida.
• Amgen announced a $900 million investment in its Ohio-based manufacturing operation.
• Merck Animal Health announced an $895 million investment to expand their manufacturing operations in Kansas.
• General Motors announced an $888 million investment at its propulsion plant in Tonawanda, New York.
• Schneider Electric announced it will invest $700 million over the next four years in U.S. energy infrastructure.
• GE Vernova announced it will invest nearly $600 million in U.S. manufacturing over the next two years, which will create more than 1,500 new jobs.
• Abbott Laboratories announced a $500 million investment in its Illinois and Texas facilities.
• AIP Management, a European infrastructure investor, announced a $500 million investment to solar developer Silicon Ranch.
• Jabil announced a $500 million investment in manufacturing and AI data center infrastructure across the southeastern U.S.
• Hitachi announced a $457 million investment in a new power transformer facility in Virginia.
• Wistron Corp, a Taiwanese electronics and AI server manufacturer, announced a $455 million
• London-based Diageo announced a $415 million investment in a new Alabama manufacturing facility.
• Lego announced a $366 million investment to build a new distribution center in Prince George County, Virginia.
• The Bel Group announced a $350 million investment to expand its U.S.-based production, including at its South Dakota, Idaho and Wisconsin facilities — which will create 250 new jobs.
• Dublin-based Eaton Corporation announced a $340 million investment in a new South Carolina-based manufacturing facility for its three-phase transformers.
• Anheuser-Busch announced a $300 million investment in its manufacturing facilities across the country.
• Whirlpool Corporation announced a $300 million investment in its U.S. laundry manufacturing facilities.

 

[KenH]

I don't think we are talking about the same time I fusion!
I am talking about a fusion ballot where a candidate is on 2 or more party lines.

Yes, I know. As I said, I don't really have an opinion on fusion ballots.