I am very much on the fence on this one. I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, based on having been in manufacturing across various industries for over thirty years, that the US and Europe have been on a path to loose nearly all manufacturing capacity within ten years, maybe twenty at best.

How do we compare the pain (and yes, some destruction) that we have to endure today against the devastation that is clearly in the horizon for both regions within a decade or two?

To be sure, what's going on today should have been done twenty to thirty years ago. Doing this today is far more difficult and painful.

I think Kevin O'Leary put it best: What we want a reasonably free markets. It isn't just about tariffs. It's about regulatory lockout, intellectual property and more.

For example, India imposes as much as a 110% tariff on US cars and trucks. The list of such actions --which also included non-tariff rules-based restrictions-- is long. From China imposing up to 25% on our cars, autos, chemicals and food to the EU, Canada, Mexico and others following suit. Brazil collected over $800 million in retaliatory tariffs blocking US pharmaceuticals, autos and textiles.

In other words, the relationship with hundreds of countries has been very one-sided for a long time. US industry needs to export to thrive, but if countries like Turkey impose 140% tariffs on our autos and trucks, markets are de-facto shut down.

How long can any country survive this kind of inequity?

So, yeah, this is a rough moment. I hope it is for the best. Everyone benefits from a more open and balanced market.

And then, of course, there's one of the elephants in the room: Intellectual property theft.

Going back to Kevin O'Learly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkdor6_rw4

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=567065763062114

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGFWWqbDwuw

https://www.tmz.com/watch/kevin-o-leary-china-tariffs-04-09-...

It's not a literal point, it's an observation of how far we've come. A single texture blows away 2600 and NES games in size quite handily. The emulation effort for either is a sneeze compared to what we pour into a single frame nowadays. Compared to modern stuff they're both just primitive beyond primitive as far as a modern kid is concerned.

And as for your second paragraph, it has that thing I don't understand that so many people seem to have in their brains that if you explain why a thing is true, it is no longer true. I do not understand it. Explaining why they haven't moved on does not suddenly make it so they have moved on. They haven't moved on. Best of luck to them but I doubt it's going to work very well as a strategy in 2025 any more than it did in the 1980s.

Bad decision.

> Javice asked an “outside data scientist” to fabricate a list of customers when the bank asked for proof of Frank’s user data, -NBC

If they had 3 million fake accounts and didn’t catch the fraud, then they were in on it.

It’s a great deal. If the company does well, everyone wins. If it doesn’t, then you already know you can claim fraud.

At that point it’s not fraud.

Do you want to retire?

Capitalism works this way because its customers, the investors, want it to work this way, because growth is how you get compound interest. Investors include anyone with an interest bearing bank deposit, a 401k, stocks, bonds, etc.

No growth means it would no longer be possible for an investment to appreciate.

I think of a similar thing when I see people complaining about how companies don't want to pay good wages. When you go shopping do you buy the $10 product or the $5 essentially equivalent alternative? Most people will buy the $5 one. If you do that, you're putting downward pressure on wages.

It's in your (purely economic) best interest for your wages to be high but everyone else's to be low. That's because when you're a worker you are a seller of labor, while when you're a customer you are an (indirect) buyer of labor.

Everything in economics is like this. Everything is a paradox. Everything is a feedback loop. Every transaction has two parties, and in some cases you are both parties depending on what "hat" you are wearing at the moment.

How does Valve put out one of the worst releases of all time in Artifact and not get dragged through the coals ever for it? The only working strategy Valve has succeeded in running in the last 10 years is making passive income from Steam and that won't last forever.

This is more common in other fields especially in a finance domain.

How to with rental cars?

I don't own and no local insurers will offer me non-owner insurance. I have to get the crappy expensive insurance at the rental car desk.