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7
Thai Taxi Driver Throws Faeces in Parking Dispute, Leaves Community Shocked
Get off my land !!!! -
123
Thailand Urged to Form ‘War Room’ in Response to US Tariffs
Agreed. They are nowhere near our level in basically every domain. The Don. -
114
Australian Teen Dies in Koh Samui Motorbike Collision
Yes, I will do it now. I did not expect to be necessary -
66
Countries Targeted by Trump’s Tariffs May Strike Back at U.S. Services
Its not just about cost of manufacturter. Something might be made elsewhere, wholly, or in part, due to IP (know how). The younger Trump wanted a Lamborghini sports car. he obviously couldn;t find an American made Lamborghini, so he settled for an Italian one. I doubt he considered cross shopping for a Firebird. He alsom wanted an American Rolls Royce. There actually used to be American Rolls Royces in the 1930s; they were made from kits. But now, he has to buy those blasted British ones. I doubt a Towncar was considered. I've looked at about 5000 US companies selling into the US. 1000 of these have product that are wholly US made. 800 have products wholly or partly made in APAC. 600 have products wholly or partly made in Europe. When the price of medical devices shot up in Russia, Putin challenged his best scientists and engineers to come up with Russian replacements. After all, they are a nuclear power, put a man into space etc. Should be able to make an ultrasound machine. The response was, no boss, we can't do it. I expect imaginative ways around the tariffs for manufacturers. Tariffs are being charged on car spare parts for instance. When does a car become spare parts? When you take the wheels off? The engine out, d oors off. Its a tactic to get around import tariffs in Thailand (BMW, Mercedes, Toyota etc). You import the cars as SKD, CKDs, pay a bit of tariff on whatever value you assign a pile of bits. Employ some low skill grunts to screw the thing together. If you are lucky, local government might even build the factory for you because you are bringing in "jobs". Of course, all the profits will continue to come to you. India and Thailand use huge tariffs to protect their workforce. The results of Indian and Thai ingenuity: Tariffs are a brilliant way to deliver a coup de grace to a car industry. Ask the UK or Russia. Take away competition, force people to buy cars merely on patriotic grounds, which is a blank cheque for manufacturers to make crap. Encourage transplant factories, who don't make crap. And you'll end up with the Australian car industry. Factories that shutter as soon as the exhange rate becomes unfavourable. -
7
Trump’s Tariff Strategy: US can no longer act as the world's economic shock absorber
How do tariffs help when the government needs to pay interest on $7.9 trillion on foreign held treasuries? Any money it makes or saves has to be paid to foreign debt holders, surely? -
123
Thailand Urged to Form ‘War Room’ in Response to US Tariffs
To a certain extent. The UK auto market isn't the best example to use. The Guardian sums it up nicely, Most of the UK-made cars exported to the US are premium, such as Volkswagen-owned Bentley, while others are high-end vehicles such as McLaren supercars, selling just over 2,100 annually, some costing upwards of £250,000. Aston Martin at its peak in 2007 it sold 2,058 vehicles into the USA, It has struggled since then with sales below 1,000. The USA does not manufacture a vehicle that comes close to Aston Martin, McLaren etc. At these high prices it is viable to manufacture specialty models. The UK has specifically targeted foreign markets. It isn't a high volume producer. It is just high priced. Even the horrible jaguar which has been seeing reduced sales volumes, only managed to sell 17,000 vehicles at its peak. That's different than what Thailand has done, or even what the USA does. The US model is one of mass production. High volumes, with little variation in fundamentals. It just isn't economically viable to retool plants that churn out tens of thousands of vehicles to make a few hundred vehicles or thousand vehicles . On any given day, a US GM plant is spitting out 1200 vehicles. 15 days of production is the equivalent of all Jaguar sales into the USA. It just doesn't make sense to assumethe costs of retooling to service a marginal market. The big US export market is in the Americas. The problem that no one is mentioning is that there isn't a market demand for US manufactured automobiles. As a former GM vehicle owner, you couldn't pay me to take another GM product. I don't care where it is manufactured either. Do you honestly believe that if Thailand reduced its tariff to zero that sales of US vehicles would explode? I dont think they will. US vehicle brands have no allure. They are not sexy and they have dismal reputations. THis isn't really about unfair trade practices, because the USA has been a master at imposing trade barriers. It is about an intentional crashing of the US economy. I have said it before, and I will say it again, the strategy is to defeat stagnation. The USA like many other countries is stuck in a persistent crisis of inflation. It won't go away. Tariffs are conceived by Pete Navarro as a means of shock therapy. He may be right, but sometimes the cure is more harmful than the disease.
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