zazen

Who knows these days..

I think Spiral Dynamics can start to choke on its own framework when used too rigidly. The map is not the territory - and that territory we call life is highly complex and layered. Doesn’t Wilber present the values of each stage as if they’re locked in some historical sequence? Like we’re on a civilisational staircase. Perhaps it’s directionally correct that there are dominant paradigms (stages) but that doesn't mean exclusive access to values within those paradigms, and exclusively at certain time periods in history. For example, thinking that green values like compassion and equality didn't exist before the 1960's, or that rationality and inquiry didn't come ''online'' (as Wilber says it) till the enlightenment era. This is very western centric framing and historically myopic to non-Western civilisations that did exhibit such values before. Wilber frames these developments as “beginnings” that suddenly come online, as if they were entirely absent before certain points in time. That framing makes it seem as though development flows outwards from Europe - as if the world evolves according to the West’s timeline, with the West naturally leading the way. It presents Spiral Dynamics as if it spirals around a distinctly Western arc of history. Development seems to be more contextual and fractal, rather than universal and linear. In reality, it doesn’t seem to unfold like a baton passed down a historical relay race. Can’t it emerge in parallel pockets across different times and places? After all, it is spiral, not ladder dynamics - which means values can and do exist simultaneously, not sequentially in linear progression. This also means we don’t have to identify with any one “stage”. For example, thinking we have to hustle first in our orange phase before we care about the environment by choosing a EV over a diesel. Or thinking we can’t tap into red rage when being burgled because we fear flirting with warrior energy is toxic masculinity and will ruin that mornings turquoise meditation session. Life isn't like picking a Power Ranger colour to operate as. The problem with Spiral Dynamics trying to map entire political systems to one color - is that its treating structure as proof of consciousness level. For example, Western democracies are assumed to be Green or Yellow because they’re pluralistic, but often function in service of elite Orange capitalists. Conversely, China is dismissed as “Blue” because it has a one-party system, despite the fact that it produces outcomes aligned with Green (social up-liftment, green investment) and Yellow (systems thinking, long-term planning). Defining China’s governmental centre of gravity as blue because its centralized oversimplifies it. It can be argued that’s it’s more like a Yellow-led integration of Blue governance, done with Orange execution, to produce Green outcomes. - Confucianism provides the ethical spine (BLUE): order, hierarchy, duty, social responsibility. - Capitalism with Chinese characteristics unleashes achievement, productivity, and scientific innovation (ORANGE). - Collective well being, harmony, poverty elimination, ecological restoration and sustainable energy are clearly (GREEN) values, just not liberal Green values. Western goggled Spiral Dynamics often mistakes stylistic differences for the absence of values. Just because China doesn’t wear Green on its sleeve or wave the pride flag, doesn’t mean it’s not practicing Green. It’s largely achieving Green results despite the virtue signalling of Green rhetoric common in the West. This framing confuses progress with packaging, and mistakes Western aesthetics for higher development. If we’ve been steeped in liberal gravy like a dunkin donut our whole life, it’s natural to misread China’s use of Blue tactics as proof of a Blue ethos. But what looks like Blue isn’t always Blue in spirit - it can be Yellow in function, using Blue strategically to hold a complex system together that governs over a billion people. What looks regressive from one lens may be deeply adaptive from another. The problem is, it doesn’t look like Yellow in Western terms - it violates the Green moral aesthetic of expressive freedom and pluralism, even while achieving Green level goals like ecological balance and collective welfare.

Did Democracy ever begin the way we think and define it? Also brilliant:

Israel and the US are themselves rogue states. Which nation on earth has dropped not one but two atomic bombs on an already defeated people, and has continued to be at war around the world every day of its existence? One of these nations still exists as settler colonial apartheid state ethnically cleansing the people it occupies today. These are psychotic nations that shouldn’t have the power they do, due to the abuse of it.

I wonder that too amigo.. https://media.un.org/photo/en/asset/oun7/oun71088444 ”The General Assembly votes on a draft resolution titled "International Day of Peaceful Coexistence" during the 58th plenary meeting of the General Assembly. The representative of the United States again said that his delegation will vote no, expressing concern that the resolution "advances a programme of soft global governance that is inconsistent with US sovereignty". The Assembly adopted the resolution by a recorded vote of 162 in favour to 3 against (Argentina, Israel, United States), with 2 abstentions (Paraguay, Peru).”

Interesting vid about Chinas recent rise in soft power

''These countries are calling us up, kissing my ass'' ''We borrow money from Chinese peasants, to buy the things those Chinese peasants make'' ''I can tell the rest of the world, I'm not sure whether it's the prime minister or the economic minister in Spain made some comments this morning: ''Oh, well, maybe we should align ourselves more with China.'' That would be cutting your own throat. ''We can probably reach a deal with with our allies, with the other countries that have been long term, they've been good military allies, not perfect economic allies. And then we can approach China as a group.'' China's comments: - Spanish PM in China right now: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/pedro-sanchez-china-spain-donald-trump-europe-b2731391.html - EU China Summit planned for July: https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-leaders-plan-beijing-trip-july-summit-with-chinas-xi-scmp-reports-2025-04-10/ - EU and UAE launching free trade talks: https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-uae-agree-launch-free-trade-talks-2025-04-10/ - EU China looking to set a minimum price for Chinese EV's: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-china-start-talks-lifting-eu-tariffs-chinese-electric-vehicles-handelsblatt-2025-04-10/ Must be 5D Chess. A lot of people think Trump has no plan, but don't think his team don't. Trumps just there for the lights and cameras to inflate his ego. Stephan Miran literally laid it out - its just that its failing. The idea that you can intimidate and coerce your ''allies'' and other nations into concessions, to subsidize your empire, whilst mocking them is just back ass stupid. His final point was literally ''Fifth, they could simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods.'' https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-chairman-steve-miran-hudson-institute-event-remarks/ That's basically buying US gov debt, to reduce rates, so that they can continue to finance their empire on the cheap and meet their towering debt obligations due to roll this year - to the tune of trillions. That money of course won't actually go into public investment, welfare or infrastructure at the benefit of the everyday citizen. They want to set up a tributary architecture of empire. But the world says no. The US thinks in its arrogance, that it can imperially bully the world as it did. No more. Fuck America Inc (the empire), not the American people.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-12/trump-exempts-phones-computers-chips-from-reciprocal-tariffs Blinked first. Balls in Chinas court now - they could just keep the tariffs they have in place and this would actually widen the trade deficit as the US exports are totally cut off whilst only a minority of Chinas would be. Art of the deal. Commented this just over a month ago. Like I said in the end, Trump/US don't hold the cards. All these MAGA boys writing FAFO as Trump and his camp were bullying the world, fucked around, and found out. Crusader Hegseth should know the defeat isn’t just militarily, but also economically, diplomatically and morally.

