A fine balance between motion and stillness


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lu-e1739916488408-960x1018.jpeg

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with fluidity and fixedness
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Having a bit of trouble understanding all this tariff hype floating around in the
news lately. Essentially making it too expensive to trade with the US helps how?
The rationale seems to be to bring back manufacturing to the homeland.
That may reasonably take 10 years to realize, given the current state of
national infrastructure. They can not fix 40 years of outsourcing and offshoring
overnight. Factories to re-build, transportation to be upgraded, workers to be
trained, housed and fed. What goldmine is going to pay for this pie in the sky?
And what happens during the ensuing redevelopment? More military spending!

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Reasonable achievable steps are missing in the formula. Maybe cynical but
seems we are being fed another basket of BS disguised as progress. What
are your thoughts on this?

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Credits ~
polished stainless steel sculpture Undercurrent by Zheng Lu, Beijing
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/02/zheng-lu-stainless-steel-sculptures/

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Open thread to share whatever is in your mind.

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QMS's picture

.
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The weak threat of tariffs seem to change like the wind.
On-off, up-down. No a very solid policy and angering the
trading partners. Maybe that is the point - on a whim.

The silly "ceasefire" fell flat with Ukie/US diplomats.
Oops, more arms and intelligence is the carrot, no stick.

Things seem fluxed-up.

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9 users have voted.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Lookout's picture

Wish I could help with your tariff confusion, but I have plenty of doubts too. Superficially they seem bad, but might be a bargaining tool? We'll see.

I also find the situation in Syria bizarre. We overthrow Assad to insert ISIS (Islamic State in Suits) who is now slaughtering all nonbelievers. And then cheer it on, or claim it is pro Assad troops. It is sick.

Death is our calling card.

Take care and have a great day. It is going to be beautiful here. Thanks for the OT!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cassiodorus's picture

Moon of Alabama:

Trump's Tariff Wars Will Hurt U.S. The Most

Because collapsing the economy will totally entice manufacturers to relocate to the US.

Trump is generally stupid. For Simplicius, Trump:

now wallows in a post-euphoric doldrums phase of his floundering second term, when virtually every one of his campaign promises has faltered or flopped. No Epstein, JFK, or 9/11 lists, no Mexican wall, no Fort Knox audit or UFO disclosure, no mass deportations, with ICE raids rumored to have halted, no promised US troop withdrawals from Syria, Europe, or elsewhere. Every other boastful attempt to capture Greenland, Canada, Panama, and everything in between has likewise fallen flat on its face, with countries no longer fearing nor taking the US seriously.

Meanwhile Trump works hard to destroy Constitutionally-protected free speech. with the help of Columbia University.

483901534_10162310332629481_8386828808325152143_n.jpg

So, yeah. Cleverly stupid.

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8 users have voted.

"To watch the leader of the most powerful nation on earth endorse and finance a genocide prompts not a passing kind of disgust or anger, but a severance." -- Omar el Akkad

lotlizard's picture

@Cassiodorus  
They should just rename themselves the AIPAC League, Gatekeepers Defending Genocide™, and have done with it.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jan/21/harvard-antisemitism-l...

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/harvard-university-ihra-antise...

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QMS's picture

@lotlizard
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what is being represented by these institutions
is contrary to the concept of what used to considered
a 'liberal arts education'.

good luck loti

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3 users have voted.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

QMS's picture

@Cassiodorus
.
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of tearing it all down to rebuild
not addressing the roots of disorder

would be easier to tear-out the base structure of
greed after trimming the shady branches overhead

seriously think this is not going to be a part of the maga movement
if the destruction of hegemonic imperialism is to be successful
think deeper digging is in order?

thanks for providing your cleverly stupid link (couldn't resist)
Wink

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4 users have voted.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

studentofearth's picture

He appears to be using it as a tool for negotiations for his domestic and foreign policy goals.

Escalation Dominance
developed into a formal military strategy after the development of nuclear weapons.

Careful differentiation between flexible response and escalation dominance can help policymakers recognize when one strategy is sold or characterized in the other’s name. In particular, those who describe escalation dominance as the ability to threaten “a symmetrical and proportional response” or as a situation in which “[w]hatever move we make, he can match it and go further,” are more accurately describing flexible response. Similarly, policymakers should be wary of calls for dominance that explain what it takes to compete, but not what it would take to demonstrate clear superiority.

DODGE activities could also be used as method of controlled chaos.

This week's art is a perfect metaphor, stilling chaos of movement of the moment to reflect and respond.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

QMS's picture

@studentofearth
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almost self contradictory
difficult to imagine chaos as being controlled
perhaps corralled or penned into usable energy
working against meaningful change?

thank you for supporting the cause

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3 users have voted.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

enhydra lutris's picture

always gravitate to the locale with the least total cost on a full absorption basis. This includes costs one doesn't normally think of, like insurance. If your company uses same insurer, which charges a flat $5 per $100,000 covered, for any and all facilities, the insurance for a 200,000 square foot facility in east kakistan, which has a replacement cost of a buck per square foot will be vastly less than the insurance on a similar facility in Paducah costing 16 to 40 bux per square foot, for example. S(peaking of Paducah, energy costs in a chunk of the US just went up 25% for the portion delivered by Canada, oops.)

If the US is your primary market, sufficient tariffs could possibly drive you to relocate here, but if the US only accounts for something like 10% or 20% of your sales revenues, you'll just write it off as market and stay where you are

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --