A prospective customer said to us, “When I do business with my money I’m the bull and the others are the cows.”
Our response, “Good day, Dr. Sosa.”
The Captain 
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No actually believes this, do they?
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I was watching a podcast today on that exact theme. They are trumpeting about Honda building a plant in Indiana, when actually the plant is already there. Honda was planning on moving it to Mexico and decided not to.
In the podcast the guy speaking made a lot of sense. He said if Tariffs are going to pay all the taxes then that means production is not coming to the United States because logically the production has to be outside the United States for us to collect a Tariff. Then he said if Production comes to the United States we are not going to collect a Tariff so then where are we going to get taxes.
So no I do not believe production is going to come to the United States. We do not have the man power for what it would take.
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I think the Fool recently made a change to their algorithm. A lot of my likes are not being recorded. It seems ridiculous that a thumbs up would hurt their feeling so much. I am not sure exactly why they are doing this.
Name 1 reason that the Fool would stop likes. Only wrong answers.
- They do not like anyone being more popular than they are.
What I am getting now.
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Sometime ago, someone on the old BRK board recommended “Getting More” by Stuart Diamond. He taught negotiation at Wharton for many years, and was involved in many high profile negotiations. His book has a pretty good section on international negotiations as well.
One of his key rules for effective negotiation is to never break trust, because one you lose it, you never really get it back. USMCA was purported to be a super fair deal for everyone…only now the guy who signed the USMCA says it is unfair.
Clearly, either he broke trust then, or he’s breaking trust now. Either way, the counterparties won’t trust what he says.
And you can go down the list:
It isn’t about fentanyl, especially in respect to Canada. There are so many better, easier, and cheaper ways to handle this. So no one really believes this reason.
And it isn’t about US reindustrialization. Last go around, the tariffs cost American industrial jobs. So nobody believes that reason either.
In short, because no one trusts the TIG, so his negotiations won’t end well for the US.
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Like this post 12345
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Bravo!
The issue of trust over the long term as opposed to short term advantage by betrayal and cheating is crucial to understanding the long term macro-economic damage of the moment. Here I re-post a link to a brilliant moral argument on the matter I have also linked in the current Ukraine thread.
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One of my nephews is a (highly respected) street cop (he has refused promotion multiple times because he feels his talent is street encounters rather than management).
He has to deal with drug smuggling into the SanFran bay area all the time. He says the discussion about fentanyl is idiotic because the stuff is so powerful, the physical quantities so small, that it changes everything regarding detection and enforcement.
He finds the focus on Mexico and Canada as sources idiotic, as most of what he has intercepted is of Chinese origin.
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How much of that is because of where he is located? It seems in the Bay area, yes, indeed much or most would come from China directly. Other parts of the country maybe not so much? The sources question is important, of course: the fentanyl sources originated in China, but if these come across mostly at the southern border what is the best way to intercept?
Pete
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The USA’s idiotically imagined and implemented “War on Drugs” utterly failed in its announced purpose while also providing the perfect environment for organized crime to grow rich, powerful, and far more nimble than most policing efforts.
To stop flow of fentanyl etc., we need to stop illegal immigrants who too often get “helped on their way” by narcos using them as protected guided mules. To the extent that is a significant part of the total flow (still not at all understood) the way to curb it is to curb illegal immigration, and as I have nauseatingly been screaming for decades that stops when employers are liable for employing illegal employees…. which will not happen in the forseeable future.
As to other flows (one corrupted blackmailed airline stewardess can easily bring in enough fentanyl to kill a hell of a lot of people while enriching the worst elements in our society), that is probably an impossibly hard problem.
I believe we need to actually attack the problem of addiction with tried and true education and public health solutions. Boring and useless to the Red Hot News politicians we are now cursed with.
Some folks in the US will be unemployed. Expect demand and prices to drop.
I was of this opinion decades ago. Pablo Escobar offered to pay off Colombia’s national debt.
The Captain
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The good news is that ‘encounters’ along the southern border have declined to levels not seen since the Clinton administration.
DB2
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Fundamentally, I have no problem using the army and national guard to help patrol the border. Deputize them into the Border Patrol too, so they can make arrests, rather than just string razor wire.
Fundamentally, I have no problem withholding Federal funds, and prosecuting state and local officials, who refuse to support Federal immigration law.
Fundamentally, I have no problem with a “stay in Mexico” policy for people with asylum applications pending.
Those policies would only impact the honest immigrants.
As others have said, the “war on drugs” was a failure. It is impossible to seal a border that long. I remember watching a documentary on TV, in the early 60s, about a group that dug a tunnel under the Berlin wall, to get some people out of East Germany. If the pervasive security apparatus of East Germany could not prevent that, how is it feasible to really, securely, secure the US border?
The President of Mexico has already expressed herself regarding TIG’s threats of military action in northern Mexico (turning the clock back to 1916), and I agree. The idea of sending the US military raiding into Mexico, is unacceptable.
So…stalemate?
Steve
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How about constitutionally.
Federal immigration law is not the same as Executive orders. States do not have to follow executive orders.
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Which bill extended the tax cuts???
Here is the entire list for reference - US Legislation | 2025-2026 | 119th Congress | LegiScan
It’s in the budget bill. The tax breaks sunset and they are going to try and make them permanent. That is why they are trying to find cuts wherever they can but alas they tax cuts will only increase the deficit as they did last time.
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I hate to burst your bubble, most fentanyl smuggled from south of the border is brought in by US citizens…at ports of entry.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/09/1191638114/fentanyl-smuggling-migrants-mexico-border-drugs
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If the feds need 25% to 50% of the city/state police, how much more in STATE TAXES are you willing to pay to GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR ??? It gets expensive FAST when the federal govt requisitions local resources. TAX INCREASES !!
What number bill and when did it pass and become law???