I specifically looked it up just to be sure, John Deere does have multiple factories in China and a good amount of their website wording includes “assembled in USA”, sort of like cars and appliances and a lot of things, usually to get around existing tariffs and import duties. They do also have factories in Germany, Mexico, india, and of course multiple in the USA, but I kept it simple for the sake of the explanation, because China also does produce a lot of soybeans as well.

It’s way, way more than that. Specialization and comparative advantage underpins the entire globalized economy which is the only way to allow us to get more for the same amount of labor. Without it, we simply regress. US farmers grow soybeans so that Chinese manufactures can make the tractors to allow the US farmers to grow the soybeans, and that only works with free trade. And in this scenario there is no one else making a tractor for anywhere near the same cost, and no one else who can grow such a large volume of soybeans, otherwise the trade probably wouldn’t be happening in the first place. And so the alternative is that both countries have to make both independently. And that is more expensive without the efficiencies of economy of scale, more expensive because of lower supply because we don’t have the capacity to produce that many tractors and China can’t grow that many soybeans, and more expensive because of the infrastructure costs being duplicated and spread out over less units.

And so we both end up with less tractors and less food that are more expensive. Now add in petrochemical fertilizers imported from Canada, steel and coal for the metal used in the tractor imported from Australia, all the industries that support them also getting caught into this, and where every one of those companies is tied into their regional, national, and the global economy. And that is just for tractors and soybeans.

We trade for almost everything. And every single item that we trade, we do so because it is cheaper than making it ourselves. Tariffs are an artificial tax on efficiency, and we are literally less prosperous with them in place. Some things are a matter of national security, of not allowing a foreign government leverage over your society, but we’re talking about his genius plan to put tariffs on literally fucking everything - soybeans and tractors, but also clothing, toys, electronics, appliances, vehicles, on and on and on. And a tariff on it will increase the price, because that is just how economics works.

Thanks for the advice, Kristi Noem.

The sad part is that I would hesitate to even call it a social program either - it’s the bare fucking minimum. It’s just taking the money that you paid into it and paying it back out to you later in life. It provides some financial structure and stability to those who otherwise would not have it, and that’s important, sure. But considering that this is height of our vital government social programs, then the bar is already so pathetically low. This is fighting to keep the scraps when private industry is already milking us for healthcare, education, public transit, utilities, etc, etc, etc, and it’s pitiful that we have to fight to even keep this.

50 years ago during the Cold War the economic trajectory of the two wasn’t so different, and pakistan also included what would become Bangladesh. Nixon was opening relations with China after the sino Soviet split, and India probably wouldn’t agree to ally with someone who was in the process of economically integrating with a country that they were actively fighting a border war with (sino Indian border war 1962-present). Pre Iranian revolution Iran was also a major ally and shares a significant land border with Pakistan, and probably most importantly, Pakistan was an ideal country to serve as a funnel for military assistance to the mujahideen to help fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which would arguably lead to the economic drain and political quagmire that was a primary factor in its collapse.

Of course the mujahideen would then evolve to become Al Qaeda which Pakistan would harbor, Iran would have its revolution, Bangladesh would gain independence, and the Pakistani military dictatorship would squander the potential of their country on a nuclear program and trying to maintain an army of equal strength to a country 10x their population. But the choice had a lot more geopolitical merit way back then, and once it had been made it is not so easy as forgive and forget or to counter the logistical inertia just because the circumstances change.

Because heat pumps are popular now, and the government is helping people pay for them through inflation reduction act rebates. So they can jack up the price and price gouge the shit out of us, because they know they can and know that they will get away with it. And I bet they were never popular because the same people selling home AC units also sell gas powered furnaces for home heating. So they charge you for two appliances and two installations, with two maintenance calls every time something goes wrong and two upgrade cycles. But now that they come as one unit, they still have to find some way to return more money to shareholders than last quarter so the price goes up.

I just got whole home AC replaced with a heat pump with an integrated furnace backup because it can get very cold here, and also had all my baseboard heaters ripped out. Perfectly fine in the winter and it has freed up at least 1/4 of all my walls to have stuff right up against them if I so choose, but really annoyed that the whole thing costed $20k when it could and should have been built this way 60 years ago. Not to mention all the inefficiency of burning gas for heat when heat pumps move more energy than they consume, multiplied across decades for nearly every building on the planet.

Flip flopping implies indecision regardless of validity of fact and switching without good reason. If there is good reason to switch, then it is simply making an informed decision. People who don’t change their stance when presented with convincing evidence to the contrary are cultists.

I see that as offering services that people clearly use and value, and that the bills have to be paid somehow. So as long as proton can deliver the privacy and security features it promises, I personally don’t see anything wrong with providing an alternative when the only other options are built on monetizing your data.

Power, water, internet, healthcare, education, transit, there’s a lot of things that should be public utilities or at least with a convincing public option because of the clear conflict of interest between private corporations and social benefit, but aren’t, because money controls politics.

The peak of irony considering the porn age ID verification laws and abortion bans they impose on people living in the states they control.

Idk what to tell you then, cause it’s still up for me. Don’t know if it’s geo blocked, but I’m in the US where it would be most likely to be blocked by NBC

The video is the post itself, not in the comments

Unfortunately Reddit is still one of the best and easiest ways to find stuff like this - here is the full performance

Did they stutter?

One of my best fried chicken experiences was a $5 fried chicken buffet somewhere in rural Kentucky near Lincoln’s birth home.

The midwest has always been pretty centrist at least within living memory, usually split right down the middle. It only ever gave the impression of heavily republican leaning because they’ve been gerrymandered to shit. Wisconsin in particular has been ratfucked by redistricting - both a democratic governor in 2018 and Biden in 2020 won because those are state wide votes, but as of 2022 the state legislature is 66% republican while only having won 53% of the popular vote in that election.

They can. They just need to pay a little more. We’re talking 25 pence per liter at most compared to no sugar tax. Higher sugar intake is correlated with obesity which means more health problems which is more expense for the NHS. It’s like a train ticket or gas taxes or taxes in general, some percentage of usage that causes the problem needs to pay for the thing that deals with the consequences or expenses that solve it.

It’s the companies who have decided that they would rather sell shit soda, and consumers who are probably unwilling to pay anything except the cheapest price possible - wealth inequality and poverty problems aside because that’s a different social policy that should not be addressed through a sugar tax.

NOBODY LOOK

Just the robot dogs for now, but I’m sure they’ll be first in line when the tech is available.

To give you an idea of who is on the tesla board of directors, it includes Kimbal Musk, his brother, and James Murdoch, of the Murdoch family you’re probably thinking of. Musk himself owns something like 20% of the company, the board owns some, his cult members also have some share. The rest of the shareholders are either institutional or retail investors who are some combination of not willing to rock the boat, don’t have enough voting power, and/or just don’t care.