Chamath is a fool to question how bonds can affect policy. The mental gymnastics his otherwise smart but unwise brain goes to, to rationalise the admins actions. Every policy runs through the bottleneck of money. Even non-spending policies have economic consequences. The bond market determines the cost of funding every policy (infrastructure, war etc). Whether these yield hikes are here to stay or are just a short term bounce and bound to eventually drop - the point is debt is being rolled over at those higher rates now or soon. And that affects everything: federal debt financing, corporate refinancing and real estate.

Brilliant. Love how you come in with spot on summaries and bounce bro haha. Wrote the following in another thread but it fits here well: Rock, paper, scissors BRICS is building new guardrails. It's not there yet, but the process is accelerating. The more chaotic the old system becomes, the faster alternatives gain legitimacy. MAGA is right to sense that a nation that doesn’t build is vulnerable. A paper-based economy that outsources production is not just economically hollow - but is a national security risk. You can only buy a future you're not building for so long - which is a privilege the US has enjoyed through its status as global reserve. But that privilege is flammable. Paper can't out-build China’s scissors or out-secure the rock-rich alliances forming outside the US orbit. Paper’s only power lies in its ability to capture and coordinate tangible value - not to create it. It’s an intangible construct, made real and assigned value only by trust, consensus, and belief. And Washington knows this. It’s not about TikTok. It’s about the tick-tock of the debt clock. You can only buy the future you should have been building - so long as the paper you’re using is trusted. That trust is only sustained if it’s backed by industry (scissors) and resources (rock). Once those fade, power becomes illusion. All great civilizations are built - not bought. They begin with land (rock - resources) and labor (scissors - skills), then scale with trade and finance (paper - currency). Their buying power is only as strong as their built foundation. But when that foundation is financialized - when the scissors rust (industry and skills atrophy) and the rock is sold off (for climate goals or to the point you become dependent) - the paper begins to weaken. And once belief in that paper erodes, it doesn’t just fold - but burns. If paper isn't trustable, it's combustible. And when it’s up against a bloc like BRICS+, which is amassing both rock and scissors, we should remember: rock (stone) and scissors (flint) create fire - and no origami can withstand that. Paper’s purpose is to amplify rock and scissors - to invest and innovate, not trade and speculate. Paper can coordinate and amplify raw potential into realized value. But in a financialized economy, paper breaks that covenant and begins serving only itself. What remains is a fragile illusion: a paper tiger made of origami. The nationalist (MAGA) oriented elite get this and want to resolve it (though unwisely as is currently playing out). The trans-nationalist (globalist) elite get this but don't care for it as much, because they have new markets and regions to suck lifeblood from. There is a tension between elite factions fighting this out. What the nationalist elite are trying to do is carve out a fortified bloc of client states, where the illusion of paper power still holds, enforced through debt, dependency, and defense pacts. Inside that bubble, the dollar will remain a reserve currency - not globally, but within a curated orbit, in a diminished global role. In this model, the US shares the burden of empire in the form of tribute and concessions, while preserving its reserve privileges. By having allies peg their currencies to the dollar, it can artificially lower the dollar’s value - boosting export competitiveness and enabling re-industrialization of critical sectors. That’s how it may attempt to resolve the Triffin dilemma - by flipping the logic: turning reserve currency status into a mechanism to rebuild domestic industry. A great video looking at the macro of all this.

@Breakingthewall @WikiRando Both nice comments. You bro's are right in intuiting the prevailing issue at hand. BRICS is building new guardrails. It's not there yet, but the process is accelerating. The more chaotic the old system becomes, the faster alternatives gain legitimacy. MAGA is right to sense that a nation that doesn’t build is vulnerable. A paper-based economy that outsources production is not just economically hollow - but is a national security risk. You can only buy a future you're not building for so long - which is a privilege the US has enjoyed through its status as global reserve. But that privilege is flammable. Paper can't out-build China’s scissors or out-secure the rock-rich alliances forming outside the US orbit. Paper’s only power lies in its ability to capture and coordinate tangible value - not to create it. It’s an intangible construct, made real and assigned value only by trust, consensus, and belief. And Washington knows this. It’s not about TikTok. It’s about the tick-tock of the debt clock. You can only buy the future you should have been building - so long as the paper you’re using is trusted. That trust is only sustained if it’s backed by industry (scissors) and resources (rock). Once those fade, power becomes illusion. All great civilizations are built - not bought. They begin with land (rock - resources) and labor (scissors - skills), then scale with trade and finance (paper - currency). Their buying power is only as strong as their built foundation. But when that foundation is financialized - when the scissors rust (industry and skills atrophy) and the rock is sold off (for climate goals or to the point you become dependent) - the paper begins to weaken. And once belief in that paper erodes, it doesn’t just fold - but burns. If paper isn't trustable, it's combustible. And when it’s up against a bloc like BRICS+, which is amassing both rock and scissors, we should remember: rock (stone) and scissors (flint) create fire - and no origami can withstand that. Paper’s purpose is to amplify rock and scissors - to invest and innovate, not trade and speculate. Paper can coordinate and amplify raw potential into realized value. But in a financialized economy, paper breaks that covenant and begins serving only itself. What remains is a fragile illusion: a paper tiger made of origami. The nationalist (MAGA) oriented elite get this and want to resolve it (though unwisely as is currently playing out). The trans-nationalist (globalist) elite get this but don't care for it as much, because they have new markets and regions to suck lifeblood from. There is a tension between elite factions fighting this out. What the nationalist elite are trying to do is carve out a fortified bloc of client states, where the illusion of paper power still holds, enforced through debt, dependency, and defense pacts. Inside that bubble, the dollar will remain a reserve currency - not globally, but within a curated orbit, in a diminished global role. In this model, the US shares the burden of empire in the form of tribute and concessions, while preserving its reserve privileges. By having allies peg their currencies to the dollar, it can artificially lower the dollar’s value - boosting export competitiveness and enabling re-industrialization of critical sectors. That’s how it may attempt to resolve the Triffin dilemma - by flipping the logic: turning reserve currency status into a mechanism to rebuild domestic industry.

