No one ever wins a trade war, just some lose more than others. The retaliating nations have a tremendous advantage of those instigating protectionism. This can be seen with tariffs on steel and aluminum that increases the costs of every product made in the USA that uses those metals. Thus, American consumers and producers are already net losers from these ill-advised protectionist tariffs, even before any retaliation. These tariffs increase consumer prices and make products produced in the USA less competitive relative to those made outside the USA using steel and aluminum priced at the world market rather than the artificially propped-up, protected US steel market.
As Trump discovered when a retaliatory tariff was put on US motorcycles (Harley-Davidson) that will not raise any costs on any EU producers or raise prices for anyone in the EU, except for buyers of motorcycles, the cost to the retaliating nations is miniscule. HOG has announced it will have to shift production outside of the USA as a result of the tariffs. Thus, on top of the costs to American consumers, producers and exporters of the steel and aluminum tariffs, before any retaliation, American workers at HOG lose jobs and shareholders of HOG suffer as well..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184866
20
Despite the recent SC ruling, Trump’s “America First” policies and particularly his tariffs will have the effect of making unions more powerful by keeping jobs here in America and thus keeping more workers within their reach who will then become members.
These same workers will benefit from the various federal and state laws such as OSHA and workers comp originally put in place by Democrats to protect them. Thus the Democrats created the great middle class that was the greatest phenomenon of the post-WWII era and which made America the greatest country on earth.
Now in a betrayal of their own achievements Democrats suddenly favor globalist corporations who want to evade the social contract which they were required to uphold here in America. Instead they want the freedom to go to other countries around the world where they can exploit workers by paying them low wages, making them work long hours, employing child labor, and making them work under unsafe conditions.
To hear many of the bloggers on this site, one would think this is an inevitable trend which cannot be reversed. They happen to be the winners in this new world order so they have no sympathy for the deplorables who just can’t compete with them for jobs or with the sweat
shop workers in third world countries.
In the age old tradition the “unwashed” have risen up. They will be held down no longer by those who have betrayed them and now even laugh at them. Who will have the last laugh?
5
Perhaps we need a workers march on Washington DC. It would include everyone who is looking for a job and can't find one, all those who have a job and can't make ends meet, and those who are working but have nothing to cushion them if they lose their jobs. They could include people who work and can't afford decent housing or medical care. In other words, 99% of us.
Or maybe we should refuse to pay our taxes. Then Congress doesn't get paid. It would most interesting to see how well they'd do without their paychecks that are courtesy of we, the people. If working in Congress isn't getting paid from the government and getting those wonderful perks and benefits isn't welfare, I don't know what is. Why should McConnell, Ryan, Cruz, and the other clowns be living large at our expense when a good many of us have nothing or can lose it in a minute? If they lose an election they'll still have jobs courtesy of their contacts. When we lose jobs we lose salaries, savings, health care, housing, everything because finding new jobs is tough in today's America. Despite what we're being told the jobs are not out there except for ones that pay barely enough to survive.
16
"The recent EU retaliatory tariffs have required us to expend time, energy and resources to evaluate mitigation plans, including the possibility of moving production of Indian Motorcycles destined for Europe from Iowa to our facility in Poland," said Indian Motorcycle spokeswoman Jess Rogers to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
11
It's beyond obvious that Trump blunders into tariffs and waging a trade war with a complete misread of commerce, trade deficits and supply lines.
You can't compare his business acumen to anything because he doesn't have any. Multiple bankruptcy filings speak to that.
26
President Obama saved GM. Trump is destroying it...
31
He just wants to 'make a deal' ... We saw that during the attempt by the repubs to fix health insurance .. After 6 years of dissing Obama they had barely 2 pages of actual policy ... So Trump meets with the super conservative 'freedom caucus' listens to their brutal agenda and tries to sell it to the repubs, who at least saw how beyond the pale it was.... The point is, in the early months of Trump, we saw that specifics and details don't matter, just the ability to 'make a deal' ... And when it comes to global finance everything is interconnected, and rem fans are important so as the joke goes, 'in a battle of wits he's an unarmed man.'
8
Losing jobs due to tariffs? What are the weakened unions going to do now? They'd better shut up and take what they can get.
3
What's the problem? trump is just keeping his promise to rollback all of Obama's accomplishments. Obama gave the U.S. a great economy.
21
Obama gave us 16 million jobs before he left office.
9
The gross USA government debt isn't predicted to go down so don't really see the point of what's going on with tarriffs.
I think there isn't enough internal audits of government spending or bills received from Private Medical Insurance companies and Hospitals, to ensure the government isn't being overcharged for services; most of USA budget is spent on health and pensions. In NZ we have a government paid for public health system and government guaranteed National Superannuation retirement pension, for everyone and our gross government debt is one of the lowest in the world whereas USA has one of the worlds highest gross government debt. So I'm thinking big business is ripping off the government by overcharging them for services or billing them for work that was not done.
Also, we're a small nation so can get on top of stuff if there is a problem such as new immigrants exploiting the bringing out an elderly parent scheme, just so they can get our free welfare and healthcare and pensions that they don't get back in their own nations.
Some new immigrants exploit schemes, and leave their elderly parents in NZ, to be cared for by the State, once they have citizenship. More auditing required by USA government to protect your own schemes for your own citizens.
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_busfwr_detail
www.berl.co.nz/economic-insights/macro-picture/government-andfiscal-poli...
1
Smaller GM means smaller clout for UAW.
What's not to like about kneecapping unions?
1
Working for nothing seems to be the dream of every Republican .... along with making the top 1% even richer. 83% of yje last tax cut went directly to the top 1% of the uber wealthy.
9
Congress COULD do something about this.
But, in the House they are holding more hearings into Hillary Clinton's emails and brow-beating the Justice Department and the FBI (how patriotic of them!) and in the Senate they are preparing to cram a far right wing SCOTUS justice down our throats, Kennedy having so serendipitously retired just before the midterms.
They are busy!
So, 'bye 'bye economy.
10
Everything comes and goes in cycles. In the 70’s unions were strong. Workers were protected, and wages were high. Money was circulating in the system, but productivity was low assuring that more and more workers would be needed to produce the same amount of goods and services. It was a marriage of interest between unions and employers who routinely agreed to contracts with built-in COLAs, zero deductible health insurance, and other benefits that created a new middle class that kept spending and borrowing.
The bubble had to burst, and it did when Reagan came to power. Ever since then the unions have been in retreat, and corporations have grown more and more powerful. NAFTA under Clinton accelerated the trend with more and more jobs and plants going to Mexico. The compact between companies and unions since WW II was broken.
Trump’s “America First” policies including tariffs reverse that trend with the balance of power shifting in favor of workers and against the interests of global companies who would like to go wherever in the world labor is cheaper without any government interference or demands from unions. This is the new normal which everyone has embraced or resigned themselves to and which was thought to be an irreversible trend. Then along comes Trump, a very different “Ronald Reagan” for our times. You may not like him or what he stands for, but he alone was an agent of change and a disruptive visionary who has proven that one man can change the course of history.
All towards destructive results, that much is and will continue to be clear.
9
I think all the blue collar automotive workers, who voted for trump or didn’t vote, are getting their just due. If they think trump represents them, they should open their eyes.
Trump passed a tax package that only enriched the wealthy. He is passing tariffs that will impact the US economy and US jobs. None of his policies are supportive of the working class.
The midterm elections are looming. If you don’t like trump or the republicans who support him, THEN GET OUT AND VOTE.
15
The US is suffering from a unilateralist president who doesn't understand supply chains. Or how interdependent the global economy is. Especially with the USs closest trading partners. Its ridicules for Trump to have the power to make such sweeping unilateral decisions and not to have won the office without a popular mandate by a majority of the electorate.
10
GM is protesting too much. It does not have to depend on "global supply chain" for its parts; GM can get those parts made in the USA. That will make it larger, not smaller.
1
The point is that if that increases the price of the car by $2000 or more fewer people will buy GM cars, so they will lay off workers
9
"That will enable us to make an informed recommendation to the president" - Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary. Mr. Ross, I would argue that "informed" is an oxymoronic term when considering this current administration.
8
I hate to say it, but I think factories packing up and shipping jobs overseas is the only way that many areas of the country which voted for him will ever understand just how clueless and stupid the President is. It will leave us worse off as the social safety nets these unemployed Trump voters will have to rely on, possibly for the rest of their lives, will be payed for with taxes taken from prosperous Blue towns and suburbs. Put if you shoot yourself in the foot, you're going to bleed.
21
Recently a VW all electric race car shattered the all time Pikes Peak hill climb record and a Porsche 4 cylinder 1000 hp hybrid broke the all time Nurburgring track record...sounds like we need another round of “Guberment” tariffs to protect us from the hard working winners of the world and make us great again!
USA, USA,...
4
I wonder how many of these workers in the auto industry voted for Trump. Did they think that somehow they would be immunse from his Make America Great Again policies?
13
The only comment section open this morning are for guaranteed Bash-Trump one’s only. The visible insecurity displayed here is pathetic. Free will is a curse too heavy for mankind to have to bear.
3
Your comment is here, so what are you talking about? Can’t accept that criticism of Trump is well-founded?
10
Gee, no one saw that coming. I’m sure their whopping tax cuts will keep those GM workers and all the GM suppliers and service people and sales people gong when they lose their jobs. For no reason other than Trump’s incompetence and stupidity.
16
All happening according to the economic plan-of Vladimir Putin.
16
Is this what winning looks like?
17
Now that down is up and up is down, an economic train wreck is much to be desired if it will aid in removing this tirant from office, and hopefully, our lives. Will November save us? Maybe. Until that happens, Bad Times are a strange kind of ally.
14
“Beijing Jeep” — about GM outsourcing American jobs to China in the 1970s — available on Amazon
2
Are we winning yet?
8
Just wait till BMW decides to make their cars back in Bavaria instead of South Carolina, and Fiat decides to head back to Italy. Why put up with all the drama and uncertainly of our nutjob president, his crooked cronies and the Republican crime cabal of thieves, liars, bigots and phony Christians that treasonously installed him in power? The rest of the world is sick of our nonsense, our bullying, our fecklessness, our high handed hypocritical moralizing, our endless military misadventures and the poorly educated, dumbed down gun loving Fox addled miscreant electorate that gave us Trump. China is planting more soybeans, Mexico is getting corn from Sputh America. Adios amigos! Europe and Asia can make all the electric cars, windmills, solar panels and smart phones the world needs thank you. Walmart will be happy to sell their products to Americams, on credit of course! The rest of the world is learning very quickly that far from the indispensable power we always brag about being they can get along quite well without us. Enjoy that unemployment down time America! Winning! But of course don't try to get food stamps because Republicans will be cutting all that stuff. Who knows, maybe the Gorsuch court will declare unemployment, social security and Medicaid unconstitutional, thereby ending your dangerous dependance on the Federal Govermemt, as Paul Ryan, that great patriot, would say.
Sorry. No sympathy though: Fools who vote Republican get everything that's coming to them.
26
Couldn’t express it more clearly?
Are you listening, soon-to-be distraught Trump voters? Bernie’s supporters who voted for Trump? It’s not too late to rectify your future in this fall’s midterm elections.
5
Stories like this are now commonplace across the country, occurring not only with the giants of industries but also with multitudes of small businesses and farmers. They are only now realizing the effects of these policies and all seem to be scrambling for exemptions they think they deserve.
Trump and Co. seem to be playing checkers while the world is playing chess. Trump claims victory after victory yet in actuality for every small gain there seems to be many more who are losing. And soon we all lose with higher prices.
14
trump will destroy the great economy Obama left US. He is too uninformed and resentful on all issues to do anything positive for the country. How bad will it have to get before people truly realize this? On the environment, trade, judiciary, geopolitics, immigration, healthcare, he is clueless and dangerous and is dragging the country backwards.
22
Trump the stable genius strikes again!
Trump supporters all need the mental health lock down of the Baker Act as they are harmful to themselves and others.
8
Well it would be fine with me if the price of polluting pickups and bloated SUVs jumped by thousands of dollars.
14
In a high employment economy with a high dollar, this strategy seem to make little sense. It can back fire terribly.
7
I don't believe this is a strategy. It is the result of someone who refuses to learn new things, and sees interactions only as winning or losing opportunities. Win/win situations are unknown to him because he always has to dominate.
3
Will Trump impose tariffs and destroy the economy or will he listen to the manufacturing sector and reconsider at the last possible moment???
Tune in next week to see the exciting conclusion.
12
Read Commentary Magazine this month article entitled " Congress is Weak Because Its Members Want It To Be" Can Google this title.
6
This President's glam based presidency is just ignorant. I worked for GM and Ford. The average auto at both companies passed the border or had parts coming in something like 30 times. Tariffs on Canada? The overhead alone would be ridiculous. Why is he doing this?
15
It is on his objectives from Putin.
5
This is what happens when you elect a spoiled toddler as president. Now he is meeting with the country's number 1 enemy. Lord only knows what damage that meeting is going to cause.
20
Bill Maher is right! The only thing the Republicans understand is money, how to make more for the rich and spend less on the poor. You can't make more in a recession/depression. If it takes a full blown recession to finally flush our psycho-in-chief out of office in a way that lying, theft, nepotism, corruption, incompetence and ignorance can't seem to, then bring it on, the quicker the better.
13
If you're a wealthy investor, you make money on a recession by hedging bets on major economic downturn, then swoop in after the market tanks to buy up cheap stocks, depressed/foreclosed real estate and companies, and other assets that have fallen in value or went into bankruptcy. This is exactly what Goldman Sachs did in 2008-09 and they made a fortune. In case you don't know them, Goldman Sachs is the outfit from which most of Trump's billionaire Cabinet came from.
7
Who could have predicted this? Oh yah every professional economist. But Trump hires the best people.
21
No worries, T still has the ace in the hole, something he alluded to during the campaign. Please fact check to make sure I'm accurate. Didn't he say, we could always default on the National debt? It seemed like craven idiocy then, but now that we we've experienced him full frontal for the last year, anything is possible except the truth. And you can expect his fellow TV star, Larry Kudlow, who never got anything right about economics will join the other chief enabler, Wilbur Ross, the man covered with the slime of self-interest to join him as the Pooh-Bahs for our great Mikado. It has to be a trago-comedy doesn't it?
14
People are not yet tired of winning!
-- They have succeeded in losing Ph.D funding
-- Job training unavailable for H. S. graduates
-- People no longer have healthcare to lose
-- Peoples' taxes are once again being raised
-- Women will likely be locked out of their jobs,
although white males likely will not ever be
-- Women will be denied birth control, even if
it's necessary due to women' medical issues
-- Abortion impossible, yet moms can't find work
-- So much winning, it's making most of us sick
-- The GOP Grand Reaper is stealing our savings
while they snack on a fat trillion dollar debt
20
“... for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa". — Charles (“Engine Charlie”) Wilson
We now have a simplified syllogism for a simplified era: “What’s good for Donald Trump is good.”
10
A man who has spent his entire personal and business life avoiding and evading consequences just can't fathom that he can't govern in the same manner. He is already eroding the social values of this country with his appeals to bigotry and intolerance. Now he is weakening our economic pillars with his bullying tactics.
22
Does the Pretend president expect Harley-Davidson to simply absorb the tariff? The shareholders would not approve.
9
This is music to the base's ears.
The Base, the TeaParty, the Freedom Caucus, the GOP in general, and Trump and his admin. all hate unions.
These are union jobs to be lost.
They love it.
It's more winning.
Job one for a bully it to isolate his victim.
Destroying union jobs is another way of isolating people.
16
Trump is digging in, his thick skin is not feeling the barbs from the businesses. He will continue to threaten and bluster until and if he changes his mind.
6
When the jobs start to disappear, I hope it's the deplorables that voted for Trump, are the first to suffer. They deserve nothing less.
This country is far from perfect, but we deserve better than what Donald Trump is offering.
21
So much for the praised tax cut for the 1%ers and big corporations that was to bring a book of growth and trickle down wealth to the average person.
Corporations bought back stock to raise prices for their investors and did little for their workers. Some got one time bonuses but no pay raise. I tell you give me a $3.50/hr pay raise any day over a $1,250 single bonus, because if you do the math you see that the pay raise is over $6,300 over 45 weeks on a 40 hour work week.
People that can count realize that the tax break was for the donor class and businesses.
Real Republicans need to wake up to this self absorbed president and say no more!!
13
In many cases a trade war is followed by a shooting war, nothing shocks me anymore and I can’t rule out a this as an agenda.
12
It's true, Dave. In his book about the decline in violence over time Stephen Pinker found that when countries trade with each other they are significantly less likely to go to war.
7
Economic and social lessons for Trump supporters:
Trade agreements. A set of compromises in which two sides increase trade. Never perfect, but always beneficial.
Trade. The process whereby nations increase their interdependence. A good way to avoid war.
Globalization. The end result of trade and communication making the world smaller.
Strength. A quality most often illustrated by its lack of need to be used.
Insecurity. See Trump.
Tariffs. The first salvo in a trade war.
Trade war. The end result of stupidity and cupidity.
Humanity. A set of beings with universal wants and needs all of whom bleed in exactly the same fashion.
Hatred. An irrational desire fed by lies and cruelty. See Trump.
12
It is ironic that with unemployment lower than it has been in years and at record lows for some minorities, wages rising, and strong ecomonic growth,that the NYT has a front page article on how Tariffs might hurt U. S. jobs.
Ironic but understandable, in that I believe the NYT is eager to minimize our President's accomplishments amplify any even potential short comings.
3
This isn't about your president's accomplishments, because he's riding the wave created by the Obama Administration.
No. Trump's accomplishments are the "tax cut" which is causing soaring deficits and forcing cuts to the safety nets that keep American people alive, people like seniors, children, working class people who make too little to afford food and child care, housing assistance to the elderly and poor - health care for countless millions, again including middle class, working class and poor people, seniors and children.
Meanwhile the "tax cut" mostly goes to the already ungodly rich and of course the corporations which are not raising wages.
Accomplishment #3, after the "tax cut" and weakening health care including possibly getting rid of the requirement to care for people with pre-existing conditions, ie, most Americans, is this trade war.
Please read the dang article. The tariffs will result in much higher prices for American goods. That is what tariffs do. They are a TAX on the American people and American companies.
This will cost heaven knows how many American jobs which will harm the economy gravely.
Any questions?
Trump's "accomplishment" was to take an economy and systems and agencies and alliances that WORK and attack them with a sledge hammer.
18
What "accomplishments?" All I have seen is a bull in a china shop. The New York Times has an article about this because the effect of this silly President's actions and the trade war that will ensue has not happened yet, but we see the direction that things are moving with Harley Davidson moving operations to Europe, and BMW and Toyota will probably follow. They are justified. All those jobs, wages rising and the strong economy are a result of the Obama years, and these actions are going to destroy all of that soon.
9
“In the past, Mr. Trump has lauded General Motors for its job creation and vowed to defend the auto industry.” ---- in the past, he also supported Hillary & Bill Clinton and condemned pat buchannan. think.
1
Why repubs don't get that the fake president has no grip on global supply chains and their function is mind-numbing. They're watching the economy be dismantled by an incompetent, taking advice from coke-addled "advisors" who have no "skin in the game".
Recession, here we come. And it's UNNECESSARY!
13
No worries; Trump will just trash-tweet GM like he did Harley and that'll fix everything...
Seriously, this is just the beginning. It's not just 2 companies, or 2 dozen, or 2 hundred, that will make rational business decisions in the face of a trade war. If his foolish and ill-advised tariffs don't end, thousands of companies will do the same.
Trump has a habit of shooting himself in the foot on a fairly regular basis. But it would be nice if it was just his foot and not everybody else's. I'd like to keep my job.
19
Your “jobs president” at work.
And the MAGA are still made in China.
All this winning!
9
It would seem the chickens are coming home to roost.
5
Well, thank goodness the GOP tax scam stuffed into corporate pockets all those extra bajillions of dollars, which GM and all the other big US manufacturers will now pony up to counteract the effects of those pesky tariffs. Right?
5
The worlds largest economy, it's most powerful military force, and the one that wrote the rules under which the world operates, does not need to play "chicken" with its partners as a strategy to get the results it seeks.
9
The country that wrote the rules--literally--is turning its back on the rules and institutions that brought us to where we are today, preferring to play that game of chicken. No one who really understood business outside the real estate and reality show games would do this.
6
Yes, but our "conservatives" have to demagogue the issues since a strong majority of us do not agree with their positions.
It is utterly absurd to claim that the rules we wrote are damaging us. But why are most Americans' incomes stagnant? We liberals believe it's because under Republican leadership our governments (Federal & state) are dedicated to helping the rich get richer in so many ways.
So the Republicans need scape goats. The fact that at this point Trump is going to damage us with, among other things, insane trade wars, well it's the price for tax cuts and such.
Republican leaders like Ryan thought they could contain the demagoguery to the point where it would be useful at election time but wouldn't cause any damage. They were wrong. In effect they thought Republican voters were too stupid to notice that their incomes were stagnant under Republican rule.
2
“[trump’s] threat to impose tariffs on imports of cars and car parts — along with an earlier spate of penalties — could drive vehicle prices up by thousands of dollars.” ----- trump’s hardcore base could care less about that, and what matters to trump more than anything is his hardcore base --- not because he can win with them alone (he can’t) but because their cult-like adoration soothes his adolescent ego. like all megalomaniacs, trump never campaigned on a platform of unity or on a promise to serve all americans; he promised prosperity only those who put him on a pedestal; all others can, in the proverbial vernacular, can kiss his u no what.
6
Destroying what already works for the most part is not a plan, much less a policy for making America First. At the rate Trump is going we will be dead last. The president clearly dislikes complexity, experts and has not even a smidgen of common sense. Two thoughts come to mind - if it ain't broke, don't fix it and if you break it you own it. What his plan when the US manufacturing base (what's left of it) goes belly up, prices for everything goes up to include those monstrosity SUVs and trucks Americans seem to love and credit debt and wages continue to stagnate? Probably blame the next Democratic president and the typical feckless American voter will expect an immediate fix. We've seen this Republican drama before.
12
Sounds more like GM wants to protect its existing supply chains then it cares about US jobs.
3
So if they ditched their existing supply chains this would be good? What do you think that would look like? Do you, in fact, think?
11
I'm surprised Trump hasn't threatened or at least thrown GM under the bus as he did with Harley Davidson. Once again, a company has dared to take matters into their own hands and discuss alternatives needed to stay alive. That flies in the face of Trump's juvenile tariff war. "Trade wars are good easy to win." Time for bed Donald.
11
Oh well the Republican controlled Congress is just sitting idly by while Trump dismantles one of the most important ideology, free speech. I guess with low unemployment and employers having a hard time filling some positions they gamble that their base won't notice. Trump's Evangelical base ought to remember the biblical story of seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Things may look good now but if the trade wars do some serious damage Trump would have no one to blame in 2020 and they will drop him like a hot potato dipped in chili sauce.
5
Wayne--You're making the presumption that these people know anything about the Bible, beyond the few passages they have chosen to justify their crimes.
2
Democrats would like to keep wages low and employment down and then substitute various wealth transfer programs in place of jobs and human dignity. It’s a perfect storm of government dependency, hopelessness, and ultimately the plague of drug addiction. Yes, the Democrats have a plan for you.
Says the guy who hasn't seen the stats that show the number of people in red states on government assistance or noticed that Republicans are the ones who fight raising the minimum wage.
7
All this from a company that had a tax pair bail out twice, maybe we should go in and fire the staff.
1
Middle American Trump voters, I hope you have deep savings in the bank, because your hero and savior is about to tank the American economy due to unsustainable spending increases. You gave a reckless lunatic the family credit cards and he’s running around spending it on gambling. Good job.
10
Uh oh. They used to say what's good for GM is good for the country. L et's hope the corollary isn't.
1
Because GM got away with more than 300 murders, I don't give a fig what happens to this company, nor their employees, most of whom I bet voted for tRump. What goes around, comes around. Wouldn't take one of their vehicles, if it was free.
1
It’s a sacrifice that Americans will gladly make for the sake of “Dear Leader’s” ego satisfaction.
10
Obama saves GM and Trump hurts it. How does Bone Spurs get away with this national security argument. It is such an obvious lie that I'd think even the spineless republicans might stand up to it.
11
Double down, Donnie! If you keep it up, I'm sure that when Nov comes you will see you will get a great new congress to work with!
7
The deploreables were promised job-killing tariffs and Trump is delivering, just one component of the pox they have brought on America.
Promises made, promises kept.
16
So much winning from a man and his consorts who understand neither macroeconomics nor global trade. I recommend each reader find three unregistered friends and get them registered and insure they vote this fall. Go Blue.
16
A very solid idea.
1
To all the automobile manufacturer employees who thought it was a good idea to vote for Trump despite his decades long record as a bad business person and a huckster, how do you feel now?
