Posts Tagged ‘trade’

The “We’re there no graves in Egypt?” Republicans

Posted: April 9, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
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fyi I’m going to be completely offline the next few days so comments won’t get approved before Monday.

I know we live in a time where we are used to instant information and instant action but the reaction of some conservatives over the last few days are making me doubt the sanity of some.

It’s sort of like when a Baseball team wins twenty in a row. It’s a great time and it’s a lot of fun but if after winning 20 in a row you get upset because you don’t repeated win twenty in a row.

Trump has been winning big for a long time in this first 100 days. No president has ever done so much in so little time.

But persuading people who have been ripping you off for decades to make a deal, and to GET a deal in writing that doesn’t happen instantly.

Trump announced his tariffs a few days ago, stocks reacted poorly and people panicked and let the same media who had buffaloed them for years drive them like fools. When Trump stuck to his guns they panicked more BUT not as much as those countries who rapidly figured out that Trump wasn’t bluffing.

The calls poured in dozens of countries anxious to make a deal, with the primary exception of China who immediately retaliated and the EU who claimed retaliation to happen in a week.

Now I don’t have the business experience that Donald Trump has but even I know that it takes more than a day to finalize a deal between two nations and commit it to paper. How many days do you think it takes to do so with 75 or 80 nations. Say 90 days?

The left and the media starting spinning this as Trump caving. When it was obvious that he hadn’t and even worse the stock market soared beyond all it had lost and then some suddenly it was insider trading.

I expect this from the left media and if you don’t expect from the people who lied to you about Biden’s condition for four years you’re a fool.

But if you’re a member of the GOP who has seen the last two and a half months of almost continual success did you really have any business freaking out during this weekend or beyond?

The reaction of conservatives reminds me of the twelve tribe of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt.

Over and over again after they had been delivered from danger they would start their cry: “We’re there no graves in Egypt that you led us out to get slain or starved, or die of thirst etc etc etc.”

When I hear conservatives whine about Trump not being dignified enough, or not winning fast enough, or not continuing an uninterrupted winning streak they sound like those who had seen miracles over and over again and now act if they are entitled to them.

Now there are many who make their living Hitting Trump and getting clicks from it and those folks are going to play the panic for all it’s worth.

But if you’re not one of them, please don’t become one of those “We’re there no graves in Egypt” Republicans?

Keep your head and let the people who spend their lives doing and building things do what they do best.

Remember it’s like the Tom Brady years here in New England. Just because Brady made it look easy to get to the Superbowl year after year didn’t mean it was. He’s just good.

Just because Trump has made it look easy doesn’t mean it is.

What an Opening for Central America on Trade

Posted: February 27, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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There is a famous political saying that one should never let a crisis go to waste, and another not from the political world that says one man’s meat is another man poison one piece of the China Trade Wars / Virus story is the opportunity it provides for countries in Central America, land of the caravans.

As has been noted the primary driver of the refugees and caravans that had been driving policy at the US border is economic. People need work and see the US as an entry point for this. As someone who has for the last five years worked in a place where Spanish, Portuguese , Creole were more common than English and Arabic almost as common I have seen this close up.

With both the Trade wars and now the Corona virus running rampant in China there is now a great incentive for produces of products to find alternatives to China for production.

Why not Central America?

This has the potential of a win win win here, you have countries closer to the US in terms of shipping, populations looking for work, governments eager to increase their tax base and to make an even darker point criminal organizations in the area looking for legitimate ways to launder money.

Furthermore given the relative population of China vs Central America the number of jobs and industries needed to fund a boom in the region would be a relative pin-prick in the side of the Communist state.

Now there are risks, you have the randomness of the corruption of the local governments (yes you have the corruption of a communist state in China but it tends to be more ordered and predictable) you have the costs of setting up a supply chain, and you never know what revolutionary group is going to spring up and of course you have the Cartels which if they don’t invest in the ventures will “tax” them to allow them to operate.

However even with those risks you have not only an alternative supplier in case of disaster but a way to lift people out of poverty where they are so they don’t have to come in caravan to the US to make a better life.

Under The Fedora on Monday “Moderate” Opinion, Why Dems Attack, Selling China Rice, The Church following the rules, and a Pat’s still bring fear

Posted: December 1, 2019 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, business, culture, economy, media, News/opinion, nfl, politics, Sports, trade, under the fedora
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If you want to know why people don’t give “Moderate” Muslims the benefit of the doubt this is why

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It wasn’t long ago when such a piece would be too fringe even for the Guardian.