That's what Trump is hoping to do. That’s why they did a blanket tariff on everyone - to gain leverage in forcing countries to pick a side and isolate China. If China alone gets tariffed they just bypass those through middle men countries as like Vietnam etc. The US would like to choke off those options. Trump and his camp miscalculated. Hence the pause - don't let them tell you this is a win. Bloomberg - ''Scott Bessent, the man who helped George Soros break the Bank of England in 1992, can also sow chaos at the People's Bank of China.'' Lol, all I saw was finance bro's crying about something breaking in the bond market. Hence, the much needed pause to re-assess their ''containment'' strategy. https://www.ft.com/content/15547313-06ed-4de8-92f2-ca554aee698f ''The market is rapidly de-dollarizing. It is remarkable that international dollar funding markets and cross-currency basis remains well behaved. In a typical crisis environment the market would be hoarding dollar liquidity to secure funding for its underlying US asset base. This dollar imbalance is what ultimately results in a triggering of the Fed swap lines. Dynamics here seem to be very different: the market has lost faith in US assets, so that instead of closing the asset-liability mismatch by hoarding dollar liquidity it is actively selling down the US assets themselves. We wrote a few weeks ago that US administration policy is encouraging a trend towards de-dollarization to safeguard international investors from a weaponization of dollar liquidity. We are now seeing this play out in real-time at a faster pace than even we would have anticipated. It remains to be seen how orderly this process can remain. A credit event in the global financial system that threatens the provision of short-term dollar liquidity is the point of greatest vulnerability which would turn dollar dynamics more positive.'' - George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank

Correct. Also EU and China co-ordinating: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-pencils-in-china-summit-for-july/ I see MAGA on X spinning this as a “Art of the deal” and laughing smugly at the world. What deal? A higher bond yield making everything more expensive, the world seeing the US as a unreliable bully who can tear up free trade agreements with even its allies and neighbours.. I believe there is a method to the madness, yet the method is a mad one drunk on exceptionalism and arrogance. Trump says he’s dropped universal tariffs to 10% to “reward” the world for not retaliating - but then singles out China who did. Never mind that the EU and Canada was retaliating - as that wouldn’t fit the narrative and optics of attempting to isolate China. Let’s keep in mind that EU+China+Canada represent almost half of US trade - which is now in question. But this is a win according to MAGA. What they’re trying to do is a hard de-coupling with China, and coerce others to do the same. Sure there’s insider trading that will make them money along the way - but that is a distraction from the larger game at play. Trading happens regardless and finance bros are riding whatever wave they catch. This is gross though: https://x.com/megatron_ron/status/1910238378064257143?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ They want globalization to continue, despite their rhetoric against it. They just want China to be ejected from that globalization. They also want others to share the burden of empire, that benefits them at the expense of others. The table is set - this 90 day pause is where negotiations will take place to impose this new order. One of the concessions expected: https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-says-eu-must-buy-350b-of-us-energy-to-get-tariff-relief/ This is what they mean by burden sharing and tariff relief: They want to vassalize their “partners” even more - hopefully with Vaseline so the humiliation ritual doesn’t hurt as much to those that bend. They want the benefits of empire without the downsides. And the world to subsidize it with tribute. They’re selling America Inc, like a business. The large consumer market are the goods (trade), their security umbrella is the service (SaaS - security as a service) The US empire is about to FAFO how hot the flaming dragons flames are. Good to add some humour to lighten the mood in these times 😂

@k0ver lol there’s prob a inauguration of Trump at MT Rushmore in the works too. 0 tariffs aren’t that’s all on the menu either.

Guess we're all being exploited by our toilets - as we export shit to them daily without any return. This whole tariff to correct trade deficits discourse has exposed a real deficit in common sense. Even if no tariffs existed between a rich country which can consume, and a poor country that doesn't have the wealth to - a deficit will remain. The richer country is always going to buy more from the poorer one, than the poorer one can buy from the rich one. Wealth creates consumption power that poor nations simply can't match.

@Breakingthewall@WikiRando MAGA say they would prefer a surplus over a deficit, but would also love to have the dollar remain the global reserve currency. Being the world’s reserve currency means the rest of the world needs dollars - which means the US has to export dollars, usually by importing more than it exports. That’s why the US runs chronic trade deficits (even has the privilege to be able to do so) - due to dollar dominance. MAGA are correct that being solely a consumer rather than producer isn’t healthy long term - lack of resilience, anti-fragile. There has to be a balance between being the worlds consumer and producer - a buyer and a builder. Something China has done well. China builds so it can buy. America buys so it can dominate - and forgot how to build along the way. China can balance being a builder and a buyer because it doesn’t have the global reserve currency - and it doesn’t want the structural obligations that come with it - that structurally undermine it from that balancing act. Dollar dominance is real, but narrow. It matters most in the financialized layer of the global economy as WikiRando had laid out some pages back - capital markets, cross-border settlements, central bank reserves, and commodity pricing. But real world trade and national strategies are already de-dollarizing. The US acting how it is, and weaponizing its core strength, only hastens that trend. The dollar still wears the crown, but its throne is financialized and fragile. The world is trading less in dollars, but still financing in dollars. That gap is exactly where the future multipolar system is being born. The dollar will remain important without being supreme. Just like Britain’s pound after World War II - relevant, but no longer ruling the world. There won’t be a formal announcement either as it's not black and white. It's a slow erosion of it's supremacy, but not of its importance, owing to the size of the US's economy and fundamentals. MAGA want the benefits of nationalism and the privileges of empire - but without paying the costs of either: they want to offload the costs of empire onto allies, while rebuilding domestic capacity, without surrendering reserve status. Triffin’s Dilemma = The reserve currency issuer must sacrifice domestic industry to supply the world with money. To lead globally, you must sacrifice domestically. To rebuild domestically, you must sacrifice global leadership. MAGA wants to reverse domestic decline, but also keep the reserve status. To do both is structurally contradictory.

It was eye opening for me too.The US is using the assumption of its dollar dominance to inflict damage on China. Dollar dominance is real, but not immortal. It rests on trust, and that trust is tethered to US Treasuries. But the US continues to play empire while torching its own credibility, its undermining its core advantage. The whole notion of lowering rates has backfired and pressure is upon UST. The whole re-industrialization and end of globalization rhetoric is a deflection - they want to maintain a system that favours them the way globalization did. They just can’t have rising powers within it. They want to purge their strongest rival from globalization - and offer developing countries the chance to become China 2.0 but with total loyalty to themselves. At best, they’ll re-industrialize critical industries for national security, but let their satellites do the lower end industry to continue subsidising the privileged American lifestyle which exchanges paper for cheap goods. So far that’s my read on the situation, but it’s evolving.

Elon wants free trade and movement between the US and Europe. Tariffs are a leverage tool to orient countries into a US favourable order.

They want to maintain hegemony, and contain any threats to it (China). Trump is monetizing that hegemony. What they want is to sell America to the world. What they have on offer is: trade (goods - dollars) and security (service - deterrence). Unfortunately the sales strategy isn’t diplomatic but extortionate. They are coercing nations onto their hegemony subscription plan - where you buy Security as a Service, and trade goods exclusively in dollars.

The current Secretary of Commerce Scott Bessent shorted the pound with Soros back in the day - notoriously know as the man that broke the Bank of England. https://alternativefundinsight.com/how-next-us-treasury-secretary-once-broke-the-bank-of-england/ This whole tariff saga seems to be a financial weapon to create a new order and re-alignment that favours the US - because they have a rising challenger within the old order they architected (Bretton Woods). They’re flipping the game board because someone else is winning at the game too well (China) and is challenging them (thucydides trap) and emboldening others (BRICS+) Perhaps it’s not that they’re trying to win with tariffs, they’re trying to stop others winning too much. Tariffs are the vehicle, or brakes in this case, to halt a rising player in the game. The past had gunboat diplomacy, today we have tariffs. I think it boils down to “contain and maintain”. Contain China, maintain hegemony. They want to create a new order (Mar-a-lago accord) that favours the US, keeps “allies” checked and within their orbit, de-couples them from China and ideally isolates China. In their view (not mine) the tariffs could potentially be milked in a few ways: - Uncertainty and capital flight to more certain assets like treasuries in order to reduce rates = re-finance debt at a lower rate that is maturing soon and have lower servicing cost for new spending to keep the empire ticking (€1 trillion budget just announced) - Inflict systemic financial pressure on China causing them to either need to bleed through reserves in order to prop up the Yuan, or stimulate the economy via liquidity. Once China is forced to choose between inflation or slowdown, speculators and big players come in to short whichever China can’t defend fast enough. Soros-Bessent style shorts like what happened to Bank of England. - Blanket tariffs force all countries to the table (even allies) to pick a side and pledge allegiance with concessions in the form of: trade (buy our chlorinated chicken / LNG) and security (pay for your own or pay up for ours). Tariffs are being used as a debt management tool, a geopolitical stress test, and a global loyalty filter. The rhetoric around tariffs is populist, but the mechanics are imperial. It’s not about improving the lives of average citizens. In short: the cost is passed to the consumer, already low margin businesses will have to fire workers or completely fold - ripe to be consolidated by bigger fish, furthering the inequality. The blanket tariff imposes a cost to their very own supply chains and inputs needed to manufacture in the first place. The needed machinery to re-industrialize comes from countries that are also tariffed (named Japan/Germany) I could go on..

Interesting but dark post from a US game theory POV https://x.com/evanwritesonx/status/1908798273097494890?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ Acronyms: MIC = military industrial complex, FIC = financial industrial complex, GCC = gulf cooperation council / gulf states ”If I were the US, purely from a game theory perspective, I’d be concerned watching the Middle East integrate into a unified front against my little pet project, Israel. I’d see the UAE sidling up to Iran, the GCC patching things up with Qatar, and Saudi Arabia cozying up to Tehran through the sly hands of China and Russia, shafting me out of the frame like a has-been actor. I knew October 7, 2023 was the opening bell of a regional death match, a zero-sum battle pitting a newly united Middle East against my proxy state. And I decided to sit back and let the chaos crown a winner. But when Israel started failing to clean out those pesky Palestinians by the 2024 elections, I knew I had to face the music: my golden goose was turning into rotting flesh. So, I decide to amputate. I decided to divest. Profitably, of course. How? Simple. I’d short Israel like it’s a penny stock that's about to tank. ___ I’d turn Israel into my ultimate bargaining chip, a sacrificial pawn in my game. I’d let them run wild, slaughtering Palestinians while racking up a cool $1 billion a day in war costs, for my MIC. I’d watch their $50 billion economy choke under a $1 trillion liability, their cabinet implode into a circus of backstabbing clowns, and their global image fester like an open sore. I’m divesting, after all, why not let it rot? I’d slap a ceasefire on the table, to get approval from the GCC; “I’m your new partner now, as promised, on board with the regional plan.” I’d stonewall Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and the whole Axis of Resistance, encouraging them to cool their jets while dangling a $40 billion Gaza rebuild and $15 billion in GCC aid as bait. But I would simultaneously let Israel breach that ceasefire anyway. Because hey, that's extra bargaining chips for me. And I don't represent them. They're a bunch of genocidal Jews. I’d egg them on to overextend, to dig their own grave with every bomb. I have to push just enough for no one to feel inclined to sabotage the regional plan. I need to hold both cards. Afterall I am the MIC king. They can either stand down and trust the process, or set fire to the entire region by invading my proxy state. Either way, if they stand down, then we proceed with the GCC's plan. If they escalate and storm in, it’s just more fuel for my fire and we can pick up where we left off. I’d park my FIC on the sidelines, let my MIC rake in the profits from the carnage, and watch the body count climb. The more people die, the merrier; every corpse is another dollar in my pocket. And no one’s going to pin it on me. The world already hates Israel and thinks they've got me on a leash. Why waste that narrative when it’s free leverage? And as for the GCC and their new shiny future plan for the region, I will signal to them; "I am still in charge. Israel is my asset. And I will let it burn itself out under my own volition, while we talk." I know they're drooling for stability and for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but I’m not some charity case. I’m not handing it over on a silver platter. My British counterpart worked hard to colonize that region 70 years ago. Plus, I’ve got China’s $50 billion trade deals breathing down my neck, and I need the GCC tethered to my orbit. I can't have any of them dictating terms. I need a head start in this new multipolar game. So, I’d keep the threat of Palestinian extinction on the table, a grim little bargaining chip. Israel’s my liability now, but I will milk it dry while it safeguards my negotiations with the GCC. Gaza’s $80 billion ruin is just Israel’s lifeblood hemorrhaging. Their economy is evaporating in the rubble, while my MIC cashes out $100 billion in arms sales. Meanwhile, I’d let my FIC shift $50-$100 billion to the GCC winners, eyeing their $2 trillion jackpot. I’d outbid China and Russia, but only by keeping the pressure on the GCC through those Palestinian lives, because let’s be real, I have only Israel to lose in doing this and everything else to gain. Yeah, they were an ally sure. It was nice while the profits lasted, but now I need to cut this colony loose. They weren't supposed to be there anyway. It’s my perfect defection play. I maximize my payoff while they eat the cost. So I have to short Israel to the bone, extracting every last drop of value, $100 billion in MIC profits, $50 billion in GCC deals, before cutting the cord. Business 101: when an asset turns toxic, you don’t just dump it; you strip it bare, increment by bloody increment. There's value to be drawn from every inch along the fall. Israel is my toxic collateralized debt obligation. So I have to make sure that when I finally discard Israel, it’ll be a hollowed-out shell, worthless trash for the GCC to pick over. I’d hand it to them. Palestinian lives are worthless to me. So I have to make sure Israel becomes just as worthless before I exchange it over. The UAE and Saudi can carve up the scraps, in exchange for that $40 billion Gaza rebuild. Then I’d reap the real prize: a fat slice of the GCC’s $500 billion oil wealth and $2 trillion prosperity. That’s a steal, considering all they want is a Palestinian state. Which we stole from the outset. Haha. Cheap ask to be fair. Sure, I’ll deliver what the GCC want. But on my terms, at a glacial pace. Every delay squeezes out more leverage, more profit. The one thing that's an absolute certainty, is that there’s no scenario where I don’t spin Israel’s collapse as my triumph. And Netanyahu? He’s just the perfect symbol for this bloody chapter’s end. I’d pin this godforsaken, brutal, genocidal mess squarely on his crumbling cabinet. As they organically disintegrate, ripping each other apart in a frenzy of blame, I’d step in, pushing a new chapter of peace and prosperity. I’d orchestrate it so I look like an absolute saint, the benevolent hand guiding the region to salvation while the cabinets corpse swings in the wind. Once the smoke clears, I am going to pivot hard. My MIC will feast on Europe’s paranoia, new markets, new wars, while my FIC chases the Middle East’s reconstruction goldmine, hotels, ports, refineries. I’d wrap it up with a $350 billion return on investment. My image? Spotless. I’d be the saint who “stabilized” the region, the magnanimous victor who tamed the chaos. Israel? They’d be the villain everyone already despises, a discarded shell I timed to perfection. This is my way out. Because I can see a new game that's forming. And I have to be part of the group that's rewriting the rules while I burn the old board behind me.”

