The whole thing strikes me as a bunch of nepobaby/fake academic/banker bro advisors who have no idea how the physical world works. As much as I think Musk is a bad actor at this point, talking to him about supply chains would have highlighted how insane this whole plan was from day 1.
My dad is a retired EE who dealt with the 90s offshoring wave and described the process of spinning up offshore production with a new supplier/factor/product as a 1-2 year process.
Now imagine every producer with China exposure trying to do this at the same time dealing with the same limited ex-China options? Nothing was happening in the 90 day pause, let alone before the 2026 midterms or before the end of his reign in 2028.
Complete chaos for American companies who are left with no good options other than try to wait it out, and pass on excess cost to consumers in interim.
It’s pure stupidity and most people don’t even realize it. Last night I met a couple at a country club where I was a guest - one of those $100k/yr places - and they asked me if my trade partners are charging me more with the tariffs. I told them the U.S. government is charging me more with the tariffs and my trade partners are charging me more because the value of the dollar is down. This was the first time anyone told them it’s the importer who pays the tariff and that it will be passed to the customer in multiples to maintain the same profit margin. Man, to be wealthy enough to be a member at a place like that and to be able to live in ignorant bliss… What a life.
This is why I don't know if he will/would actually hold fast through the turbulence of actually implementing anything he's threatened.
Once we eat through inventories and stuff that left the ports & currently on the water, prices will go up.
The country went insane when inflation crossed 5%, are we really going to do it again.. when the reason for it will be so singularly obvious?
Whilst the reason may be singularly obvious to those who consume various forms and sources of media, there's likely enough people that only consume re-published whitehouse press releases and the trump administration probably already has an alternative explanation that they'll use for these increased prices.
And their target market will eat it up and ask for seconds.
Like a doomsday cult, with each failed prediction they will just keep pushing back the ostensible payoff. So far, we've seen "I will end inflation on day one" -> "this is still Biden's inflation" -> "there will be a little bit of pain" -> "the system has been broken for decades and it will take years to fix".
> The country went insane when inflation crossed 5%
This is actually one of the few reasons I'm hopeful for the next election (assuming we still get one) - last time, regardless of the root cause, the country blamed those in power right then.
I have seen country clubs only in movies. Do those places really exist and are they as stereotypical as one might expect?
It’s not like Caddyshack. At least not this one. There’s golf, tennis, pools, a restaurant, bars, etc. It’s the kind of place where you will see PGA Tour guys hanging around and a few other high profile people. A lot of people are driving cars that cost more than my house. Everyone is pretty chill, but it’s top 1% kind of people in their natural habitat. It’s like a little bubble detached from reality.
They really exist. There are lots. I went to one in Dallas as a guest once. Sure as hell not my scene.
We have an entire generation of mid-level management types who have never experienced any form of adversity or even challenge, and have mistaken their privilege for talent, and they are every single bit as prone to falling into filter bubbles as the rest of us, but when you are that privileged, nobody around you will ever explain "no, uh, you are very wrong".
The dirty secret that nobody talks about is that the vast majority of our rich people are literally in filter bubbles of their own making and are disconnected entirely from reality. Like really bad ones too, not anything interesting, just generic Fox News based ones.