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Elon Musk Pumped a Quarter-Billion Dollars Into Pro-Trump Campaign Groups Elon Musk poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into two pro-Trump political groups during the recent election cycle, new filings show, an extraordinary sum for an individual that far exceeds what he had publicly indicated he was giving. The billionaire gave a total of $238.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions during the cycle to America PAC, the super political-action committee that he formed this year, according to a Federal Election Commission filing covering mid-October through Nov. 25. That total included $75 million in the last two weeks of October alone. https://archive.ph/Kd3YV

It's clear that you don't understand how aluminum is made. It requires huge amounts of electricity. Canada has all the cheap hydropower it needs to accomplish that. The latest report I could find has its electricity cost at 0.054 US dollars per kwh. The lowest rate in the US is in North Dakota which comes to 10.21 cents per KWH. It takes anywhere from 14000 kwh to 17000 to process a ton of aluminum. So let's take 15500 kwh as the average. If you do the math, you'll see that it costs almost $750 more per ton to make aluminum in the USA if you use North Dakota's cost as a baseline. Which is wildly unrealistic. The current world average price of aluminum is around $2600. That's a huge cost. Which is why it makes no economic sense to produce primary aluminum (aluminum made from the bauxite ore) in the USA. For scrap aluminum, the US is actually a net exporter. Although that business will certainly suffer if tariffs on aluminum imports persist.

That's true. Why use wind power when solar is more cost effective? Denmark’s solar capacity surpasses 4 GW Denmark installed 545 MW of solar in 2024, with utility-scale projects driving market growth, according to Danish solar association Dansk Solcelleforening. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/20/denmarks-solar-capacity-surpasses-4-gw/

Every real currency is backed by a government. A government with a long track record. Some of those track records are excellent,, some are not. That record is what belief is based on. Crypto is backed by anonymous parties. It barely functions as a currency. Rather, it's now regarded as an asset.It's been compared to gold. But while the value of gold has jumped in the current situation, crypto has mostly fallen. That's because gold at least has a long record, probably prehistoric, as a somewhat reliable store of value. Crypto not so much. When the next economic crisis comes, I wouldn't bet on crypto.

But this was in the wake of the Covid pandemic. And it outstripped most other developed nations. And, as you may recall, it was this economy that right wingers were calling a disaster. And that Trump says warrants emergency actions.

Anyway, the issue is what is the future of inflation once the effect of a) widespread tariffs hit b) undocumented aliens are deported in large numbers.

Whereas the right graciously accepted the fact of strong economic growth under Biden. Growth that outstripped all the major G7 economies and most of the rest of the economically developed nations as well. An economy that Trump characterized as a disaster. But, of course, you didn't agree with Trump on that.

Too expensive for you? Do you think this is about home battery installation? I'm referring to industrial scale battery storage. And given that costs for lithium battery storage has declined by over 90% over the last 15 years. I don't think it's unfair to characterize its costs as "plummeting". What's more, lithium batteries are the most expensive kind of storage batteries. There are lots of alternatives coming online including sodium based and iron oxide (currently the cheapest).

Actually, it's you who got things so wrong. Does Canada fit the bill as the country with the most solar and wind energy installed. Try again. And in Texas, that hotbed of capitalism, wind and solar installations have exploded. Particularly solar lately. In fact, battery plants drawing power from renewables have imperiled the financial viability of gas peaker plants. So much so that Texas has actually passed laws to protect gas peaker plants from the competitions. As for Denmark, once again it looks like you've been hibernating. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics You'll note that the pre-tax cost of electricity is not much higher in Denmark than it is in Norway. Norway's electricity is virtually all hydroelectic. I took the liberty below of of editing the graph to make that clearer

As for costs, where have you been hibernating? Still living in 2015? Battery storage costs have plummeted. As have the costs of PVs.

I'll give you one guess which country has installed by far the most solar energy and wind energy capacity in the world? Here's a hint: Its name begins with a "C" and ends with an "A".