I think this tweet is the single best political justification for the media/left’s actions on Trump that I’ve read

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

if you are the party out of power looking to regain it the last thing you want is for the people being “the happiest they’ve ever been” when your foes are in charge.

At the Doug Ross Journal (where I found the above tweet) I saw something that jumped out at me.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It turns out this isn’t a new story:

The U.S. can now ship rice to China for the first time ever, signaling a win for President Donald Trump in his efforts to reshape the trade relationship just after talks between the nations broke down Wednesday.
Officials from the nations finalized a protocol to allow for the first-ever American shipments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday in a statement. China is the world’s biggest rice consumer, importer and producer.

That’s from 2017 and this is from Feb

While there’s no guarantee, farmers and millers are increasingly optimistic because the Chinese ban has been lifted, a handful of U.S. rice mills have been cleared for export, and China is looking to make the Trump administration happy with commodity purchases.
It was in December that China took a major step toward making that happen, changing its customs regs and officially lifting its ban on U.S. rice. Separately, China has now officially cleared seven of the 34 U.S. rice mills that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has asked China to certify under the country’s sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, U.S. industry and government officials tell Agri-Pulse. The remaining mills are still under Chinese consideration, sources say.

Oddly I don’t remember reading it before. Remember Media Bias isn’t just what gets reported, it’s what gets promoted.

Apparently a judge in Michigan believes it’s discrimination when a catholic priest decides not to enable her in a state of mortal sin to commit further mortal sin.

Judge Sara Smolenski, the chief judge of Michigan’s 63rd District Court, received a call from the priest at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, requesting she not attend communion.
“This is not about me against the priest, and it’s not really me against the church,” Smolenski told CNN. “This feels like selective discrimination. Why choose gay people, and why now?”
Smolenski, 62, said that the Rev. Scott Nolan, the priest at St. Stephen for approximately three years, called her on November 23 and told her, “‘It was good to see you in church on Sunday. Because you and Linda are married in the state of Michigan, I’d like you to respect the church and not come to communion.’”

Actually given the Pope we have the idea of a church actually enforcing the rules of the church might actually be newsworthy.

Finally thanks to my injury I was able to watch the entire Patriots game this weekend and see them one guy keeping his balance on an onside kick away from a shot at yet another miracle comeback.

It’s a testament to what Brady has done in the past that when they managed to score the 2nd of the three scores they needed for a chance that even with under a minute to go and no time outs kicking the ball that you could hear double in the voices of the announcers in a game that should have been over and feel fear in the stadium after Edelman caught that touchdown, but in reality the Texan response was classic Patriot defense by a former Pats defensive coordinator, leave the other team just enough space and just enough time to get close but still lose.

This just in: Trump is right on China

Posted: September 3, 2019 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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A trifecta of anti-Trump organizations—DaTimes, DaPost, and the Council on Foreign Relations—has endorsed the president’s policy on China.

As I have noted in the past, China has used government support illegally to dump cheap exports to the United States. Moreover, President Xi has claimed the South China Sea, one of the richest waterways in the world, as his own. His Belt and Road Initiative is intended to open up markets on nearly every continent. And then there’s Hong Kong.

“China can’t join all the right international clubs and go on playing by its own rules. It can’t make some trade ‘deal’ and then not be held fully accountable, relying on the infinite global capacity to turn a blind eye to its predations,” Roger Cohen writes in DaTimes.

“The president’s statement linking a trade deal and the Hong Kong demonstrations — ‘It would be very hard to deal if they do violence. I mean, if it’s another Tiananmen Square, it’s — I think it’s a very hard thing to do if there’s violence’ — was perhaps his finest hour.”

In DaPost, a Chinese dissident goes even further.

“[A]s someone who has spent years with the knife edge of the Chinese Communist Party bearing down on my throat for my human rights work, I know that the president is on to something. Tariffs and economic threats may be blunt tools, but they are the kind of aggressive tactics necessary to get the attention of the CCP regime, which respects only power and money. It’s not just about ‘winning,’ as the president sometimes puts it, and it’s not simply about trade: It’s about justice, and doing what’s right for ordinary Chinese and American people,” writes Chen Guangcheng, a professor at Catholic University.

The Council on Foreign Relations gives Trump a B+ on his China policy, noting that “his administration has taken the lead in awakening the United States to the growing threat that China poses to U.S. vital national interests and democratic values.”
Although the trade war will cost almost every American some amount of cash depending on the electronics, textiles, and shoes we buy, I think the policy will save us a great deal of money in the long run. And with DaTimes, DaPost, and the Council actually praising Trump, we may finally have something that conservatives and liberals can finally agree upon.

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