The transformation is incredible, in college I had McGovernite liberal professors who are the polar opposite of today's "liberals" that are pro-war and pro-Wall Street.
"They have also assumed they are entitled to American defense, while doing nothing in return."
No. Dependency on American defense is the point, dependency is power. NATO was always supposed to "keep America in, Russia out and Germany down." Far from investing more into this protection racket, Europe ought to be developing its own defense where America no longer gets to dictate the terms and use it for proxy wars.
Another great post. As many observers have noted, most of the West is still mentally living in the 20th century and is unable or unwilling to recognize that era is over, which is basically an 80 year period from the end of WW2 until 2020 or so with a set of ideas around the global order and economy. It's entirely possible the Administration does a poor job or is temporarily halted by politics from making the transition to the 21st century, but it's far better than what our rulers previously had planned, which is basically carrying on as before and hoping they all had a seat when the music stopped. That would have been incredibly traumatic and involved pain the chattering class cannot even imagine, if they had the honesty to do so.
And really most people are just NPCs and don't understand what course we were on anyway. The Covid crisis was filled with news that highlighted how vulnerable offshoring had made the US, and yet the same people who bought every lie about the virus itself have already forgotten this one truth and are against transforming our economy to greater self sufficiency.
ATM they apply to everything. In due time, they should be removed from unprocessed agricultural produce and raw materials because (A) The USA runs a surplus with agricultural produce and (B) it is also resource rich.
So buying lumber or oil from Canada should be exempt. That said, aluminium and processed steel are not raw materials - bauxit, iron ore, coal and electricity are. The key thing is rebuilding manufacturing, and producing steel and aluminium are part of manufacturing. A very primary part, but still a part. By the way, writing software or producing films is manufacturing too.
Oh, and by the way - Russia is so super-sanctioned, that USG didn't bother to elevate additional tariffs there - there is too little trade there atm.
The transformation is incredible, in college I had McGovernite liberal professors who are the polar opposite of today's "liberals" that are pro-war and pro-Wall Street.
"They have also assumed they are entitled to American defense, while doing nothing in return."
No. Dependency on American defense is the point, dependency is power. NATO was always supposed to "keep America in, Russia out and Germany down." Far from investing more into this protection racket, Europe ought to be developing its own defense where America no longer gets to dictate the terms and use it for proxy wars.
Another great post. As many observers have noted, most of the West is still mentally living in the 20th century and is unable or unwilling to recognize that era is over, which is basically an 80 year period from the end of WW2 until 2020 or so with a set of ideas around the global order and economy. It's entirely possible the Administration does a poor job or is temporarily halted by politics from making the transition to the 21st century, but it's far better than what our rulers previously had planned, which is basically carrying on as before and hoping they all had a seat when the music stopped. That would have been incredibly traumatic and involved pain the chattering class cannot even imagine, if they had the honesty to do so.
And really most people are just NPCs and don't understand what course we were on anyway. The Covid crisis was filled with news that highlighted how vulnerable offshoring had made the US, and yet the same people who bought every lie about the virus itself have already forgotten this one truth and are against transforming our economy to greater self sufficiency.
As I understand it, tariffs do not apply to raw materials, which are most of Russia's exports to the US except oil, like uranium...
ATM they apply to everything. In due time, they should be removed from unprocessed agricultural produce and raw materials because (A) The USA runs a surplus with agricultural produce and (B) it is also resource rich.
So buying lumber or oil from Canada should be exempt. That said, aluminium and processed steel are not raw materials - bauxit, iron ore, coal and electricity are. The key thing is rebuilding manufacturing, and producing steel and aluminium are part of manufacturing. A very primary part, but still a part. By the way, writing software or producing films is manufacturing too.
Oh, and by the way - Russia is so super-sanctioned, that USG didn't bother to elevate additional tariffs there - there is too little trade there atm.
Sanctions, tariffs, taxes...all government voodoo that subscribes to eventual war.