New US camera import tariffs - 25-50%

[Ilkka Nissila]

11 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

Stock market had a massive surge after most of the tariffs were paused. Imagine how much money you could make if you knew that would happen 30 minutes before it did.

It's generally fascinating how much wealth is created or destroyed with no change in goods or services produced.

Trump did tell people on his social media platform before the reduction of the tariffs for most countries that now is a good time to buy. People who had invested in the stock market but also had debt were in some cases forced to sell their stock (since their loan was going to be greater than the value of their stock) and lost money at the worst moment, but those people with spare money could sell stock before trump announced the tariffs and buy at the moment just before the tariffs were reduced. I bet many of Trump's billionaire friends did just that. It's a way of swindling the majority of what they had into the hands of the few who already had a lot.

[Ilkka Nissila]

9 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Nope.  Are you an American?  I feel anyone with a grasp of the culture here wouldn't be quite so obtuse.  Then again, weird times.

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions. I did live in the US for two years, but things weren't then how they are now. And it was in Massachusetts, so that may not count.

 

I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich, nor can I see any benefit in voting in favor of policies of the current US government (including stock manipulation but also in general, high tariffs).

[KnightsFan]

10 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions. I did live in the US for two years, but things weren't then how they are now. And it was in Massachusetts, so that may not count.

 

I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich, nor can I see any benefit in voting in favor of policies of the current US government (including stock manipulation but also in general, high tariffs).

I wrote a similar post earlier, maybe in this thread, but a hurdle to overcome in the US is that a significant portion of our population believes that the more credentials a person has, the less trustworthy they are. This includes professors, reporters, researchers, and other experts. It applies especially to those in academia or have higher education.

If the head of the IRS with 20 years of experience says that more auditors leads to more revenue, and explains how auditors find discrepancies and why it takes time, and shows historical data to back it up, many Americans will automatically believe the opposite. If an anonymous dude in a Dinesh D'Souza doc says that a person he can't identify dumped 20 extra ballots in a mailbox, it's believed--not in spite of lack of rationality, but because of it.

This isn't without analogy in the rest of the world. In some way, it's a logical extreme of believing that "street smarts" is better than "book smarts," which is commonly believed in many places, and is true in some situations. However, many Americans are aggressively uneducated, and ideologically see education itself as wrong. ("Education" here means a thought process that uses data and logic to draw conclusions, not knowledge of specific trivia). Personal truths, often derived from religion and specific personalities/influencers, are held to be truer than empiricism, the scientific method, and data, while any appeal to rationality is rejected as part of the deep state conspiracy that every academic is part of.

Once a person intentionally rejects objectivity and rationality, their actions cannot be explained as being out of personal interest. They often actively vote against their personal interest, because their worldview rejects data and analysis.

And, to be clear, there are still rational people here, including many Republicans and conservatives. But we've reached a critical mass of the voting public that we now have elected officials at every level, from local to president, who also reject rationality.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

And about Europe...it is not so far away from the USA insanity as it might appear.

The Le Pens got very close to govern France. The far-right is making inroads on Germany. @Emanuelcould talk about the Andre's Ventura "Chega" party on Portugal. Orbán is already in charge on Hungary, as Erdogan in Turkey. Millei (an idiot as crazy as Trump, or worse) is in charge of Argentina - with 55% below the poverty line. And I already talked about Brazil.

The far-right is a world cancer now.

[Emanuel]

  

2 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

And about Europe...it is not so far away from the USA insanity as it might appear.

The Le Pens got very close to govern France. The far-right is making inroads on Germany. @Emanuelcould talk about the Andre's Ventura "Chega" party on Portugal. Orbán is already in charge on Hungary, as Erdogan in Turkey. Millei (an idiot as crazy as Trump, or worse) is in charge of Argentina - with 55% below the poverty line. And I already talked about Brazil.

The far-right is a world cancer now.

 

Yes indeed, but mainstream politicians also have their dosis to blame. When they don't do their job, opportunists or radical ones easily pop up... Ideology can be dangerous but no less, ineptitude or lack of competence. André Ventura is very talented as I had the chance to change ideas with Francisco Louçã a week ago... This left-wing politician even agreed with me. We who love a free society we are in big trouble to say the least TBH.