8
When I look at the over-sized, over-priced garbage produced by the American automobile industry, I think maybe a “smaller GM” might be a good idea.
4
I bet that when the US recession is official, Trump will blame Obama and HRC, anyone want to bet against me?
9
Tomorrow on Canada Day, Chrystia Freehand, our Foreign Affairs Minister, will announce $ 16.6-billion tariffs on US imported goods and has pledged an additional $ 2 billion in financial support to Canada's steel and aluminum sectors hit by US tariffs, established to protect 'national security (sic).' Rest assured that the Canadian tariffs will be penal to sectors associated with Trump's base and will garner overwhelming support amongst Canadians. Let the trade war begin and when everyone and their economies get dragged into a recession, do not let Trump and his propaganda machine blame the disaster on everyone else...
8
I'm all for it.
1
An aside: What about the planes being built in South Carolina and Washington state and the aluminum that they use?
5
Why doesn't Romney publicly condemn the tariffs?
6
Romney is probably too busy counting the money he keeps overseas in order to avoid paying his fair share of taxes.
4
Because Romney has the moral courage of Paul Ryan, ie, none.
He is a grave disappointment.
He is so handsome, so serious, he exudes gravitas. He is well-educated and makes powerful moral arguments against the likes of Trump.
And then he caves.
I am disgusted with him and the other GOP "leaders."
2
Apparently, arithmetic is not the strong suit of the very White House. Has no one told him payroll is the single largest expense in business? Where is the 'national security' nexus in any of this talk of a trade war? Another example, I fear, of Barnum & Bailey economics. Create job losses and diminished profits in good economic times.
8
One need not be much of an economist to understand that higher tariffs will cost jobs as goods start to cost more, from cars to toothpaste.
Mr. Trump has no understanding of the American economy, let alone world economy and the interaction between the two. He believes he can cut taxes for the wealthy and raise tariffs on goods the average person uses and improve the US economy.
The economy was fine before he started messing with it. Wage growth was slow but the economy was continuing to grow based on sound economic principles and wages were beginning to catch up.
Wage growth will be immaterial when jobs are not there.
Trump is going to plunge us into another big recession or worse; then Republicans will complain when Democrats raise taxes to fix the harm Republicans have done.
32
The man who does not read is leading our country and economy. He's made huge promises to believers; and this is how he thinks, in his uneducated deluded mind, he can fix it.
We have seen enough of his huge signature too often on documents he doesn't read, nor can he! So why does it surprise anyone when he causes fractures in our economy?
5
It surprises his supporters because they believe him and all he says, along with Fox News.
It would appear that Mr. Trump and the Republicans in Congress are yearning for the explosion of American Manufacturing that took place after World War II. They deny the fact that we have a “flat earth” economy. There appears to be a belief that this strategy will force American manufacturers to own the products they make “from cradle to grave”. Making each material and part used in the manufacturing process made in the U.S.and not rely on outsourcing. Therefore more jobs are created and our economy is strengthened. This plan fails to recognize that many American Companies and Institutions are now Global. Perhaps the Trump Brand would like to lead by example and have all of his and his daughters clothing lines , real estate and Name licensing be U. S. only. We should not hold our collective breaths.
26
America First turns into code talk for crippling the US in the context of the global economy that may isolate our industries & labor in ways that will take generations to recover from.
The economy is global. Pulling out of the World Trade Organization would solidify longer-term economic isolation of the US for generations to come in the very industries trump claims to defend.
The automotive "supply chains are among the most complex in the world, with each vehicle containing more than 20,000 parts originating from thousands of different suppliers (SupplyChainDrive)."
In other words, hundreds of thousands of jobs here & abroad are peripherally tangent to building the cars we drive. Tariff discussions don’t identify the silent industries-jobs threatened.
The seat covers, carpets, headliners, door panels, wood finishes, seat belts and windows; examples of interior materials globally sourced. Light bulbs, tires, electrical looms, brakes, engine components, relays, switches, valves, and so on, sourced here abroad, assembled abroad and here.
Remember, Soybeans were the biggest 2017 U.S. agriculture export to China at a value of $12.3 billion, according to the USDA (Reuters). Brazil is already planting soybeans to fill China’s void left by US farmers who will no longer supply China, and once entrenched, Brazil will not give it its commodity and our farmers will forever be out.
The same affect may ripple across America all under the fake meme of Make America Great Again.
19
Maybe look at the defence budget as well, if you can call it a budget lol! Maybe Trump should just do some basic housekeeping instead of getting complicated and not thinking through the long term implications of his policies on USA jobs and businesses.
How about telling Japan and South Korea to pay for their own defence budget instead of sponging off the USA taxpayer? That would be a great place to help get the deficit down.
Also, some of Trumps own employees need to be audited to see what they've been spending on travel and meals etc. In NZ the media have access to all this information under to Official Information Act.
All those government paid for politicians need to be audited as well to get government debt down. No need for them to use private jets when they can use public airlines like citizen Joes Bloggs does.
3
Or perhaps we could just ship Trump over. Any job openings in NZ? I heard his qualifications start and stop at food truck operator (sorry food truck operators).
4
Consumer spending accounts for 70% of the economy of this nation. The ONLY power that the individual consumer has to send feedback to this administration is to slow down his/her spending. If we all cut back 5% on our purchasing, businesses would quickly start pressuring the government to abandon these crazy trade policies.
13
Well, Trumpeteers, when are you all going to acknowledge that clueless bullying coward Trump is all hot air, and that encouraging hatred and rage and shooting from the hip doesn't solve a thing?
He's a lousy businessman (those bankruptcies) and his alliances with mobsters, fixers, bullies, moneylaunderers, and rescues from Putin's oligarch buddies make him all hat and no cattle.
Where are the honest people in our Republican congress? Cowed or complicit, kleptocrats all.
38
Trump does not care about lost American jobs - except to the extent they cost him votes. Trump will not worry about disgruntled newly unemployed because many of those folks might well have voted for trump and those folks have yet to suffer enough to get them to bite the hand they thought would feed them. Trump does not care about American companies because he figures they should be content with the huge tax breaks he got for them. Specifically, GM can lose a lot of sales and still make huge profits with trumps new tax breaks. The only people who stand to lose big time if his tariffs cost American jobs are the workers who lose those jobs - the kind of people who tend to vote for trump. Trump has launched a rerun of the 1920s and 1930s. The question now is whether or not the result will be similar - another Great Depression and attempted Right-Wing Extremist takeover of The World.
16
This president and his trade and foreign policies are a threat to the nation’s economic strength and viability.
Policies that undermine the wealth and health of the nation and its people is a security threat, and as DT himself has said, it is treasonous.
16
Who can forget Trump's immediate dismissal of the Navy's new electro-magnetic catapult launching system for aircraft systems? "It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out...” If only he accorded the same respect to the legions of knowledgeable economists who understand that trade wars are not "good, and easy to win."
14
This tariff charade comes down to BATNA - best alternative to a negotiated agreement. History proves that the BATNA in a trade war is a cycle of more tariffs and more economic damage for all counties that are part of it. Trump seems to think that China and our allies will see that reality and cave to US pressure. But that hasn't worked in the past, and it is unlikely to work now. Economic pain hurts, but caving to a bully is painfully humiliating. So what's Trump's BATNA on tariffs? More tariffs, more economic pain. This won't end well for anyone.
14
Once again, good job Trump voters! Having saddled the nation with the continually embarrassing Mr. Trump, who praises dictators, insults our allies and separates refugee toddlers from their parents at the border, you can now add this. In Minnesota our Minneapolis paper's headlines this morning highlight how tariffs will hurt our many locally based multinational companies such as Hormel, Polaris and 3M, all of which produce and sell products in the U S as well as in many other nations. These companies also employ tens of thousands of Americans. A few days ago I also read how tariffs will hurt our soybean and pork farmers. This is a man touting 1970's coal production who further believes Harley Davidson motorcycles need to be "made" entirely in America. The concept of the interconnectedness of global trade has not entered his mind; he doesn't read, has no understanding of technology, no diplomatic skills to speak of and a clearly limited sense of the complexities of the world economy. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? And this is "winning?"
41
His "experience" as a businessman was about selling his brand (ugh). Maybe his company manages a few hotels. So the concept of supply chains is way beyond him although basic to any student of economics. One good outcome may be that by the time he returns to NY his brand will be odious and dead. So much winning.
10
Expect the Trump's Chief Minister of Economic Propaganda, Kudlow, to conversely claim that his boss's brilliantly executed trade tariffs will result in millions and millions of well paying jobs. Everything else, of course, is fake news and G.M. will be targeted, like Harley Davidson, for a "punishment tax". MAGA.
25
In further news; from next week firing shall be called hiring, hiring firing, and bankruptcy shall be called winning.
17
Where are the checks and balances that would prevent a President from so many of the destructive decisions we have witnessed in the past two years?
This administration, the current congress, and the current supreme court prove that the U.S. constitution is simply a piece of paper. It's greatness depends solely on the courage and decency of those holding the offices listed in the constitution. Courage and decency seem to be in very short supply nowadays.
Most countries in the world have amazing constitutions which enshrine lofty rights and laws; however, none of them are evident in those societies. The US is fast becoming one of those countries.
27
Suggest you read Dark Money which lays out the four-decade campaign by the Kochtopus and their allies to dismantle America for anyone but the wealthy and powerful who don't care about the future of the planet. They just lie and bully and lie some more. (Their fortune started with providing facilities to Hitler and Stalin.)
9
Japan, which produces 4M cars a year in the US, said Trump’s tariffs will kill 600K jobs in the US and tank the US and glibal economy.
25
For me, everything Trump does is suspect; but how much of GM's concerns are rooted in fact? They will be hurt, but how much? As a consumer who has doubts about claims from both sides, I tend to lean towards the GM concerns. The president makes decisions based on little more than the latest whisper in his ear, or the advice of the last toady who entered his office. Trump acts not on broad knowledge of a problem, but his gut feel, as he did in business. He doesn't know and doesn't care to learn the nitty gritty of a problem; if it can't be put on one page, don't bother. The man is an intellectual troglodyte, but he does have a bold signature.
16
In spite of being a reputed moron his strategies for getting everything he wants seem to be working brilliantly. Everything he wants is just clicking into place. No opponents can touch him. Country will be shaped by his legacy for generations. For everything I’ve read and heard I still can’t grasp it. Well, at least we know there is no God.
2
I wonder if all the tariffs are just a way for trump to make companies come one by one to his administration and ask favors.
26
I have to wonder about socialists these days. Supposedly they are for big government solutions. That’s what Trump’s tariffs are. I can see the big international corporations opposing them, but the objection of the socialists seems to be not the substance of Trump’s proposal, but its source which is Trump himself.
One thing in his favor is that he has always been clear and consistent which is more than can be said for the confused Socialist message or for the Democratic Party which can’t decide what it is or what its message will be. All of which bodes well for the Republicans in November.
"One thing in his favor is that he has always been clear and consistent "
Thank you. A humorous comment always improves the coffee.
51
Even socialists understand that the world's supply chains are integrated way beyond being subject to any form of protectionism. Trump is living in a 1970s world and apparently you are. too. The auto industry in particular has been structured over the past 30 years based on free trade agreements such as NAFTA. Even the most hard-core UAW folks know this.
39
I have to wonder why Conservatives try and defend economic policies that have little direction or objective, strengthen despots and dictators and bring down democratic allies across the globe.
18
On the plus side the two cars currently in my garage will go up in value.
On the down side, gas milage will not improve as people upgrade and repair costs will increase as the cars on the road continue to age.
13
If you buy a new car, it won't get better mileage because our smart little economist trump is going to kill all the requirements for better mileage in cars to "save" the oil and gas industry. Disgusting.
2
Tariffs are not even needed. The economy will suffer.
28
“December 19, 2008: President Bush approved a bailout plan and gave General Motors and Chrysler $13.4 billion in financing from TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) funds, as well as $4 billion to be ‘ withdrawn later.’ ”Wikipedia, GM Chap. 11 Reorg.
Now GM, having been bailed out by the taxpayers, is suddenly smitten with Chicago school, free market economics:
“General Motors warned Friday that if President Trump pushed ahead with another wave of tariffs, the move could backfire, leading to “less investment, fewer jobs and lower wages” for its employees.”
The excuse for the bailout in 2008 was workers’ jobs. I don’t recall any GM executives losing their jobs because of their incompetence as managers or their lousy cars which nobody wanted.
If the tariffs are implemented, GM will no longer be able to take the money and run but will have to build or expand their plants here which means more jobs, greater demand for workers whom GM will now have to compete for by paying higher wages.
What this means is that the balance of power will have shifted to the worker who can pick and choose where he wants to work and to the states that will no longer have to grovel before companies by giving them tax breaks only to have the same companies bail out later.
As always, the big companies like to have the ability to go wherever they want in the world and to treat their workers as expendable cogs. Now, thanks to Trump, the tables have been turned.
4
That’s not the way it works. Raw materials for those autos will now be more expensive.
15
Your assumption about companies expanding in the U.S. doesn't hold up. Harley-Davidson is a case in point. Companies can "pick and choose" as well. There are plenty of low-wage workers in other countries to fill the void.
18
Trump’s policies if implemented will certainly be inflationary, but that is the price one pays for full employment. It amounts to free market redistribution of wealth. Now it will be less money for corporate executives and more for American workers who will have more leverage to demand higher pay.
This warning by GM along with a similar one by Harley Davidson makes President Trump's declaration that a trade war would be "an easy win" appear even more absurd than when it was first uttered. Like almost all pronouncements by Mr. Trump, they are composed of 90% wishful thinking and 10 % hubris. Threats are a poor substitute to a reasoned, carefully negotiated trade agreement. But of course, that would require a semblance of a plan.
50
10% hubris? More like 50%.
1
The New York Times doesn't appear to be giving WE THE PEOPLE any news about the massive demonstrations that are taking place across America today - and possibly the world - to show OUR outrage at The Con Don and his International Mafia Top 1% Global Financial Elite Robber Baron/Radical religion Good Old Boys' cabal to destroy OUR civil rights.
Indivisable, Move On, ACLU, #Families Belong Together, Planned Parenthood, Naral. labor unions and many other organizations and their members have joined forces to have massive demonstrations today against the Robber Baron attacks on women's creator-given rights to choose what they do with their own bodies, voting rights, labor laws, immigration laws, imprisoning people seeking asylum - and their children - income equality and every other social good.
Please, Good People, go to the website of an organization you support and hit the streets in protest today. WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can/will stop them and NOW is the time.
Now may be the only time for centuries.
61
I see they have a brief editorial about the marches today but they say it's only about separating asylum-seeking families.
Once again the New York Times and other media have their heads in the sand. WE THE PEOPLE are outraged at what is happening in OUR country and WE will stop it.
NOW.
52
Could you argue effectively that the Trump immigration policies should be effective in reducing the heartbreak at the border?
Uh... maybe you’ve forgotten that The Times is a newspaper. They don’t report events instantaneously. They provide thoughtful coverage. I’m sure that tomorrow’s front page - available tonight - will report comprehensively on the marches.
1
As usual it's the simple, ordinary citizen who suffers the most. And of course, that's the plan in the guise of saving American jobs by imposing tariffs on imported goods like steel and aluminum. As usual conglomerates like GM looking only for their bottom line responds in the only way they know how - cut jobs, decrease wages and raise prices of their finished products. The small businesses which fold up and go bankrupt are not even in the equation. GM will not be the only American company with the same MO! And 99% of Americans will suffer.
Capitalism at it's best!! The pro-family Party will only destroy just that. Families!
I would like to know the unemployment then, not the present rosy one.
24
Except these “ordinary citizens” voted themselves into their situation. As in the case for most of life, they get what they deserve.
35
But they take the rest of us with them! We need to take back the "keys to the asylum."
I detest 'strict-construction' Capitalism -- but 'this thing' ain't 'on' GM. An unprofitable or meager-profits business is a 'jobless' or few-jobs business. The 'situation,' and the economic and markets debacle it 'predicts,' is all 'on' potus-ignoramus & company.
2
With the comment period, there is a possibility that these tariffs under consideration will be fact based. I expect that the original steel and aluminum tariff did not received the same treatment. Trump was given to rash unorthodox decisions as a businessman and using that style he bankrupted 4 casinos, the NJ Generals football team, ran Trump shuttle into the ground, and guided the USFL to take decisions that caused the entire league to collapse.
He seldom uses facts, he seems unaware of basic facts, and he makes seat of the pants decisions which are often erroneous. In public life he lies repeatedly and often contradicts himself in the same speech.
Congressional leaders need to put controls in place that do not allow Trump to take us as a nation over an economic cliff. Obama gave us this recovery from our last GOP President GWBush and Obama will not be there to save us this time.
42
Wait, GM failing? No—the only way they can see to succeed in the larger Chinese and world markets is to move their factories overseas. GM will win big. American workers will lose big. This, apparently, makes America great again in the eyes of a president and his "economic" advisers who understand absolutely nothing about the economy or world trade.
41
It might interest you to know that GM already has factories in China, as they do in much of Europe. The reason they do is because of the tariffs and trade barriers those countries have in place. Contrary to your assertion, the more likely effect of imposing tariffs on foreign products is that hey will build more factories HERE and hire American workers to operate them.
2
Finally a reasonable comment.
The chevy Camaro yep GM product is built in Canada .
The hatred for Trump is blinding.
Go over seas there are GM, Ford products cars, trunks that would sell like hot cakes her.
Smaller fuel efficiency nice looking .
This is a political battle between two heavyweights trying to win a public relations battle regarding the long-suffering American worker. Trump is trying to keep a campaign promise to protect the jobs of working class Americans from going abroad. GM is trying to match his concern for workers knowing that if tariffs increase costs and reduce profits investors will suffer and this will force job cuts because in American capitalism the investor is king/queen. As a progressive advocate for working Americans, the issue for me is which side is sincere about not only protecting the jobs of American workers but increasing their wages and benefits. It’s too early to tell how the tariffs will affect the bottom line of American corporations and jobs. However, the only way to permanently increase the job security and wages of American workers is to change the pro-investor culture of American capitalism to a significant degree. Worker advocates must closely observe this battle between the White House and the big corporations affected by the proposed tariffs and act to keep both sides focused on the well-being of American workers.
7
This is a false premise. Trump’s campaign promise was a lie and a ploy to get votes. It can’t be done. It’s like promising to make water fliw uphill. A trade war must result in a net job loss. And it’s not just GM. The Devastastion of Trump will be widespread.
32
Of course, Donald Trump’s campaign promise to protect American jobs from evil foreign trade deals was an opportunistic ploy to win votes despite its irrationality to many seasoned businesspersons and economists. However, the average American worker, especially those famously anxious working class workers in the Industrial Midwest who collectively were supposed to represent the major section of Mrs. Clinton’s blue wall, are not well-versed enough in these matters to know they were being played. This is why progressive activists like me try to help them out.
3
Douglas: “The Devastation Of Trump will be widespread.”
Howard: As a Democrat, I could hope for this, so Democrats could stand a better chance of defeating him and reclaiming the Congress. But I’m rooting for workers. No, the billionaires behind the multinational corporations run not only America but our known universe. Team Trump is just posturing, so they can run for re-election in 2020 as defenders of the working class. If Trump ever developed a taste for anti-corporation Koolaid, the billionaires would force the Republican Party to stop him. Trump will pull back if the multinationals start losing serious money.
The Con Don says we "need steel". At a recent rally he said we need it because, "you know". Yes, WE know, Con Don. You and your International Mafia Robber Baron brethren want to start WW3, create chaos and attempt to take over the world with your insatiable greed and lack of any social conscience. Deplorable? Yes. You are at the top of the list along with the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, Putin, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Duerte. fox so-called news and all the other supposed "strong" men who only have fear-anger-hate-Lies,Lies,Lies- WAR - death destruction-rape-pillage-plunder in your arsenal.
WE THE PEOPLE will resist in every way possible. You may NOT destroy OUR lives and world.
Not now. Not ever agina.
34
In an historic irony, the Age of Trump descended on this country as a result of a mechanism put in place by the framers of the Constitution which was *precisely intended* to prevent such aberrations as Trump from occurring. The framers did not fully trust democracy and so created the Electoral College.
Trump lost the election by 3 million votes but won the presidency as a result of the winner-take-all Electoral College system.
In 1913, the 17th Amendment created the direct election of United States senators, who formerly were selected by state legislatures. Three of the last two American presidents were losers of the popular vote.
It is time for the direct election of presidents, as well. Join the National Popular Vote movement. (www.nationalpopularvote.com)
1
Autos has been part of the backbone of the American and Canadian economies since the 1960s, when the Auto-Pact was developed to improve the efficiency of production across North America. This was the precedent and model of the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which subsequently morphed into NAFTA. So production structures have been integrated for the past six decades. Erecting tariffs in the auto sector is like unscrambling an omelet. Because production arrangements are optimized with current rules, disturb those rules and there will be a mess - costs must increase. More importantly, that could trigger, at least for Canada, a global re-alignment of auto production arrangements with important international players having a less isolationist view of economic optimization than does the current US Administration. In that re-alignment, which will have initial transition costs for all concerned, the US will be isolated and emerge as a big loser with less leverage on key sectors in the world economy, given the tight linkages between autos and related industries. This needs much study before acting. Unfortunately, ideology overwhelms expertise in this Administration, so the trading partners need to gear-up "Plans B" swiftly and correctly. Do not trust that logic and common sense will prevail.
31
Unscrambling an omelette. Very good analogy. People need to understand how integrated and dependent our automotive industries are. Apparently this administration has no clue.
23
"But companies, which rely on other markets for sales, production and materials, have been increasingly vocal about the potential damage from his policies."
"But companies that rely on other markets for sales, production and materials have been increasingly vocal about the potential damage from his policies."
I like the second. Would not object to a comma after "production" or "materials."
2
I love this! As a grammar nerd I sense a kindred spirit. The second is definitely the better, and I would certainly add the Oxford comma.
5
These are all consequences of Trump tariffs. The damage is always both directions. However, someones must benefit from these repeated actions so that the President and the Congress promote these tariffs despite of whatever they say one way or the other. No one had identified the great beneficiaries of these tariffs, even these benefits are not at the same level of the loss caused by the tariffs.
5
The tariffs are to sway the ignorants people who support trump. They apparently don't know, understand that almost every car or truck made in American contains many foreign parts. They also do not care to understand that there are not American sources for those parts. Auto workers will lose their jobs as will workers in all the American suppliers of parts. Of course all those out of work Trumpistas will blame the Democrats, Clinton and Obama for the whole mess.
1
Remember that the WH occupant is first and foremost a con-artist. The 'trade war' is little more than an attempt to disrupt the economy and market temporarily. Trade 'peace' will suddenly break out before Labor Day, the market will resume it's positive trend, and righties will around proclaiming how great they are for the economy. Wake up, people.
22
That may, indeed, be part of the traitor's "strategy", however, with so many foreign variables, that may be absurdly optimistic. Additionally, there is a hysteresis of change, one that is NOT predicable in its effects, so there may be worse news than expected as we get closer to the midterms.
8
Either that or he's working for Putin, goal being to destroy the US, the EU and NATO.
1
I had a laugh when I read the part GM will raise the price several thousand more. At 35,000 and up now who can afford American cars any way. Trump and the 1 percent can not many 99 percent of Americans. In the 1940's the model t was only 500.00 and plenty of metal on the car instead of cheap plastic today. GM needs to lower car prices a whole lot before I would want one. I don't want to have 400.00 a month payment and then get on the six year plan to pay back . It is not worth it,
12
But the cost of all the American made Subarus, Datsuns, Volkswagens and Toyotas will also go through the roof.
20
Oh well . Blame it on the Trump supporters. They are reaping what they sow.
Harley, GM, Fiat Chrysler and BMW not exactly having a ”America Great Again” feeling. Once again, Trump, who is totally unfit to be President, is making America worse in every way imaginable. It's frustrating and sad to watch unfold, and Trump supporters and Republican Congress won't admit they’ve been duped by a con man and pathological liar.
33
If this is "winning", then yes Mr. Trump I am sick of it.
26
And the deplorables who will lose their jobs at GM and GM's suppliers because of Trump's foolish tariffs will find themselves starving, homeless and without healthcare.....and blaming Obama, Hillary, immigrants and all of the Democrats for their troubles.
37
Running government like a business is SO easy.
Winning trade wars is SO easy.
Negotiating with Russia is SO easy.
Alienating our friends and comforting our enemies is SO easy.
Not bothering to read intelligence briefings is SO easy.
Watching Fox TV half the day during 'Executive Time' is SO easy.
This is what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel, thinking everything will take care of itself and the adults in the GOP will rein in his worst impulses.
Zzzz...............
40
Obama saves the U.S. auto industry, and 10 years later Trump destroys it. Sigh.
