American Politics

[Elvis 2008]

Thanks Elvis, sincerely. You can buy Geely ADR's in a USA Brokerage account. Just looking at the numbers for 5 minutes it appears cheap. Chery, Another of the Chinese EV auto manufacturers looks dirt cheap. I may do some work on these and if the ideas pan out buy some shares. If I do, I'll post on this again.

As always, when evaluating an investment I ask myself "What would Mitt Romney do?" And I think he might buy these! Ok, not really, but this is a sure fire way to get the Marquesa riled up!

LOL. Well, you really have no rights as a shareholder in the USA really until you acquire a big stake. This reminds of the Mark Cuban classic post here, https://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/08/...ks-and-money/: In July of 1998, my partner Todd Wagner and I took our company, Broadcast.com, public with Morgan Stanley. Broadcast.com used audio and video streaming to enable companies to communicate live with customers, employees, vendors, anyone with a PC.

Part of the process of taking a new company public is something called a road show. The road show is just that. A company getting ready to sell shares visits the big mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds – anyone who can buy millions of dollars of stock in a single order. It's a sales tour. 7 days, 63 presentations.

Prior to the road show, we put together an amazing presentation. We hired consultants to help us. We practiced and practiced. We argued about what we should and shouldn't say. We had Morgan Stanley and others ask us every possible question they could think of so we wouldn't look stupid when we sat in front of these savvy investors.

Savvy investors? I was shocked. Of the 63 companies and 400-plus participants we visited, I would be exaggerating if I said we got 10 good questions about our business and how it worked. The vast majority of people in the meetings had no clue who we were or what we did. They just knew that there were a lot of people talking about the company and they should be there.

The lack of knowledge at the meetings got to be such a joke between Todd and I that we used to purposely mess up to see if anyone noticed. Or we would have pet lines that we would make up to crack each other up. Did we ruin our chance for the IPO? Was our product so complicated that no one got it and as a result no one bought the stock? Hell no. They might not have had a clue, but that didn't stop them from buying the stock. We batted 1. 000. Every single investor we talked to placed the maximum order allowable for the stock.

On July 18,1998, Broadcast.com went public as BCST, priced at 18 dollars a share. It closed at $62.75, a gain of almost 250 percent, which at the time was the largest one day rise of a new offering in the history of the stock market. The same mutual fund managers who were completely clueless about our company placed multimillion orders for our stock. Multimillion dollar orders using your money.

Price-earnings ratios, price-sales, the present value of future cash flows, pick one. Fundamentals are merely metrics created to help stockbrokers sell stocks, and to give buyers reassurance when buying stocks. Even how profits are calculated is manipulated to give confidence to buyers.

I know that sounds crazy, but the stock market has gone from a place where investors actually own part of a company and have a say in their management, to a market designed to enrich insiders by allowing them to sell shares they buy cheaply through options. Companies continuously issue new shares to their managers without asking their existing shareholders. Those managers then leak that stock to the market a little at a time. It's unlimited dilution of existing shareholders' stakes, death by a thousand dilutive cuts. If that isn't a scam, I don't know what is. Individual shareholders have nothing but the chance to sell it to the next sucker. A mutual fund buys one million shares of a company with your and your coworkers' money. You own 1 percent of the company. Six weeks later you own less, and all that money went to insiders, not to the company. And no one asked your permission, and you didn't know you got diluted or by how much till 90 days after the fact if that soon.

End of link.

Oh, and as big of a scam as the overall American stock market is, the Chinese one is worse.

This is from a search on Chinese stock rights: Foreign investors generally have no direct ownership rights or legal recourse when buying Chinese stocks listed on USA Exchanges. Instead of owning shares in the actual Chinese operating company, investors purchase stock in an offshore Variable Interest Entity (VIE), typically a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. This structure relies on contracts rather than equity ownership, meaning shareholders hold zero controlling interest and possess only a contractual claim to economic benefits that Chinese courts may deem unenforceable or illegal.

What cracks me up about this is that this is Geely is like Nvidia. You cannot make a case for the stock as really by law the stock is worthless, but if you gamble based on name recognition, then my bet would be Geely is the first Chinese car maker to come to market. They own Volvo and have the USA infrastructure. Trump has said he would let Chinese cars in as long as they were manufactured in the USA and the lower labor costs are not really what make Chinese cars cheaper.

If you want to look at fundamentals, you can see why the auto industry in China IS a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS_fJJxMjn4&t=632s.