Here is his opinion aired on national TV on XIX century Trump's tariffs next day of our long conversation me and him in person of about one hour or so the day before... Louçã is also a reputable economics professor at the university, he explains how these nonsense tariffs have no logic at all... in Portuguese though to those who know the language, you can follow his interesting criticism, pity that White House economists are dumb or too subservient, to not call it 'moron' and 'dumber than a sack of bricks' as even Musk did. Louçã refers how USD is falling despite what could be expected from:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1032490332104272

Former London-based and City University London graduate Catarina Castro (and talented right-wing economist no less) is there too and tries to contradict him but ends to fail the argument that Trump's plan is the dollar down because of the debt. 

It's just pure markets' fear, folks! 

And that's actually scaring... When inflation and uncertainty enter the things cannot end well for no one. 

The orange man is placing that on hold for 90 days for some reason and Musk has called Peter Navarro of those significant gross names definitely not for no reason...

[fuzzynormal]

12 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

I would think that those who are poor and lower middle class would not want to be swindled and wealth transferred to the ultra-rich

You would be wrong.  See, no one admits that they're poor here, they're just temporarily not wealthy.  They'll eventually be wealthy.  Somehow.  Have to support the rich to be rich, you see?  Plus, it's really hard to grasp just how truly stubbornly ignorant many people are.  There's a culture here of owning that ignorance like a badge of honor.

[Ilkka Nissila]

12 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

You would be wrong.  See, no one admits that they're poor here, they're just temporarily not wealthy.  They'll eventually be wealthy.  Somehow.  Have to support the rich to be rich, you see?  Plus, it's really hard to grasp just how truly stubbornly ignorant many people are.  There's a culture here of owning that ignorance like a badge of honor.

It's like the polar opposite of how people view things in my country. If someone is rich, in my country, many people will invariably feel that that person didn't get rich via honest work but instead probably did something either unlawful (stole something, didn't pay taxes, smuggled something etc.) or at least morally questionable (oppressed workers for personal gain). And so it's something to be ashamed of rather than proud.

 

[MrSMW]

There seems to be a big discrepancy these days in what we used to call 'the working class' feel about the 'wealthy'.

If they worked hard, then they are often sneered at and derided, but if they went viral on TikTok or some uber-shallow reality TV show and became 'rich & famous' as a result, then that is something to aspire to.

The world gets ever more mad.

[Andrew Reid]

14 hours ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

And about Europe...it is not so far away from the USA insanity as it might appear.

The Le Pens got very close to govern France. The far-right is making inroads on Germany. @Emanuelcould talk about the Andre's Ventura "Chega" party on Portugal. Orbán is already in charge on Hungary, as Erdogan in Turkey. Millei (an idiot as crazy as Trump, or worse) is in charge of Argentina - with 55% below the poverty line. And I already talked about Brazil.

The far-right is a world cancer now.

And the centre-left parties are letting it spread and enabling it.

A lot of people are stupid, but a lot of them just feel that the traditional career politicians don't speak for them.

Then we have 4 or 5 years of this or that liberal party in power and nothing changes.

Where is Kamala Harris now?

How do you lose to a fucking convicted felon? How useless do you have to be?

The democrats are now holding little signs up in congress!

What is that achieving?

You can't play diplomacy games with a fascist thug.

It's one of the reasons Putin is so powerful, he had half of them round his little finger, whilst Russian influence & money was deeply embedded in western society.

The only way you remove a fascist dictator or a mafia from power is violence.

The US might be about to find that out at the next election.

In the meantime, this China trade-war is really ramping up towards a possible armed conflict, and not a lot of Trump voters realise the seriousness of what he's started.

[Ilkka Nissila]

15 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

And, to be clear, there are still rational people here, including many Republicans and conservatives. But we've reached a critical mass of the voting public that we now have elected officials at every level, from local to president, who also reject rationality.

I think it's not clear whether the MAGA politicians are rational or not. Clearly, many of them know little about the government of states, which explains why there is so much fumbling about and obvious mistakes and unintended consequences. However, it's clear that Trump is a con artist. He is using the power of the presidency for personal gain. Just now there are videos showing how Trump is bragging about how he and his friends made a lot of money by taking advantage of the stock market fluctuations caused by Trump's tariffs (being turned on and off).  This is entirely rational behavior from a con artist and a narcissist. He's got the all-clear from the Supreme Court that he can't be held responsible for his official actions as president in court. Congress could still hold him responsible (impeachment), and the people maybe can (if there are free elections in the future) but it could very well happen that he gets away with it, and he's old enough that even if he does go into prison, he wouldn't be there for a long time.

