FAFO, Donald, by Robert Gore

Posted by straightlinelogic 1 day, 12 hours ago to Economics
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Liberation Day has come and gone. If Trump’s War on Foreign Goods (WOFG) is genius, we’ll take idiocy. It’s a stitched-together concatenation based on meretricious metrics, a Son of Smoot-Hawley that will ensure Trump a place in the presidential pantheon right next to Herbert Hoover. Like Hoover, Trump has a business background; like Hoover he never shuts up, and like Hoover he will preside over a disastrous tariff regime.

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The best that can be said of the tariffs is that they will hasten what was going to happen anyway. Trump wants to FA, he will FO. The WOFG will be his biggest mistake since Warp Speed, although both may be eclipsed by nuclear war with Iran. If he makes it to the end of his second term, nobody will be talking about a third, and his visage won’t be the fifth face carved into Mount Rushmore.
SOURCE URL: https://straightlinelogic.com/2025/04/06/fafo-donald-by-robert-gore/


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  • Posted by CaptainKirk 7 hours, 33 minutes ago
    First, the only argument I will use to refute this is simple.

    If tariffs are SO BAD of an idea. Why is it EVERY country charges US Tariffs? And where is their suffering?

    The argument that all Tariffs are BAD... And destroys the country that uses them... Fails the logical test that many countries, CHINA included, do just fine with Tariffs.

    So... Why can't we?

    Next up. We are one of the few countries in the world that could close up our borders, and do quite well. We have Wood, Food, Ash, etc.

    You know what we don't have? The basics to make things here. We can't produce our own Antibiotics... That's INSANITY.

    And Walmart just proved that the tariffs don't always increase the cost to the consumer. Many times, the producer has to pay them, to stay competitive. Walmart called "There's a 10% tariff on X. You need to lower your price 10% so we don't see it!" And they companies are doing it.

    Also, lets play the game HONESTLY. A 10% tariff on an item at walmart that SELLS for $10 is NOT $1... Walmart pays $3 for that item, maybe $5. The item would get a 50 Cent Tariff.

    The seller will EAT some of that. And they usually do. Lets say they eat 1/2. Now you are talking a 0.25 (A Quarter) increase on a $10 item.

    First, I can survive the $11 price, but count me as special. But going from $10 to $10.25
    BIDEN did worse than that to the American people, and we were told his Economy was "Glorious".

    Perspective matters. We are bankrupt.
    Trump is trying to increase our position, and decrease our wasteful spending.

    He is trying to drive investments to make things here. Like the iPhone, and the new Chips. And we will get those things here (without the EPA).

    Yeah, FA and FO.
    I believe on this one. We will FO that the long-term benefits of Tariffs are inline with why other countries had them against us!

    Let the guy cook. I commit to giving him 10yrs for his plans to work. And I expect he will get ZERO thank yous when they do, if he is still around.
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  • Posted by rhfinle 7 hours, 20 minutes ago
    The way globalism has progressed, the US is hemorrhaging money to outside powers and getting little in return, besides SMIC (Shit made in China).
    The people who are screaming the loudest are the importers such as Walmart and Harbor Freight.
    Meanwhile industries close up here and lay off workers so that some kid in the far east can work.
    Enough's enough. Prior to WWII, the US produced most of what we consumed, and half of what everyone else did. I would rather pay higher prices and have local workers start producing and competing again.
    It appears that, at least, in the agricultural sectors, they are praising Trump, because for years local farmers have been driven out of business as the bih importers have been dumping cheap foreign products on our market.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 1 day, 9 hours ago
    Isn’t this just a Malthusian Catastrophe applied to economics? Malthus opined that for non-human mammals’ population increases exponentially while resources increase only linearly. Hence the population collapses and the population/resources balance is restored and the population’s survival is insured.

    If we apply this to the Federal debt, then when the increase in debt reaches exponential levels and the resources to service this debt grow linearly, then economic collapse is guaranteed.

    The day of reckoning can be delayed by the massive injection of counterfeit (fiat) currency (Wiemar Republic style) but in the end to no avail.

    I wonder how many humans will have to die before a balance is restored?
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  • Posted by Lucky 1 day, 10 hours ago
    The deficit, the debt ..
    Did I miss it, or is it not there - any mention in the article of US gov debt?
    What is it at this moment? A few dozen trillions?

    What Trump is doing is raising money to slow the rise in debt. This is in parallel with reducing gov expenditure -see DOGE - tariffs seem, so far, to be immune to Obama Judge interference.

    Tariffs will increase prices, yes, but I'd argue there is voluntary element to paying a higher price in that a customer can decline to purchase, unlike tax on income.

    Any policy creates friends and foes. Trump's two-prong attempt to save the economy and the currency by tariffs could work.
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    • Posted by $ allosaur 9 hours, 39 minutes ago
      At least Trump has the sheer guts too few career politicians have to do something different about sliding down the deadly slippery slope Deep State greedy fools and kickback crooks have created. Hell awaits at the bottom of that deep pit.
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    • Posted by Rex_Little 9 hours, 14 minutes ago
      tariffs seem, so far, to be immune to Obama Judge interference.

      I'm more than a little surprised by this. The President can't raise or lower income tax rates, or change income tax rules, without going through Congress, and I've always assumed it was the same with tariffs.
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  • Posted by amhunt 2 hours, 50 minutes ago
    "It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the man who starts its use. No, I do not share his evil or sink to his concept of morality: I merely grant him his choice, destruction, the only destruction he had the right to choose: his own."
    Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part III, Ch. 7.
    It seems to me that President Trump is retaliating. One may argue that he could possibly do a better job but at least (as I see it) he is struggling to get there. I haven't seen his like since Ronald Regan.
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  • Posted by $ TomB666 3 hours, 3 minutes ago
    What does FAFO mean? I guess I'm just old :-( When I learned to write I was taught to ALWAYS use the full term and follow it by what ever abbreviation you would use thereafter. Robert did that in the beginning (WOFG), but then ... :-(
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