Trade war starts
Source

Currently it is starting in a small way although some companies in niche markets will be hit hard. If Trump continues to escalate as he has threatened then it will get serious for the health of global economy.

Edit; Toyota says the Camry will cost $1,800 more to make if the Trump administration goes through with an auto tariff.
Toyota did not say how much of the cost it would pass on to customers. But it called the possible tariff "just a tax on consumers" and said it would "increase the cost of every vehicle sold in the country."

Toyota makes the Camry, the nation's best-selling sedan, in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Source

"Plans to fly a giant inflatable figure depicting Donald Trump as a baby over London during the US president's visit have been approved."



https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...732754?SThisFB

Tom

To be fair, it's a bit pointless. The thousands of £££ they raised could have been used for something that actually matters.

Of course it is.

Things have become ridiculously cheap and rising prices would actually be realistic - but the additionally charged money should go into wages, where they belong, not into government coffers.

Agreed, it's completely reactionary. It almost makes the people of London appear to be more baby-like than Trump himself...with a big emphasis on almost.

I don't think they've yet grasped that the best thing the people of London could do is just ignore him and go about their daily routine. That costs nothing.

Being ignored is Trump's Achilles heel and it's a piece of cake to achieve.

And the minute hand moves ever closer to nuclear midnight...



source:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-carrier-south


But don't worry, it's obvious to anyone but a fool that a trade war would be a war of attrition and that the US would lose anyway, right? right?

That's what it means to reduce the government, it was and is one of Trump's core points. Cut some, make the remainder completely ineffective and "prove" the reduction was a good thing from the start.

The fact that this includes reducing bureaucracy that controls other parts of the government is of course just an unfortunate side-effect

His proposed budget contained many more cuts, expect a lot more to come.

Whatever else may apply, he's acting on his campaign promise.

I have one word (or is it two?) for Trump:

Smoot-Hawley.

If his aim by instigating a trade war based on tariffs is to create the "Greatest Depression, the biggest, the most unbelievably YUUUGE economic disaster in America's (and the world's) history", he's going about it the right way.

After WWI, people said it was such a disastrous, all-consuming war, the biggest of all time, that they referred to the conflict as the Great War. Such a war could never occur again. Twenty years later, along came WWII.

The Great Depression, extensively prolonged and exacerbated by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, occurred nearly 90 years ago. Barely anybody alive remembers it; I just hope that someone of influence in Trump's inner circle recalls their lectures in undergraduate economics and takes action to prevent the Great Depression II.

It's always easier to predict the past than it is to predict the future.

It is an interesting academic quetion to ask, to what extent did the crash of 1929 set into motion events that made WW2 inevitable?

In reality causes and events are much more compliacted than this, and simplistic dioagrams such as this provide easy and not always helpful answers to complicated questions.

Currency devaluation for example, has been used extensively especially by weaker economies to stay afloat in difficult times. It's not something that should be taken lightly, but it does not always lead to escalation or war. Currencies such as the Italian Lira for example had so many zeroes precisely because of multiple devaluations. Arguably, being in the Euro reduces a country's ability to devalue, which is part of the reason countries such as Greece and Spain came so close to the brink not long ago.

I read recently that the US built car with the highest proportion of US made components/parts is a Honda.

What tariffs can be imposed that will hurt Trump Inc the most?

golf-balls?

#MAGA hats

He did not win!
The judge wrote "the case dismissed on the grounds that none of the communication was alleged to have taken place in D.C.; the plaintiffs had not successfully tied the Trump campaign to Washington, D.C., where the district court was located.

"It bears emphasizing that this Court’s ruling is not based on a finding that there was no collusion between defendants and Russia during the 2016 presidential election," wrote Segal Huvelle, " The Court takes no position on the merits of plaintiffs’ claims."

Source

I still cannot get used to the fact that a day cannot pass without the US President telling at least one major lie. Horrible to imagine what US politics will look like in the future

Surely N. Korea would not play the putative Nobel Peace Prize winner?

Source

On the other hand Pompeo offered a differing view of the two days of talks, telling reporters that the conversations were “productive,” "in good faith," and that “a great deal of progress” had been made

N. Korea is playing a long game here. When they talk about ‘total denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula they mean a TOTAL denuclearisation. They give up theirs and the US removes its nuclear weapons as well.

We know from the New Zealand nuclear ban that the US Navy refuses, and continues to refuse, to identify which of its vessels are carrying Nuclear Weapons. And they aren’t too likely to allow N. Korean (or third countries accepted by N. Korea) inspections. Same for Army, Marine and Air Force bases on the Peninsula.

So how can TOTAL denuclearisation take place? Only if the US withdraws all of its armed forces from S. Korea.

Trump, et al. have been sucked in. Their thinking is that TOTAL means all of theirs, while the N. Koreans will insist it means EVERYBODY ‘s.

Trump is desperate for a N. Korea "win" and will give away everything to achieve this to try to demonstrate he is better than previous US presidents.
He already cancelled joint military exercises with S. Korea and got nothing in return!

The N. Koreans know this and are playing him.

Now Trump wants a one to one meeting with Putin who will fillet Trump like a fish.

The attempts by the Trump administration to reunite children with their parents has demonstrated their casual approach to proper record keeping.

It has become clear that they have no clue where the children of some parents are actually located or even how many children they have seperated from their parents.

It has also been revealed that some parents have been deported without their children and there is now no process to keep track of where these parents are

Source

Did I post before "you could not make this stuff up"?

Taking credit

Anyway he does not plan to reunite them with their parents

"We have had a very productive meeting this morning with Dictator Putin and have secured an agreement whereby Russia will take on the long term costs of storing the entire nuclear arsenal of U.S.A. (TM) Putin has promised me that all our nukes will be available at 5 minutes notice. We begin shipping our nukes today, you wouldn't see Hilary or Obama signing a deal like this!'

Re, NK, surprise, surprise, I think only the Spanky supporters were fooled by that dog and pony show, 'winning' I believe they call it, which means he didn't actually shit his pants.

It's fascinating though, I often wondered how the Kim, the Pol Pots, the Stalins and Mussolinis of the world got into power, now we have ringside seats at a reenactment.