So, it's been about 2 weeks since those files were released and A.G. Bondi alleged that the FBI has held back thousands. So where are those "2000 files" that "Those corrupt in the NY FBI have held" back? And what's more important, what scandalous evidence from them has been revealed. More and more this looks just like the case when right wingers were salivating over investigations launched by William Barr designed to prove that the Justice Dept including the FBI was riddled with members of the Deep State out to persecute Donald Trump. How did that pan out? Doesn't the fact that Bondi misrepresented about what the documents released 2 weeks ago would reveal strike right wingers as making her subsequent claims a bit suspect?

First off, as the author noted, that 3% is probably a very high estimate. It's more like 1%. And no, that percentage is not just for specialty steels: 'Historically, the Pentagon has bought significantly less than 1 percent of the US steel industry’s output, although the industry believes that number is closer to 3 percent."

Really? The percentage of US produced steel used by the Department of Defense is at most 3%, The mythical national security argument for protecting the steel industry https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/the-mythical-national-security-argument-for-protecting-the-steel-industry/ The author who is a former undersecretary of defense who was tasked with getting the specialty steel needed by the Pentagoon to protect US soldiers against IEDs.

What does any of that have to do with how a 25% tariff will hurt the Canadian steel industry? In fact, and thanks for bringing up the issue of the worsening Canadian economy, the fact that the US dollar has increased in value against the Canadian most likely means that a 25% tariff will be less effective than it was formerly.

The US steel industry is huge compared to the Canadian steel industry. But for the sake of argument, let's say that the Canadian steel industry totally supplanted the US steel industry. How would that be deleterious to the U.S. military?

It was a laughable justification back then. Canada, a nation that the US shares, or maybe shared, the longest unprotected border in world was a security threat. Wasn't there a South Park episode where Canada and the US went to war? Do you understand why that was funny?

Trump's Christmas 2023 message "Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and 'sick' as the THUGS we have inside our Country who, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA." Trump posted. "MAY THEY ROT IN HELL." "AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!" Trump added. https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-electric-car-supporters-rot-hell-christmas-truth-social-2023-12

It's funny. Most Trumpers were complaining about how the democrats and neocons got the US involved in foreign wars. And they castigated them over and over again. Now you're claiming that it was all a ruse and Trump is preparing for war? And you think the outcome of war is going to boost the American economy? Very archaic and very Third Reich thinking. War may be useful for an economy sunk deep in a depression, but even then the economic equivalent can be done with far better results. As for your prediction that tariff "will kill Canadian still right off"... Here's a graph for the last time 25% tariffs were imposed. https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/steel-production Is that your idea of the death of an industry? It is to laugh.

Congratulations! You found one contrarian. And Ricardo's observation are more relevant than ever in the modern world economy where self-sufficiency is a pipe dream. And spare us the comparisons of this fellow to Galileo or the like. For every one Galileo, there are thousands of cranks. The problem with tariffs on steel and aluminum is obvious. It takes relatively few workers to produce steel and aluminium. So very few Americans benefited. But the higher costs of these raw materials will obviously promote inflation. Certainly in the automobile industry but far beyond that, too. Ya think the problem with automobiles in the USA is that they're priced too low?

Another astonishing aperçu!

The trouble with this article is that it doesn't recognize how much more interconnected world trade has become since then. And even according to this author, to judge by what he links to, there's a huge difference between across-the-board tariffs which is what Trump is proposing, and very strategically targeted tariffs. And no, there isn't a coherent strategy behind targeting aluminum and steel. In fact, it's one of the dumbest tariffs that can be imposed.

It's no secret? Funny, the same party who claimed that if you put 10 different economist together you get 12 opinions, is now claiming that it was hardly a secret that the market is due for a correction. Was that the consensus of stock market analysts? Obviously, what you're up to is trying to deflect blame from fear of Trump's policies should the market crash.

Where do you get your understanding of how economies work? Is your model the Roman Empire? Or the Third Reich? Did you think Russians carting off stuff from Ukraine gave a big boost to their economy? More than ever the most advanced economies depend on highly advanced technologies. You can lug off all the chipmaking machines from Taiwan that you like, but without the expertise to run them and to develop them further, how much are they worth? You think the USA can compel conquered technologists and researchers to work for them? And of course, from a military standpoint, we now live in an age of asymmetrical warfare. Not so easy to subdue hostile populations anymore.

No, this isn't a case where you get 12 different opinions. Opinions are pretty much unanimous except for a few cranks and members of Trump's cabinet. In some cases that's a distinction without a difference.