Whether this whole tariff scenario is just a opening gambit to gain leverage for negotiations, or is here to stay - the following is a great article on what keeping these tariffs in place means, and what it entails to bring back manufacturing to America: https://x.com/molson_hart/status/1908940952908996984?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ ”On April 2nd, 2025, our president announced major new taxes on imports from foreign countries (“tariffs”), ranging from 10% to 49%. The stated goal is to bring manufacturing back to the United States and to “make America wealthy again”. These tariffs will not work. In fact, they may even do the opposite, fail to bring manufacturing back and make America poorer in the process. This article gives the 14 reasons why this is the case, how the United States could bring manufacturing back if it were serious about doing so, and what will ultimately happen with this wrongheaded policy I’ve been in the manufacturing industry for 15 years. I’ve manufactured in the USA and in China. I worked in a factory in China. I speak and read Chinese. I’ve purchased millions of dollars worth of goods from the US and China, but also Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Cambodia. I’ve also visited many factories in Mexico and consider myself a student of how countries rise and fall. In other words, unlike many who have voiced an opinion on this topic, I know what I am talking about. And that’s why I felt compelled to write this article. I had to do it. I’m a first generation American and I love my country and it pains me to see it hurtling at high speed towards an economic brick wall. This article is an attempt to hit the brakes. The 14 Reasons Why these Tariffs Will Not Bring Manufacturing Back 1. They’re not high enough A tariff is a tax on an imported product. For example, when Apple imports an iPhone that was made in China it declares to the United States government what it paid to make that product overseas. Let’s say it’s $100. When there is a 54% tariff, Apple pays $100 to the manufacturer in China and $54 to the US government when importing. In this simplified example, an iPhone used to cost Apple $100, but it now costs $154. For every dollar Apple spends, Apple needs to make profit. So Apple sells iPhones to stores for double what it pays for them. And stores sell iPhones to consumers like you and me for double what it pays for them, as well. Before the tariffs, prices looked like this: Apple bought iPhones it designed for $100 Apple sold iPhones for $200 to stores Stores sold iPhones to you and me for $400 After the tariffs, prices look like this: Apple bought iPhones for $154 ($100 + $54 in import taxes) Apple sells those iPhones for $308 (double what it paid) Stores sell those iPhones to you and me for $616 (double what they paid) Now that you know what a tariff is, let me tell to you why they aren’t high enough to bring manufacturing back to the United States. In short, manufacturing in the United States is so expensive and our supply chain (we’ll explain that next) is so bad that making that iPhone in the United States without that 54% tariff, would still cost more than in China with 54% tariff. Since it still costs less to make the iPhone in China, both Apple and consumers would prefer it be made there, so it will, and not in the USA. 2. America’s industrial supply chain for many products is weak. Think of a supply chain as a company’s ability to get the components it needs to build a finished product. Suppose you wanted to build and sell wooden furniture. You’re going to need wood, nails, glue, etc. Otherwise you can’t do it. If you want to build an iPhone you need to procure a glass screen, shaped metal, and numerous internal electronic components. Now you might be thinking, “what do you mean America has a weak supply chain?” I’ve built furniture, I’ve assembled a computer. I can get everything I want at Home Depot and at Amazon. That’s because America has an amazing consumer supply chain, one of the best, if not the best in the world, but this is totally different from having an industrial supply chain. When you’re operating a furniture factory, you need an industrial quantity of wood, more wood than any Home Depot near you has in store. And you need it fast and cheap. It turns out that the United States has a good supply chain for wood, which is why, despite higher wages, we export chopsticks to China. We have abundant cheap wood in the forests of the Northern United States. But if you decided to move that chopstick factory to desert Saudi Arabia, you would not succeed, because their supply chain for wood is poor; there simply aren’t any trees for 1,000s of miles. When it comes to the iPhone, all the factories which make the needed components are in Asia, which is one reason why, even with a 54% tariff, it’s cheaper to assemble that iPhone in China than in the United States. It’s cheaper and faster to get those components from nearby factories in Asia than it is to get them from the US, which, because said factories no longer exist here, has to buy these components from Asia anyways. Supply chains sound complicated, but aren’t. If you can’t get the components you need at a reasonable price and timeline to build a finished product, it doesn’t matter what the tariffs are, you have to import it, because you can’t build it locally. 3. We don’t know how to make it Apple knows how to build an iPhone, but may not know how to make the individual components. It may seem trivial to make that glass that separates your finger from the electronic engineering that powers your ability to access the internet, but it’s difficult. The world buys semiconductors from Taiwan, not just because its relatively expensive (but more expensive than China) labor and excellent supply chain, but because they know how to make the best semiconductors in the world. Even with infinite money, we cannot duplicate that, because we lack the knowhow. A 54% tariff does not solve that problem. We still need to buy semiconductors from Taiwan, which is perhaps why the administration put in an exception for semiconductors, because we need them and because we can’t make them without their help. This is a problem which applies to more than just semiconductors. We have forgotten how to make products people wrongly consider to be basic, too. My company makes educational toys from plastic called Brain Flakes. To make Brain Flakes, you melt plastic and force it into shaped metal molds. Were we to import the machines and molds needed to do this, it would work for a little while, but as soon as one of those molds broke, we’d be in trouble, because there are almost no moldmakers left in the United States. The people who knew how to build and repair molds have either passed away or are long retired. In the event of a problem, we’d have to order a new mold from China or send ours back, shutting down production for months. People trivialize the complexity and difficulty of manufacturing when it’s really hard. And if we don’t know how to make something, it doesn’t matter what the tariff is. It won’t get made in America. 5. The effective cost of labor in the United States is higher than it looks Most people think that the reason why we make products in China instead of the United States is cheaper labor. That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. Frankly, the whole story is hard to read. People are not machines, they are not numbers on a spreadsheet or inputs into a manufacturing cost formula. I respect everyone who works hard and the people I have worked with over the years, and I want Americans to live better, happier lives. Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better. In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do. Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills. And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that. Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has. Sadly, what I describe above are not theoretical situations. These are things that I have experienced or seen with my own eyes. It’s fixable, but the American workforce needs great improvement in order to compete with the world’s, even with tariffs. So yes, Chinese wages are lower, but there many countries with wages lower than China’s. It’s the work ethic, knowhow, commitment, combined with top notch infrastructure, that makes China the most powerful manufacturing country in the world today. 6. We don’t have the infrastructure to manufacture The inputs to manufacturing are not just materials, labor, and knowhow. You need infrastructure like electricity and good roads for transportation, too. Since the year 2000, US electricity generation per person has been flat. In China, over the same time period, it has increased 400%. China generates over twice as much electricity person today as the United States. Why? Manufacturing. To run the machines which make the products we use, you need electricity, a lot of it. We already have electricity instability in this country. Without the construction of huge amounts of new energy infrastructure, like nuclear power plants, we cannot meaningfully increase our manufacturing output. And it would put huge stress on our roads and create lots more dangerous traffic. When we import finished goods from foreign countries, a truck delivers them from the port or the airport to distribution centers, stores, and where we live and work. When you start manufacturing, every single component, from factory to factory, needs to be moved, increasing the number of trucks on the road many times. Paving more roads, modernizing our seaports, improving our airports, speeding up our train terminals, and building power plants in the costliest nation in the world to build is a huge undertaking that people are not appreciating when they say “well, we’ll just make it in America”. 