47
President Obama didn’t save the auto industry or the banks , America’s little people did by sacrificing their abilities to get a return on their savings for a decade, allowing, The Bailouts.
5
Ted: I’ll bet you loved that period where you got 8% for your savings - while ignoring inflation if 12%. The little people did just fine recently, earning a small risk free rate of return during a time of no inflation.
4
Ted, that is false because American taxpayers directly got paid back by GM as a result of the strings attached to the bailout.
2
Capitalism's Achilles heel is Greed, it wasn't enough to simply cut Taxes, now we want it all, & we don't want to share the profits, enter Tarifs , which leads to isolation, which leads to disaster.Trump has shot himself in the foot.
17
Donald Trump is no capitalist. He's a feudal robber baron, who believes the rich can get away with anything and that he doesn't have to pay property taxes.
He is supported by other arch-feudalists like the Koch brothers and Wilbur Ross who consider their proximity to power an insulation from the law.
Remember too that Trump understands almost nothing of complex issues like globally integrated economic systems.
27
So what?
Unless there are job cuts in the Trump Organization, President Donald John Trump does not care. What is good for General Motors is not good for America aka Trump.
But since Trump is corruptly cowardly cravenly cynically hiding his personal and family income tax returns and business records from the American people we do not know how much the Trump Organized Crime family is profiting from their White House occupation.
Russia if you are listening please let us see the Trump returns and records.
23
At some point the traitor will have outlived his usefulness to pooty. What will happen? The release of the fabled tape? The release of a trove of tax and financial records from Wikileaks? May that day come this year.
1
How is it that one spoiled child is allowed to make such decisions for our country?
39
Hey GM remember when you spent all your money and we had to bail you out?
Why are you still operating so close to the edge? Too much bonus pay?
8
The full effects of Trump’s moronic trade policies -rising unemployment, dropping GDP, inflation, et.al. - will take a while to fully set in. By that time the Democrats will (hopefully) be in charge and, of course, the Republicans will blame them. Build, wreck, blame, repeat.
40
It's time for reasonable (blue) states to work on secession plans... Why should we continue to pay most of the taxes to a corrupt government by plutocrats, mass polluters, gun nuts, and false Christians?
Democrats won more votes in the House, Senate, and Presidential races last election - and control none of the three. Add to that the stolen Supreme Court majority...
We (the reasonable majority) are no longer represented.
It is time to say good bye.
24
Calling Donald Trump a business man is like calling the Janitor at your local hospital a Medical Professional.
Trump bankrupted all of his businesses now he wants to do the same to yours.
55
What an interesting irony. White auto workers voted for Trump because he is a white ignorant guy with whom they could identify, and because he would undo what Obama, a black educated man, did. It didn't occur to them to think that one of the things Trump would undo is their own jobs. They had forgotten, it seems, that it was Obama who saved their industry.
37
Assembly line workers at Harley Davidson, facing possible lay offs owing to tariffs moving production to Thailand told "Market Place" (NPR) they would still vote for Trump. Still loving him in Wisconsin.
And there is the nub of the problem.
25
Thus proving too many willingly vote against their best interests.
A major University Medical Center should conduct a psychologiical study on this phenomenon, perhaps the Democrats could use it to illuminate voters.
9
Never mind job cuts.This might even cause the 3 American car companies to go bankrupt again. Whenever I am at a red light, I count cars. For every 10 cars, 9 are foreign-made. American trucks still lead the market.
How can such an idiot of a president not think out his policies!
9
China and the other nations are not going to sit quietly by and pay for Trump's tariffs without responding in kind. The end result of all of Trump's nonsense will be increased costs to consumers including us.
11
Maybe Democracy where an undereducated, and extremely gullible, population can decide who will run the government is not the best way to provide the greatest possible good for all citizens. We elected this government and now we (even those who didn't vote for Trump) must live with the consequences.
9
Millions more voters voted for Hillary.
Millions more didn’t vote at all.
Those that voted for Trump and that didn’t voted at all are responsible. Trump didn’t hide who or what he was. He was completely unprepared for every debate and to take on the job. They knew he cheated at business, that he had multiple bankruptcies, that he wouldn’t release his tax returns, that he lied, that he talked trash, that he disrespected (and possibly assaulted) women.
1
Tariffs punish Americans for buying
overseas goods. Trump keeps crossing lines, the world keeps responding ‘You couldn’t make this up’. Next he’ll start punishing Americans living overseas and buying overseas goods. Then he’ll
just punish Americans living overseas for insufficient loyalty to
Trump because the IRS is unprepared to figure out how to tax them for overseas purchases that already have VAT. Next he’ll...
Closing borders, cancelling treaties, intiminating the Press,
we’re slipping under tyranny.
10
Who knew if you raised the price of steel and aluminum you would cost jobs and hurt industry. Throw into that raising the cost of foreign components in your cars and dishwashers. Only a very rich and naive man would not understand that doing this would effect average wage earners in America and destabilize markets.
Yet the GOP stands silent or deflect. Is destroying law and order to suit the wealthy and a very narrow range of fringe Americans worth destroying the country?
What is the end game. What happens after the depression is triggered. Do they truly think their sworn oaths are just wall paper. Have they forgotten they are now in the drivers seat, they seem to be happy to drive off the cliff crying Hillary would be a worse driver?
What is the end game, the end of democracy. Can a bunch who can hardly pass any bill manage to change course or are they truly evil and the goal is chaos so they can reap profit for their very rich masters?
17
Worst case scenario: Trump is attempting to isolate the U.S. economically, culturally, and geographically to create a real likelihood of international chaos even greater than what exists today so he can declare a national emergency that requires Marshall Law. From there he becomes dictator in fact, much like Erdogan. Stand by for the very rough ride ahead.
17
And Larry Kudlow says the deficit is coming down and goes unchallenged by Maria Bartiromo!! She is so awesome. Party over country.
9
She doesn't have the guts to potentially challenge anyone who might limit her "access". Financial data is all too available to her (!), and she should have responded to a complete lie. She lost any credibility she had.
The average Trump supporter is being introduced now to how Trump is feeding his hedge fund supporter out in Head of the Harbor, Long Island. Stuffing them with cash, driving up global prices and using an economy to control people while telling the fools they are benefiting because they got a little temporary tax relif. You don't see tariffs on global off shore hedge fund cash, his hotel management fees or his daughter's fashion line. Driving up the cost for later administrations of raw materials to build bridges, rails and infrastructure should not also include the Trump style expensive foundations for doomed projects. The US bailed out banks once already.
11
Just remember voters you put this guy into office. Especially the auto workers so when you’re laid off and can’t afford to feed your family, you won’t get any sympathy.
11
trump's recently appointed chief economic advisor from FOX news just asserted that the deficit is coming down "rapidly" which is absurdly delusional. If this is intended as a self-fulfilling prophesy, it's a lame one at that. Trump said he’d hire "top, top people" and would fill his administration "with only the best and most serious people." Serious people, serious trouble.
17
Larry Kudlow is lining his pockets (or the pockets of his immediate family - that’s how he divested). He follows Melania’s directive - he just doesn’t care. It’s the mission statement of the Trump Administration.
12
When you go bankrupt once, it can be because of events outside your control. When your companies go bankrupt six times, you may just be a lousy businessman.
You shouldn't be starting any new businesses much less driving national economic policy.
14
Wait, a CEO from a leading American Fortune 500 corporation warned Donald Trump of the dire consequences of another round of tarrifs. What do we know about the self-style greatest mind in the universe? He doesn't take advice well. Instead, he believes in his gut. And if we know one thing, he has a massive gut, but not much success elsewhere except for obtaing Deutsche Bank international loans, of course from Russia, with the assistance of Anthony Kennedy's son, Justin. We might remember those loans come from Russia of all places. So advice, and Trump's reaction, is destined not to end well. Just look at the North Korean fiasco. Trump is a fool. Once Wall Street gurus realize the harm Trump will cause by his lack of understanding of international trade, we will revisit another 2008, but without the safeguards designed to help us from another economic collapse. The future does not bode well for those who follow national and international trends.
27
The deplorables would be in hog heaven, except hog heaven has moved overseas to avoid tariffs.
18
Even after all of those people appearing at Trump rallies in South Carolina and Michigan start losing their jobs, lose pay raises, and start having to pay more for everything, they will still find away to blame anyone and anything other than themselves and the ignorant man they elected for their plight. Hillary's mail server, fake news, migrants, extraterrestrials? They appear to be incapable of processing the most basic facts and information. When Toyota, BMW, and Harley Davidson move their plants, for which many republican lawmakers lobbied so hard in the past, elsewhere--which would understandable--the rest of us will know who is responsible.
11
Remember this POTUS comment almost a year ago?
"Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!
1:14 PM - Aug 16, 2017"
From The Hill at that time: "In all, 11 business leaders and CEOs have quit Trump's councils, eight of them this week alone in response to his controversial comments on race and white supremacy."
Apparently business execs felt that social policy and economic policy were intertwined....something POTUS didn't and still doesn't understand.
13
There's going to be some pain but it's worth it.....
4
Future press release: US automakers file for bankruptcy. Trump blames Obama and bails them out with full support of the Republican Party and its base.
14
Tariffs has winners and losers but one thing is sure prices will rise.
8
How many of these unnecessarily endangered workers voted for Trump? Probably a majority of them. Saddest of all? They might lose their jobs like the workers at Harley yet still defend the guy who caused their pink slips.
25
Odd that the one of the two major industries that led to the major invitation to massive imports would now be vexed by measures that would have in preclusion negated that occurring. The other industry—- steel. The largesse and inefficiency of both coupled with the tempering of organized labor birthed the entire situation. At the end of WWII the US made the best of everything in the US. What happened ?
2
The rest of the industrial world was in shambles.
Unions in the US were strong.
The rich paid a fair share in taxes.
The difference between ceo and labor pay was much narrower.
Then the world recovered.
Unions were gutted.
The one percent conned the working class into voting for an endless series of policies that disempowered them, by playing on race and religion and gun ownership.
17
I am surprised on how many readers think that GM is an American company. By any economic measure , numbers of vehicle sold, location of most advanced R&D, annual growth rate, size of market GM IS PREDOMINANLY a Chinese oriented Company.
As an international company, with a primary interest in the Chinese, NOT the US market, GM , in a conflict between the US and China, has to side with the Chinese Government.
Tariffs are NOT the core issue.
The core issue is that the PRC is using GM to blackmail the US
Whatever you think of Trump, this development is not in the national interest of the US>
6
If you keep twisting yourself into a pretzel to justify Trump’s policies you’ll soon need an orthopedic surgeon to straighten you out. Perhaps you should check with your insurance company to find out if self-inflicted injuries are covered. They might consider your condition “An Act of Trump” and decline payment.
India is poised to become the new silicon valley, china a world trading powerhouse (regardless of their political strangle-hold on it's citizenry) and our former allies are preparing to forge new alliances.
And where will america be when the above transition is complete? Just an irrelevant hulk of it's former glory unless we begin to turn this looming disaster around in Nov, 2020, 2012, 2024.....
We are seriously behind in "public" transportation/power/communication infrastructure, education & health investment. On top of that, wholly unprepared for the impacts of climate change. We desperately require pragmatic decision making in our govt...we need 5-10-50 strategic plans for the future.
With all that in mind do trumpers seriously "believe" business will thrive and produce thousands of good paying jobs within this current reign of chaos? No, we will end moving from one crisis to the next with no plans and it will bankrupt us.
15
President Trump didn’t invent tariffs and compared to the rest of the world the US has largely dismissed their use. That’s why GM and other manufacturers have become so dependent on foreign suppliers for parts. Why manufacturer you own when you can import them more cheaply from China? Conversely, why would foreign manufacturers buy American parts at prices inflated by the tariffs their governments impose?
There was a time when GM manufactured all of the parts in its vehicles here. Now it is dependent on a supply chain of “great breadth, scope and complexity”. In other words, it relies on cheap foreign parts. That may help GMs bottom line but it does come a cost. GM claims to be one of the country’s largest employers but with the number now down to 110,000 employees in he US, it certainly isn’t as important as it used to be.
3
GM caused many of it's problems back when it made all it's own parts. When a part was found to be defective there was no stopping the asembly line till a new improved part was made. They knowingly installed the defective part till the new "improved" part came on line. Till that time defective cars and trucks continued to roll off the assembly line. Making their own parts contributed greatly to the poor reliability of their vehicles and the desire of buyers to look somewhere else.
1
As far as numbers are concerned how would the GM U.S. jobs cuts compare to the number of jobs cut by abolishing ICE?
2
Use the money for ICE to hire teachers , nurses, librarians, artists, health care workers, social workers.
1
Other countries , especially China, have very large tariffs on American and European cars, it is no secret that this is done to force Chinese consumers to buy Chinese products, this is why a gray market for cars exists where straw buyers in the U.S. buy, in particular high end autos, and resell them to Chinese buyers, a $100,000 Range Rover in the U.S. (bought from an American dealer); can easily cost over $200,000.00 in China with their tariffs. The Chinese also force companies to “ share” their technology with them if they set up factories in China, eventually they will put them out of business, China has been playing hardball with American companies for decades as the CEOs of our multinationals are interested in only the next quarter that will impact their share price and bonus while the Chinese are looking out decades as Amazon did when they suffered losses for years as they captured one market after the other. American multinationals care nothing about American jobs they care about international sales and if their parts are all made abroad allowing greater profits and bonuses to the hierarchy, that’s just fine, their feeling has been from the beginning there are only two hundred million or so American consumers, while there are billions in Asia. Tariffs are the only way to level the playing field everything else is a lie . Propaganda, pure and simple and either a lot of Times readers buy into it out of hatred for Trump or there are a lot of bots out there.
2
America’s economy is all about the consumer not about workers, it has been for decades with the advent of easy credit and fiat currency, Greenspan admitted as much when he quipped” we can’t give them wages but we can give them credit”. Why don’t we be honest, there is no appetite to level the playing field for labor and bring back manufacturing jobs. Labor is just the beginning though folks, as Chinas sophistication in manufacturing and other fields grow the job losses to Asia will work their way up the food chain, it will eventually reach every area, there will be no place to hide, even the CEOs will be unnecessary as their companies are bought out and folded into more powerful, larger Chinese companies the difference is they will have made their tens or hundreds of millions while the rest of us are stiffed and ultimately will rely on UBI, Universal Basic Income. This is a reality and has been discussed at the highest levels, Davos and Aspen for instance. So it may be the job of those less educated at risk today but tomorrow it will be the rest of you.
4
Yes, Trump's tariff's may cost some US jobs in selected industries, at least in the short run. Unfortunately, the mainstream press focuses only on the job losses, without reporting that the tariff's may end up creating far more jobs for other firms than they cost the firms where there are losses. If the press selectively focuses only on the downside without reporting on the upside, they are presenting a distorted picture, and it increasingly appears they do so intentionally.
The US now has the lowest unemployment ever seen by most Americans. It has the lowest unemployment ever seen by black and hispanic Americans. That means Trump is clearly doing something right, and also that the economy is in the best position imaginable for us to start pushing our trade partners to agree to trade deals that are fair to the US.
A real counterbalance to what is being printed in the mainstream press is to read the German press, where they acknowledge that if the US would raise tariffs on imported autos to the same level that the EU charges the US to export cars there, it would devastate the German economy. The Germans understand that the current trade structure gives them an unfair trade advantage and they're scared to death that the US will finally decide to end that situation.
2
With such low unemployment, where will the country find the workers to create the growth you and Trump predict? They won't be coming from overseas with him as president and our birthrates have been falling for years.
10
So the tariffs will hurt the auto industry and all its workers. Fewer people will be able to afford new cars. Maybe this would help take more cars off the roads, and thus improve global climate, but since the Koch bros have so much invested in gas and oil, my guess is that Trump & Co-conspirators would like Russia to make cars there instead. This would make some sense--the Kochs keep their gas and oil deals (hmmm . . . Manafort, Exxon CEO and former Sec. of State Rex Tillerson, and Putin's invasion of Ukraine for its gas/oil come to mind), sell more gas and oil for Russian-made cars.
I would say GM's downsizing could push more people to favor mass public transit over cars, but the Koch bros are actively working to derail (pun intended) new subway and light-rail systems, too. It's always about gas and oil. Did I mention the Saudis? Forget about global warming--we're all toast.
13
It’s not like there weren’t any tariffs before Trump became president. The tariffs were agreed on in trade deals. Europe already tariffs almost everything coming in. There is even a website to see what the charges are per country per product. And it does seem like the US is getting the raw end of the deal.
2
In the past, tariffs were to protect U.S. farmers and industry. The Trump tariffs are punitive, whimsical and not very well thought through.
12
Tariffs by themselves are bad enough I suppose.
But what really hurts are the words 'national security'.
18
What hurts me is Canadian mining company, Glacier Lake Resources Inc. getting ready to mine the formerly protected Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. It’s bad enough Canadians destroy their own land for oil sands now you want to destroy our land, with the help of the GOP, Pruitt, and Trump.
I can’t help but feel Trump’s and Trudeau’s wee bro-spat was staged to divert attention away from this little germ of a deal.
www.npr.org/2018/06/21/622128554/firm-prepares-to-mine-land-previously-p...
I am against Trump’s trade tariffs. I think they will hurt America workers. That being said, I think they may become an excuse to CEO’s like Mary T Barra, the CEO of General Motors who happens to pull in a compensation package of over 21 million dollars a year to cut back on wages to put more money in their and share holders pockets. Share the wealth! How much do these people need!
11
I agree. The tariffs are already hurting small businesses and farmers. In most cases (not GM's, apparently), they are helping large corporations.
5
$21,000,000 a year, or $ 400,000 a week for what? I rarely see am American car on the road anymore.
2
Tariffs and trade wars are essentially regressive taxes. They will hurt the middle class in their wallet resulting in a lower standard of living for the majority. At the same time, the resulting increased prices will have virtually no impact upon the consumption levels of the top economic classes. The Republican poodles in Congress have ceded their authority, their power, and their political party, to the Trumpists.
and power ceased representing the majority of
10
GM has no ethics, no sense of duty to their workers, and really ought to manufacture elsewhere. Recall the "crisis" from a few years back? GM cried, lobbied and received legislative support claiming that they would go bankrupt if employees didn't concede to drastic pay cuts and we, tax payers, didn't extend them a loan - bail out. GM weakened the UAW.
What GM wasn't telling us was that they ranked as the #1 car sales company in China. Chevrolet was known as the businessman's car in Beijing for several years. But yet we had to help fund GM to keep them afloat? GM scammed us.
Recently, Reuters posted that GM's CEO Mary Barra's total compensation package was valued at $21,958,048, about $625,000 less than the $22,582,059 package she received in 2016. Barra, GM's chairman and chief executive officer, was paid $28,588,663 in 2015."
The average UAW worker receives $15.98 per hour, or about $30,000 annually. Try supporting a family on that. And now they want to cut employees salaries even more?
Let's see if Mary Barra can make the same compensation in China after that government takes its cuts and payoffs. No more cuts GM and go ahead and close since you find it so hard to make profits in the U.S. Trump graduated from Wharton, he's no slouch regarding corporate practices and policies. Go ahead GM try to bluff him.
8
You have a good sense.
During the "crisis", were any of those suppliers of components in the 'supply chain' offering discounts on their parts, or extending keep-"afloat' credit beyond normal terms?
The establishment types ain't done attacking Trump; they still want to destroy any credibility in governance other than their flailing own. Some for this reason, some for that. Some don't like his geopolitics. many actually. Others don't like his judges. They'll exploit any means at their disposal; GM is an example. Many of these naysyaers have their families; futures; lives; very identities, wrapped up in their politics. Trumpism threatens who and what they're. He has many enemies, for several reasons. Many of them conflicting with each other; only binding in the 'common cause'. Though Trump has much support -- and growing, among the peoples of the world; becasue of his genuineness. Along with some very influential friends in just the right places.
I hope people realize by now that Trump does not care about his oath of office and he has no intention or understanding what serving the American people means.
He will continue to take actions and put people in place that consolidate his power so he can continue to use the government for his own personal gain.
In fact, I really don't think he cares if his economic policies throw the economy into a tailspin. It then further separates the very wealthy from the rest of the population which further consolidates his power.
17
it is very hard to see anything good coming out of Trumps ill conceived tariffs.
15
The cost of these tariffs will far exceed the benefits.
16
Crickets, until the GM revenue sharing checks star turning up light; then it may finally sink in that the emails weren't such a big deal after all.
23
Will someone realize the damage Trump is doing to the economy of the entire world, this is the fall of the American Empire.
40
Trump is doing the right thing, and if you watch old Phil Donahue shows from 30 years ago he was saying the same thing then, Trade Deficits are Bad. Every year we export more than $500 BILLION of our wealth, look around at our bad roads, airports and infrastructure, and look at all the nice stuff built in the Countries of our Trading "partners" like China. It's good when American wealth stays and circulates in America instead of building out the rest of the World.
4
This is exactly the false narrative that feeds into the frenzy. Just taking the revenue of Apple corporation - 65% of the last quarter revenue of 61.1 billion was from non US which is just one company. The revenue from US technology and services companies are creating deficits in many countries especially in Europe which is not being hit with tariffs. The other reason US is able to run deficits is because it is being funded by debt sales to the very countries which it claims are creating the deficit without which US would have been bankrupt long time back.
13
The 80's called. They want their economic strategy back!
10
If we want "nice stuff" like the other countries maybe we shouldn't spend more than the next seven biggest countries spend on defense. Maybe Americans should buy American products instead of going to Walmart and maybe the Trump family should manufacture their products in the good old USA.
9
There is no modern economic theory or scientific evidence to suggest that tariffs could benefit the US economy. I have to believe that the President knows this - I know from experience that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross does - so the President must be acting for political gain this fall. Hopefully all the tariff talk will disappear and tariffs will be negotiated away after November.
13
"There is no modern economic theory or scientific evidence to suggest that tariffs could benefit the US economy. I have to believe that the President knows this."
The president only knows how to impulsively stoke his ego and sense of power. All the world is just a stage for him to strut about impulsively. We are not living breathing feeling people to him. We are props, foils, supporting actors who should be glad to have a job making him look good.
15
Everything Trump does is purely for political gain. Nothing Trump does is simply because it is the right thing to do.
10
If there is no such theory or evidence supporting tariffs then why do foreign governments employ them? More to the point, how do THEIR tariffs benefit the US economy?
It is more than disappointing to see the potential results of clumsy actions by those in power when it comes to matters of business in the first instance, and potentially even more important, mutual trust and respect too.
To exacerbate this, ignoring the in place "rules" adds to the resulting harms and un-spelled scorns by not only those impacted, but other figures in the international political space.
Shakedown ultimatums, specially when not thought through sufficiently, can be of great concern on scales far larger than foreseen by those who don't use the skills and efforts of their experienced staff.
We would like to see more harmony and less of the blunt force trauma which is currently in play.
16
Hope all of the Trumpers are happy. Just amazing winning, every day. This man is a RUSSIAN stooge and the NYTimes has given him free air time for THREE years and he is in the process of dismantling our government, but hey, the ratings are good.
I no longer feel bad for all of the people that are going to suffer. Racism is a cancer in this country and the sooner it’s cut from society the better.
So, cannibalize your own #45, be quick with it. See ya’ll in November.
27
Give him time and he'll crash the economy, your 401k will be a 001k. When you disrupt the world economy, you must remember that YOU also live in this same world. But why should we believe a snake oil overpriced condo salesman with 5 bankruptcies, a phony university and a bogus foundation he skimmed money off. Why? Maybe because he thinks we are really too slow and stupid for him. Maybe we are.
68
He and many of his voters seem, and this is my opinion, but they seem to think that they are living on an island, isolated from decisions made by previous governments before this and by technological advancements.
One such government decision I would like to point out is the deregulation of the American banking system where in retail and investment branches were allowed to merge, and many of the banking oversights were annulled. Another would be to continue to allow double-shell tax avoidance schemes by large American companies.
15
Wait! Corporations are people too! They have free speech rights! Yay Justice Kennedy and Citizens United!
4
Fire the trump voters first please!
64
They begged for it!
Not to worry. With the Putin summit coming up, trump will get more great advice from his handler.
39
"Donald . . . Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?"
I expect any auto workers who voted for him and who will lose jobs will do so again. Many Harley workers about to loose jobs said he made the e conomy strong. They like his policies. Go figure.
36
Winning trade deals is easy. We’ve never had anyone smart negotiating until now. All these academics and economists and their plans, long documents and forecasts actually no nothing. Have any of them redecorated a ball room UNDER budget?
4
Then again, he saved a lot of money by stiffing workers and contractors by not paying them for numerous projects. Maybe he could help the deficit by not not paying for Federal contracts. Now there's a thought...
25
He is saving lots of money by just not staffing the State Department. Right now, we have no ambassadors in Japan and South Africa and many other countries, just for instance.
But we did manage, under Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress to *increase* our so-called defense spending. Remember, we're spending now around $700 billion a year on the Pentagon. Russia and China are spending together less than $250 billion a year on their war machines.
And Michael Katz, they've never bought a weapons system at budget, let alone under budget.
I don't want to see people lose their jobs. I don't want families and their communities to suffer the indignities and deprivation of depending on inadequate public support for daily necessities.
Notwithstanding, it is not that thousands and thousands of us weren't jamming around the countryside, spending our money and using our phone minutes to warn people that this moron didn't understand anything about governance or macroeconomics or foreign policy in 2016.
But the MAGA crowd loved mainlining their fix of resentment and revenge and adrenaline...and voted accordingly.
I wish you no harm...but I can't summon up much motivation to help you before the next election, either. You had alternatives...but you chose what you're getting.
And, by the way, you've done generationally irreparable harm to the United States standing in the world....just sayin'
58
GM ruined southern Michigan. Why is this news?
5
I live in Canton Michigan, it's between the Peoples Republic of Ann Arbor and Detroit. I don't understand your comment, what did GM ruin? They did have very bad management but no worse than the Democrats that have run Wayne County for the last 50 years.
Tariffs are the dinosaurs of trade. And we all know what happened to the dinosaurs. Let's hope the one in The White House listens rather than tweeting another threat to punish them even more. It may be time to remember Engine Charlie's famous comment, "What's good for GM is good for business."
5
Oops! The actual quote is, "What's good for General Motors is good for America."
At the same time, Trump will announce an increase in Opioid production and imports, to smooth things out for the folks who lose both jobs, food aid and medical care under the ACA.
At least they'll feel like they're winning as they drift off.
37
Gee, who knew that tariffs and trade wars would cause higher prices and job losses?
Anyone who knows anything about basic economics—that’s who.
37
The 4 time corrupt incompetent bankrupt is leading this country over a financial cliff while the complicit republicans look on...
46
But I'm sure hidden in there is some way that America will become greater, right? There has to be, because that's what his goal is, to put America first.
Right. And I'm 30 years old and the handsomest man on the planet.
14
Did an editor actually read this piece? Where did the author get figures to support this statement: “American automakers, which export an estimated two million vehicles, increasingly rely on global sales as a buffer in tough times”? According to the Statistica website that is more cars than manufactured in the US last year. How many decades would it take to export two million cars to China?
5
Numbers include commercial vehicles as well. Statistica puts that number above 11 million.
13
“How many decades would it take to export tow million cars to China?”
In 2017 the US produced over 17 million cars. In 2017 China imported over 1.2 million cars and produced over 24 million. Their numbers increase significantly every year. China’s population is four times that of the US. Not aware of the actual numbers but I suspect the length of time it would take to export 2 million cars to China will soon be measured in months, not decades.
However, the greatest impediment to American vehicle exports is not tariffs. Size, quality and value matter. Other than where I live in Canada, the rest of the world is not remotely interested in the massive gas guzzling monstrosities that are the staples of American vehicle production. The F150 and Ram are poster boys for why Europeans in particular want nothing to do with American autos. America wants bigger and badder, the rest of the world not so much.
21
Trump voters: You broke it, you bought it.
45
Lower wages and greater profits are the most important things to this president. He is a member of the ruling class. He was born into it without ever having to work for a living. If the "working class" voters ever wake up, they will realize they were duped by a con artist.
26
It's Obama's fault; he handed Trump a lousy economy that had created 16.5 million jobs.
43
Instead of cutting jobs, could we just lay off trump?
38
Thedeep irrationalityof this administration is, depending on the issue, entertaining or frightening.
13
Never entertaining. Always frightening.
Is this what you're after with those tariff's Mr. Trump?
3
Now get ready for Trump to publicly attack & name call the leaders at GM & the company.
His minions will swear off their GM trucks -
the Great Divider will no doubt bring another day of joy, happiness, & prosperity into the world. NOT
17
I'm not an economist but I think these tariff's will only affect one class of people...the working class poor who are already being squeezed out of every dime they earn.
It won't affect the wealthy at all...
30
… and it won't affect the "working class poor"'s blind unflinching support for this con man 'fake' president either.
Trump is living in the 18th century economically when ideas and actions in that realm were simple. Now that many nation's economies are so interrelated and the global system is so tightly intertwined, the U.S. can't sneeze that it is not felt throughout the world. Complex global economic concepts are far beyond what Trump can understand and Kudlow, with his biases, is not a good tutor. That Trump would actually listen to him anyway. I have thoughts and prayers but this time they are for all the workers whose jobs are now threatened.
9
Maybe Mr. Ross could explain the effect of of tariffs on the supply chain to the President.
4
I personally know of one major manufacturer that has put the construction of a new plant and the jobs that come with it on hold due to the tarriffs and the ever changing policies of the Trump administration. There are surely many others. Expect to see job numbers start to fall.
14
Putin could not have a better ally in his quest to destabilize the U.S. His interference in our national election has reaped benefits. When Trump and he soon meet at the Summit Meeting he knows all he has to do is deny that Russia interfered with our election and Trump will believe him and I'm sure reward Putin. Could anyone imagine a Democrat getting away with such behavior?
30
What I find shocking is no one saw this coming...
EXCEPT every person you didn’t vote for “trade wars are easy to win” Trump.
How soon will it be before he washes his hands of this monstrous self-created fiasco while declaring, “who knew Trade Wars could be so complicated?”
I shudder to think what he’ll target next for destruction and destabilization.
36
Guess we will find out what is next after Trump's meeting with Putin in Finland. Since Trump cannot plan nor strategize, he is waiting on Putin to decide.
11
Meow,
Oh yes! He’ll get his next set of orders. I’ll assume this time as with every other time he’s met with Putin there will be no transcripts of their conversation. He’s so blatantly obvious about it.
This is the ZERO accountability administration.
I can’t help speculating if Trump has been tasked with destroying our country to ready it for invasion.
Yes, I have reached the point that conspiracy theories sound plausible.
1
Predictably, Chrump will in 36 hours:
1) Announce rescinding of tariffs because someone with a household name told him the timing was wrong. Announcement will include statement that said rescinded tariffs would have saved American jobs for unknown reasons unstated by both the president and Sarah H. Sanders. Dems and Obama will be placed at blame for the conditions that made the tariffs "necessary" but who, at the same time, (along with the "fake news") caused these tariffs to backfire.
2) 36 hours after rescinding the tariffs, Chrump will state that it was a bad decision to rescind, and announce his plan to reimpose them to save American jobs. To the cheers of workers who think Chrump just saved jobs by rescinding the tariffs - and who are now looking forward to tariffs because that failed policy will save jobs.
If Trump asked a crowd of followers for gasoline to put out a fire, the MAGA hats would swarm towards their hero, proffering open buckets full of gas.
44
That last paragraph so well describes the mindless, knee-jerk support and enthusiasm of Our Grating Leader's followers that I'm considering stealing it and passing it off as my own, Think of One.
No one reads these comments, right?
13
We're gonna win so much we'll get tired of winning, our Great Leader declared (loudly and crassly and quite often.) Good prognostication, sir. I am already tired of "winning."
23
Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work.
He likes the word - strong, threatening, demanding.
Tariffs must be good, right?
Trump doesn't understand cause and effect.
He doesn't understand imposing tariffs results in higher costs and higher prices for American businesses and consumers.
Trump just knows they hurt the other guy, right?
Remember, Trump is getting his advice from Kudlow - who hasn't a clue about the deficit or our economy, and Kushner - who overpaid the highest price ever for his family's NY office building.
Expect things to get much worse in the coming months.
Vote Democratic on November 6th.
Changing Congress is our best hope.
36
They should shut down the business school that graduated trump with a degree. He did not study business or economics.
Our only hope.
The power of this argument is tempered by the fact that on the short term Trump has effectively achieved full employment through his tax cuts. But everyone also knows that everything Trump does is short term. He never considers the long term consequences, because he hedges against bankruptcy by letting others take the losses while he walks away with his loot.
That this pattern is not being seen by Congress and acted upon accordingly means that the members Congress themselves are subscribing to a zero sum mentality in which they are now themselves free to use their positions to enrich themselves by any means possible without fear of consequences. Ethics rules no longer apply. Their oath to the Constitution and the People means nothing to them anymore.
This is the true catastrophe Trump has brought to all of us. Even if the midterms change the majority in the House or the Senate, that mindset will continue to persist. It will take a long time and a national catastrophe that requires societal coherence for nothing less than survival to change it.
I know, this sounds like it could have been written by David Brooks, but I am not him...
14
Kara, the tax giveaway did not result in full employment; employment was trending up almost every year since the great republican recession. And remember, it was a Democratic president that pulled the world out of it despite an obstructionist congress.
51
The recovery has been doing on for nine years at a consistent unrelenting determined pace since the catastrophic Bush recession. Yet in the ninth year trump asserts he inherited "a mess" and incredibly claims ownership for the whole recovery, including the employment rate. In truth he's been riding the coattails
of his predecessor.
11
sane citizen is correct.
Unemployment in November 2016 was 4.6 %
Unemployment in November 2017 was 4.1 %
The tax cut bill was passed in December 2017.
Unemployment in May 2018 was 3.8%
We have historical precedents from which to consider today’s risks of economic change, from supply-side tax cuts to tariffs, and we also have ECON 101. One can reasonably surmise any radical, contrary change to “well-oiled” economic trade will have negative consequences. While these may be temporary, they also may not, setting off a chain reaction of additional negative consequences. As one who prefers a government that does not take high economic risks (I have lived through nearly a dozen administrations), it is more difficult to accept this government taking these risks claiming to enrich all peoples’ lives than it is to conclude such risks are taken to enrich a few or to purposely cause destructive chaos. Job losses, increased costs to consumers, likely pension cuts to auto workers, together with the recent large tax breaks, would be just the beginning. Trade agreements are not threats to national security, but it is the only claim that can be used by the administration to take such high risks without involving Congress. This in and of itself demonstrates an absence of good faith by the administration, as well as an abuse of power. People should be concerned and Congress should act.
13
"likely pension cuts to auto workers, together with the recent large tax breaks, would be just the beginning."
A reduction of Social Security and Medicare benefits are already in the planning stage. Trump is working from the Koch brothers' playbook. This is their intention.
8
"We are gonna win, win, win. We're going to win with military, we're going to win at the borders, we're going to win with trade, we're going to win at everything. And some of you are friends and you're going to call, and you're going to say, 'Mr. President, please, we can't take it anymore, we can't win anymore like this, Mr. President, you're driving us crazy, you're winning too much, please Mr. President, not so much, and I'm going to say I'm sorry, we're going to keep winning because we are going to make America great again."
[Trump at Louisville, Kentucky - May 2016]
It seems indeed that as far as G. M. is concerned, they can not take it anymore.
22
Neither can Mid Continent Nail, the largest nail producer in the US. They just laid off 12% of their employees (60 of 500) and shut down a production line because the tariff on steel is forcing them to raise prices and lose business. They have said they will go belly up before the end of the year at this rate.
So much winning.
5
What is wrong with these companies? They are waving the "white flag" and surrendering before Trump can but the tariffs in place. They do not understand that Trump has predicted an "easy win" for the US in any trade war. Wilbur Ross agrees. Even the TV investor guru , Jim Cramer has predicted that Trump will win. What could go wrong with such a star studded cast of economic geniuses leading the way.
14
Wilbur who?
I say do so because them more jobs lost will push Trump and the rest of the Republican Party out of office.
11
How are countries and companies supposed to plan when US international and economic policy is a collection of random, half-baked ideas that change incessantly? Increasingly they will have to go it alone.
19
So much for the National Security justification for raising tariffs that was used incoherently by Trump. Its real purpose was to harm the economy and cause job losses. What else to expect from the incompetent man with a record of serial bankruptcies and a demagogue who never reads and always disdains expertise! Why does anybody still support him?
I am sure his friend Putin is ecstatic though and Trump will get rewarded in the future by him.
17
GM can just ask for a bail out if Trump’s policies lead to bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has always worked for Trump. Perhaps one of Trump’s Russian oligarch friends has a few billion he can lend to US companies.
16
Trumps business model has always been: borrow loads of money, go bust, borrow loads of money somewhere else, go bust, borrow loads of money in another country, go bust. He has no idea of the intricacies of actually creating something of value.
42
Except now he has borrowed money in Russia and they are not going to let him go bust. They will be coming after him and his entire clan.
That is so obvious, the glare of it is blinding. He is Putin's stooge.
Just look at his plans of removing US troops from Europe. Who else would benefit from that but Putin?
Same in South Korea.
American strategic influence in Europe and Asia will be history.
Making America Small Again is Trump's mantra.
The damage that is being done right now is so colossal, it blows all proportions.
8
I swore never again to buy a GM vehicle new, after being burned by their awful cars in the 80s and early 90s. Now I have a used Silverado, and I can do a lot of my own work on the thing. But even so, it's never had a decent front end or fuel system.
If it were not so low-mile, I'd have long gotten rid of it. But it's good for chores and can haul 8' lumber.
So as much as I despise Trump, it's hard to side with General Motors on anything. They did move production out of country. Perhaps if they kept it here they'd be forced to build a few less posh, sensible trucks and not hulking, lifted monsters?
2
“The purpose of the comment period,” the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said in a statement, was “to make sure that all stakeholders’ views are heard, both pro and con.”
“That will enable us to make our best informed recommendation to the president,” he added.
And then for el presidente to ignore the findings and go with his gut to show how tough he is.
19
Kutlow declared yesterday that the deficit is going Down, Down, Down. 30 minutes later he rescinded that after the Accounting Office showed just the Opposite.
Trump’s first words yesterday at a staged event was how the economy is humming along magnificently.
.......but only later did he even mention the shooting in Maryland, never referring to the victims and their families.
Enough said.
23
Trade is global in a global economy. This simple declarative sentence is no doubt far too difficult to understand for our commander in chief, the trade war czar.
15
The Trump Recession is in its way! So much for making America great. Trump and his cronies (domestic and foreign) are doing their best to destroy what had been a thriving economy.
13
Time for Trump voters in the Midwest make America Great Again? They voted in big numbers for him - he has already taxed non profit works like church activities with his tax levies? They supported an adulterer and liar- time to Make America Great Again
6
True to form, anything Obama did (in this case, saving the auto industry), 'Lil Donnie wants to destroy.
12
Of course Trump in out to make himself and those who pay him/control him richer. As a failure in everything, however Trump has one interest overriding all the others. To make the USA and all those in it who ridiculed him, made him feel small and stupid, and were not loyal to him knell before him and ask his forgiveness. He wants to punish all of these. And he wants to do it publicly. To humiliate them as much as possible. As he feels they've humiliated him. In my profession we call this sociopathic. Trump is a sociopath. No big surprise there. Sociopaths generally present no danger to those around them, as their actions are controlled. Trump, however is literally the most powerful person in the world, heeds no words from advisers, with all those who might control him cowed into submission via Twitter. Trump will create one or more major disasters shortly. Will we all live through them? Maybe!
11
President Obama saved General Motors from collapse and President Trump threatens to destroy them.
25
Too broad a statement that B.O. saved GM. In December of '08 Bush signed TARP which gave short term relief to GM and gave the then new administration a few months to sort out what to do next.
Further, Ford Motor never took aid and made it through the storm . . . . .
Tariffs are awesome!
They help fund huge tax breaks for starving Koch’s, Trumps, and Devos’es, Mnuchins (remember her adorable Instagram posts?), Kudlows, etc. Remember: tariffs make imported and higher quality goods more expensive to YOU.
It’s just gonna be a bummer when you go to buy a new ... anything. Enjoy, Trump voters, thanks for your subsidy!
12
Folks, do not get too excited.
T is the logical consequence of 3 decades + of republican politics. See how Ryan, McConnell and all the other brothers in treason are supporting this wreck.
No more Republican rule, kick them out, every last one on country, state and country level. If in Nov somebody has an (R) behind his name, ignore, and even if it where mother Teresa alive.
20
Reality Check tarrrifs ,nafta ,free trade its all same song just different spin. American concumer can always just not buy any import or parts used to make american car where imported called boycott.Remember th boston tea party history does repest its self every 400 years.
The fact that any Americans at all like Trump signals what a vapid land this nation has become.
16
It would be a little easier to believe the manufacturers if we did not remember that when, after NAFTA, they moved production from the high cost US to low cost Mexico and did not drop prices. The same is true for European based makers like Volkswagen, where Golf production was shifted from high cost Germany to Mexico, they they raised the price to American consumers.
Aside from that, Trump is an idiot who either foes not understand economics and trade or does not care. His policies will most directly hurt businesses and industries located largely on states he carried in 2016. My Republican Congressman Rick Crawford, has parroted the Trump and GOP line regarding Tarrifs protecting steel jobs in Arkansas, but does not mention the loss in exports of Rice and Soybeans- both of which are much larger businesses in this state.
For years we have been hearing Republicans tell us that government should be run more like a business or with a businessman’s mentality. With Trump, they got their wish and he looks like a bull in a china shop.
10
If anyone who loses a job voted for Trump, I won't shed any tears for them. They should have known better than vote for con man and fool.
19
The executive branch is populated with the dimmest bulbs in our nation's history. However, their handlers, here & abroad, the one's behind the scenes? they are smart cookies.
Trump & ilk are playing for the short term: their fat bank accounts etc. The real players are into more longterm stakes. Oh, like world domination. That kind of stuff.
Trump & his greedy short-sighted band of idiots are so easily manipulated.
15
Keep it up Trump. Gradually your base will hate you.
12
Until their wallets are empty and they have to apply for food stamps, and stand on the unemployment line his supporters will continue to applaud every stupid word that falls out of his mouth.
50
"Free-DUMB !"
Trump 2018
15
Don’t forget losing their health insurance as well. Let’s keep this thing in perspective.
15
And ever after all of that comes to pass, his supporters will come to the conclusion that it's all somehow "Obama's fault."
16
And the fools who work for these companies and who voted for the president will continue to support him as they go on unemployment!
30
As the Russians once said: "If Stalin only knew!"
1
Sooner or later, and I'm guessing sooner, Trump will finally succeed in ‘crashing the plane into the mountain’... and the dirtbags in the GOP will ‘suddenly’ discover the nearly endless list of crimes for which he should have already been impeached, convicted, and expelled from office.
You can steal from some of the people some of the time Donny, but you can’t steal from everyone all of the time.
America’s first President to be sent to prison.
16
Trash talking Harley Davidson was easier, they are little; will Trump step up and talk smack at GM?
5
Whew! How do you stand it? All those new jobs at Carrier and Harley and now the good news from GM. Add in the bonus checks, big pay raises, lower health care costs, NFL players standing proud and tall, new summer camps for asylum seekers plus the YUGE wall with beautiful doors, the list goes on and on. Tired of all that you know what?
19
In the end these job loses mean nothing to Trump’s core of white evangelical men and women
To them all that matters is Trump gets Roe v Wade overturned, ends Obamacare, and enhance their status as white christians
With the court getting a firm lock of conservatives white men and women will push cases to the court to inhibit the rights of minorities using this court’s favorite lever of religious freedom
We are moving towards being a poorer more apartheid country
19
This is the point. In the end, the MAGAists will view the costs of a trade war as a small price to pay for a zero-tolerance immigration policy, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the marginalization of Anyone Not Like Them.
9
"I love the poorly educated!"
- Donald Trump, Feb 2016
Donald loves the poorly educated because anyone who can think for themselves can see exactly what he's doing to America.
Register Today and Vote in November! We must take back the congress to defang this ignorant hate-driven beast (and his poorly educated herd of frenzied suckers) to preserve what's left of our country!
19
Trump is ignorant, and his brainwashed base is ignorant. This is why it's so stupid to vote for "a fella you'd like to have a beer with."
Trump also is reflexively pigheaded, and rejects sound advice that he doesn't understand, preferring to go with his ignorant, pigheaded "gut."
So the U.S. economic empire will crash much quicker under his illegitimate regime. And now he gets to pick another juror in his criminal case when his illegitimate next step-- firing Mueller and ordering the whole investigation dissolved, refusing to honor a subpoena to testify, or refusing to be served with 28 counts of felony fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and election law violations-- hits the Supremely Corporate Court.
Tomorrow, millions of American citizens will rise up in the streets all over the country against this cruel, heartless, illegitimate regime. For some hope, check out the map of actions EVERYWHERE.
At some point soon, it's going to come down to a power struggle between millions of Americans in the streets (just like the Arab spring or Ukraine before they kicked out Manafort's corrupt, Putin-controlled boss and re-established their democracy).
Will America have enough true patriots to keep ours?
14
President Obama saved the American automobile industry during the financial crisis. Trump, either out of sociopathy or stupidity, is intent on destroying it. Democracy can no longer be a spectator sport: get out the vote, actively support Democratic candidates, and make sure you get yourself, your family and friends to the polls.
10
Once again, will the people who voted for this carnival barker-alleged "businessman" understand that they will most likely be hit the hardest, economically, by his continued pugilistic stance in a global economy.
He is living in a delusional world of the 1950's reset.Mr Trump; the world has turned a few rotations since the Eisenhower days. get with the realities that WE aren't who we allegedly were , even back then!
10
Leave it to the Republicans to take a great economy that was slowly, with stability, coming back strong on its own with little market interference from the government and crush it. First it roars, then it crashes. That’s what it has done historically the kinds of moves Trump Et. al. has and is making. The Republicans hypocritically scream “free markets free markets” but then go and do the opposite. And some people here have the Gaul to blame GM? When it all comes crashing down, Trump voters, psychologically twisted as they are, will have no one to blame but themselves.
5
Shakespeare described the situation as only the bard could do: Now is the summer of our contentment Made gloomy winter by this sun of Trump.
6
Trump is playing God and forcing the world to live through the catastrophes of the 20th Century all over again. This is just the beginning.
6
Ford didn't get an $11 Billion government bailout.
Pres. Trump should change the Presidential Limo to a Ford/ Lincoln.
What's worse than Trump promising vulnerable working class men and women that he is on their side? Losing them their jobs. Potentially en masse.
When the job losses pile on and working class people begin to realise the tax cut he gave himself, Trump is gonna find himself in one crazy pickle.
That is the beautiful thing about math, markets and money - love them or hate them - there will be a reckoning. The fact that he doesn't know that just shows his lack of fitness for office.
5
This may be more indirect than the others, but let's check this off the list of Things Obama Accomplished That Trump Wants to Destroy.
2
Please people: vote like adults in November. Trump's cartoonish view the world, while it might be appealing to people who never read, is a threat to nearly everything we hold dear.
3
Vote every republican out of office this November. We need checks and balances on Trump. He is going to bankrupt the country.
4
I think deep down Trump knows that tax cuts and big time deficit spending to fund those tax cuts is really risky and very uncertain. Tariff is just another word for tax so in reality Trump is lowering taxes on individuals and corporations and then sneaking in a tax increase on certain companies by blaming "those nasty foreigners". Being the sideshow huckster that he is Trump is sure to find some bogeyman to blame for tariffs. Probably Hillary and Obama. Or Congress. Take your pick or any combination. It really may come down to a wash in that Trump lowers income taxes and raises tariffs admitting that he is just moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic---taxes will decrease for some taxpayers and increase for others. If you give away a lot of money to get attention---personal and corporate tax cuts will definitely do that---you've got to find money somewhere else. Again those "foreigners" even those that look like the average American like the Europeans are fair game...I wonder how badly Trump will treat his good buddy and role model Putin? I bet Trump will offer to lift sanctions. That should not happen until the Crimea problem is adequately resolved. Putin IS NOT our friend and never will be. Beware America Trump bearing deals from despots he admires.
2
Will the neoliberal globalists let Trump destroy their goal of a New World Order as per David Rockefeller and the Bilderbergs? Will Trump's uncanny ability to declare bankruptcy 6 times contribute to the collapse of the global markets due to trade wars? Trump only hires sycophants and people who ascribe to his rantings and ravings. The US has 4.5% of the world population and does anyone actually believe that the rest of the world wants to see the US imperialist empire succeed? Only the 1% of the US population have benefit from Trump's policies. The fact that the US government exists with deficit spending and has since the Nixon administration does not bode well if Trump disrupts the world capital markets. The US is not infallible and as history demonstrates, all Empires succumb to internal rot and decay through corruption at the highest levels of government. Will Trump be the American Nero? It seems so.
3
They don;t understand. True Americans WANT to spend lots more money on shoddy goods.
Rather than deploying tariffs with the precision of a surgeon's knife, Trump, who lacks all of the qualifications of a surgeon, has decided to wield tariffs as a bludgeon. With supply links interconnected across our globe, this bludgeon will be wielded against our own companies, our own products and services, our own workforce, & ultimately, our own fiscal, financial & economic strength.