Just like long term there is no way Nvidia can grow or deliver the numbers they are now, the car companies and China are going down. It will take awhile but they are doing much the same things as Japan did and going into massive debt.

However, in the short and medium term, yeah, the Chinese cars will blow the roof of foreign competitors like they have done in Chile and are doing in Mexico. As for why, it is the engineering talent is much cheaper and that so many of the supply chains are based in China. In this video, the youtuber describes why what takes 3 months for Europe to model takes 3 days in China because one part of China produces 90% of all consumer electronics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=talyf00Cl24

When Ford looked at changing things in the cars, it took way longer and was way more expensive. The legacy auto companies really cannot compete with the Chinese.

Yeah, the Cherys are nice vehicles, but if you look at the top rated ones in Mexico, Geely cars are usually rated higher and because of the infrastructure with owning Volvo, I bet that Geely will be the first to market. I think that the Chinese companies have decided to dabble in Mexico first and then step up to the big leagues in the USA. Apparently, a lot of the Volvo engineers have been giving styling input on the Geelys and like I said, they do look really cool especially on the inside.

So yeah, Geely is a gamble but it is probably a good one.

[Sirioja]

Obviously you are not living in the same USA as the rest of us. The Trump tax cuts were more than the inflation and everyone retired has seen their retirement funds and savings go up dramatically. Wages are up significantly. I guess you never saved or put money into retirement so you did not benefit. But unemployment is at an all time low and everyone working is benefiting from their tax savings. Inflation is so much lower than the Biden years that few people really care about it. None of the fake news networks ever cared about inflation in Biden presidency so obviously that is where you get your fake information. Every person I know is doing better under the Trump presidency so stop your fake posts.

You don't seem to live in same USA than 60% Americans who disagree with Trump, but don't you know 60% is majority. And US artists, when many should be richer than you, but against Trump, refusing to sing for him, real facts, do you know Bruce Springsteen, or Taylor Swift, so rich communists? Listen also to Clint Eastwood and so many others. I would say Trump is really lucky many no brained not able to understand money is useless when you are dead, this not only in USA, unfortunately for our world. But, our planet will kill many people, from heat, tornados, hurricanes, ground sliding, water. What Trump is not clever enough to understand, when he made much richer since he returned.

[Tiny 12]

So take Ford versus Geely. If Ford sells something for $35,000, they have to make a profit, so labor costs and components have to be under $35,000. The reason I was so psyched about the Chinese car is China is putting in way over $35,000 worth of stuff in their cars that cost that amount. They are putting in top of the line seats with massagers in them, state of the art stereos, plush carpeting, expensive LED lighting ETC. You can do everything by voice control and if it were legal to command the car to give you a BJ, I bet it would do that too. There are cars in China right now that sell for $50,000 that have components in them that you only see in cars costing 4 X that amount.

Wbat made me go Tesla over Geely is right now is in Mexico the Chinese cars have not rolled out the full service driving (FSD) like Tesla has. The Chinese have it and are using it in China but they have not rolled it out in Mexico yet.

Thanks Elvis, sincerely. You can buy Geely ADR's in a USA Brokerage account. Just looking at the numbers for 5 minutes it appears cheap. Chery, Another of the Chinese EV auto manufacturers looks dirt cheap. I may do some work on these and if the ideas pan out buy some shares. If I do, I'll post on this again.

As always, when evaluating an investment I ask myself "What would Mitt Romney do?" And I think he might buy these! Ok, not really, but this is a sure fire way to get the Marquesa riled up!

[Tiny 12]

Happy July 4th. Celebrations are massive nationwide for the patriotic Republicans. 70% of democrats / communists say they are not patriotic and will not celebrate the 4th.

I was ready to call bull shit on this. But I decided to check with ChatGPT. And Dagnabit, the polls support it:

Gallup & YouGov Polling Data.

"Extremely Proud" to be American (Gallup).
Democrats: 14%.
Republicans: 70%.

View themselves as "Very Patriotic" (YouGov).
Democrats: 14%.
Republicans: 74%.

Plan to display an American flag this July 4th (Reuters / Ipsos).
Democrats: 27%.
Republicans: 64%.

I do however honestly believe the Democrats and Communists who post in this thread are among the 30% who are patriotic.

[Tiny 12]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...is-brain-dead/

https://nypost.com/2026/04/09/health...cbo=v2-gRtakkd

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/o...ic-cancer.html

Karma is real.