 

Tariff wars tend to be followed by actual wars where people die. That's why the EU was founded, by removing tariffs between European states, it was thought that wars between the states can be avoided, which has been the case so far. However, for Trump, the tariffs are just a means towards personal enrichment (and his friends' enrichment), plus getting a lot of personal attention in the media that he craves.

[John Matthews]

I know this sounds strange, but if Democrats organize and steer Trump in the right direction, it would also give him a win. Trump is trying with all his might to hit a home run when he should simply be trying to get on first base (excuse the baseball metaphor). He's going to keep *ucking up, over and over and over because he's also surrounded himself with a bunch of "yes" men and women. Trump will ONLY fall if his base of ignorant supporters feel the pain. Sadly, this needs to happen before anyone can move on, including the Democrats. If not, Trump will continue blaming the Democrats for everything under the sun and his ignorant loyalists will continue to believe every word. Pain needs to be felt. The good news is that, at the rate he's going, it might be a lot sooner than most think- it will be the moment to make a move.

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

it will be the moment to make a move.

Genie. Bottle. Too late. 

No, in my opinion, from here it's a national existential crisis for the change to happen.  Like, mid 19th century stuff.

We got the monied power in the USA angling towards city states. Their ship has a pretty strong wake.  

Media is the rudder.  And the USA is more of a business than a country. 

If there's enough people here to lay down their lives to claw back the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I kinda doubt it.  Most don't even understand the founding concepts of this nation much less respect them.

Trump is the idiot that will help speed run this thing, but if not for him then it would be some other puppet. Our culture demands it.

[fuzzynormal]

On 4/10/2025 at 1:29 AM, Ilkka Nissila said:

Can you explain? As a European I am completely lacking understanding of how American voters make decisions.

Some do it like this:

https://www.instagram.com/vanessahorabuena/reel/DFaxsz3IAjD/

Hope that helps give you some context.

[Thpriest]

8 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Some do it like this:

https://www.instagram.com/vanessahorabuena/reel/DFaxsz3IAjD/

Hope that helps give you some context.

Yeah, I don't think you'd see such blind faith in such complete bollocks here. Ever since I was a kid in the 80s I've always thought the glamour, the rock'n'roll, the blockbusters etc was always covering up a dark seething mess of ignorance, power and violence. It's a shame that my instinct was right. The amount of seemingly normal people warbling on about missions from god etc is scary. There seems like a huge disconnect from any reality and people just lap up what they are fed. 

Of course I realise that half of the US population is sane and probably very scared right now. I really hope they find a way to turn this all around asap without things getting worse.

[Andrew Reid]

China holds nearly $1 trillion in US debt and could tank the bond market if they wanted to.

Indeed, they now might.

I wonder if Drump and his cronies even realised this basic economic fact before deciding on their trade war bullying move.

Or maybe it's a mistake to believe they even care about the country... And it's all about enriching themselves personally with some stock market manipulation.

Either way things could be about to get very nasty for the world economy.

Buy a camera now before the new prices hit.

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

it's all about enriching themselves

I really thought I'd die before the down fall of the USA.  Mind, I figured the downfall was inevitable, like all things, but I suspected it would be late 21 st century, not early -- while I'll be checking out in the mids; could've missed it.  Bleh.

[fuzzynormal]

6 hours ago, Thpriest said:

half of the US population is sane

It's more than half, just not by enough.  Minority rule.  As all totalitarian states are.  Plus, there's a lot of the sane ones that like to claim they "don't do politics" Well, politics is about to "do" you.

And, you know, this fascist playbook we're seeing here in the USA is a book that is wide open.  It's easy to read because it's simple. 

The ones that are attracted to that are insatiable. And the book has been used numerous times by bad people because it works.  What's happening here is neither new or abnormal.  These folks and their followers are ridiculous people that are gross, small, mentally horrible, and should be shamed for their terrible attitudes, but they've built political momentum and they're very close to reaching their orbit.  The journey leads no where good.  

Not even for them.

Finally, I like shooting f8 on an M43rd sensor.  It's "Spielbergean cinema"! (gotta stay relevant to the website after that rant; cleanse the mental palette)

[John Matthews]

I just read that computers and phones from China are now exempt from the tariffs. Anyone think cameras will also get on that list? Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think there's an actual camera maker in the USA.

[BTM_Pix]

26 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't think there's an actual camera maker in the USA.

Not locally owned any more but RED are still there.

And with significantly less cringe.