The White House has put itself and the country in a bad situation but doesn’t realize it yet.
Around April 10th China to USA trade shut down.
It takes ~30 days for containers to go from China to LA.
45 to Houston by sea, 45 to Chicago by train.
55 to New York by sea.
That means that there are no economic effects of what was done on April 10th until about May 10th.
Around that time (it’s already started to happen) trucking work is going to dry up. Warehouses will start doing layoffs because no labor is needed to unload containers and some products will be out of stock, reducing the need for shipping labor.
All this will start in the Los Angeles area.
After about 2 weeks, it’ll start hitting Chicago and Houston.
Let’s say the White House, after 3 weeks, changes its mind, on May 31st.
“This isn’t working out like we thought it would. Tariffs back to 0.”
Let’s say China says “bygones be bygones, we’ll go back to how things were”.
Let’s say every factory in China that got screwed by their orders being cancelled says the same thing “no problem, we’ll make and ship”.
The problem is, even under the most favorable conditions of China and the factories restarting economic ties as though nothing happened, it will be at least another 30 days before economic activity is revived.
And that’s just in LA.
In Chicago/Houston, you’ll need to wait another 45 days.
New York, at that point, will still be getting containers from before April 10th, they will then have 50 days (May 31 minus April 10) of zero economic activity at the ports, in trucking of Chinese goods, in warehousing.
The whole situation is a bit like lockdowns. Once you shut down, it takes a long time to get economic activity back to where it was, if you ever can.
And again, this assumes, that China and its factories, which make things you can’t buy elsewhere, will start right back up again as though nothing happened, which is unlikely.
It’s almost like we’re speeding towards a brick wall but the driver of the car doesn’t see it yet.
By the time he does, it’ll be too late to hit the brakes.
So I am guessing something like this happened:
1. Jeff Bezos called Trump and told him 70% of the stuff sold on Amazon will go up in price by 100% next week.
2. Tim Cook called Trump and said iPhones are going up in price by 100% next week.
3. Michael Dell called Trump and said all laptops and PCs will go up in price by 100% next week.
White House realised that US economy is about to implode, US dollar is crashing, bond yields are going off the chart, and inflation is about to skyrocket.
They went and rolled back the majority of Chinese tariffs over the weekend with tails between their legs.
Every country can now see that the tariffs are a blank bluff with zero strategy.
Every company is now 100% sure that moving production to the US is a complete waste of time because the tariffs policy is completely unreliable and extremely volatile.
A giant L being taken after implementing a policy that nobody actually thought through.
What was the actual point?
No jobs have come back. No factories were built. Trade imbalance remains exactly where it was. Borrowing costs for the US increased. And business relationships with the rest of the world got destroyed for no apparent reason.
I have a 100% trade deficit with the lady that irons my suits.
She offers something way more efficiently and at a much better price than I can do myself.
And in exchange, I spend the time I would otherwise be wasting on pressing my suits offering financial services at 1,000x the hourly GDP rate as I paid her to afford me this time.
Am I getting ripped off by her?
Should I start steaming my own suits instead of offering financial services?
Would that make me better off?
Would I be richer because of it?
Anyone who believes that the housing crisis is caused by Federal land holdings is certifiably brain dead. These evil bastards will happily sell our national parks to developers just to make a few bucks for their buddies.
We need 7 million affordable homes in America and 20% of America’s landmass is owned by the Department of Interior.
Today, @SecretaryBurgum and I are announcing a partnership between @HUDgov & @Interior to identify and open under utilized federal lands for affordable housing.
Idaho teacher ordered to remove signs saying "Everyone Is Welcome Here!"
School district lawyer said because the hands pictured were different skin tones, "not everyone would agree they are welcome."
Adding, "In today’s political environment, it's considered a personal opinion ."
The West Ada School Board voted that her signs violate the policy requiring "classroom content to be neutral."
Sarah Imana has taught world civilization to 6th graders at Lewis and Clark Middle School for 4 years without having any parent complain about her signs.
She is currently fighting the school district—refusing to take down her welcome signs.
"I would literally take a bullet for my kids," she said.
#DemVoice1 #wtpBLUE #DemsUnited
"You fear to go into those mines. The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... shadow and flame."
"Sunday Morning" senior contributor Ted Koppel visits the battlefield at Gettysburg, where a "war on memory" continues to be waged. https://t.co/YPwG5a8laf
@CandicePierucci Won't anyone think of the rich people sending their kids to expensive private schools! The UEA is a cynical and brazen scheme to transfer money from public school budgets to the rich. Hopefully the lawsuit is successful.