Two true American heroes. They're not long for this world. May God bless their immortal souls.

[Canada]

As Americans got poorer thanks to Trump's policies ushering in Trump's Pandemic triggering global inflation as well as that 2020 deal Trump made with OPEC to increase the price of oil and gas during the historic low demand Trump's Pandemic years until Biden fully recovered America and most of the rest of the World from both conditions, today Trump's Tariffs policies and Repub War of Choice in Iran based on a Repub Trump lie are again making Americans poorer:

Inflation swallows wage growth and American workers take a huge pay cut. Safeguard your nest egg today.
June 5, 2026

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/ar...105500788.html

Mind you, that was just early June. The Rate of Trump's Inflation is higher today.

Obviously you are not living in the same USA as the rest of us. The Trump tax cuts were more than the inflation and everyone retired has seen their retirement funds and savings go up dramatically. Wages are up significantly. I guess you never saved or put money into retirement so you did not benefit. But unemployment is at an all time low and everyone working is benefiting from their tax savings. Inflation is so much lower than the Biden years that few people really care about it. None of the fake news networks ever cared about inflation in Biden presidency so obviously that is where you get your fake information. Every person I know is doing better under the Trump presidency so stop your fake posts.

[Elvis 2008]

As Americans got poorer thanks to Trump's policies ushering in Trump's Pandemic triggering global inflation

LOL. Trump's pandemic? You lost it right there.

Global inflation? There was no inflation during the pandemic with Trump. In fact, there were so many people rushing into the dollar it was unreal. The dollar bought 25 Mexican pesos and 5000 COP in Colombia. Those numbers are 17+ and 3000+ today. There was inflation after Biden started printing up an unlimited number of dollars, and the government in their infinite stupidity shut down supply chains.

as well as that 2020 deal Trump made with OPEC to increase the price of oil and gas during the historic low demand Trump's Pandemic years,

There is conspiracy theory, and there is insanity. That is absolute insanity. Oil and gas demand plummeted during the pandemic. When it picked back up again, the price rose. That is simple economics. There was no deal. If you know squat, you know the OPEC members also have deals and the members cheat on them all the time.

until Biden fully recovered America

Yes, Biden cured the common cold. It did not naturally mutate into a less virulent form. And after curing the common cold, Biden cured cancer and made cold fusion which made our energy demands completely non carbon producing. Amazingly, the fact that Biden could not walk and chew gum at the same time during the debate was just an act, and he fooled everyone with how capable he really was.

Inflation swallows wage growth and American workers take a huge pay cut. Safeguard your nest egg today.
June 5, 2026

OMG. 3.6% inflation? Say it ain't so. You kind of left out the fact that the nest eggs have done well under Trump, and I just hit the pump. Gas prices were down 50 cents from last month. Oops.

As for the "inflation", maybe you do not get this, but people adjust. They work more. They shop at Walmart v the brand name grocery stores. They drive less. They use 3. 6% less stuff or work 3. 6% harder. The big part that you do not get is that this was temporary. In fact, just you wait, that inflation number will be negative a month or two from now, and you will be on to your latest Trump demonization rant, ignore lower prices, and find something else to gripe about, and we all know it.

Of course, you are missing the broader economy. If you look up jobs that pay $100,000+ a year, there are boat loads of them: real estate agents, HVAC technicians, carpet cleaners, door and window installers. A buddy of mine is in the shipping business and there are so many truck driving openings, companies were almost forced to hire illegals who could not read the language. The amount of goods being shipped and moved has never been higher.

In my world, I adjusted to the market demands, improved my skill, and the demand for my services is out of control. I could work 24 hours a day every day of the month and my hourly wage has gone up between 2 and 4 X in the last three years. So inflation is literally like pissing in the ocean.

What cracks me up is I had to deal with the griping you fossils would do when I went abroad. Don't overpay and ruin the market I was told. Yeah, why would I care? I am paying $1000 for a flight and paying $100 a night for a hotel, and I am supposed to care if I give a woman I am DTF an extra $20 to $50? I should pay her less because you lazy azzez who are not working with no debt, a pension, and assets to boot might have to pay more. Really? You boomers are so fucking selfish it is unreal.

Here is a novel idea, Tooms. Instead of looking at government and inflation and suffering from TDS, maybe you should try working 3. 6% harder or doing with 3. 6% less. Heaven forbid that you take action into your own hands and stop griping about someone else.

