Your emerging manifesto goes far beyond the topics in this Tariff thread; I'd suggest a new thread for discussion and for others to add/edit as Ron did.
I didn’t chastise him. I said I’m glad he came to his senses. Numerous times. Meanwhile you guys can’t admit his original approach was a near-disastrous mistake. Even though he basically has, by reversing it.
I'm not President of the United States. Nor an economist. I just read a lot. My plan would probably look something like cutting the corporate tax rate, tax incentives for locating manufacturing here, surgical tariffs on certain well-studied well-thought out products that we can make here cost-effectively and that it makes sense to make here from a necessity/national security standpoint. That would be more products than we put tariffs on now, but would never be every single product from almost every country in the world. Because some cheap products from other countries actually HELP US manufacturers more than hurt them. To be more specific I'd have to do a lot more study but thankfully there are plenty of really bright, well-educated people in this world who could figure out the details and not just blurt out the first thing that comes to their mind causing global markets panic and immediate inflation.
We don't have the labor force or the access to all of the raw materials to ever do that. Let me know when your children, nieces and nephews want to quit their tech or finance jobs and go work in a cobalt or lithium mine.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of college graduates are actually working in a career that they got their degree in. For decades kids in this country have been programmed that they must go to college in order to be something in life, while high schools eliminated vo-tech programs.
There is currently a labor shortage in many skilled labor jobs that pay more than retail. My hubby's in the energy business, electricity linemen make over $100,000/year plus benefits, but the workforce is retiring and they can't fill the jobs. My brother's in commercial construction, same thing.
And that is the fault of our school system and stigmatizing honest work as a career.
Whatever it's the fault of is beside the point. People work retail jobs for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's a stopgap measure. Sometimes they are still students. Sometimes it's part time in addition to another job. Most people who work continuously over a lifetime don't stay in $12.00/hour jobs forever.
I'm wondering if their motivator is to circumvent demand for domestic drilling. Once the environmental movement is back in office, foreign production will go down again and very little if any domestic production will happen.
And this right here is why we are where we are. Everyone wants the riches, few have the desire to actually earn it.
Only fans and other sex work aside, working in social media is a pretty sweet gig if you can get it.
We can just bring them hear to work.
W tried to implement a guest worker program, the unions weren't going to allow that to happen. Maybe there would be more of an appetite for it now, who knows. The point is we don't currently have what we need to move large swaths of manufacturing back to this country. Hence, businesses won't do it unless there are big financial incentives to do it. Are there potential solutions? Maybe. But they are structural issues that will take decades if not generations to move.
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Honda considers switching some car production to US from Mexico, Canada, Nikkei reports
Bangkok International Motor Show · Reuters
Reuters
2 min read
TOKYO (Reuters) -Honda is considering switching some car production from Mexico and Canada to the United States, aiming for 90% of cars sold in the country to be made locally in response to new U.S. auto tariffs, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Japan's second-biggest automaker by sales plans to increase U.S. vehicle production by as much as 30% over two to three years in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to put a 25% levy on imported vehicles, Nikkei said.
Honda declined to comment, saying the information was not announced by the company.
In the weeks before the new U.S. levy went into effect, Reuters had already reported that Honda plans to make its next-generation Civic hybrid in the U.S. state of Indiana, instead of Mexico, to avoid potential tariffs.
The U.S. was Honda's biggest market last year, accounting for nearly 40% of global sales. The automaker sold 1.4 million vehicles, including Acura models, in the U.S. last year. It imported about two-fifths of those cars from Canada or Mexico.
Canadian federal Innovation Minister Anita Anand said on social media network X that Honda has "communicated that no such production decisions affecting Canadian operations have been made," adding that she would be meeting with the CEO of Honda Canada.
Honda posted a 5% rise in U.S. sales to almost 352,000 vehicles in the first three months of this year.
The company will move production of the CR-V SUV from Canada to the U.S. and that of the HR-V SUV from Mexico to the world's biggest economy, according to Nikkei.
To increase output, Honda is considering hiring more U.S. workers, the newspaper said. Such a step would make it possible for Honda to switch to a three-shift system from two-shift work and extend production to weekends, Nikkei added.
Local production is the best case for both countries.
Yes, it's better for Canada to import less Hondas.
Quite the unbiased source there. Even discounting that, it is an OPINION piece. Everyone has different opinions
For America maybe, but without being able to export cars from Canada to the US, it would likely not be financially feasible in Canada. If a car company could make it with just domestic Canadian sales, they would already have Canadian car companies manufacturing cars for the general population. The production they do have are all specialized niche market vehicles. Maybe they could morph a company or two to make up the vacuum created.