For those of you who voted against Hillary Clinton but who favored Bernie Sanders, you helped elect the anti-Christ of your expectations & hopes -- a billionaire who has eviscerated unions, stiffed contractors (as if that isn't enough), & who has in word & deed done everything he can to ingratiate himself with the billionaire oligarchy which you (and Sanders) professed to oppose.
At least, Hillary Clinton would have helped you earn three-quarters of a loaf of bread. With Trump, you received crumbs from his "tax reform" law whilst your vaunted billionaires won millions.
Can you at least admit you made a mistake? (Instead of voting for Trump, or one of the other two minor candidates -- and wasting my vote to elect Trump -- I should have voted for Clinton.)
I can admit I have made mistakes before: I should have supported Hubert Humphrey for President in 1968 instead of sitting that one out. I should have supported a stronger Democratic candidate in 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988, & 2004. There! I admit my mistakes. Part of being a mature adult involves admission of error.
If I can do it, so can you.
3
Just for clarification:
I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I have voted for every Democratic candidate for President (as well as down the ballot) since I became eligible to vote at age 18.
(I am also a very strong proponent of utilizing the adjectival form "Democratic" when referring to the Democratic Party. I abhor, detest, and reject utterly the insulting epithet "Democrat Party" coined by the Republicans and Conservatives. I have also come up with an antidote for those Rs & Cs who refuse to be civil in their indiscretion: "RePugNiCons.")
1
Well, hello Real World!
Do you think Trumpers will listen?
No?
They will follow The Very Stable Genius into a Depression?
Probably.
I am so upset. This has been the worst few weeks I can remember. Trump determined to sashay around with dictators, kicks our allies and trading partners in the teeth, falsely claims to fix North Korea problem, cuts Mattis out of the loop, tears children from their families and scatters them all over the country, deports people WITHOUT their children who may be lost forever, and of course now he's planning a summit with Putin and launching a pointless and destructive trade war.
And then there's several horrible SCOTUS decisions, all 5/4, and The Father of Justin Kennedy of Deutsche Bank, Trump's source of money, stepping down JUST in the nick of time for the evil so &so's to pack the court a few weeks before the election.
This country has gone from the grace, hopefulness and dignity of the Obama Administration right through the rabbit hole. And not in a good way.
Phooey.
17
So interesting how short-sighted we all aare. Automation and AI are here...and need to be implemented. Car-share should be here. Automatice trains and subways... Maybe robots could do a better job cleaning subway stations than the humans.
We in the US might have to look forward to a minimum income per person guaranteed... and the world at large needs to look at birth control.
Jobs need to be redefined... and payment for work. Why do some jobs pay too much and others too little. (Obama's 65 million book deal.. if tht is accurate way too much.)
Over heated stock market. Too low rates for savings... all artificial. No luxury tax on expensive toys... Only little people pay taxes.
1
USA and UK governments appear ignorant of the effects of trade tariffs squeezing margins bringing the distribution system to a grinding halt as many components imported. Trump and Wilbur Ross confused acting like industrial saboteurs. UK case: BMW MINI Oxford assembly plant will close if UK quits EU customs union with new tariffs inflicted. Car workers of the world you are about to be sacrificed in the name of tomfoolery
Somebody asleep at the wheel....mind the gap!
If President "It's all so simple" realized that by the time a car rolls off an assembly line anywhere on this planet, it's been made with parts manufactured in 20 different countries.
4
What's good for GM is good for America.
1
Trump's response will be ...have you not heard the saying - if its good for GM its bad for America.
3
However, if you buy a BMW X1, X2, X3 or X5, your vehicle will have been manufactured by American workers in the deep red state of South Carolina. Furthermore, a significant portion of the output from that South Carolina BMW facility - which in all totals over 500,000 vehicles per year - is exported all over the world.
That won't stop Fearless Leader from demonizing BMW for 'stealing our jobs' and 'trying to cheat America.'
Why not? The suckers still lap that stuff up. It's what got him elected in the first place and may keep him in the Oval Office for another dismal term.
1
What a terrible choice we have. Believe a lying billionaire president who says tariffs are good for workers, or believe a big corporation that outsources good American jobs to increase profits and says tariffs are bad for workers? Is anybody ready to consider another choice?
5
I can hardly wait to see how President Trump and the GOP blame this on Obama.
Or Hillary.
11
Obama helped the auto industry and Trump is sabotaging it. I guess us One Percenters have a different definition of how to make American great. Thanks President Obama for doing what was expected of you as Commander-in-Chief. Trump who cĺaims to know everything is proving he knows nothing. And like his wife,"doesn't really care."
6
Donald Trump needs to register as a foreign agent, since all his "winning" and "deal making" appears to be for countries other than our own.
2
This is weird. Who could have predicted a 6 times bankrupt estate agent wouldn't have a clue about international economics??
3
May the Trumpists hurt and hurt and hurt...
4
So much winning. It's becoming monotonous.
2
Messing with trade agreements just creates different winners and losers. What's the point?
1
There are 13 billion dollars in tariffs coming your way....happy 4th of July.
9
DJT: I already told Harley Davidson and now I'm telling you, GM. Don't get cute with us.
2
Don't you take it so that the White House Czar has a tiny bit too much administrative power? Where does his sphere of power end in the USA or is it boundless? A sort of dictator? Don't you find this worrisome?
4
Making America Great Again? Great for who?
1
Might drive unemployment up to levels President Obama only dreamed about.
1
Trump is bad for business. Who knew?
9
No less an authority than Calvin Coolidge famously said, "The chief business of the American people is business."
So, now we have American business leaders telling this President what the rest of us already know: "Mr. President, you are driving us over a cliff."
Folks, I am a small business owner, and I have vivid memories, still, of 2008, one of the most traumatic moments in my adult life.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to re-visit those days.
My late father in law, who was an XO on a US Navy destroyer, used to tell the story of being caught in a typhoon in the Pacific, and how his military vessel, weighing thousands of tons, was tossed around like a match-stick.
This imbecile is loosing forces that will render us all as powerless.
9
He will bring on a Depression. He's had so many bankruptcies, what's one more? This time, though, its with nearly 20 TRILLION in our money. History will remember this Sociopath. And out of the wreckage, we'll amend the Constitution and limit the sort of idiocies he and Congress have been doing with our nation and money.
7
Nearly every GOP president has managed to turn a healthy economy into a recession. Looks as if we are right on track.
10
When Trump's minions passed the corporate tax cut Trump was the darling of Wall Street. Now Wall Street wakes up daily waiting on what new Trump tweet is going to shake the foundation of their Empires. To understand Trump all one has to do is look at his treatment of AG Sessions. The more Trump beats up on Sessions the more Sessions does to make Trump love him again.One day Trump loves Harley Davidson the next day he is beating Harley up.Trump giveth and Trump taketh away. When you hitch your wagon to Trump you are in forthe ride of your life.Wall Street is going to have ride this horse,Trump, that they once loved to the end.
6
Trump is now a conservation president now, who knew.
Why to assertion, one may ask. Why, by imposing 10 - 25% tariff, and the resultant tit-for-tat, your cost of living jump disproportionately. The rich may still be able to buy their Ferraris but forget about the chevy. Used car prices will go up as well by simple supply and demand
Already, one of the reasons why a house is costlier and costlier is the cost of lumber. Someone told me it has gone up by 80%. There is a dearth of supply already, additional cost will be passed on to the buyer. Same with cars.
Enjoy your thousand dollar bonus and your wage increase now, for you may not have a job tomorrow
11
Trump economic policy will drive this country into economic collapse, like many of his failed businesses! And who will bear the brunt of it? It certainly won't be the wealthy, which are the only ones he really cares about.
12
“less investment, fewer jobs and lower wages”
Sounds like the bizarro version of a Trump rally chant, the words, immortalized on red T-shirts and baseball caps everywhere.
So, how long is it going to take before his base quits crowing that he is keeping his promises? Do we really have to not only halt econiomic growth but head back toward recession before the scales fall from their eyes?
Will soaring deficits; manufacturers and their jobs fleeing the country; pork and peanut farmers driven out of business; vastly higher prices for cars and gas, lower wages, less health care for more money; minuscule and meaningless tax breaks; higher age requirements and less benefits for Social Security recipients; greater income inequality; more polluted air and water; and new feuds with allies, and alliances with dictators actually have to occur before the blind decide to see?
November is so critical. Democrats and Independents must vote to take back not just the house, but the Senate It can be done -and all efforts and money and resources and talent must be laser tuned to that end. A Herculean task but if we are not up to it, the America we now live in will cease to exist - that's worth the fight.
20
All this business about the flattening yield curve signaling a likely recession is just more proof that monetary policy itself is fundamentally flawed by the dual mandate, and should be used only to maintain stable yield curves.
Trump will backtrack on this, as he did with separating children from their parents. But he may find that some mistakes are harder to reverse than others.
9
When the Resident in Chief was installed, I warned my less financially saavy family members that I care about, to start shedding any consumer debts that they had and to take advantage of then, historically low interest rates to restructure fixed mortgages. More people than I can count who took my advice, thanked me. Between the tariffs, banking deregulation, low unemployment, rising crude oil prices, spike in the bond market and rising interest rates, my advice is now to start buying gold. Whatever is coming I fear, is going to rival the Great Depression.
30
I see the same thing. I have seen it coming for years now. And that is why I live debt free now, and took the position that if I cannot purchase and pay in full, I will do without.
12
What Trump is doing is a perfect example of someone doing in "on the fly." No plan, no nothing. Just do it, as long as it will play well with his base.
History will repeat itself. After all, he just declared bankruptcy SIX times!
And married THREE times!
Next ..... he's probably drive the U.S. into a recession, similar to or worse than what happened in 2008, which was the worse recession that happened in the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
39
@David2017 :
Yeah . . . I makes one wonder: how can a Republican, ostensibly holding to the sanctity of marriage and conservative "family values" actually vote for such a blatant narcissist and egomaniac . . ?
Oh, yeah, they're in it for something far more important: MONEY -- "lower those taxes!!!" is the actual driving force, on the (dubious) assumption that lower taxes will automatically increase the personal bank account. (Pay no never nevermind to the increased costs to society as vital social services are eviscerated. . .)
Ahhhhhh, yes, the love of money. The Christian Right might want to refresh themselves with some pertinent writings in their sacred book, Timothy in particular . . . an inconvenient truth awaits.
Trump, in any other context, would be seen as a pathetic buffoon at best, and the model of what NOT to have your kids emulate.
Unfortunately our national maturity quotient has acutely eroded, and there are few grownups to be found on the national stage -- nary such a rare creature is anywhere to be found in the GOP tent, a pity, that.
Our nation is rapidly shedding and shredding any evidence of wisdom and vision it once had in great measure, which not so very long ago truly did make this a Great Country. It's not the immigrants. It's not the Chinese, and it's not Putin. As Pogo observed, we've met the enemy, and it's us.
How ironic. And sad . . . Bigly sad.
1
Let’s be clear here: these threats are being made by corporate investors. Not because the company is in any danger, but because their profit margins are. Trump’s actions may be the immediate motivation here, but the government as a whole has brought us to this point.
2
Uhm, when a company’s profit margins are in danger, which is absolutely the case for GM under Trump’s tariffs, the company itself is in danger.
3
Hey, what happened to those high-profile economic advisory panels of industry captains that Trump created? I know a few people left in protest ages ago. Have they been quietly dissolved? No comment on Trump’s policies from that corner?
29
Those panels have long ago dissolved themselves. After all, the dotard doesn’t need anybody’s advice.
1
It was disbanded by Trump. As per the article "G.M. and its chief executive, Mary T. Barra, have been at odds before with the Trump administration.
Last year, after Mr. Trump blamed both white supremacists and the groups protesting them for violence in Charlottesville, Va., Ms. Barra and other executives weighed disbanding an elite council formed to advise the president on economic issues. Mr. Trump shut down the group before they could dissolve it."
if memory serves, the panel that included facebook and other big companies self-dissolved in the wake of Charlottesville. Then Trump announced its dissolution on Twitter.
Dearest G.M.'s Mary T. Barra; I'm just a little guy who cares deeply about my nation and the welfare of our citizens. I can only write comments, a few out of many thousands that obscures my impact, but I hope you get this and spread it far and wide because you have a network and I don't.....................
Trump and Congressional Republicans are scrambling to find ways to offset the massive 1.27 Trillion dollar ten year tax cut that threatens to bankrupt the government with excessive deficit spending. The whole idea of the tariffs is to tax consumers to pay for the cynical lie that is the Tax Cut Bill that paid off campaign financiers and bought clueless citizens votes this coming November.
I've often been very critical of Detroit for exporting manufacturing instead of patriotically staying here for times of peace and war when you would be most needed here. For example; the article cites a study of the national security implications of imported cars, but I say, you, Detroit, should have been focused on manufacturing smaller cars to improve our national security to assure fleet efficiency in time of political or armed conflict. Instead, Detroit allowed itself to become marketing led instead of engineering driven and you built ever bigger vehicles that are inefficient and present a national security problem because of their massive fuel consumption.
Let it be known, Republicans are looking for big sources of income and you are one of many big industries they are after.
30
How does paying more for a car help pay off the deficit?
4
naidipuz; you totally missed the theme of my writing. Smaller cars made here would cost less initially and in fuel and maintenance costs while crowding out foreign makes here.
The fact remains, tariffs are consumption taxes and the Republicans are trying to offset their ill conceived and executed tax cuts.
Detroit could learn from Henry Ford who produced the Model "T" for years, thus reducing tooling costs, as well as Volkswagen which famously produced the Beetle that was manufactured with the same tooling for many years to minimize production costs.
Detroit needs to focus on producing smaller energy efficient vehicles for longer durations instead of retooling every year for road boats.
Detroit should be run by Engineers, not marketing people.
To answer your questions very specifically; the Republicans are pushing for tariffs on imported goods to pay for the tax cut legislation passed last December. So you see, you get a meager tax cut, and a big tariff or consumer tax bill. It's like a magic show the way Republicans dupe everyone.
1
Two of the worst cars ever made were the Ford Pinto and the Chevrolet Vega.
1
Keynes famously remarked that "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
In this case the scribblers have left their obscure academic posts and now have jobs in the White House itself. They can deliver the frenzy right across Mr. Trump's desk or cabinet table.
21
Few, if any, of Trump’s sickening crew of phony yes-men actually ever had real academic jobs of any note. Trump feels threatened if he has real achievers too close to him. Hence the frauds from Fox.
1
That is good news to the White House. An economic downturn will have a two fold effect, it will cure those "uppity" union members when they are laid off and it will have a negative effect on tax receipts further squeezing the governments and its ability to provide for its citizens. This along with the ballooning deficit due to the recent tax cuts for the rich will cripple Social Security which the Republican Party has been working at since the time of FDR and the New Deal.
26
Does this include the "uppity" workers in the "right to work" states like Alabama & South Carolina, many of whom voted for him and are part of his hard-core base? I hate to tell him (and them) but they will not be inoculated against the effects of these stupid tariffs.
2
Well, on the bright side: reduced production and consumption will reduce greenhouse gases. Which, I suspect, is the REAL motive of Trump and his supporters - they just care about saving the earth!
28
And on another arm of the food chain, say goodbye to dollar stores due to higher prices. Wal-Mart and its low price competitors are about to get slammed. Low cost goods from the Far East have resulted in a consumer consumption boom. The economic multiplier-effect in communities served by the importing, distribution, and warehousing operations of Far East goods is very significant. Who knows how many Trump supporters, favorably impacted by low prices, are directly being negatively affected by his unilateral decisions to impose tariffs? Here's a good guess: Most of them.
26
Yes, it was easy to predict even during the presidential campaign that destroying current international trade agreements, as Trump is doing, would cause retaliation from other countries, ultimately leading to higher prices for the American consumer, especially for the majority of Trump supporters, and loss of jobs within the US. For these reasons, the anti-globalisation positions of Clinton and Sanders were also ultimately populist positions, not fact-driven positions. Sanders and Clinton were pushed in that populist direction by Trump, who is severely damaging the US economy by starting a trade war, but the Democrats should try to explain these economic realities to voters, not cave in to simplistic populist positions. It's hard to imagine that Clinton would have ever started such a senseless and damaging trade war as the one Trump is waging. She would have analysed with knowledgeable experts the different options, trying to incrementally improve the multiple aspects of US economy, including trade. Trump just panders to its base selling them populist lies, like " International trade agreements are bad for the US, down with trade agreements", instead of painstakingly tweaking them where they need to be tweaked, after in-depth analysis.
36
What would’ve mrs. Clinton done? Hahaha!
That’s pretty funny.
Actually it is Bill Clinton who made NAFTA possible. And ruined thousands of American manufacturing jobs.
And the people who lose their jobs will STILL support Trump.
98
As the defeat of Democrats in November will demonstrate ...
There's an apocalyptic feel to the relationship between Trump and hardcore followers, as if he's leading his flock like some of those wacky cult leaders.. and we all know how that ends...
Many in the media were singing the praises of Trump for showing the world how the US would impose tariffs on their products and he would show them how the "deal" is done. I am no genius but my first thought was the other countries will do the the same. No world leader wants to be the first to bow down to Trump and not counter attack with the own tariffs in fact most seem to have cherry picked where to put there tariffs to harm Trump's voter base the most . The art of the deal seems to have rebounds and more rebounds to come.
22
Exactly! All of this was so easy to see and predict for anyone with even a modicum of international experience, but most of Trump's base has never travelled outside the US and has a very insular view of the world, being utterly convinced that the US is absolutely the best country in the world, with the best quality of life, etc...etc... Of course, they do not realise this is far from the truth, and that their own lives would be much better in just about any other Western country, where they would have more decent wages and health care, family leave, etc..etc...
79
Apparently Kim Jong-un of North Korea isn't going to bow down. There is a report circulating stating that the manufacture of nuclear material continues unabated since the meeting with Trump.
1
Wait a second... How much did the Government spend to Bailout General Motors in 2009?? I think the number is 11Billion Dollars. The taxpayers lost 11 Billion because GM didn't manage it's company well.
and now GM wants to threaten to raise prices and outsource manufacture?... because of tariffs. I don't think they have a leg to stand on! GM should have gone out of business a long time ago.
3
I wonder how the thousands of GM workers would have liked it if GM had been allowed to go out of business during the Great Recession. But Trump's policies might just accomplish that if he really goes though with more and more tariffs. Indeed, his steel tariffs are already damaging the automotive industry, which will ultimately cause job losses and increased prices for consumers.
14
The bailouts were loans, and were paid back with interest.
51
What are they supposed to do, eat the extra costs? BTW, even if the parts purchased from abroad could be purchased from American manufacturers now, do you honestly think the American manufacturers would not charge almost just as much, maybe even more? Finally, GM paid back the loans.
8
I know first hand what it's like to lose a career to corporate decision-making during the 1980's buyout-hostile-takeover-merger-acquisition fest. Jobs were scarce and like many, I was caught in the vicious job hunting game of being over-qualified/under-qualified.
Today however- my cupboards are running low of compassion for people I highly suspect voted for a fraudulent human pawning himself off as the Ultimate Deal-maker. "But he has lots of hotels...and tons of money..." The ultimate con man whose con was easily discernible.
Will there be tens of thousands of Americans one-pay-check from destitution- facing skimpy unemployment benefits, zero retraining prospects, loss of health insurance; cars and homes? Most likely.
Will I gloat because they knew better but couldn't see fit to do so? Not really. Will I care about their misfortune? Not really.
70
Unfortunately we're all connected so the people who are enabling this, and who deserve to suffer, will also cause the rest of us to suffer.
We didn't vote for this, we don't deserve it, we have struggled to be good people, good workers, and we get this totally uncalled for attack on a good economy, not to mention the absurd "tax cut" which only benefitted the very rich and is wrecking the government, so of course they are trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the sick, children and the elderly.
Oh but look on the bright side. The private prison industry is gonna do real well. Buy stock. They'll probably be throwing dissidents in there next.
59
Well said. The ignoranti foisted Trump in the rest of us. They deserve all
The pain they get.
When you hear the word "tariff" think "tax" since that's exactly what it is, a tax on the American people that was forced onto you by the republicans. Remember that when you vote on November 6th.
91
And if these tariffs go through, the Democrats need to start building out the ads for the midterms focusing on the Job Losses and the Trump Tax we will all be paying on our autos, washing machines and hair dryers due to this feckless Administration. No doubt, they will blame Obama.
I like using inappropriate capitalization, just like Mr. Trump's tweets! SOOO much fun.
The Kraken has been loosed and he has no flight plan.
VOTE IN THE MIDTERMS!
We are due for a reckoning. It will have to be economic to make an impact (only money seems to talk these days). It will not be pretty.
36
Good luck G.M., you might as well be talking to a wall named Trump. True leadership seeks to build bridges not walls that harms our economy and our country.
38
If you spit into the wind, expect it to come back into your face. Too bad Trump doesn't understand the word idiom, but understands the word idiot!
30
Trump has an antiquated view of economics and thinks he can bring back 1950 again. The world economic system has changed in major ways, and Trump hasn't a clue as to how it actually works now. The Chinese and Europeans certainly do, however, and they'll come out on top in whatever mismanagement scheme Trump randomly asserts next. While Trump tries to recreate a bygone era that's never coming back, they're actually investing in the future.
69
Yes, instead of Tariff, government should take a step back and see why we are importing more. Fixing that will increase the domestic production, will create more jobs and will reduce import.
10
He doesn’t have any view of the economy. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care about, and doesn’t understand the issues most Americans face. Remember his quip about how much he thought health insurance premiums were?
Come on. He’s a silver spooner. With a very low intellect. He’s a useful idiot being expertly commandeered by the religious right, but dystopian nationalists like Bannon, and by greedy capitalists like the Kochs. They are playing his need for an ego boost to meet each of their agendas. I hope they are eventually all tried for treason, but I’m afraid we’ll all be living under Russian rule by then.
GM also issues a credit card and has auto financing. Tariffs won’t only effect car sales. Tariffs will hit the banking sector. GM doesn’t just sell cars. It also profits from monthly car payments. Has anyone calculated the interest rate on the GM after the price increases? If the replacement cost of a vehicle goes up what happens to insurance rates.
Trump has decided we need to lower emission standards. Will the next step be to lower safety standards to make vehicles cheaper in response to tariffs? This administration can’t handle complicated issues. There is no critical path management in the tariff plan. Odd that a graduate of Wharton would not get business basics.
45
@Llewis—all good points, including that regarding Wharton. A fine school. I really have to wonder if he did his own work to receive a Wharton degree.
22
Most people think of Wharton in terms of a Wharton MBA. Trump only has an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is more than happy to conflate it with an MBA, which takes real work, but he’s only an undergrad from Wharton. Far, far less prestigious.
43
Actually, Trump didn't spend all of his college years studying business at Wharton.
He spent his first two years at Fordham in the Bronx. And, he didn't study business there; he studied the liberal arts. After two years, he transferred to Wharton.
Fordham was his back up plan. His first choice school was the University of Southern California; he wanted to have a career in the film industry.
But USC rejected him, so he ended up at Fordham.
(This all comes from the Fordham University alumni magazine - the article is available online)
6
This kind of thing should downwardly affectTrump's approval rating. When the "base" loses jobs, and has to deal with the reality of inflation, things might change.
29
Would the base even know that Trump's policies hurt them? Kudlow was claiming the other day that the deficit was going down instead of up.
7
His base, like their hero, will blame Obama.
Atlast, academicians of every stripe can publish their findings on Trump tariffs. Publish or perish.
Interesting to watch for rebates in Sept auto sales.
3
By the way, for all the talk of a Trump 'economic miracle,' GDP growth for 1st quarter 2018 was revised downward to 2%. Meanwhile, there has been no substantial bump in capital expenditures. But surprise, surprise... corporate profits are way up; along with stock buybacks and M&A activity.
Who could have guessed that would happen after a major tax cut? Gosh, it's soooo complicated!
P.S., the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude has about doubled since Trump took office. Anybody notice? I sure have, since I went way long on shares of a couple of WTI ETFs. I'm luvin' it. However, for the vast majority of Americans who haven't speculated on the price of oil, this ain't gonna be a whole lotta fun.
But that's ok. All will be well if we just 'build the wall' and toss 'undocumented' laborers out of the country.
Hey, where did all the farm workers, food processors, hotel housekeeping, restaurant kitchen, construction, landscaping, child and hospice care workers go? Not a problem! All those aging, underemployed white Rust Belt guys will be clambering to do the work, right?
Then again, maybe not.
139
Yes, all the disabled or the elderly nursing home residents, on Medicaid, who will have to fulfill work requirements to continue receiving benefits, can take over those jobs instead.