[Sirioja]

As Americans got poorer thanks to Trump's policies ushering in Trump's Pandemic triggering global inflation as well as that 2020 deal Trump made with OPEC to increase the price of oil and gas during the historic low demand Trump's Pandemic years until Biden fully recovered America and most of the rest of the World from both conditions, today Trump's Tariffs policies and Repub War of Choice in Iran based on a Repub Trump lie are again making Americans poorer:

Inflation swallows wage growth and American workers take a huge pay cut. Safeguard your nest egg today.
June 5, 2026

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/ar...105500788.html

Mind you, that was just early June. The Rate of Trump's Inflation is higher today.

Funny, all in USA don't have or are not able to understand same, information about tax and inflation, when I don't care about Trump tax, I don't pay his tax.

[Sirioja]

Americans were poorer with Biden and Obama but definitely not poorer with Trump. Trump tax cuts guaranteed more money in Americans pockets even with inflation. You sweating your life away in France can't understand that Americans are far better off under Trump presidency. Everyone I know in USA will tell you the same thing. Jealous of the USA life will get you nowhere. All the French that came for the World Cup love America. Sorry you are stuck in France.

Don't you read 60% Americans and most artists who are rich for most, disagree with Trump behavior and politics. Who pay Trump tax? Not me. Who pay inflation in USA because of Trump? Not me, but most Americans who pay more expensive. Under cheating Trump and shameful Infantino and Pochettino, one of the worst worldcup when real soccer, the most played sport all over the world, is fucked by Trump and Infantino sucking him, even worse than under corruption in Africa. Fortunately, for justice, even they are not at their top anymore, but small Belgium easily defeated cheating USA when Balogun should never play, shame on trainer Pochettino. But Trump failed again, after Iran and Ormuz. Only him and blind, neurons limited Americans thinking he is king of the world, when not more than senile schizophrene megaloman in front of the world. Didn't you see Belgium players making fun of him, after his cheating, he really deserves. And for worldcup at home, USA team can go home very fast.

[EihTooms]

Americans were poorer with Biden and Obama but definitely not poorer with Trump. Trump tax cuts guaranteed more money in Americans pockets even with inflation. You sweating your life away in France can't understand that Americans are far better off under Trump presidency. Everyone I know in USA will tell you the same thing. Jealous of the USA life will get you nowhere. All the French that came for the World Cup love America. Sorry you are stuck in France.

As Americans got poorer thanks to Trump's policies ushering in Trump's Pandemic triggering global inflation as well as that 2020 deal Trump made with OPEC to increase the price of oil and gas during the historic low demand Trump's Pandemic years until Biden fully recovered America and most of the rest of the World from both conditions, today Trump's Tariffs policies and Repub War of Choice in Iran based on a Repub Trump lie are again making Americans poorer:

Inflation swallows wage growth and American workers take a huge pay cut. Safeguard your nest egg today.
June 5, 2026

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/ar...105500788.html

For the first time in three years, inflation is once again outpacing wage growth in the United States.

Consumer prices rose 3.8% annually in April 2026, while average hourly earnings increased by just 3.6%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1). The reversal marks the first time since April 2023 that inflation has outpaced wage growth, per Visual Capitalist (2).

Much of the recent increase in inflation has been attributed to higher energy costs tied to the ongoing conflict in Iran (3). For energy alone, costs soared 17.9% year-over-year in April (up from 12.5% just in March), a jump that Trading Economics (4) calls "the steepest annual energy increase since September 2022.

Mind you, that was just early June. The Rate of Trump's Inflation is higher today.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...is-brain-dead/

https://nypost.com/2026/04/09/health...cbo=v2-gRtakkd

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/o...ic-cancer.html

Karma is real.

[Canada]

Yes, most Americans get poorer from inflation from Trump war in Iran, being defeated and needing to pay 300 billions to mollahs still there like before, much more than did Obama, but everything is good for Trump who makes much richer and so megaloman, even when he fail, but not understanding meaning of shame.

Americans were poorer with Biden and Obama but definitely not poorer with Trump. Trump tax cuts guaranteed more money in Americans pockets even with inflation. You sweating your life away in France can't understand that Americans are far better off under Trump presidency. Everyone I know in USA will tell you the same thing. Jealous of the USA life will get you nowhere. All the French that came for the World Cup love America. Sorry you are stuck in France.

