SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - US Politics Thread 2021-24

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Dowly (Post 2953560)

You keep going about the cheap stuff, but that's not the problem that you'll run into with these tariffs. A cheap item that costs $2 to import and is sold at $10 will not see much of an increase in price even after +100% tariff.

Where the American consumers will start hurting is the pricier, low margin stuff. Say a TV costs $500 to import and is then sold at $700. Add +100% tariff on that and suddenly the price of importing raises to $1000 and if the retailer wants to keep the margin the same your new TV now costs $1300+. You can apply this to nearly all of the higher end stuff since they often are sold at low margins.

Just today I read an article concerning a snipping tool. Klein to be exact. Purchasers who use snipping tools daily found that Lowes(garden center store) is selling Klein Tools that are now made in China. These snips were made in the USA. The uproar in the comments concerning cheap crap from China was many. The upset of Klein going to China to manufacture subpar tools at a cheaper price. These people WILL pay for the higher price for a quality tool. These same people have the same mindset to pay more for quality anything.

I will pay for a product that will last. I have a big problem paying for a product that I need to purchase a second one in a short time. I purchased appliance bulbs from China(true story). The box came with 2 bulbs. $5 USD. The first bulb lasted 2 weeks. It actually cracked off the base where it screws into the socket. I replace with the second bulb in the box. Hopefully it last more than 2 weeks. If not, I'm going to have to drop another $5 USD for 2 more bulbs. I will be into this junk from China for $10 USD plus my time to replace bulbs and ordering new ones. I'd rather pay $10 USD up front for a bulb for a quality bulb(1 one) that will last for a year or more.

For those that think China is on the up and up with the world.

China Will Have Trouble Cashing In on Trump's Global Trade War

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...8ed0&PC=EMMX01

Quote:

China now faces a delicate task. It must show the Trump administration that it has the determination and the tools to punish the U.S. in any confrontation. It must also demonstrate to the rest of the world, but especially to the EU and its neighbors, that it will play a stabilizing and accommodating role. Beijing doesn't want to just survive this trade war with Washington. It wants to use it to demonstrate that the U.S. is an unreliable and capricious partner. The Trump administration is taking many steps to erode global trust in U.S. leadership, but China needs to signal to the world left trapped between the two economic giants that it can bridge the gap left by U.S. withdrawal.

This will be difficult for two reasons. First, China has already used the tools it will deploy against the U.S. to punish other trading partners. Beijing itself has a long history of using economic coercion to respond to what it sees as geopolitical slights, including in recent years against the Philippines, South Korea, Australia and Lithuania. Every other country will be watching the retaliatory spiral between China and the U.S., in no small part to observe their own vulnerabilities to the measures taken by both countries. Japan well remembers China's brief ban on rare earth minerals in 2010, which changed how Japanese companies stock these materials. Vietnam has long clashed with China over their overlapping claims in the South China Sea, suffering retaliation on some of its main exports to China as a result.

The second difficulty stems from the current U.S. strategy, which now seems set on forcing major economies to choose between the U.S. and China. Take, for example, the Vietnam-China economic relationship. Vietnam is China's fourth-largest trading partner, while China is Vietnam's largest, in large part because of how integrated Vietnam's economy is into Chinese supply chains. Vietnam was one of the major beneficiaries of the first U.S.-China trade war in 2018, as companies-many of them Chinese-relocated production there to take advantage of lower tariffs for finished goods. If the U.S. negotiates a deal with Vietnam that requires eliminating China from its supply chains, what will China be able to offer Vietnam that is more attractive when China's own domestic consumption is so weak? Is there enough complementarity between China and Vietnam without the U.S. consumer at the end of their supply chain?

For countries in Europe, China's challenge is different but equally difficult. The EU is the most likely destination for Chinese exports that would have gone to the U.S. but are no longer competitive there because of Trump's tariffs. How will China provide assurances that greater dependency on China will not lead to further deindustrialization in Europe? One attractive option for the EU is for China to export its manufacturing, rather than its manufactured goods. Chinese companies could build factories across Europe, boosting local employment and perhaps even innovation in sectors where Chinese companies outperform their European counterparts, such as robotics, EVs and aspects of clean energy. Some of these plans are in the works. The rub here is that Xi wants China to maintain its position as the workshop of the world and to upgrade that workshop even further, into advanced semiconductors and aviation. Xi may see this offshoring solution as detrimental to his long-term vision of China's future. Facing high rates of youth unemployment, as well, it may not be politically easy for China to begin its own offshoring wave.

