Vice President Mike Pence laughs as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 17, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria.
It seems this is “Made In Murica” week, one of those mind-numbing idiocies of the Tiny Tyrant. As usual with all of Donny’s ideas, this one means absolutely nothing. Very little is manufactured in uStates anymore, and for that to be different, oh my, radical changes would be needed, to say the least. What this all comes down to is Donny playing with some toys, and puffing hot air around a bit.
Donald Trump promised on Monday he would take more legal and regulatory steps during the next six months to protect American manufacturers, lashing out against trade deals and trade practices he said have hurt U.S. companies.
Trump climbed into an American-made fire truck parked behind the White House, took a swing with a baseball bat in the Blue Room, and briefly donned a customized Stetson cowboy hat in front of cheering manufacturing company executives from all 50 states gathered to hear him praise their products.
“I want to make a pledge to each and every one of you: No longer are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, steal our jobs and drain our wealth,” Trump said.
Other countries are not breaking rules, nor are stealing jobs. American corporations hand them jobs. That’s a bit different. They aren’t draining “our” wealth. The people doing that, gosh, they would be you, your family, and others who have mass amounts of money which is never ever enough.
He was speaking to a trade show – albeit one with a protectionist bent – organized by the White House to spotlight his efforts to revive the flagging manufacturing sector.
[…]
Trump did not give details about what his administration would do to protect manufacturers, but he railed against tariffs charged by other countries and unfair trade practices.
“That includes cracking down on the predatory online sales of foreign goods, which is absolutely killing our shoppers and our shopping centers,” he said.
“If you look at what is going on with shopping centers and stores and jobs and stores, it’s been very, very tough for them. They’ve have had a very hard time, closing at numbers and records that have never been seen before,” he said.
Who in the fuck knows what Donny means by predatory online sales. Pretty sure he’s not talking about Amazon. The world is full of amazing goods, why shouldn’t people buy those things? When I have a bit of extra pocket money, I like to shop at Novica. Every now and then, I get a fierce craving for Yorkshire Gold Tea or other such goodies, and I love being able to buy them, and no, I don’t buy anything through Amazon. For the most part, I try to support independent businesses, whether they are in uStates or not. I don’t see the slightest thing wrong with that. What Donny misses is that shopping in uStates is near dead because most people don’t have money to spare, and big box corporation stores are eating everything else alive. Not that I expect the Tiny Tyrant to have the very least understanding of economics. All he knows is graft, tax write-offs, and not paying anyone except himself.
Trump spoke in front of a panoply of iconic American-made products: Gibson guitars, Maryland crab pots, a Delaware-made NASA space suit and Cheerwine soda.
Ah, well, I’m sure we’ll all run out and purchase all those things.
He discussed sales of Sikorsky helicopters – “I have three of them!” he said, lifted horseshoes made with Nucor Corp steel, and strolled past vacuum-sealed Omaha steaks.
Jesus Fuck. Divorced from reality does not even begin to cover it.
He told the manufacturers that he was working for a “level playing field” for their wares.
“But if the playing field were slanted like a little bit toward us, I’d accept that also,” Trump said.
Mmmm hmmm. But it better not be level or slanted a little bit towards anyone else, oh no! Asshole.
Via Raw Story.
Now, when it comes to all the crap the Trumps sell:
The White House on Monday refused to say whether President Donald Trump’s business would cease manufacturing in China and other countries during the administration’s “Made In America” week.
[…]
But it wasn’t clear if Trump — who manufactures his products in Bangladesh, China and Mexico — was ready to give his jobs to American workers.
A White House official ducked the question when CBS Correspondent Mark Knoller asked about products made abroad.
“I will get back to you,” the official reportedly said.
Uh huh. Full story here.
The privilege of saying “internet shopping is bad” is astounding. I love it because it saves me time (esp. re: books -- okay maybe not) and convenience (esp. re: books), and also sometimes I buy USAmerican authors, so where’s the harm?
I could really use a helicopter, though.
One wonders how much of this gaudy “Made in America” crap is made using actual slave labour from the US prison population, or by undocumented immigrants being shafted with illegal working conditions. I would expect a fair amount of it if it is anywhere near comparable in price to goods manufactured in places like China or India.
As for your comment on people not having the money to spend -- that luminary of enlightened US humanitarian goodness Henry Ford realised that this was a problem for the consumer society he was trying to build. He was one of the first to ensure that he paid his workers enough to buy one of his cars, and gave them Saturdays off so they had time to go out and spend. It’s amazing how the most fervent of today’s capitalism fanatics have little to no idea how the basics of capitalism work.
He’s probably referring to the cheap Chinese meth that people buy because good old fashioned US made meth is hard to get unless you’re a billionaire president.
Hell, Trump doesn’t even get his wives from America.
Hah.
Haha.
Ahahahahahahahahaha!
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard about American companies in, like, ever.
The reason that many of us (mostly pro-union) Swedes would like most American companies to get fucked in the general direction of off is that they try to break the Swedish Model (which, simply put, is a lax control from the government in exchange for cooperation between employers and the unions) by forbidding their employees from joining a union (illegal like holy fuck), trying to track union membership (bitwise illegal) and punishing union representatives (are you kidding me, this is so not on, what did you think this would do, maybe you should not listen to American legal advice about Swedish labour laws, ye bundle of fuckers).
Or to put it in another way: American companies are famous for not merely trying, but actually breaking the rules, and trying to use the courts to cement their rule-breaking as allowable.
Oh yes, union breaking is very popular in uStates, it doesn’t surprise me in the least they try that shit elsewhere.