[Sirioja]

Happy July 4th. Celebrations are massive nationwide for the patriotic Republicans. 70% of democrats / communists say they are not patriotic and will not celebrate the 4th. Republicans are enjoying the lakes and rivers, bbq's, beer, fireworks with all their friends while Democrats sulk at home watching liberal news MSN Now complain about Trump. Even liberal CCN is covering the celebration. What a great world we live in. Hundreds of thousands World Cup fans are having a great time enjoying the USA during this celebration. Democrats are hoping USA soccer team loses because they could never enjoy a win for USA while Trump is president. TDS is rampant with the democrats / communists. Fans from all over the world are raving about their stay in USA. Even the French like air conditioning in their hotel rooms. June 30, 2026 401 K's and retirement accounts hit record levels. Gas prices are dropping and will be under $3 in most red states. Of course California and several other blue states will artificially keep their prices high until after the mid terms. 35 allies of the USA are participating in the 250 celebrations but some blue states are not participating as they could never enjoy life and celebrate while Trump is president. Isn't it a great life!

Yes, most Americans get poorer from inflation from Trump war in Iran, being defeated and needing to pay 300 billions to mollahs still there like before, much more than did Obama, but everything is good for Trump who makes much richer and so megaloman, even when he fail, but not understanding meaning of shame.

[Canada]

Happy July 4th. Celebrations are massive nationwide for the patriotic Republicans. 70% of democrats / communists say they are not patriotic and will not celebrate the 4th. Republicans are enjoying the lakes and rivers, bbq's, beer, fireworks with all their friends while Democrats sulk at home watching liberal news MSN Now complain about Trump. Even liberal CCN is covering the celebration. What a great world we live in. Hundreds of thousands World Cup fans are having a great time enjoying the USA during this celebration. Democrats are hoping USA soccer team loses because they could never enjoy a win for USA while Trump is president. TDS is rampant with the democrats / communists. Fans from all over the world are raving about their stay in USA. Even the French like air conditioning in their hotel rooms. June 30, 2026 401 K's and retirement accounts hit record levels. Gas prices are dropping and will be under $3 in most red states. Of course California and several other blue states will artificially keep their prices high until after the mid terms. 35 allies of the USA are participating in the 250 celebrations but some blue states are not participating as they could never enjoy life and celebrate while Trump is president. Isn't it a great life!

[Elvis 2008]

Elvis, Victoria's Secret and Shen both get what they sell from Asian manufacturers. Neither is a manufacturer. Undoubtedly they source some of their products from the same factories. Victoria's Secret is owned by an Australian, Brett Blundy, and a number of USA And foreign institutions. Shen is owned by a Singapore national (and former PRC national) along with USA institutional investors and the UAE sovereign wealth fund. Victoria's Secret is mostly bricks and mortar and sells a higher quality product. Shen sells mostly online. If it's kicking VS's ass, it's for the same reason Amazon is kicking everybody else's ass.

The company that I believe is the largest supplier of expandable fabric and lace for Victoria's Secret products is domiciled in Hong Kong and, say, fifteen years ago produced the majority of its output in China. It also had a factory in Vietnam, which catered to Japanese brands because of tariff advantages. The company was nimble, so when Trump first imposed tariffs on China it ramped up Vietnamese production. Now they produce more from Vietnam than they do from China.

Fabric manufacturing requires a lot of capex. The company had to build additional factories in Vietnam, and hire workers who initially weren't very productive. Its supply chain (yarn and dye suppliers, etc.) was spread out and inefficient. A huge investment in Vietnam was incurred because of the tariffs, and I guess Vietnamese workers benefitted. The USA consumer sure didn't. She had to pay higher prices.

So then later on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025, Trump jacks up tariffs on Vietnam to 46%. WTF? So now what's the manufacturer supposed to do? Start building factories in Mexico and Brazil? Then how long before Trump raises the tariff on that country?

The fabric manufacturer passes its production onto a garment manufacturer. Garment manufacturing, like shoe manufacturing, is labor intensive. Maybe around 20% of the cost of gross sales is labor. The work to make garments, and shoes and toys and cheap electronics, is painstaking and repetitive. Americans don't want to do it, any more than they want to work in meat processing plants, to use SubCmdr's example. If you visit an Asian factory it would probably change your mind.