China may have a historic opportunity to capitalize on the chaos and uncertainty emanating out of D.C. right now. Open resistance to Trump's agenda is increasing in the U.S. among business leaders buffeted by uncertainty and unstable markets, so time is limited. But China may be hamstrung by its own record of economic coercion in the past as well as its inability to offer anything that replaces Washington's fundamental competitive advantage: the U.S. consumer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by u crank (Post 2953551)

So are you suggesting that people on the right should not be allowed to express their opinions?

Where did i suggest that? I took my liberty to express what I think of this article, which I had indeed the misfortune to read.
Just yesterday I read about Trump's anti science politics and hear about it in the radio. If you like to destroy science and independent research you of course have the liberty to express it.
Using fox news, the spectator or the american stinker for evidence or proving your point though will not change my opinion, from the article's ridiculous accusations of treachery to kissing Trump's behind. Bad for Columbia university already, but maybe the Atlas of science may indeed shrug in the coming months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catfish (Post 2953570)

Questions for you. Did Harvard use race as a factor in their admission policies? Answer yes. It took a ruling by the Supreme Court in June 2023 to stop that practice. Did Harvard allow anti Semitic speech and demonstrations on their campus. Again the answer is yes. Whether you like it or not this is what all of this is about. America's preeminent university was willfully disobeying the Civil Rights act and other laws and are now being brought to task for it. And they seem quite unrepentant about it. They are getting what they deserve. What do you think of that kind of disregard for well established laws about race?

Quote:

Originally Posted by u crank (Post 2953574)

Here's what's in the complaint and what they think of it.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...283315.1.0.pdf

And all the filings.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket...lty-chapter-v/

"NATURE OF ACTION
1. This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus.

2. On March 31, 2025, Defendants announced an investigation of Harvard University for asserted but unspecified failures to address antisemitism. Three days later, on April 3, Defendants concluded from that investigation that Harvard must adopt a list of vague yet sweeping programmatic and structural changes to university management, operations, and curriculum. Defendants described these changes as “non-exhaustive” preconditions for Harvard “to remain a responsible recipient of federal taxpayer dollars” valued at approximately $9 billion.

3. Harvard, like all American universities, depends on federal funding to conduct its academic research. Threats like these are an existential “gun to the head” for a university. Nat’l Fed’n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 581 (2012). They also hold hostage billions of dollars in congressional appropriations that are crucial to ensuring the American university system
remains a global leader in scientific, medical, and technological research.

4. Defendants claim they are enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—the antidiscrimination law covering institutions that receive federal funds—but their disregard for the statute’s requirements belie that claim. Under Title VI and its implementing regulations, the government may accelerate an investigation to the stage of terminating funding only after complying with
several specific steps: issuing findings of noncompliance; making an effort to obtain voluntary compliance and determining that voluntary compliance is impossible; giving notice to both the university and Congress; providing a hearing; and ensuring that any changes demanded as a condition
of avoiding termination are tailored to the findings of noncompliance. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. These procedures exist because Congress recognized that allowing federal agencies to hold funding hostage, or to cancel it cavalierly, would give them dangerously broad power in a system in which
institutions depend so heavily upon federal funding.

5. Defendants have not followed any of these procedures. Instead, Defendants summarily threatened to terminate at least $255.6 million in federal funding between Harvard University, its affiliates, and the federal government and to hold over $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates under review, all without any meaningful process or any specific finding of wrongdoing, unless Harvard immediately agrees to implement the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul the University’s governance and leadership, academic programs, admissions system, hiring process, and discipline system—with the promise of more demands to come. These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration
and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech.

6. These tactics amount to exploiting Title VI to coerce universities into undermining free speech and academic inquiry in service of the government’s political or policy preferences. Just last year the Supreme Court unanimously held such coercion to be unconstitutional. See Nat’l Rifle Ass’n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 190 (2024).

7. Their actions against Harvard follow a playbook that has already succeeded in undermining free speech and academic freedom in America. Last month, Defendants launched a similar investigation into Columbia University and, shortly thereafter, summarily terminated over $400
million in federal contracts while threatening billions more. Under immense financial pressure, Columbia acceded to the Trump administration’s demands. A remarkable component of that concession was Columbia’s agreement to “[e]xpand[] … intellectual diversity” as defined by the Trump
administration, alter its procedures for hiring faculty and disciplining students according to the administration’s policy preference, and place an entire academic department under the control of a receiver without any formal finding of misconduct. Despite its voluntary cooperation, as of April
10, the Trump administration has been reported to be seeking further demands from Columbia in the form of a consent decree and the NIH has further frozen all Columbia’s grant funding without
any notice. In recent days, the Trump administration has also frozen over $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University, with an even more shocking lack of process, not even purporting to issue communications providing notice under Title VI or any
other legal authority.