26
This is my husband's idea, not mine, so don't give me the medal when The Donald proposes bailing out the faltering auto industry by promoting the use of coal as a fuel source. Coal-fired cars? It makes perfect sense. What are trunks for, anyway? Heck, make that happen and I'd grab my pick and head to West Virginia. Boom Town, babeee.
1
Tarrif's increase prices of inputs, which are then passed along to consumers. While the Government gains increased revenue through these taxes, consumers ultimately pay the cost. Tariffs also potentially increase inflation as prices rise - which will cause the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates - this raises the cost of borrowing to both businesses and consumers. We could increases in unemployment from the current low levels. Ultimately history has shown that tariffs do not help consumers, and pressure businesses. As other countries increase tariffs, this impacts jobs here in the U.S. When the Smoot-Hawley Act was put in place world trade declined by 66% between 1929 and 1934. (US Dept. of State). While the world's supply chains are much more integrated, tariffs will ultimately be bad for American workers and consumers. While American steel and aluminum makers are thrilled, those who use those products will see a rise in the cost of production. Trade wars are not "easy to win". I think we are just seeing the beginning of an ugly episode of education about the effects of tariffs.
24
Can we say inflationary spiral?
When will people get it through their thick skulls that industry doesn't care about jobs or employees or the environment? As we are constantly reminded, only shareholder value matters. You and I and everyone else are expendable. We are all "expenses" on the balance sheet. We are "liabilities."
So, I don't think for one nano-second that GM or any other corporation cares about jobs.
32
If they sell less cars because prices increase, their profits decrease. If people are unemployed or underemployed, they buy less cars, further decreasing car manufacturer profits.
7
Gretab,
I seem to remember Mr. Ford teaching us that lesson right around 100 years ago. I'd say Trump must have forgotten, but that would be assuming he ever knew it in the first place.
I am starting to wonder if Trump isn’t on the Putin payroll to destroy America by making Americans hate each other through his vicious tweeting and destroy the American economy with his pointless tariffs.
112
At least Putin didn't fire a shot. Or launch missiles.
But of course he is.
In 1979 GM employment peaked at ~620,000. In 2017 it was ~180,000. Funny how cutting jobs seems not to have been that big of a deal in the past.
9
Robots replaced workers. In this case, it's workers who will be laid off, not replaced by robotics.
4
It's called productivity.
Tariffs. GM built in China cars. And more to come. The tariff is going on them. Example: Buick Envisions,sold here in your dealership now 100% made in China. Shipped here duty free.
9
GM is so worried about the tariffs,why did they just cut 1500 US jobs in Lordstown OH and they plan on building the new Blazers in Mexico. Way to go GM.
8
I can't remember the last time a big multinational cared about any of its rank and file workers. If you're a golden parachute candidate they take care of you, but other than that workers have no value. Globalization has been the race to the bottom that so many predicted. It's really hard to take a company seriously when they talk like GM is.
13
It may be a good idea to impose tariff on completely built units, but may not be a good idea on raw materials like steel. It affects the entire manufacturing sector, will result in job loss, increase cost of living and affect the entire economy.
6
I think you answered your own question.
GM HAS CUT US JOBS FOR THE LAST DECADE
Bought a Buick Envision last year : Made in China
Bought a Cadillac CT 6 Hybird last year : Made in China
That by a company bailed out by the US taxpayer
Mary Barra ought to move to China, GM's largest vehicle sales market.
Just another excuse
5
You need to do a bit of research. While GM did cut jobs during the recession,
GM created nearly 25,000 AMERICAN jobs in the five years before Trump was elected, and more since then. See for example: https://investorplace.com/2017/01/10-companies-bringing-jobs-back-to-ame...
Of course, after the tax cuts went in, the President assured us that GM was going to create many, many more jobs than that, but we'll just chalk that up to hyperbole on his part.
No excuses, now. Just facts.
4
I hope that the tariff-affected industries go really hard and fast reducing jobs in the USA. The Trump voters need to be taught a lesson before the next election. It's an emergency.
77
These are strange times. I'm actually hoping for job losses and a stock market crash. Ironically, economic pain is the only thing that can save us now.
17
Did you feel this way when BHO bailed out the bankers and Wall Street and they kept their jobs, pay and tax rates? They learned a lesson then. You can tank the economy and still get very rich and not go to jail. Or was that "different" because Obama did it?
But we can use these tariffs to pay for internal improvements such as the Erie Canal and protect our textile industry from competition from England.
92
England has been foisting wool britches on our market too hard for too long. #tothebarricades
1
I actually guffawed! Thanks for giving me a laugh in the midst of this horror.
Can someone explain how one person can do all of this damage not only to our economy, but the world's economy? Where are the checks and balances?
113
Donald can write the checks.
He dosen't have to have any balances.
What't the difference between a financial bankruptcy and a moral bankruptcy?
Don't ask the Trumps. They have no clue.
20
in a rigged system like ours - there are none.
blind faith and fear
Trump meeting with Putin to get his performance review and plot to destroy America some more. When will the idiots that voted for this friend of Vlad and Kim realize he is hell bent on destroying this country and its standing in the world?
132
You didn't have to be a genius to see this coming about 2 years ago. Tax cuts and tariffs. Why not combine the two? After all, George W. combined tax cuts with two wars and the enormous cost of 9/11.
Remember when Rumsfeld said the Iraq war would be over in 6 weeks or maybe 6 months and that we would pay for it with ME oil we stole.
And yet here we are 15 years later still fighting the longest war in the history of pretty much all wars.
Domestic economic suicide by woefully uninformed, unstable and increasingly sociopathic so-called "leaders" is perhaps the most urgent national security threat we currently face.
I don't have the answer to this. But I do have a question.
What happened to the family values and patriotism that the Republican party rode to power on? Why are they now supporting dictators Kim, Putin, Duterte and communist Xi?
And they're doing it in plain sight. I fear we are frogs in a pot of water that is slowly coming to a boil.
120
Russia and North Korea will be laden with Trump Hotels and Apartments - that is his reward - he wants in on those markets. That has always been his goal first and foremost.
14
"And yet here we are 15 years later still fighting the longest war in the history of pretty much all wars."
The longest war would probably be the Thirty Years' War from 1618-1648 which devastated Central Europe and caused millions of fatalities.
So, we've still got a few years to go before we can make that claim.
There is an argument that WWI and WWII was Europe's second Thirty Years' War.
Hey Donald, if it is all about TAXES, why don't you
SHOW US YOUR TAX RETURNS.
161
Trump knows everything about everything. He da man. Global Supply Chain systems? Macroeconomics? Quick work for the Great Dealmaker/Businessman and Reality TV star.
Bankruptcy 1: The Trump Taj Mahal, 1991
Bankruptcy 2: Trump Plaza Hotel, 1992
Bankruptcy 3: Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts, 2004
Bankruptcy 4: Trump Entertainment Resorts, 2009
$25 million settlement for Trump "University" 2016
152
The amazing thing about the first two bankruptcies is that in the 1990s owing casinos in Atlantic City was practically a license to print money.
2
bankruptcy USA coming soon
1
What do those ingrates at GM know about marketing cars in the world and the United States in particular.
No loyalty to friends.
Backing a GOP that would have let them slip into bankruptcy and then dissolution.
And now will do it to them again.
Ivy league educations that grant MBAs may well be overrated.
Union workers who voted for GOP candidates should try living on fast food fry cook wages.
Is keeping people of color down worth cutting your own throat?
Trumplandia is the new Jonestown.
38
For those who already own cars, whether American or Foreign, the cost of car repairs will also increase significantly. That threshold decision of whether to repair or replace the car will also increase, making you repair that older car at a much greater expense.
Having fun?
31
are we 'Winning?'
Isn't the American public owed the text of the report that proved steel imports were a national security threat? Or would making the report public be a national security threat? But why even bother with reports at this point, diktats are more appropriate for this regime.
54
Here it is.... written by Navarro and Wilbur Ross.
BTW, Ross has huge interests in US steel industry. Surprised?
https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2018/02/secretary-ross-rele...
Just another empty threat. GM is almost a foreign company, for the amount of manufacturing it does in the US. In fact, Toyota does more of its manufacturing here than GM. So GM is threatening to reduce its presence in the US? Where are they going to sell their most profitable cars and trucks? Last week they announces they will manufacturing their new Blazer model in Mexico. 80% of GM production in Mexico goes to the US. Who cares if GM shrinks in the US? Their market share will be taken over by other companies. As far as I am concerned, it is a leach, just sucks blood of healthier companies. Lets not forget for how much US taxpayers were on the hook for saving this leach, and if it weren't for the that they would be dead. It doesn't really matter if GM is dead, their place will taken over by other companies. The only thing that matters is how GM is contributing to the US economy, and by manufacturing overseas it contributes very little. So yes, let them reduce their presence here, who cares?
10
GM has a gigantic network of third party suppliers all across North America. Care to guess what happens to those jobs if GM goes belly up?
I care. I own a lot of GM stock.
Kudlow says the deficit is down, and Trump voters and Fox News believe him. You could tell a Trump voter that jobs are coming back on the same day you fire him, and he'll believe that his life is better than it was before. Don't count on the jobs issue to save our republic. If a Trump voter's house is on fire and Trump tells him he should pour gasoline on it, the Trump voter will believe him and buy the gas from Trump at $100 a gallon. Then he'll go and beat up a liberal for offering him water.
191
The occupant of the Executive Mansion is trying to provoke an economic depression. He has Jerry rigged tax cuts for a small proportion of the populace, paid for with unsustainable debt. He is trying to engage in a trade war from a position of weakness. He is isolating America from its allies. His goal is clearly to bring about a form of feudalism and increase the geopolitical power of his paymasters in Moscow and Beijing. Many here remember that rampant debt-fueled speculation helped lead to the 1929 stock market crash, but few remember that the groundwork for the Depression was also laid by an unnecessary trade war with Europe attacked by, amongst others, the noted arch-Conservative Henry Ford. We are treading the same path again. Why?
54
arch-Conservative and anit-semetic Henry Ford
If Trump ever took a Class in Economics he would get an 'F'.
43
If 200,000 jobs are lost in the auto industry due to tariffs, and then more tariffs lead to similar job losses in other industries then this would lead to a recession.
17
One must wonder how Trump ever became a businessman considering how little research his administration did prior to announcing tariffs. It is as if Trump has his own reasons, and they have nothing to do with people losing their jobs, or how a family is impacted, or a community is affected. If ever one wonders if any good will come out of the Trump administration surely the single most important item would be to remind Americans to better prepare and inform themselves before casting their presidential vote in future elections.
23
Maybe by the end of the century. Maybe later, if the planet is still livable.
3
The arrogant stupidity of this president is beyond measurement.
His clownish grandstanding is going to cripple the US economy.
It didn't take a trained economist to realize the harm his tariffs would do.
But not one person in the GOP, including his fake, lying house economist, had the brains or the guts to undertand the consequences of this fool's bungling.
78
McConell will get his SC pick.
That's all that matters.
Trump is a simpleton. He has no idea what he's doing. He is also a liar. He is going to cost the United States dearly.
102
Who voted for this idiot? I hope you have a change of mind, before you lose your job, benefits and perhaps your home. Don’t think politics. Think country.
49
With the destruction of labor unions, the very notion of worker benefits will become a distant memory. Wages will be tamped down to minimum wage for a far greater percentage of Americans.
15
Donald Trump did not attend one of the elite public high schools in New York City. By going to private schools and colleges, he avoided all contact with normal people. Even though his parents sent him to New York Military Academy, he dodged the draft, as did his grandfather in Bismacrk's Germany by immigrating to America. If his family had stayed in Bavaria, he would have experienced the horrors of World War II and learned that you can't bully and bluff your way to the top. Unfortunately for America, his Euro-based immigrant landsmen see him as the Weimar Republic saw Hitler, as a savior for the Aryan (white) race. Mr. Trump will not concede or change so the only and final solution is for reasonable voters to beat him and his base at the ballot box.
51
I knew it would happen eventually. Many of the people who voted this uniformed man in to office, someone who has no clue about the global economy, voting cluelessly against their own self interests, will be the casualties of his knee-jerk, reactionary policies. This is just one of them. Hang on Trumpsters, you’ve only seen the top of the iceberg.
24
GM better shut up and do as they're told, or they're gonna be REAL sorry, Buster!
s/
13
Somehow, the time for satire seems to be coming to an end
When Trumpsters lose their jobs and their businesses due to these "policies", we are all in for another round of shrieking: Hillary, Obama, the Elites, the Democrats, Black athletes, the Fake news media, immigrants, blah blah blah blah blah
45
Many of the tariffs haven't even taken effect and already major companies are sounding the alarm. Trump will reverse himself and call it a win.
12
Trade wars are so easy to win.......
GM will now be called a traitor
15
now they blew it. tweet storm headed their way. take cover
9
Duh. What did you think was going to happen?
16
MAGA?
8
The Wharton School gave this guy a diploma? He has made them the laughing stock of graduate business schools. Their administration should walk around with bags over their heads... Their t-shirt and sweatshirt sales must have plummeted.
28
Trump only has an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Pennsylvania. He never went to graduate school for an MBA at the Wharton School.
2
Undergrad. Not an MBA... ps guarantees nothing.
He didn't go to grad school there. He got a bachelor's degree. Jesus wept.
1
Everyone who voted for this degenerate incompetent should ask Melania where she got her "I really don't care" jacket and start wearing it. Melania and Donald don't care about American workers, why should you?
18
What idiots. Our national debt is out of control and Trump lowers income tax. The worker bees are going to find or have already found that the increase in gasoline more than ate up their $8 a week per family.
Trump ran off Harley Davidson and GM will relocate. Wisconsin and the GOP idiots bought Foxconn with free land, free taxes, etc. -- the GOP only knows how to "buy jobs" with corporate welfare.
I know one thing, my grandchildren will never be allowed to go to war for the idiots in politics and heir supposed "interests of the USA" as I will take them to Europe for a fine education and health care. This country is no longer worth fighting for. Ask Congress how many of them served in the military. What a joke!
63
Super rich do not pay tax. You will not be welcome in Europe == economic hardship is not a qualification for residency/citizenship status. nor in Australia.
Better look really carefully for the facts and not necessarily in the NYTimes editorial content. Sometimes the comments are better.
Were becoming a corrupt, immoral dictatorship with no friends and a fragile economy....
But at least a women’s right to choose will be illegal.
20
Just another day in the Cretinocracy.
22
From: ABT (Anyone But Trump) Voters
To: All Trump Voters
Subject: Are you happy now?
Is this what you wanted? Could you have imagined that he would be this much of a fool? Are you still behind him?
Have a nice weekend!
27
What did blue collar America expect from a man that spent a good portion of his adult working like in the casino business and managed to bankrupt every single casino he built or owned. We know from the real writer of the "Art of the Deal" that it was all a con job, we know from his family history that without government largesses the Trump "empire" would never have been, and we know from our own experience and from the last almost 2 years how much or an ignoramus, liar, cheat and incompetent Donald Trump is. Those people that voted for him and still support him are about to get everything they deserve. Why they had to take the rest of us down with them is the only question left.
25
Oh my goodness: it is at the peril of all of us that our man-child president plays in the sandbox of international economics and trade relations. It is no surprise that an economic sandstorm is the result!
Our Dear Leader is so blissfully ignorant about what makes the international trade system work that when he and his so-called staff loose economic bomb shells not only on American companies like Harley-Davidson and General Motors, but at our long time trade partners around the world, including the EU, China, and Canada, all manner of interested people say: Whoa! What are you doing?
There was a time when labor, yes I mean unions, played a large part in the machinations surrounding US economic and trade policy. That voice has been utterly silenced, our work force has been largely co-opted by the self-interested corporate and political elites (is there a difference?)
The result is that major groups of mostly blue-collar employees regularly and willingly drink the Trump/Republican Cool-Aid: consider the fact that a significant percentage of Harley-Davidson's employees enthusiastically support Trump's tariffs, even as the retaliatory tariffs by our trading partners roll in, and will likely seriously damage their own employer!
Populism is great when it endeavors to throw off an evil oppressor; the results are not usually so good when it supports totalitarian, corrupt, dictatorially inclined leaders like Berlusconi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mussolini, or Donald Trump.
18
When faced with a square peg and a round hole, most accept the situation and move on. Trump just gets a HUGE hammer and damages both the peg and hole and the desire of the players to participate further. It's become clear that Trump the idiot is incapable of understanding any of this, and the real losers are the ironically enough many of the same folks that put Trump into office.
15
wow, so Mr Bankruptcy shoots from the hip without any input from those who actually do real economics and it is not working??
Our President's only 'business' background is in NYC real estate, that is a bit shady at best. He has never done anything complex that we are aware of. Only shady deals with shady other guys. Shame shame shame
18
Uh oh! :-P
2
Way to go Donald.
4
The business of the USA is now Donald Trump.
7
If these tariff proposals and mutterings about dropping out of the WTO do not convince you that we have foreign agents in this government then maybe nothing will.
15
What did Rex Tillerson say?
6
Huge win for the left!
2
Hey, Trump voters: get used to buyers' remorse, 'cause there's plenty more where that came from and white supremacy is only going to start wearing thin when your idol starts reaching deeper into your pocketbook.
10
Well elections have consequences, when you elect an intemperate ignoramus who likes blindly lashing out at things, crazy stuff goes down.
Ideally the people who won't be able to afford their cars anymore, and the people who will be laid off by GM and other companies reeling from the idiotic policies of Trump, will be mostly Trump supporters. Trump supporters must suffer, directly and extremely, in order to change their minds about voting for him. Also they deserve it.
19
Noooo. You must be kidding! If trump says trade wars are easy, they are easy. Bad bad media for reporting otherwise! fake news! this proves that reporters are enemy of the state! yadiyadi ya.
14
Careful, GM, you don't want to rile up the Trump Flying Monkeys. Look what happened to HD. Sad.
10
Trump, Kudlow, Navarro, Mnuchin, Ross need a primer business and economics 101 from Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos.
14
Yahoo, makin' America great again.
3
In Europe, cars are still a luxury. They may become a luxury in the US. Maybe people will then vote to build more public transport? That would be quite an unintended consequence!
11
And while American workers lose their jobs the CEOs will continue to be paid outrageously high salaries with benefits and perks the rest of us continue to subsidize with our taxes (because the tax cuts favor the rich, not 99% of us.).
So much for a thriving economy and low unemployment. Although I will say that the low unemployment rate is joke if you are anywhere north of 50 because employers do not want to hire you no matter what field you are in. What Trump is doing is ending any hope Americans had for improving their lives, seeing our country improve its infrastructure (and the jobs that would create), and being able to provide decent lives for their children.
Kudos to the GOP, the Grossly Overconfident Penguins who thought that they could control Trump, for this mess. And thanks as well to the Electoral College who lacked the spine to deny Trump the needed votes. And thanks must go to the voters who did not vote or voted for Trump because they drank the Kool Aid.
15
See if you can get a job with ZTE. Trump is protecting Chinese jobs.
13
Follow the money. Where / how is Trump going to make money on this trade war? Trust me, he will, somehow, increase his net worth at the expense of a lot of other folks.
18
Tax payer already bailed out GM for hundreds of billions,they were toast.So when you go to work Mon. part of your paycheck is going to GM through his highness from the last Presidency.
Oh please, an iconic American brand and thousands of jobs were saved. If GM had folded it would have wrought chaos in confidence in America. Other govts get involved when their major manfacturers face bad challenges because they know these are backbones of employment and reputation.
And Trump should have actually studied during his brief unremarkable time at Wharton and learned something about the complexity of world trade.
28
So you think what Trump is doing is going to... what? It is what it is, but more tariffs will decimate the future of the industry. You can't keep blaming Obama. Trump is President now. BLAME HIM!
21
wrong, fully paid back by 2014, Treasury Dept earned 2 billion profit
(around 100 billion in assistance for GM and Chrysler in 2008)
1
Thank you Trump supporters who voted simply to stir the pot without thinking things through.
34
Ted: There is a reason, afterall, that Trump garnered most of his votes from people without college degrees. They themselves are fine examples of "stirring the pot without thinking things through."
3
Are we all tired of "winning" yet?
10
Just this week:
..."Things started to get weird when the Swedish Ambassador took the stage. "This is an exceptional moment for South Carolina and for Volvo," she said. "This is part of 386,000 people employed by Volvo in the U.S."
Olofsdotter pointed out that Volvo is the 15th largest investor in the U.S., then glanced at Nikki Haley, a Trump (UN)appointee.
"But we are worried about real issues," Olofsdotter added with a smile. "The aluminum and steel tariffs, obviously. But we are extremely worried about car tariffs."
Haley's smile froze on her face.....after the unveiling of a car, Haley bolted for the door....
http://www.thedrive.com/news/21647/volvo-ceo-tears-into-trumps-tariffs-a...
13
Of course this is the likely outcome, as virtually every respectable economist has been warning about this happening. And when the layoffs do happen we know whose fault it won't be – Donald Trump's. It will be the Democrats, the fake news media, the immigrants, Canada, Obama, blab, blab, blab!
26
Another den of traitors.
Just like Harley Davidson.
Why can't they be like Carrier.
Or the patriots at US Steel.
Who does Harley Davidson think it is
emulating me and Ivanka
and manufacturing products overseas?
12
The damage is spreading...fast...
Here’s an example;
Moog Music, an employee-owned maker of synthesizers based in Asheville, NC will need to layoff workers and potentially offshore all manufacturing due to the 25% tariffs being applied on Chinese made circuit boards.
Moog Music is a prestige company. The Martin Guitar of synthesizers. They are a prefect example of American ingenuity - to look under the hood of one of their synthesizers is to see a thing of rare, complex and impressive beauty. And this dolt of a President is stomping all over them and hundreds of other companies with his moronic trade policy.
Who knew that the GOP would go from the party of “Free-Traders” to mouthbreathing nihilists in less than 18 months?
17
I bet you a dollar, those cheering folks at Donnie’s rallies do not work for Harley-Davidson or GM. And if they do, I’ll bet Stockholm syndrome.
18
A message to the Evangelicals: As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Enjoy your Trump "victory."
32
Trump is the national security risk.
49
GM doesn't like tarriffs? Super. Let's start by ditching the 25% one on trucks that we've abused for the past 50 years. These greedy corporations are playing us for fools.
1
And this long weekend will see Canada pile on the pain for the stupidity of labeling us a national security threat.
20
G.M.
Losers.
Without Obama financing
they wouldn't even be in business.
With steel mills coming back,
with coal mines reopening,
and Good Citizens pockets overflowing with tax savings,
WE DON'T NEED G.M.!!
(please note....this is sarcasm)
(sarcasm)
8
Our King will not be happy.
5
ugggg......America must in the end RETAIN the ability to manufacture things in respect for maintaining it's long term security. Everything can be EVER be made over there (with all it's pollution, poor wages. Democrats/ Republicans, old lazy entitled men and their ever so Klassy women folk) and we can have it delivered; assembled here, right out of the box! WOW. That is exactly how it should be, if you expect capitalism to save the developing world and therefore our own. So we now can turn our attention to more important things like which butter Jesus sculpture is the best.....or perhaps pollution, healthcare......sigh. Tariffs for leverage are just like the president, plain stupid. Now Boarding for Air Canada....
3
Putin could not be more pleased.
18
Read “Beijing Jeep”
4
"Trade wars are good, and easy to win!"
--President Donald Trump, March 2, 2018
Are we winning yet?
21
This is a classic example of what happens when one fails to understand how connected everything is.
25
If GM cars were truly "American Made" then there would be no problem at all. They are the ones who sold us out. hopefuly no bailout from the American people this time.
1
Show me one car or truck that is truly American-made with 100% American parts.
4
You are right. None
I suspect it would hard to find any American manufacturer that relies entirely on American inputs. Even that company that makes nails buys some foreign steel and reports that the tariffs have raised costs and required layoffs.
5
Not feeling great yet.
8
Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle have been remarkably meek and complicit as Donald Trump has attempted to undo in 18 months what took 240 years to build. We are going to have a second revolution in this country, and it's going to be in the ballot box, yes, but also in the streets, because Americans are not going to let Donald Trump destroy this democracy, this economy and this country.
Vote. But do more than vote - protest, demand accountability and refuse to allow this to happen. I have been a registered Democrat for decades, and I'm going to vote for every leftist Democratic candidate who comes my way, because the status quo - the people I depended on to speak up and stop this - and I'm talking to you, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer - you have been remarkably complicit, silent or subdued when you should have been outraged, and you altogether come across as more interested in preserving your power than preserving the U.S. Constitution.
And all you people who voted for Trump because he said he would protect your jobs? When you wake up, unemployed, you can join in the protests. There will be room for you, believe me.
14
Maybe Trump can tweet something nasty about GM. Help his base feel better about themselves if even more delusional. Hang on guys, the kool aid's coming.
7
If 2,000 kidnapped and abused kids don’t do it, maybe 2,000 lost jobs to the trump cult members will. Nothing else moves them.