7. Made in America will take time. We placed a $50,000 order with our supplier overseas before the election in November 2024. At the time of ordering, there were no import taxes on the goods. By the time it arrived, a 20% tariff had been applied and we had a surprise bill for $10,000. It can easily take 180 days for many products to go from order, to on your doorstep and this tariff policy seems not to understand that. It takes at least, in the most favorable of jurisdictions, 2 years (if you can get the permits) to build a factory in the United States. I know because I’ve done it. From there, it can take 6 months to a year for it to become efficient. It can take months for products to come off the assembly lines. All this ignores all the infrastructure that will need to be built (new roads, new power plants, etc.) to service the new factory. By the time “made in America” has begun, we will be electing a new president. 8. Uncertainty and complexity around the tariffs To start manufacturing in the United States, a company needs to make a large investment. They will need to buy new machinery and if no existing building is suitable, they will need to construct a new building. These things cost money, a lot, in fact. And significantly more in the USA, than they do in other countries. In exchange for this risk, there must be some reward. If that reward is uncertain, no one will do it. Within the past month, the president put a 25% tariff on Mexico, and then got rid of it, only to apply it again, and then get rid of it a second time. Then, last week, he was expected to apply new tariffs to Mexico, but didn’t. If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will alternate between maybe it will work, and catastrophic loss according to which way the tariffs and the wind blows. No one is building factories right now, and no one is renting them, because there is no certainty that any of these tariffs will last. How do I know? I built a factory in Austin, Texas in an industrial area. I cut its rent 40% two weeks ago and I can’t get a lick of interest from industrial renters. The tariffs have frozen business activity because no one wants to take a big risk dependent on a policy that may change next week. Even further, the tariffs are confusing, poorly communicated, and complex. Today, if you want to import something from China, you need to add the original import duty, plus a 20% “fentanyl tariff”, plus a 34% “reciprocal tariff”, and an additional 25% “Venezuelan oil” tariff, should it be determined that China is buying Venezualan oil. The problem is there is no list of countries which are importing Venezuelan oil provided by the White House, so you don’t know if you do or don’t need to add that 25% and you also don’t know when any of these tariffs will go into effect because of unclear language. As such, you can’t calculate your costs, either with certainty or accuracy, therefore, not only do you not build a factory in the United States, you cease all business activity, the type of thing that can cause a recession, if not worse. For the past month, as someone who runs a business in this industry, I have spent a huge portion of my time just trying to keep up with the constant changes, instead of running my business. 9. Most Americans are going to hate manufacturing Americans want less crime, good schools for their kids, and inexpensive healthcare. They don’t want to be sewing shirts. The people most excited about this new tariff policy tend to be those who’ve never actually made anything, because if you have, you’d know how hard the work is. When I first went to China as a naive 24 year old, I told my supplier I was going to “work a day in his factory!” I lasted 4 hours. It was freezing cold, middle of winter, I had to crouch on a small stool, hunched over, assembling little parts with my fingers at 1/4 the speed of the women next to me. My back hurt, my fingers hurt. It was horrible. That’s a lot of manufacturing. And enjoy the blackouts, the dangerous trucks on the road, the additional pollution, etc. Be careful what you wish for America. Doing office work and selling ideas and assets is a lot easier than making actual things. 10. The labor does not exist to make good products There are over a billion people in China making stuff. As of right now there are 12 million people looking for work in the United States (4% unemployment). Ignoring for a moment the comparative inefficiency of labor and the billions of people making products outside of China, where are the people that are going to do these jobs? Do you simply say “make America great again” 3 times and they will appear with the skills needed to do the work? And where are the managers to manage these people? One of the reasons why manufacturing has declined in the United States is a brain drain towards sectors that make more money. Are people who make money on the stock market, in real estate, in venture capital, and in startups going to start sewing shirts? It’s completely and totally unrealistic to assume that people will move from superficially high productivity sectors driven by US Dollar strength to products that are low on the value chain. The United States is trying to bring back the jobs that China doesn’t even want. They have policies to reduce low value manufacturing, yet we are applying tariffs to bring it back. It’s incomprehensible. 11. Automation will not save us. Most people think that the reason why American manufacturing is not competitive is labor costs. Most people think this can be solved by automation. They’re wrong. First, China, on a yearly basis installs 7x as many industrial robots as we do in the United States. Second, Chinese robots are cheaper. Third, most of today’s manufacturing done by people cannot be automated. If it could, it would have already been done so, by China, which, again, has increasingly high labor costs relative to the rest of the world. The robots you see on social media doing backflips are, today, mostly for show and unreliable off camera. They are not useful in industrial environments where, if a humanoid robot can do it, an industrial machine which is specialized in the task can do it even better. For example, instead of having a humanoid robot doing a repetitive task such as carrying a boxes from one station to another, you can simply set up a cheaper, faster conveyor belt. Said another way, the printer in your office, is cheaper and more efficient than both a human and a humanoid robot with a pen, hand drawing each letter. It’s unlikely that American ingenuity will be able to counter the flood of Chinese industrial robots which is coming. The first commercially electrical vehicle was designed and built in the United States, but today China is dominating electric vehicle manufacturing across the world. Industrial robots will likely be the same story. 12. Robots and overseas factory workers don’t file lawsuits, but Americans do I probably should not have written this article. Not only will I be attacked for being unpatriotic, but what I have written here makes me susceptible to employment lawsuits. For the record, I don’t use a person’s origin to determine whether or not they will do good work. I just look at the person and what they’re capable of. Doing otherwise is bad business because there are talented people everywhere. America has an extremely litigious business environment, both in terms of regulation and employment lawsuits. Excessive regulation and an inefficient court system will stifle those with the courage to make in this country. 13. Enforcement of the tariffs will be uneven and manipulated Imagine two companies which import goods into the United States. One is based in China, while the other is based in the United States. They both lie about the value of their goods so that they have to pay less tariffs. What happens to the China company? Perhaps they lose a shipment when it’s seized by the US government for cheating, but they won’t pay additional fines because they’re in China, where they’re impervious to the US legal system. What happens to the USA company? Owners go to prison. Who do you think is going to cheat more on tariffs, the China or the US company? Exactly. So, in other words, paradoxically, the policies which are designed to help Americans, will hurt them more than the competition these policies are designed to punish. 14. The tariff policies are structured in the wrong way Why didn’t the jobs come back in 2018 when we initiated our last trade war? We applied tariffs, why didn’t it work? Instead of making America great, we made Vietnam great. When the United States applied tariffs to China, it shifted huge amounts of manufacturing to Vietnam, which did not have tariffs applied to it. Vietnam, which has a labor force that is a lot more like China’s than the United States’, was able to use its proximity to China for its supply chain and over the past 7 or so years, slowly developed its own. With Vietnamese wages even lower than Chinese wages, instead of the jobs coming to the United States, they just went to Vietnam instead. We’re about to make the same mistake again, in a different way. Let’s go back to that last example, the China based and the US based companies which were importing goods into the United States. That US based importer could’ve been a manufacturer. Instead of finished iPhones, perhaps they were importing the glass screens because those could not be found in the USA, for final assembly. Our government applied tariffs to finished goods and components equally. I’ll say that again. They applied the same tax to the components that you need to make things in America that they did to finished goods that were made outside of America. Manufacturing works on a lag. To make and sell in America, first you must get the raw materials and components. These tariffs will bankrupt manufacturers before it multiplies them because they need to pay tariffs on the import components that they assemble into finished products. And it gets worse. They