8. Defendants’ unlawful actions have already caused severe and irreparable harm by halting academic research and inquiry at Harvard, including in areas that have no relation whatsoever to charges of antisemitism or other civil rights violations. Defendants’ actions also create, by design, a pervasive climate of fear and self-censorship for Plaintiffs and their members.

9. “Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and ... is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment.” Keyishian v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of State of N.Y., 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967). “To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation.” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957). Our country’s greatness depends in meaningful part upon the continued independence and intellectual freedom of its universities and colleges. The Court should act to ensure free speech and academic freedom by enjoining Defendants’ acts and declaring them unlawful."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buddahaid (Post 2953579)

This is all very nice and such, is it written anywhere that the federal government continue to dump money into Harvard indefinitely? This is an entitlement?

That cheap stuff with the new consumer tax of 145% becomes a lot more expensive for consumers. Problem solved for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dargo (Post 2953592)

That cheap stuff with the new consumer tax of 145% becomes a lot more expensive for consumers. Problem solved for you.

:Kaleun_Applaud:

It looks like you have a dilemma
First, you have your 1st Amendment(free speech)
Second, you are not allowed to raise your voice if it contain antisemitisk stuff.

Markus

Quote:

Originally Posted by mapuc (Post 2953594)

It looks like you have a dilemma
First, you have your 1st Amendment(free speech)
Second, you are not allowed to raise your voice if it contain antisemitisk stuff.

Markus

Sometimes it is viewed at a hate crime(freedom is scary in the USA. We deal with it).

Trump has just announced a new tariff of up to 245% on Chinese imports. The art of stupidity continues and... XI will not call Trump back even when it becomes a 1000%. I have heard of having the blues, but this is ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXkxo781lA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dargo (Post 2953598)

Hey, we agree on something!!!! This is getting ridiculous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by u crank (Post 2953574)

Questions for you. Did Harvard use race as a factor in their admission policies? Answer yes.

Really?
"Does Harvard consider race in admissions?
As our admissions committee members review applications, it is incumbent on our staff to comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court in which we cannot consider race/ethnicity in our review of applications."

"Is it easier for minorities to get into Harvard?
At Harvard, an Asian candidate in the eighth highest academic decile had 5.1% chance of admittance, compared to 7.5% for white, 22.9% for Hispanic, and 44.5% for black applicants, per the brief. 29.06.2023"

They also do not seem to make it exactly easier for minorities, it rather depends whether the applicant can afford Harvard. Of course as a private university selling education for the rich, they can charge what they want.

Regarding government intervention the antisemitic demonstrations are still an expression of free speech as long, after all it is not ok by Netanyahou to steamroll and kill whole civilian houses and blocks, let alone what Israel does and did in areas that do not belong to Israel, since decades. While I condemn the "activities" of the HAMAS, the whole situation in the middle east is a mess, there is no easy right or wrong anymore.

Using antisemitic paroles to disallow universities to block gay, transgender or whatever to access education looks like a pretext. Like it or not, those are also people with rights.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catfish (Post 2953609)

Regarding government intervention the antisemitic demonstrations are still an expression of free speech as long, after all it is not ok by Netanyahou to steamroll and kill whole civilian houses and blocks, let alone what Israel does and did in areas that do not belong to Israel, since decades. While I condemn the "activities" of the HAMAS, the whole situation in the middle east is a mess, there is no easy right or wrong anymore.

Using antisemitic paroles to disallow universities to block gay, transgender or whatever to access education looks like a pretext. Like it or not, those are also people with rights.

They most certainly Are Not examples of freedom of expression. When you have individuals calling for violence against other students, Intervention is warranted. This is the same situation with Columbia University. Palestinian demonstrators and sympathizers were interfering in the learning process of other students. They were also threatening them with violence. If you are in this Country on a visa or applying for citizenship, leave your politics and hatred in your own Country or remain there.

It's very simple, If you are in the U.S on a student Visa, abide by the rules of the host country. In this case, the U.S. If Harvard allows racism to exist in it's Institution, then funding should cease. I have no Idea why Harvard is being subsidized by the Government anyway. With regards to transgender Individuals, I have no problems with them at all, unless they try to make their problems and Issues our problem.

I can't see other Countries allowing foreigners to dictate the rules and regulations in their Countries. The U.S will no longer allow foreigners to disrupt Education or Society and it's Infrastructure in this Country.

More from the stupidity front:
JD Vance: The UK could become the first Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon.
Ever heard of Pakistan?
https://i.ibb.co/Md1Y2DJ/cantfixstupid.gif