22
This is a hard call. If Trump sticks to his guns, GM, Harley-Davidson, lowly nail makers and other metal-intensive manufacturers crumble, will his base realize their increased costs for transportation and homes, decreased income (assuming they haven't been furloughed), and bleaker future are the natural consequences of their votes in 2016?
Every vote Trump receives in the 2020 election will be further proof that stupid is not fixable, that the number of guns owned and IQ are inversely related, and that America has not become great again. And under Trump will do anything but return us to the glory days of the post WWII generation.
This is no joke. Every time Trump doubles down on his ignorant decrees, so does his base. Something is wrong in America. And, like stupid, it may be irreversible.
Just a footnote: Trump's daddy didn't serve during WWII. Trump avoided Vietnam thanks to a Trumped-up malady, the only proof of which was a letter from a doctor paid for by Daddy Drumpf. Trump has zero knowledge of war, trade or the real kind. Trump is a zero.
45
Isn't time to take our heads out of sand: Trump & Co. want to bring the American republic to its knees---by any means necessary!
6
Get ready for the Trump recession!
8
HE will tax....everyone
Why the heck doesn’t he pay HIS taxes the cheat?
17
Geez, who could have seen that coming?
5
Wait until Dark Money weighs in on this. Game over.
6
So this is what “winning so much, you’re going to be sick of winning”, looks like.
6
The economy and international trade are so complex and this man is so simple. He's Archie Bunker running the county while demanding his 'dingbat' wife bring him another beer.
And in his wake he's leaving a wave of white supremacy and ignorance, born of his pathological lying.
And all his MAGA fans won't come face to face to the truth until they've lost their jobs with Medicare and Social Security a distant dream as they age and weaken and become destitute.
Are we great yet?
11
I can't take much more of this "winning."
11
Drive It Like You Stole It. that's what this president is doing to this country. how ironic GM, but no feeling sorry for you. I'm sure your tax cuts would stave off any lay-offs at least until the mid-terms for the rest of us.
1
Trump is ruining this country, almost as fast as the useless 20 year old, stay-at-home overgrown kid in the movie Tobacco Road. I remember how he married a woman twice as old as him, mostly to get her life insurance money to squander on a new car and then total it before the movie ended.
1
Let's face it. The Russians have very good doctors,
and can diagnose personality disorders quite well ...
It seems to me that Putin figured out how to turn
Trumps' lies into a form of weaponized dysfunction.
By bye America, I knew you and I loved you well ...
Trump will make the rounds with autocrats and feel
just fine about his 9 lies a minute TV performances.
3
"Drain the Swamp" … indeed. Trump should have not stolen that old fascist Mussolini phrase until he understood the outcome of such tactics. It didn't turn out well for Mussolini either.
3
GM says tariffs COULD affect their business. Well, tariffs could also FORCE these countries to level the tariff playing field. There is a 50/50 chance either way. But.... of course the headline that increasing tariffs could benefit the US in the long run doesn’t sell liberal newspapers, so we never see it. Bias.
1
How did you arrive at the conclusion that it's a 50/50 chance? Do you just assume that when there are two outcomes, they are naturally of equal probability?
13
So, it's a zero sum game? Interesting philosophy.
3
I bet GM are regretting that they sold all their manufacturing facilities in Europe to PSA (Peugeot/Citroen).
They will forgo the opportunity to move assembly to Europe.
I don't think PSA will be interested in making Chevy trucks for them!
1
Not to be cynical - but please layoff Trump voters first - they need to learn to be pragmatic and open to real world facts. This may open their eyes.
14
Notwithstanding his election to the Presidency, his taking the Oath of Office, and the as yet undisclosed results of the current investigation, I do not believe trump is serving in the best interests of the United States. The national debt has suddenly become irrelevant. I fear being a passenger on the "U.S. Titanic."
9
International corporations give crust of bread & such. Careful what you take & don't take too much.
GM has one auto in the "mostly made in America" top ten. Can President Trump induce the world's largest automaker to make em here? Eh, that would be China.
4
On the upside, Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney's 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime?' debuted at no. 1 on Billboard.
4
Working-class people who vote for a man that lives in a gilded-tower, fleeced Americans citizens out of their savings with a fake school, used a non-profit charity for his own personal gain and to make pay-offs right before an election, and paid two porn stresses $300,000 in the days leading up to the election deserve what they get to be honest.
He is doing a lot of damage in this trade war he created. I'm glad GM and Harley are speaking out about this horrible policy.
18
The Deplorables better wake up and realize that Don The Con is in the process of destroying the middle class.
9
Actually, the Deplorables want the middle class to be destroyed, because they can't stand the thought of anyone doing better than they are. That would be an admission that they're failures.
10
Maybe this is what it will take for the working class fools who voted for Trump to realize that he doesn't care about them or their jobs and that they have been conned. It's too bad that they may have to suffer a hit to their pocketbooks, but actions have consequences.
9
I'm not fan of Trump's but, I can honestly see GM and other companies use the trade war as an excuse to raise prices regardless of the changes to their bottom lines. I think Trump's trade wars are incredibly stupid, but that doesn't mean corporations won't try to take advantage of it as an excuse to raise prices even when they don't need to (don't let a good crisis go to waste?)
4
Well Donny Trump-Putin, another bit of nonsense bites the dust. The sooner Trump-Putin is gone, the better for the country. It has been one rolling disaster since the beginning.
12
Your president at work, pity the remainder of the country won't be.
11
Actually, as an elected public official, Trump doesn't actually have to work for his salary. He just has to sit around, collecting his salary while doing nothing, until he's voted out of office.
2
Wishful thinking he'd just 'sit around and do nothing', that would be the good news! Instead he's demonically destroying the very fabric of civilized society and democracy.
NOT MY PRESIDENT.
I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK.
2
Spending taxpayer money playing golf at his own properties. He doesn’t take a salary but are we really sure he is donating it back. Photo ops can be faked.
4
Good. THe only thing that will bring this nation to its senses is an economic implosion. Only then will Trumpsters realize that they have placed an ignoramus, an incurious shallow bigot, a self-serving spoiled brat in the Oval Office. And maybe then they will realize that their GOP is nothing more than a band of enablers who couldn't care less about the American public.
18
I studied international trade in school and tariffs and quotas was one subject that was very straightforward: They were bad for consumers and producers and they never increased tax revenues.
They didn't need to spend more than a few minutes on it because it was just so easy to understand. Seeing this unfold in real life, seeing the impacts it is already having on investment
Like a NASCAR race I know there's going to be a crash. I can't look away.
So the great question is this: How can Trump spend this day bragging about how his income and corporate tax cuts have boosted the economy while at the same time raising taxes in the name of growth?
7
"So the great question is this: How can Trump spend this day bragging about how his income and corporate tax cuts have boosted the economy while at the same time raising taxes in the name of growth?"
Because his supporters are financial and economic illiterates, that's how.
11
I’ve taught international trade for many years, and would offer this slight correction: there are very specific, narrow circumstances in which tariffs may increase a nation’s overall welfare - but even in those cases, there will be strong redistributive effects (some winners, some losers), and the consumers will never win.
5
GM doesn't need much of a reason to raise prices on their cars and trucks. The average person simply cannot afford to buy one of their new pick-ups anyway. $45,000 and up to as high as $70,000. You would think they were made out of gold.
2
they sell to the elites. . .
1
People forget it is the philosophy of DJT, Bannon, Miller & their Republican enablers that there are not enough resources to sustain the American population. Logically many will have to die in order to reduce the number of folks to be potentially supported. If & when the folks who voted for this line up of charlatans & con men realize they have been duped, they will be merely a few breathes short of death.
You may think I am a few cards short of a deck or paranoid, however, let's examine what has been accomplished thus far by these con men. Just about everybody & his mother know that these tariffs are a bad idea that will kill manufacturing because the price of goods will skyrocket. We have yet to see how many jobs will disappear.
Polluting the ground water with regulation elimination for mines coupled with they systematic killing of Obamacare will equal a population which will become sick & unable to afford treatment which might help them. Medicaid & Food Stamp recipients now have to work in order to get benefits, which have been reduced & a bag of groceries provided instead. Just which job can a sick, undernourished person perform?
Now these con men want to kill Social Security, privatize Medicare & have Betsy De Vos destroy education. The birth rate plummets among the undesirables, people vilified for trying to survive, as jobs the rust belt craved disappear at even a faster rate. Who is left to protest or scream its a cookbook! [Thx. to the Twilight Zone]
6
I wonder how many GM workers voted for Trump and how many still refuse to understand the incompetence and the selfishness of this president.
20
GM Executives: Drink the Kool-Aide or face the consequences.
3
All Trump cares about is himself and no one else. Not his wives, not his kids, and not his grand kids. An attention seeker with low self esteem, he is mentally ill--possibly due to a loveless relationship with his father. As Special Counsel Mueller closes in, he'll get worse and will almost certainly fire Asst. Attorney General Rosenstein and possibly Mueller. Batten down the hatches, Stormy seas ahead.
7
Perhaps because Obama saved the auto industry so Trump must take GM down. At the very least, a mind that can’t negotiate climate change will never get the complexities of modern supply chains. The GOP allows a perverted and racist fraud to run the country as a thug and They abandoned our auto industry when the Greenspan recession proved greed and incompetence know no bounds without oversight.
22
Please GM ... just do it.
5
Congress is negligent of their duty to US citizens and the upholding the constitution of protecting America against foreign adversaries and the health and well being of the citizens unless they immediately do 2 things:
1) Block Trump tariffs
2) Protect Mueller
13
Listen, if Trump knows how to run a casino, I'm sure he knows what he's doing with the economy.
Oh...right....
15
Just what Putin wants. He's doing very well in this country.
13
Do we have Congress anymore?
11
"Do we have Congress anymore?" The 1% does--the big-money "corporations are people, my friends" donor class is just fine with things as they are. The rest of us don't, and likely never will again, not until campaign finance reform happens and federal elections are financed by the people.
3
So Mitch and Paul, it's all worth it to get the Supreme Court right?
10
That's absolutely right. Neither of them, nor any of the GOP leaders, give a dang about anyone in the middle class or below. They want to make sure the extremely rich get even richer, that's all. If the working class that voted them in starves to death, they wouldn't mind at all.
5
Let’s see. President Obama saves GM. GM workers in Michigan and Ohio vote for Trump. GM workers lose their jobs because of Trump. Wonder if any GM workers see the connection.
20
Trump is creating jobs, but unfortunately they are in Europe and China.
11
Does Trump think in absolute, simple terms such as force Americans to buy only made-in-America. If the policies for this lead to lost jobs and only Trump being able to afford his quality of life, that isn't a problem to him.
5
Everyday I see hundreds of BMW, Porsche, Audi (lots of Audi), VW, Lexus here in DE/Philly. I often wonder where is the loyalty to my fellow American? Isn’t buying a $50,000 (or more) car from US workers better than sending it to Stuttgart? Does JQ Public want the multiplier effect here or abroad?
1
The idea that a whole car is being made in one factory in one nation is outdated and wrong. Through the process of globalization, these car parts are being made all around the world, including in the US, and also being assembled in manufacturing plants in various nations.
7
A lot of those German cars are built in the United States and provide thousands of jobs to American workers. Trump is trying to solve a problem that was solved back in the 1980s and 90s. And it underscores how out of touch he is with the modern American economy.
16
Horse Track One:
I ask myself the same question. Then, I go test drive one of those cars you mention and test drive a comparable GM or Ford or Fiat-Chrysler product.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/us-cars-japan/544991/
Among the non-USA owned cos, I would include Honda, Toyota, and Nissan; Kia and Hyndai; and Subaru + more. Quite simply, they're better than USA owned manufactured cars.
If I choose to purchase one of those cars from a non-USA owned co. that are often made in the USA by US workers (the USA based co. is a subsidiary of the non-USA company), I wouldn't hesitate. USA built cars simply don't provide the value, ergonomic design comfort, the longevity, and the maintenance of their value as compared to US owned manufacturers.
While US manufacturers sought protection from foreign manufacturers and ignored upgrading and improving their products, the foreign manufacturers swept past them.
How long before Ford and GM fold up and are swept away in the breeze?
Until USA cos. stop minding everyone else's biz and concentrate on improving their own biz, they'll gradually be displaced by harder working and more industrious rivals from abroad.
2
For whatever reason, I do not believe that my original comment went through. However, I am passionate enough to try again. My wife and I are both very fortunate in that we are able to be assisted by a wealth and security that our parents have been able to provide.
Collectively, they were citizens born in the period bracketed by the Great Depression, The Battle of Britain, and the U.S. involvement in World War 2. Something the current occupant of the White House knows nothing about, I’m quite certain. To be so informed would be an inconvenience to him, I’m sure.
How utterly grim and and bleak things have become. With this toxic and grotesque tumor that is currently in charge, (and the fact that his own branded garbage is made in sweatshop nations, as are his daughter’s) how we are supposed to maintain any honest posture of dignity, I do not know.
I’m no chump, and I’ll never buy into the din of grift which is constantly barked. The idea that anyone can follow this bloated, inflamed, spray-tanned narcissist is guided purely by malice, spite, hatred, greed, racism, misogyny, classism, and denial of truth and goodness — And everything else altruistic..
45
how do you explain the existence of so many trumpists....i'm at a loss.
3
How to explain so many trumpists? I think it is obvious. For years they have been shown image after image of the good life. Nice homes and good families on television, in magazines, in the movies, everywhere. Everywhere that is except where they live. They believe that the people on the East and West coasts are all living large off of them. They believe all the black and brown people and especially immigrants living in U.S. cities are living large off off of government largesse that they paid for either in taxes or with their jobs. Why do they believe all of this if it isn't true. Because they have been consistently lied too and without a decent education they cannot seem to understand how to discern the truth for themselves. It is easier to believe the lies than to research the truth and the Republicans know this and exploit it daily. And, of course, a system that honors dishonesty will choose as its leader the most dishonest person amongst them. And there you have it.
I rack it up to conservative radio blasting flat out lies 24/7, year in and year out.
View from Asia
Look what happened to Toyota
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDeoIh87oac
GM to protect its largest market (exceeding US) must fall in line with the Chinese government
So sorry, US
"Trade wars are good, and easy to win." Don "the Con" Trump.
“The deficit, which was one of the other criticism, is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly.” Larry " the Liar" Kudlow
19
And the hits just keep on coming!!
7
Good for global warming but bad for GM employees, parts suppliers and new car dealers. Perhaps future NYTimes headlines for the Trump tariffs should be, "Trump acts unilaterally to fight global warming."
3
Congressional Republican leadership is extremely weak. Trump is filling that void. Disastrously.
4
Oh wait, could it be that a six-time bankrupted businessman-turned-B-level reality tv "star" doesn't understand basic international trade policy? Oh wait, he bankrupted a casino, which takes a special type of business ineptitude.
22
Not a Trump fan, but yur comments reflects a common ignorance on this topic. EVERY casino in Atlantic City, not just Trump's, filed for bankruptcy or simply closed up shop. And you would have had to studiously avoid reading any business publication over the last 20 years to avoid becoming aware of the fact that most major casino companies in the US have filed bankruptcy.
Donald Trump is the most economically illiterate world leader since Hugo Chavez, but without the good intentions. It's little wonder he bankrupted so many of his businesses and others with his cruel, impulsive, short-sighted methods of business.
It was always certain his policies would be terrible for America, even before it became apparent he is in thrall to the Russian gangster state. Only can hope the damage he causes is not irreversible.
14
Too bad another comedian isn't running the country. Gilda Radner's character, Emily Litella, could just say "NEVER MIND" and everything would be O.K.
3
Trump should be an easy laugh out of office, but the man feels no shame.
Goodness, one might almost think that Trump doesn't understand how the global economy works.
9
Pretty much every economist on the planet, except for those working for Trump, predicted this sort of outcome. So this story is unsurprising.
6
Trump promises keeping American jobs. His supporters love him.
Trump lies and makes bad policy that causes his supporters to lose their jobs. His supporters still love him.
This is what cults do. He loses no votes. The GOP loses no votes.
11
GM and other corporations are making these comments to preempt their inclusion in a Presidential Fantasy Tweet, such as Trump's recent hyperbole about US Steel expansions.
Moreover, CEO's are positioning themselves to make
the sending of production OVERSEAS - less controversial. They'll merely point to new tariffs and say "Blame the EU". Lower labor costs, the CEO's dream come true.
While America ignores the wheels coming off Trade Wars, the politics of selling "Tax Cut 2" - FOR MIDTERM ELECTION STRATEGY - has begun with a typical Trump hiccup.
“The deficit, which was one of the other criticism, is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly” said White House Economic LIAR, Larry Kudlow on 29 June 2018.
On the same day, Trump said: “One of the things we’re thinking about is bringing the (corporate rate of) 21 percent down to 20 and for the most part, the rest of it will go right to the middle class. It’s a great stimulus.”
Earlier on 26 June, US Rep Kevin Brady who created the 6-month old Tax Cut, which is now believed by most Americans to have primarily benefited corporations and the wealthy, said:
“I don’t see it as one bill. I see it as a package of two, three or four approaches with permanency [in the tax cuts for families and individuals] being one of them.”
Of course, those approaches are actually to trim Medicare, etc IN THE DISGUISE of the 'REAL' Middle Class Tax Cut. Remember KUDLOW'S LIE ON FOX and VOTE Blue Wave.
4
Regarding tariffs the Chinese know that Trump at his core is a FRAUD , given to bluster and cheaply won by flattery and favors to his family. As far as they are concerned, Trump is God's gift to China , as US withdraws as the world leader creating space for China to fill in and God's curse on USA. So they and rest of the world, will deal with Trump as such. Remember, leaders of rest of the world are not going to be won over by the trash that Trump feeds his core base, daily, in USA. Even India has retaliated to tariffs on Steel. N Korean dictator Kim, too thinks he can now win favors and concessions from USA, denied to the Korean regime for past 50 years, by beating Trump at his own game of fraud and deceit.
The bad thing is Trump's incessant barking like a dog that barks all day but lacks any bite or strategy, poisons the environment on top of what EPA is trying.
3
The truth finally dawned on me--Trump wants to sink American car manufacturers so he can then have Putin send lousy Russian cars to the U.S. I'm pretty certain we'll see Trump Auto dealerships selling only Russian made cars in the near future. Everything Donald does is to benefit or enrich Donald, so when he does all those stupid things and we're amazed and aghast at how badly he's not "Making America Great Again," what he's really doing it aligning his fortunes with Russia/Putin because he's Putin's puppet. In fact, he's so in love with Putin it's probable that every tariff he considers is in someway tied to how he and Putin will directly benefit financially from it. I know, it sounds too fantastical, but since Donald actually became president I put absolutely nothing past him and his master Putin.
6
This is what you get when you elect a ‘businessman’ that bankrupted several businesses, spent all his daddy’s money and only played a real business guy on TV. Expect more the same - USA as a punch line in the story about the country that Used To Be Great
13
trump is out on a mission to destroy the US economy-orders from putin.
20
You are exactly right. The U.S. should watch very carefully what happens when Trump and Putin have their chummy meeting in July. Your president is not above selling your country to build a Trump hotel in Moscow.
1
Of course large corporations are self-centered. They are in business to make money, and if it means eliminating jobs here and sending them overseas, they will do that. And no one should expect anything different. Trump can try all the tweet-shaming he can muster, but who cares? Stop the tariffs and don't pass any more dumb tax cuts for the wealthy that only result in money hoarding and harm the economy.
7
Although the laid off workers from Harley Davidson, GM and many more to come will be going to bed broke, at least they can sleep well knowing their dear Mr. President is picking out a conservative Supreme Court Justice just for them!
10
"Mr. Business" knows next to nothing about it. The US & global economy doesn't run on bullying your trading partners or intimidating industries.
9
First Harley, now General Motors, and I have a dozen friends in manufacturing and another dozen in agriculture who are seriously contemplating bankruptcy.
So, Trump supporters. Here is what your boy is doing to your family and friends. But I guess it doesn't matter because you will have that good union-busting Supreme Court to make sure that you don't have to pay union dues.
Oh, and your health care is going up in September. That will wipe out the minuscule refund you got from the Tax Cut for the Billionaires. Didn't Trump tell you about that? Oh well, I'm sure you had fun at your MAGA-head rally shouting "Lock her up" and "Build the Wall." And after all, isn't a little economic pain worth it to stick it to the liberals?
Oh yeah, and Trump is still telling that story from last December about they guy whose 401k increased and made him look like a genius to his wife. Since December the stock market and the 401k's have been flat as a pancake, and now they are declining, and we expect them to fall off the cliff in August. But, so what, you got a new embassy in Jerusalem.
And After all, Trump is going to get rid of all those pesky brown people speaking funny languages--they shouldn't have brought their kids, so it's OK if the little brats get separated and cry a little; it'll teach them not to violate U.S. laws. Tough love at the border, that's the ticket. That's why you voted for Trump, right?
51
But trump just offered another 1% tax cut on corporations. 21% to 20% . That should make such a difference in my life after all.
1
With the help of a disinformation campaign, Trump hoodwinked too many Americans into believing he is an intelligent experienced businessman when really he is just a two bit con artist who has no clue about world economics or trade.
Consider that Kushner found Navarro on google while searching for info about China.
10
What a financial genius! Maybe he’ll succeed in bankrupting the US. He’s done it 6 times already
12
If bankruptcy was good enough for Trump, it ought to be good enough for the US too. After all, it just made Trump stronger, yes ?
Actually, Trump never filed for bankruptcy; only a few of his business did. On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jeffererson did file personal bankruptcy, as did Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Milton Hershey, and George McGovern.
Canada starts its justified tariff retaliation on Sunday. Forced by Trump to increase consumer prices for all Canadians and Americans. Nasty moves by a President who clearly doesn’t understand economics.
14
The chickens come home to roost. Those awful corporations who are surrendering, just when the President is on path to have an easy win in his trade wars. That must rankle Mr. Trump. Mr. President, it is time to work up some good trash talk for G.M. You had a good start with Harley-Davidson. Now it is time to take G.M. to the mat.
Collateral damage is not something the military wants to see in the headlines. President Trump's trade wars damage is not collateral. The damage done and that can be done to the economy is intentional. You have nobody to blame but yourself and your advisors.
Time to start making nice with our use to be allies and trade partners. I wonder if you have it in you. It is never to late to grow a brain (and a soul), Mr. President. RAW
2
In 1932 Smoot and Hawley two GOP representatives voted for major tariffs against our allies. They made lots of angry countries and angry Americans who voted them out the next year and voted in Franklin D Roosevelt a Democratic President for four terms who got us out of the depression. Since 1945 there has been a GOP recession in every Republican administration. Now with this headline it shows the GOP keep bringing back failed leaders and policies. Trump is soon to get a recession Wall Street said a few days ago. Time to impeach.
6
Yeah, remember when we made all the cars in the world. The car executives decided they could make more money for themselves and the stock holders if they shipped to jobs overseas for cheap labor. Now they have the nerve to complain.
2
We never made 'all the cars in the world'. Many other countries, mostly in Europe, had their own competent manufacturers even before Henry Ford. British Leyland, Austin, Rolls Royce, Renault, Citroen, Fiat, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, and many more.
4
When was that time exactly?
1
Mary Barra, CEO General Motors, was amongst other American auto manufacturer CEOs lobbying Trump-Pence for relief from 2024 fuel standards. Relief from these standards makes all of these companies even less competitive in the global market.
Now, Trump-Pence are pushing for tariffs and an end to NAFTA. WSJ reported the tariff on GM's Buick Envoy, built in China, would amount to $8,000.
So, now that the dog is biting her hand, Ms Barra is whining. It is impossible for any rational person to have any empathy for GM or other auto makers who were quick to support T-P knowing full well this administration is irrational.
Enjoy the fruits of your choice Ms Barra.
12
RNS said "If GM fails, there goes any chance for a coal fired car."
Ah, yes, coal fired cars!
Actually GM did build coal fired turbine-powered cars once, a 1978 Cadillac Eldorado and the 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88.
https://jalopnik.com/gm-once-built-these-fascinating-coal-powered-turbin...
I seem to remember that EVERYONE was buying those GM cars, right? Weren't there coal stations on every second street corner?
Or he could bring back the Stanley Steamer, which was manufactured in Massachusetts from 1902 to 1924. It ran on a petroleum fired water boiler.
I am sure "Emperor Donald" can convince some ingenious inventor to make coal fired "Stanley Steamers" if he agrees to provide big enough tax breaks.
Clean Coal for cars! Jobs for coal miners! So what if GM goes bust?
MAGA must mean Make America Great Again like it was 1924.
7
Electric-powered vehicles are 30% powered by coal...
1
Of course jobs could and probably will, be lost. Of course, the president will savage GM just as he did with Harley-Davidson and every other bystander standing in the way of destruction he wreaks with insouciance, glee and apparent impunity.