Someone told you he could set up a factory in the USA and manufacture shoes for $6 or $9 a pair or something. Unless he was talking about one piece, mickey mouse molded shoes he was blowing smoke. They, like garments, require a lot of labor. Yeah, maybe someday with AI and humanoid robots like what Tesla and Xpeng are trying to make, you will be able to lower the labor cost a lot. Until then, when the unemployment rate is 4. 2%, and when contrary to Tooms and Spidy's opinion, almost all Americans who want a job have one, why would you want to move this production to the USA? You don't want to take people away from higher value added work. We've got the highest GDP per capita in the world for any large country, by far. You don't want to slash productivity by making people assemble Iphones instead of Boeing aircraft.

That constantly changing tariff rate is one reason I gave Trump a F in execution. As for clothing, it was not just limited to that but anything that could be sent and claimed to be under $800 was not taxed one penny. That is a helluva lot stuff that you are giving over to foreign producers as American producers cannot compete with countries paying wages at 50 cents per hour. Clothing and shoes are among the least important items in that mix.

Think about all the items in your life that if they failed could kill you that cost under $800 like nuts and bolts on your car. Sure, the market can correct if it knows about an issue like mercury in Chinese dog food but what about things the market cannot see? Like spyware in all the Chinese electronics. That cannot be quantified and so the argument that free trade is beneifcial for both parties fall on its face.

I did a search in the political forum of another hoe board, and I was sounding the alarm about rare earth minerals back in 2018. I absolutely favor and favored subsidies and sensible tariffs to ensure access to strategic rare earth minerals, and essential products in general. I'the go a step further and tell the "not in my backyard" crowd to fuck off. Otherwise you may never see significant mining and processing of rare earths in the USA.

Yes, rare earths are not really rare or that hard to produce but building up systems to produce them takes time, and all of this was shipped off to China "because it's cheaper". And then China gets mad at us and no more rare earths. That was the same with PPE and could be with antibiotics and a whole host of other vital goods.

I'm not inclined to argue about cars. I said a few things relevant to your comments in a reply to SubCmdr. I've already shot my wad there, as you and Spidy know a lot more about Chinese BEV's than I do. I will say that trying to move the supply chain out of Mexico and Canada and entirely into the USA is nuts. Hopefully Trump's backed off that idea, if he ever had it in the first place. I'm not sure he did.

Well, cars are just like rare earths in that factories are incredibly difficult and time consuming to erect and once they are gone, it takes a long time to rebuild them.

What China is doing is the same Rockefeller did with standard oil. Use cheaper prices where you are losing money to put your competitor out of business. Once they are out of business, you charge whatever you want. What is even worse about China that people do not get is the CCCP does not even care about making a profit. If they did, they would not be building all the empty homes and skyscrapers that they are. They want to keep people employed and busy so they do not revolt.

Just like with the overproduction of homes, they are doing it elsewhere including with cars. What is amazing to me is how many people buy into the stupid Chinese model. If you are going into massive debt to build things that are not needed, eventually, the entire system will collapse. All that is keeping China going right now is hidiing how much debt they have from the world.

So take Ford versus Geely. If Ford sells something for $35,000, they have to make a profit, so labor costs and components have to be under $35,000. The reason I was so psyched about the Chinese car is China is putting in way over $35,000 worth of stuff in their cars that cost that amount. They are putting in top of the line seats with massagers in them, state of the art stereos, plush carpeting, expensive LED lighting ETC. You can do everything by voice control and if it were legal to command the car to give you a BJ, I bet it would do that too. There are cars in China right now that sell for $50,000 that have components in them that you only see in cars costing 4 X that amount.

Wbat made me go Tesla over Geely is right now is in Mexico the Chinese cars have not rolled out the full service driving (FSD) like Tesla has. The Chinese have it and are using it in China but they have not rolled it out in Mexico yet.

China has capacity to buiild every car in the world and because "it is cheaper" in China, you can make the argument that all cars SHOULD be made in China to benefit the consumer. The problem with that is once all the other car companies are put out of business, you are left with two scenarios. Either China raises car prices through the roof to survive and / or they fail and we have to bail out the Chinese car companies.

So yeah, I am familiar with the economic models that say trade benefits both sides. Economists have put in the exception that tariffs might be okay to be put in place with vital industries like rare earths. What I have not seen is an adjustment to any models to compensate for a competitor not giving a fuck if they make a profit which is China and the CCP right now and putting tariffs on goods produced at a loss like cars to protect a vital American industry IS rational. How Trump went about implementing tariffs was NOT.