Honestly, aggressive climate change would have a similar short-term impact, even if the net result is good, which is a large part of the reason we don't do aggressive changes like this.

That said, I'm not convinced the net result is good, so we'll instead have short-term suffering followed by longer-term suffering, all for a bit of protectionism for American businesses (which will probably leave them worse off in the long run anyway).

That graph is interesting. When was Reagan president again...?

Anyone that actually cares about the economy would see that every time the republicans get in they fuck it, and every time the democrats get in they fix it.

But they don't care about reality, only their feelings

That's why they're trying to take power. Billionaires would rather destroy the world and drive all life to extinction than to give up their private jets and yachts.

The worst part is--it's really not. These guys could all stay millionaires and we could still solve our system's worst distribution issues. Their biggest hardship could be dealing with not being The Guy With The Biggest Number when they go to their rich guy parties.

Personally I'm in favor of making them destitute and/or imprisoning them, but going that far really isn't strictly necessary.

This is why Worker and Consumer Cooperatives are so vital.

Protectionism. Musk stands to gain a ton if there's less competition from imported EVs, and that's true for a lot of other products that American companies make. If you can just throw a few million at a presidential campaign and essentially guarantee your competitors will have a 10-60% disadvantage, those few millions can turn into billions in profit.

On paper, the goal seems to be to spur companies to return to the US, but I think the net impact will be higher prices for Americans and reduced trade w/ other countries due to retaliatory tariffs.

Your comment has the same energy as "states' rights to do what?", and I'm here for it.

For a complete fascist takeover.

How are people like him and bezos controlling the world?

Capitalism

In trump's case, we praise exceptional morons

They literally want to end government. Aka, services for anyone who isn't wealthy.

There's no such thing as the middle class. You either own means of production, you sell your labour to those who do, or you belong to the criminal class that doesn't contribute to the growth of capital. The middle class is a fairy tale capitalists tell us to keep us in the labour class instead of the far more sensible criminal class.

I only heard the clip from here.. but it sounded like he said for long term prosperity, not necessary.

I assume what he was saying is that people will suffer while we force the market to move into isolation.

What he doesn't want to admit to the populous is that to have long term benefits of cheap labor, you have to have cheap labor.

So either you have that by being richer than other countries and outsourcing the labor, or isolating the country and subjugating a portion of the population so much that they are the cheap labor. That portion... Isn't going to be small if it's going to be able to provide everything for the rich who blast through resources like crazy.

I read recently "On Freedom" by Timothy Snyder and he mentions that. Billionaires are sucking or wealth and when we suffer, we are told that this is temporary and toward a greater good (which never comes).

Sadly it is successful and a lot of Americans believe that.

It opened my eyes seeing how we are set up to fight each other (blaming minorities) while oligarchs are making our lives more miserable by hoarding country's wealth.