Meanwhile the president and his hand-picked disciples of destruction lie through their teeth with straight, smiling faces. Witness Larry Kudlow's latest beaut: "The deficit is declining rapidly" while, in fact, it is skyrocketing, as every serious observer predicted.
10
..it is becoming clear that Trump’s assertions that “trade wars are easy to win” were fallacious. No one ever wins a trade war, just some lose more than others. The retaliating nations have a tremendous advantage of those instigating protectionism. This can be seen with tariffs on steel and aluminum that increases the costs of every product made in the USA that uses those metals. This increases consumer prices and makes products produced in the USA less competitive relative to those made outside the USA using steel and aluminum priced at the world market rather than the artificially propped-up, protected US steel market. Thus, American consumers and producers are already net losers from these ill-advised protectionist tariffs, even before any retaliation
As Trump discovered when a retaliatory tariff was put on US motorcycles (Harley-Davidson (HOG)) that will not raise any costs on any EU producers or raise prices for anyone in the EU, except for buyers of motorcycles, the cost to the retaliating nations is miniscule. HOG has announced they will have to shift production outside of the USA as a result of the tariffs. Thus, on top of the costs to American consumers, producers and exporters of the steel and aluminum tariffs, before any retaliation, American workers at HOG lose jobs and shareholders of HOG suffer as well.. ..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4164735
3
Trump must have turned to his big brain for advice on tariffs. He's, like, really smart, and Larry Kudlow told him he was right. Done deal.
3
Just awesome. Excellent work Trumper cult. Well done indeed!
9
This is all about undoing President Obama's rescue of the Great Recession. Period.
7
I'm reading "What's The Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank at the moment to help me to understand.
11
Read John Milton.
Let put this appalling mess of tariffs together with the impending sub-prime auto loan “disaster” (Trump's favorite word) and see what happens next.
5
Economic reality vs populist claims. Trump’s core and only competence is to make wild claims, and to accuse anyone who proves him wrong of being “fake”, “un-American”, and “a liar”. He projects. That’s it. When will people finally get it? Really. How hard is it to see through that? How deranged are the 90% of Republican voters who think he’s doing a good job. Good job at what? Bringing down the US economy? It’s international alliances? It’s reputation? Enriching himself? Anything else? Just admit you were wrong in voting for him amd get over it. What’s the alternative? Continuous decline and being the laughing stock of the world. I have a standing order for popcorn, so I can lean back and watch Dante’s tragedy unfold.
11
90% approval ratings among republicans.
Please explain.
17
yay. more trolleys and railroads pls.
6
That's just awful. Now who is going to supply us with enormous gas-guzzling machines to mow down some 35,000+ people every year and destroy the climate?
7
Literally, every move DJT and the GOP make cost me and most Americans money. Most of us will see a significant and rapid decline in our ability to support our families. I guess we'll see how much Trump Propaganda is a sedative for real life suffering.
8
Keep spreading the word, Sasha, because those of us who would be hurt by these tariffs are most likely not aware of this possibility and will think it is fake news to alarm workers and purchasers.
Leave some copies of this article in easy reach, and if you start hearing protests from some of the readers, remain contained with a quiet 'I am sure it would not affect you even if it were true'.
While there is more job creation taking place, inflation is on the rise. In the rural region, in the community of this agricultural and industrial state of upper New York, you see vast residences, manors and large estates sprawled in the hills, along farm country and Steinbeck Housing, where four vehicles take the residents of the latter to work.
G.M. has spoken. It is a well known and recognized U.S. company, and while some of us have a mistrust of big corporations and their public relations, it has issued a warning and should be taken into consideration.
This year last, a prominent British economist wrote fair and foul weather indicators of the health of an economy, and the first was look to the Automobile Industry.
Is it bad that I continue to not be surprised that businesses are suffering from these tariffs? Trump has such an infantile understanding of production and trade policy.
7
excuse me but I thought it was illegal for someone like our president to target companies by name knowing full well it will have an affect on the stock price? Isn't that somewhat like manipulation? Or is he too ignorant to understand that? Where is the SEC?
7
The Trump Tariff Wars are going badly and Americans will pay the price. The soybean farmers are already suffering.
I doubt the Wharton School offered him a course in how to manage a tariff negotiations, so, his claim that Tariff Wars are easy to win has to be just made up nonsense: another of his lies.
Trump University and Trump Steaks are just two examples of Trump's terrible business ideas that should never have been green lighted in the first place, but then the only victims were his investors.
Now the entire system is at risk because of the ignorant actions of the most over the top egomaniac in American history and his devoted apologists in the Republican Party and Fox News.
Times of financial chaos are when oligarchs make the most money so Trump's Russian financiers must be delighted.
10
No president or administration could be that ignorant.
I am afraid this is a wicked plan.
Things, under this president have been strangely odd, against the grain of our value system ( at least in my opinion) and moving rapidly in a direction that harms our country.
Cozy up to our adversaries, dictators, systems that most of us will fight against and refuse to live under.
Big test to our US Constitution.
10
freeasabird, unfortunately this president and administration is that ignorant. He simply can't comprehend why everyone doesn't just do what he wants.
The sleeper in the article is GM saying employee wages will go down. GM knows how to deal with employees who believe they should share in the wealth they create now that the Supreme Court blessed freeloaders to hobble unions.
6
The Tariff Wars...another Trump disaster in the making.
5
In situations like these, Donald asks: What would Putin do?
Fortunately, he has managed to arrange a meeting with the man himself in the not too distant future. Phew! We're all saved.
5
US companies large and small are scrambling to maintain a viable supply chain for manufacturing, which is often from multi-national sources. This adds additional costs and a hit to the bottom line. Delay of shipments and consequent loss of revenue is a threat to some companies' financial stability, especially fragile small companies in highly competitive sectors. Many people lose here.
Trump MO - win today, look great, don't care about tomorrow, don't care about you.
6
The whole just in time system critically depends on liquidity.
Welcome to Atlantic City on a national scale. When it’s all over, there’ll nothing left but broken promises and unfulfilled dreams.
12
Trump will laugh his way to the bank with tax deductions of the losses of his investors.
1
Apparently America's most powerful business and industrial l magnates have failed to heed that wise old adage:
"Live like a Republican -- vote Democratic."
6
Trump wants fair trade. And that means similar goods made elsewhere where per-capita incomes are significantly lower must have tariffs applied to level the trade field. All countries should do the same, not to do each other in, but to work towards fairness to all. Americans must strive to buy goods made in the US if there are cheaper imports. This is helping your own people. American businesses must first strive to survive without depending on exports, and treat exports as just a bonus market. That’s what Trump wants. Is this what Americans want?
2
Trump doesn't understand global economics, so don't go by what he says. He's improvising. Read this:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/is-capitalism-a-threat-to-...
Don't be turned off by the title. It is an excellent historical comparison of economic policy including tariffs. Bottom line: it's never as simple as he makes it out to be (just like healthcare).
"To achieve his campaign goal of bringing manufacturing jobs home from China, he will have to not only impose tariffs but also convince multinationals that the tariffs will stay in place beyond the end of his Administration.
Only then will executives calculate that they can’t just wait it out—that they have no choice but to incur the enormous costs and capital losses of abandoning investments in China and making new ones here.
It’s hard to imagine such a scheme working, unless Trump establishes a political command over the private sector not seen in America since the forties.
That can’t be ruled out... but it seems more likely that Trump’s bluster will merely motivate businesses to be deferential to him, in pursuit of favorable treatment."
This isn't happening, so...
No. We want the best quality at the lowest price, regardless of where it was made. For reference, see Apple iPhone, designed in California, made in China.
1
340 million Americans, 6 billion world population. They could not survive without international operations.
National security is just the loophole through which Trump is pushing these random tariffs. My goodness! What possible national security harm is caused by buying steel from Canada? As somebody who was once a director at a large American company, I can say without reservation that Trump knows nothing at all about business or economics. And the more he feels he can ignore the experts, the more his lunatic incompetence will cause real harm. GM has it about right. Trump's feckless trade war will make GM car prices go up, reduce the number of GM jobs and cause GM wages to go down. Trump should not be allowed near any of the moving parts of government. At this point it looks like he is doing all that he can to derail President Obama's economic recovery.
19
Nothing can make Trump feel secure.
2
If we have learned anything from this Trumpian nightmare, it’s that nobody can tell this man anything. He knows it all; he knows what’s best.
Running American business into the ground is just all part of his grand scheme to make America great again. Just ask him.
Roughly a year and a half to go before we can — maybe — send this guy packing. It will be interesting to see where we’re at by that time — financially, globally, and domestically.
7
Trump has supplanted God in the American psyche.
This is what happens when an impulsive, ill-informed guy is in charge. Decisions are poorly informed. We are at the mercy of an unsophisticated man.
14
Well, the next president now has a road map. Do the opposite of what Trump does; it should make America great again.
9
Mr. Trump is so dedicated to un doing all of President Obama's accomplishments that now he is willing to destroy the auto industry and our economy with it. Congress needs to act.
14
Yes, but unfortunately, the GOP Congress is in thrall to the Trump Party and entirely inert.
2
So we need to replace them.
I hope this is a wake up call to my union brothers who bought into Trumps pie in the sky fantasy that the clock could be turned back and the jobs sacrificed by the Gingrich (one of Trumps main buddies) republicans and the Clinton administration could be brought back. That time is passed and it will take a smarter man or women than Trump to rebalance trade in any meaningful way. To do that requires a scalpel and Trump only understands hammers & nails. So he hits and breaks things, including our remaining jobs. Sad
10
Maybe it’s wrong, but I truly hope Trump supporters feel the pain due to this. They chose to believe in a con man, contrary to all the evidence.
35
Let's see GM and Harley Davidson are complaining about tariffs and how that will affect not only the cost of their vehicles but may change how and where they are manufactured which in turn affects wages and employment.
Soybean prices have fallen.
If this is what winning looks like who wouldn't want more?
27
Congress will just subsidize the farmers, err, corporate industrial food complex.
The President is right to push for fairer trade but his approach of creating bargaining chips by slapping on tariffs is hurting businesses’ ability to plan and will cause disruption and loss of competitiveness for years to come.
6
I'm in Canada, and as tough as these tariffs might be for Americans, trust me, its gonna be harder for us up here. Everyone here knows that US-trade is a vital part of our economy and we don't take it for granted. Canadians are very aware of the dependence our economy and culture has on the US than the other way around - its just that pervasive and hard to ignore.
That said, most Canadians support, with a bit of trepidation, today's equal counter-tariffs announced by our federal government on designated American goods. Of course the effect on the US economy will be trivial - we know that too. But if it gives a bit of a pause to average Americans to think about the real effects of trade wars on their lives and pocketbook, maybe its a chance for this generation to see what actually happens and learn for itself what the benefits and/or drawbacks are of isolated economies. (I could be wrong - maybe the US will thrive.)
A good thing that has already come of this is that Canadians are starting to realize that maybe we put too many eggs in the American trade basket, and we should be more wary of where are stuff comes from. Buying American used to be a no-brainer, now we paying attention to labels and try to buy more goods from Canada and our other free-trade partners in Europe, Japan, Mexico and elsewhere.
I worry stronger economic ties with the other nations will inevitably come at the cost of weaker ties and trust toward the US that may last well into the next generation.
37
I think you are correct, and the US has itself to blame. The US, Mexico and Canada are better off allying to try to preserve the international order - if it hurts America...well, we did it to ourselves.
16
What was Harley Davidson supposed to do, take one for Trump like those he surrounds himself with? The same with GM. What would Trump do in the same situation with one of his own companies? In 2016 Trump stated: I know that it doesn't make it any easier for people whose jobs have been outsourced overseas, but if a company's only means of survival is by farming jobs outside its walls, then sometimes it's a necessary step. The other option is to close its doors for good".
10
RE: What would Trump do in the same situation with one of his own companies?
What he has always done: declare bankruptcy and ditch his creditors
26
And don't forget continue to abuse the women so his assault count can keep rising and he will feel more power full and above the law.
Another self centered corporate that has had a free ride for years offshoring US jobs, government bailouts and zero interest rates. Now its time they get smarter with their local manufacturing, sure cars may get more expensive, they will sell less of them but at least parts will be manufactured in the US and jobs in the US. End result are lower corporate profits and more jobs in the US
1
The end result is bigger barriers to exports and less competitiveness in US manufacturing.
Australia maintained tariffs for years to protect its auto manufacturing and all it did was result in more expensive cars and less efficient manufacturing and a total inability to export.
This is eco 101 and it’s not theoretical.
4
Maybe the trumps should stop offshoring all their stuff to set a good example. Make those mags hats and shirts in the us.
The "free market" determines a market rate of return. GM will seek that return by whatever means necessary. Increased sales, production efficiency, LOWER labor costs. That means layoffs.
There is reason to believe that just as Putin suggested to Trump that America cease its annual exercise of joint war games with South Korea he also "suggested" that Trump start trade war by imposing tariffs on our best racing partners. The hold Putin has over Trump is yet to be revealed.
33
If Putin was literally calling Trump and telling him what to do, it would pretty much look like this. Trying to break down all the western alliances that have held Russia in check. Attacking trusted stable US allies, befriending dictators, causing humanitarian crises, encouraging France to leave the EU. For someone who denies being a puppet for Russian, he should does a great puppet impression. It's also hilarious how the GOP who has been vilifying everything they oppose as communist is now the conduit for Russian influence. Hard not to compare this to 1984 where wars are waged until one day the old enemies are declared the allies and vice versa. Is this really what "middle America" wants?
27
It's pretty significant when you think of Trump dropping sanctions for both the Ukraine invasion and hacking of our elections. Time after time he's sided with Russia over our allies in democracy.
And he's done nothing to find a way to prevent them from hacking our election again.
20
Tariffs are easy. They'll punish the people overseas and make America stronger. A few more big our guys need to threaten to move overseas.
"What, me worry."
2
I think that the interesting issue here is the question of truth. Who is telling the truth? Is GM telling the truth? Or is Trump telling the truth? Or is it all just spin on both sides?
No matter how you feel about Large Corporations, they generally are constrained by a reality which coerces their planning to be based on truth, not on propaganda. It should surprise nobody that after the spin and propaganda are scraped away, each business condemns protective tariffs (on other business’s products) as a very bad idea.
While I passionately believe that domestic manufacturing needs to survive and prosper, nobody seriously believes that protective tariffs are an effective way to achieve this.
9
"constrained by reality"--I love it!
“... or is Trump telling the truth?” Excuse me? He wouldn’t know the truth if it “punched him in the face,” to use his language.
1
One thing we know for sure, is that Trump does not tell the truth. I mean this as a small compliment, Trump is a pathological liar, as doesn't even know when he is lying.
Just a reminder: GM's CEO since 2014 is a very strong, smart woman: Mary Barra. She was the first woman to ever hold that position at a major automaker. She is an engineer w/an MBA from Stanford. She was the first person in her family to go to college. Her dad was a diemaker for 39 years.
Her senior advisory committee: Half long-term employees w/demonstrated knowledge of the business and excellence in performance and half younger, newer employees from other industries who "bring a diversity of opinion and broader world - view that strengthens our company and our decision-making."
I think Mary Barra "gets it."
In fact, for all those who want a "successful businessperson" as President, and for all those who want to see a "woman as President", I really wish Mary Barra would run in 2020.
49
I would agree with you that Barra "gets it." if this were 10 or 20 years ago.
But today is a different world. Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago, Aetna to Manhattan, GE to Boston.
"Software is eating the world." "Artificial Intelligence is the new electricity."
Barra may want to consider adopting management experience and styles consistent with Amazon's Bezos (Amazon has a great deal of experience with Robotics) and overall management styles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft including hiring some of their senior managers.
2
Anyone who thinks being a successful businessperson is qualification to become a president (or statesman) is hallucinating. Business leaders should have many admirable qualities (ideally), but they serve their boards, their shareholders and their customers. Government leaders should also have admirable qualities, but they serve the public good and the nation and its future. Totally, diametrically opposed, missions.
We are living the consequences of this confusion.
1
Hogwash. It's been proven over and over again that business executives don't make good presidents.
2
"Education is the cure for illiteracy, but the only cure for ignorance is time and consequences."
Mr. Trumps lack of a comprehensive education, mirrored by his most ardent base of supporters 'is-what-it-is'; lacking in both analytical thought as well as historical perspective. For many this is his major appeal given the dysfunction of those within his party and his Democratic opposition.
Those 'elites' of East Coast Harvard financial mavens or West Coast Stanford foreign policy wizards have no answer for this populist demagogue because their shame at having been responsible for his ascension to the highest office. Mr. Putin may have been his backer and hidden hand, but the failure was "Made in the USA"(.)
After decades of American dysfunction, well studied and understood by the Russian elites, it was Russia that capitalised on the anger of the American people instead of the other way around. Any populist 'outsider' was a better alternative than the status quo of the American political theater. As Putin gained popularity as a force for Russian stability, if not democracy, the failure of was ripe for exploitation by a white supremacist demagogue in the USA.
How did ignorance become so popular in America? Celebrity has its appeal in a nation where more thought is given to who will win next weeks show than who can credibly govern. So week-to-week Mr. Trump seeks to outdo those who have failed to govern by consensus. Mr. Trump's party knows this, so the party cheers
27
Does Trump realize that after wrecking the country (as he has done with all his endeavors), he can't declare bankruptcy (which is his usual solution to get out of the masses he creates)?
48
This job is probably the most profitable ever for him and all his family!
1
you, the people, shall declare bankruptcy!
1
Oh, he rejoyces. Because this time, he doesn’t have to declare bankruptcy. He’ll blame others for the mess. The courts. The Russia investigation. The immigrants. The weather. In the meantime, Jared and Ivanka use their closeness to the White House to grow the family fortune. Did nobody pay attention when the Chinese agreed to put $500 million into a Trump development in Indonesia? Why the heck does this not cause a major scandal and impeachment? How numb have we and our system become? Imagine Hillary were in office and the Clinton foundation pulled a stunt like that! I say: “Lock him up!”
2
The Left taxes and moves the jobs away to foreign shores, the Right tariffs and moves the jobs to foreign shores. How’s about we stop intervening in the market and focus on continuous education for the population to minimize disruptions in industry to the average worker? These are stale ideas stuck in the past and only serve to boost Trumps re-election prospects.
7
Got a wife and family so I'm always worried about a recession. When I discussed this with my wife, she said something unexpected:
"People don't change until they suffer. It has to hurt them personally."
Civility. MAGA. The Mueller investigation. The Supreme Court. Etc.
Who cares if we lose our jobs.
If we begin to suffer economically, the people will want Trump's head, even in red states. I suspect that it's dawning on Trump that he boxed himself in again. First on immigration and now on trade. Unlike the cruel separation of families at the border, trade wars can't be signed away with an EO--it's like a moving freight train.
Hard to halt, and even more difficult to hide the derailment.
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And someone so entrenched in “winning” and so averse to backing down when a wiser person would that derailment is inevitable.
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A scary prospect is that people lose their jobs and blame it not on the Dear Leader but rather on his enemies. It doesn't matter whether it's intentional or not, but his strategy increasingly looks like this: destroy everything and use the destruction to seize power.
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It is a sad commentary on our fellow citizens to think that immorality and obvious incompetence and corruption pale in comparison to a paycheck. But it also makes sense, I guess.
"The decision invoked the ire of the president, who quickly threatened punitive taxes. He accused the Wisconsin-based company, which he had previously cited as a poster child of American manufacturing, of having “surrendered.”
—Funny how 45* doesn't have a problem having his and Ivanka's products being made overseas.
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It's not funny anymore. We've been lucky up to now with this buffoon's antics, but 'it' is about to hit the fan for real. It will affect millions of people world wide, but will his supporters and Congress finally act to remove him? Or, will they just blame Democrats and 'Librulz' as usual and get away with it?
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When I was a kid, back in the 1950's, my Republican parents used to say "What's good for General Motors is good for America." Guess the GOP doesn't believe in that anymore.
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You know, John, my Democratic parents said the same thing.
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When I was a kid in the 60's, I remember an adult taking an item off the shelf and turning it upside down. It said, "Made in Japan". They told me if I saw that I was supposed to put it back on the shelf because it was poorly made and took away American jobs.
Then the adult took another item off the shelf, turned it upside down and showed me what "Made in the USA" looked like. It is one of my earliest memories in life and was probably my first reading lesson:)
We need to get back to being patriotic about what we buy rather than fuss over who stands or kneels during a song before a football game. I can sing the National Anthem till I am blue in the face but it will not produce American jobs. If I quit buying "Made in China" even if I have to make Christmas presents rather than rush to WalMart to fight over a t.v., the jobs will come back. Americans just need to suck it up for a while and go without till our billionaires bring back the jobs. But, humans will always act like sheep and try and save a buck and wonder what happened to their jobs.
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I actually think we can view the Dow Jones Industrial Average as an impeachment index. The worse things get the more likely we can expect an early exit.
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Trump doesn't care about any of this. He campaigned on increaseing tariff's, his base loves it so he will press ahead. He will lie and cover up any problems it causes.
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Let's see....he's imposing tariffs to protect American jobs, but the result will be a loss of American jobs. Not the best plan, I suggest.
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And that was entirely predictable. But who cares about facts anymore, when being called an “expert” is meant as an insult? Domocracy, I’m afraid, by definition, is the dictatorship of the lowest common denominator. We’re finally experiencing it.
U.S. leadership in the next generation of automotive technology.
Are they refering to cars with a mileage of 11 miles/gallon?
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I am intrigued about GM's conclusion that their business will suffer. Is this a 3 month or 3 year or 10 year projection. Given GM's past history, I would guess it is a 3 month calculation.
I also wonder if foreign manufacturers of automobiles would get even more affected, and wouldn't this help US manufacturers sell more cars in the US- helping offset cost increases by higher volumes of sales.. ?
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The Problem GM and all the other America Auto makers and foreign ones like Toyota and Subaru which have plants in the US is that a high percentage of their parts come from China. Trump's tariff will make those parts a whole lot more expensive making American produced cars so much more expensive. Americans will not buy them and the US Auto makers will lay off employees since they are not selling or making the cars.
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Shortly after they received their gigantic corporate tax cut, Ford announced that because of significantly reduced sales within four years they were eliminating production of all sedan models in North America and scuttlebut has it that GM could follow the same path. These concerns of GM are probably just part of Trump's total inability to understand the situation where cost of producing automobiles is vital to their competitiveness,
No matter what happens, it would seem Americans, even without tariffs and increased costs, aren't buying American cars anyway.
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If prices of all automobiles go up, which they will, people will stop buying them. Drive their cars more years and buy used cars. It’s really pretty simple. Doesn’t matter if it’s a GM or a Toyota, or a BMW. End result is a loss of jobs for all auto makers, it’s not hard. Supply chains are global.
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Trump just passed a corporate tax cut from a very high 35% to 20% which is now lower than most developed nations. As pointed out by others, he has relaxed, or will relax the air pollution standards.
With the lower corporate taxes, it may make sense to build more of the parts in the US.
"Software is eating the world." "Artificial Intelligence is the new electricity." Perhaps management at old industrial firms such as GM, and GE need to hire CEOs that have thinking more consistent with Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon.
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We don't have the skilled workforce for high tech manufacturing.
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Lower taxes make no difference. Taxes are levied on profits, not income.
If parts become more expensive, cars will become more expensive, which will curtail demand and reduce income.
That means layoffs.
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@Morgan K:
I disagree. Intel, Samsung, and Global Foundries all have most modern computer chip fabrication plants in the US. We certainly do have a skilled, educated workforce.
@Jerry Engelbach:
With the tax cut which is substantial, GM can have lower margins and still have similar financial returns to shareholders.
There is also, I pointed out, relaxation of the air pollution controls which should lower GMs costs.
Someone should ask GM executives how much they stand to gain from the tax cuts president Trump shepherded through congress. They should also be asked to comment on the impact of eliminating superfluous and unnecessary regulations that have hampered inovation and efficiency in manufacturing. They should also comment on the presidents embrace of our domestic energy sector which has lowered the cost of one of its primary components in the manufacturing process.
GM can lament the as yet unseen impact of president Trumps tariffs on its bottom line but it shouldn’t be allowed to ignore the benefits his policies have already contributed to it. As a consumer of GM products my suggestion to them would be to focus on producing products that folks like me want to purchase and utilizing the enhanced opportunity to do so that the policies of president Trump have provided.
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Doubletalk.
Higher costs of raw materials equals higher cost of finished product.
That will reduce demand and impel layoffs.
All the rest is bunk.
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You may not have realized it but you have just confirmed the continuing total folly of giving enormous tax cuts to corporations. They don't invest in their company, they buy back their shares, hand out big bonuses to executives and pay out the rest in dividends to shareholders.
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