put tariffs on machines. So if you want to start a factory in the United States, all the machinery you need which is not made here, is now significantly more expensive. You may have heard that there is a chronic shortage of transformers needed for power transmission in the United States. Tariffed that too. It gets even worse. There is no duty drawback for exporting. In the past, even in the United States, if you imported something and then exported it, the tariff you paid on the import would be refunded to you. They got rid of that so we’re not even incentivizing exports to the countries that we are trying to achieve trade parity with. Tariffs are applied to the costs of the goods. The way we’ve structured these tariffs, factories in China which import into the United States will pay lower tariffs than American importers, because the Chinese factory will be able to declare the value of the goods at their cost, while the American importer will pay the cost the factory charges them, which is of course higher than the factory’s cost. Worse still. With a few exceptions like steel and semiconductors, the tariffs were applied to all products, ranging from things that we will never realistically make like our Tiger hart stuffed animals to things that don’t even grow in the continental USA, like coffee. Call me crazy, but if we’re going to make products in America, we could use some really cheap coffee, but no, they tariffed it! Our educational engineering toy Brain Flakes, also got tariffed. How is the next generation supposed to build a manufacturing powerhouse if it cannot afford products that will develop its engineering ability? It’s like our goal was to make education and raising children more expensive. Not only did we put tariffs on the things that would help us make this transformation, we didn’t put higher tariffs on things that hurt us like processed food which makes us tired and fat or fentanyl precursors which kill us. The stated goal of many of our tariffs was to stop the import of fentanyl. 2 milligrams of fentanyl will kill an adult. A grain of rice is 65 milligrams. How do you stop that stuff from coming in? It’s basically microscopic. Maybe we could do what every other country has done and focus on the demand, instead of the supply, ideally starting with the fentanyl den near my house which keeps my children indoors or in our backyard instead of playing in the neighborhood. It’s frustrating to see our great country take on an unrealistic goal like transforming our economy, when so many basic problems should be fixed first. Michael Jordan sucked at baseball America is the greatest economic power of all time. We’ve got the most talented people in the world and we have a multi-century legacy of achieving what so many other countries could not. Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, perhaps even the greatest athlete of all time. He played baseball in his youth. What happened when he switched from basketball to baseball? He went from being an MVP champion to being a middling player in the minor leagues. 2 years later, he was back to playing basketball. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen to us. My prediction for what will happen with the tariffs This is probably the worst economic policy I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s just an opening negotiating position. Maybe it’s designed to crash the economy, lower interest rates, and then refinance the debt. I don’t know. But if you take it at face value, there is no way that this policy will bring manufacturing back to the United States and “make America wealthy again”. Again, if anything, it’ll do the opposite; it’ll make us much poorer. Many are saying that this tariff policy is the “end of globalization”. I don’t think so. Unless this policy is quickly changed, this is the end of America’s participation in globalization. If we had enacted these policies in 2017 or 2018, they stood a much stronger chance of being successful. That was before Covid. China was much weaker economically and militarily then. They’ve been preparing 8 years for this moment and they are ready. China trades much less with the United States as a percent of its total exports today than it did 8 years ago, and as such is much less susceptible to punishing tariffs from the United States today than it was back then. Chinese made cars, particularly electric vehicles, are taking the world by storm, without the United States. Go to Mexico to Thailand to Germany and you will see Chinese made electric vehicles on the streets. And they’re good, sometimes even better than US made cars, and not just on a per dollar basis, but simply better quality. That is what is going to happen to the United States. Globalization will continue without us if these policies continue unchanged. That said, I think the tariffs will be changed. There’s no way we continue to place a 46% tariff on Vietnam when 8 years ago we nudged American companies to put all their production there. Most likely, this policy will continue another round of the same type of investment; rather than replacing made in China with made in the USA, we’ll replace it with made in Vietnam, Mexico, etc. Finally, in the process of doing this, regardless of whether or not we reverse the policies, we will have a recession. There isn’t time to build US factories, nor is it realistic or likely to occur, and American importers don’t have the money to pay for the goods they import. People are predicting inflation in the cost of goods, but we can just as easily have deflation from economic turmoil. The policy is a disaster, how could it be done better? And what’s the point of this anyways? The 3 reasons why we want to actually bring manufacturing back 1. It makes our country stronger. If a foreign country can cut off your supply of essentials such as food, semiconductors, or antibiotics you’re beholden to that country. The United States must have large flexible capacity in these areas. 2. It makes it easier to innovate. When the factory floor is down the hall, instead of 30 hours of travel away, it’s easier to make improvements and invent. We need to have manufacturing of high value goods, like drones, robots, and military equipment that are necessary for our economic future and safety. It will be difficult for us to apply artificial intelligence to manufacturing if we’re not doing it here. 3. People can simplistically be divided into three buckets: those of verbal intelligence, those of mathematical intelligence, and those of spatial intelligence. Without a vibrant manufacturing industry, those with the latter type of intelligence cannot fulfill their potential. This is one reason why so many men drop out, smoke weed, and play video games; they aren’t built for office jobs and would excel at manufacturing, but those jobs either don’t exist or pay poorly. How to actually bring manufacturing back Every country that has gone on a brilliant run of manufacturing first established the right conditions and then proceeded slowly. We’re doing the opposite right now, proceeding fast with the wrong conditions. First, the United States must fix basic problems which reduce the effectiveness of our labor. For example, everyone needs to be able to graduate with the ability to do basic mathematics. American healthcare is way too expensive and it needs to be fixed if the United States wants to be competitive with global labor. I’m not saying healthcare should be socialized or switched to a completely private system, but whatever we’re doing now clearly is not working, and it needs to be fixed. We need to make Americans healthy again. Many people are too obese to work. Crime and drugs. It needs to stop. And to sew, we must first repair the social fabric. From Covid lockdowns to the millions of people who streamed over our border, efforts must be made to repair society. Manufacturing and economic transformations are hard, particularly the way in which we’re doing it. Patriotism and unity are required to tolerate hardship, and we seem to be at all-time lows for those right now. Let’s focus on America’s strengths in high end manufacturing, agriculture, and innovation instead of applying tariffs to all countries and products blindly. We should be taxing automated drones for agriculture at 300% to encourage their manufacture here, instead of applying the same blanket tariff of 54% to that that we apply to t-shirts. The changes in the policies needed are obvious. Tax finished products higher than components. Let exporters refund their import duties. Enforce the tariffs against foreign companies more strenuously than we do against US importers. If American companies want to sell in China, they must incorporate their, register capital, and name a person to be a legal representative. To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. For Europeans and Chinese to sell in the United States, none of this is needed, nor do federal taxes need to be paid. We can level the playing field without causing massive harm to our economy by adopting policies like these which cause foreign companies to pay the taxes domestic ones pay. And if we want to apply tariffs, do it slowly. Instead of saying that products will be tariffed at 100% tomorrow, say they’ll be 25% next year, 50% after that, 75% after that, and 100% in year four. And then make it a law instead of a presidential decree so that there is certainty so people feel comfortable taking the risks necessary to make in America. Sadly, a lot of the knowhow to make products is outside of this country. Grant manufacturing visas, not for labor, but for knowhow. Make it easy for foreign countries to teach us how they do waht they do best. Conclusion and final thoughts I care about this country and the people in it. I hope we change our mind on this policy before it’s too late. Because if we don’t, it might break the country. And, really, this country needs to be fixed.”

The cultural DNA of the West is rooted in an environment of historical scarcity - cold climates, limited fertile land, and harsh survival conditions. Those pressures created a psyche oriented toward expansion, conquest, and extraction. Violence, hierarchy, and the glorification of strength became core values in Pagan Europe. From the Middle east, Christianity entered Europe as a radically different ethos centered on humility, compassion and self-restraint. Christianity spread in the West, but was absorbed into the existing warrior ethos, repurposed to justify empire and crusade rather than to dismantle their drive for domination. This is where Nietzche talks about the tension between master morality (pagan) vs slave morality (Christian). Despite technological progress and surface level cultural shifts, the underlying ethos of the West remains continuous. Colonialism, industrial capitalism, or modern neoliberal globalization - are all frontier seeking, resource obsessed mindsets. The form changes but the psychology remains: always reaching outward to possess what is lacking inward. There's a reason why the Communist revolution took root in Russia and spread more readily in parts of the non-Western world, despite its origins in Europe through Marx. For Confucian / Buddhist valued Chinese and Vietnamese, it wasn't as alien for them to share resources. Communism didn't take off in Islamic society despite them having a communal orientation because Islam already systematized social justice and distribution, divinely through God - which Communism rejected. Russia wasn’t as heavily defined by the same resource scarce psychology as Western Europe - though it had an access issue due to its vastness. Communal distribution was much more embedded in their culture (mir system) vs feudal structures in Europe. No wonder the Western psyche rejected communism so viscerally when looking at the backdrop from where they came - and why even till today - they reject the state as a antidote to what free market capitalism is unable to achieve. This is why Trump and MAGA are deferring to capital (through coercive tariffs) to solve what the state should do - that is invest to create a ecosystem of industrialization and development for its people. They want capital to fix what capital ruined in the first place. The US is waiting for capital to lead a revival, when it was capital that walked away in the first place - how absurd. The only viable solution to the pain populists are reacting to is the one thing they’re cultural DNA rejects: the state stepping in to re-distribute resources among the community / citizens. Side note: Communism is a failed system, it's the other extreme of capitalism. In trying to escape scarcity, it creates man-made scarcity by eliminating capitalist mechanisms.