The Frankish Reich

The whole thing is worth reading: https://www.molsonhart.com/blog/america-underestimates-the-difficulty-of-bringing-manufacturing-back Here's just one part about the American worker, a little reality check: 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. Think about that when we talk about moving high-tech manufacturing to a place like JD Vance's Ohio or Kentucky.

Wait 20 years and he won't be so cute when he's on meth.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-vietnam-sign-agreements-supply-chains-railway-cooperation-2025-04-14/ well that’s working out well….

Setting fire to Teslas in an unoccupied commercial space: bad Setting fire to Governor’s official residence while occupied by Gov and his family on Passover: really, really bad. Was that difficult? Moral distinctions do exist.

Did it list any HBP meds that would lower his heart rate rate? Incidentally, recall that Trump believes we are each given a certain number of heart beats in a lifetime, such that aerobic exercise uses them up early …

He may have ostensibly lost weight since the start of his first term, but remember: he's gained at least 10 lbs since that famous booking photo self-reported weight. And seriously: I find that resting heart rate of 61 to be total bs. Overweight 78 year old who does not aerobic exercise of any type with a 61 heart rate?

I would say it is a purely regional/Trump base concern, but then again it's not like some Kamala Harris is suddenly going to win Kentucky. So I've wondered the same thing. My best guesses now? 1. Reaction to the renewable energy agenda - a reflexive "own the libs" like the pickup trucks rigged to spout black smoke. 2. Simple nostalgia. Manufacturing jobs were big when coal-fired plants were big, thus coal = when America was great.

And you are familiar with the fawning obsequiousness required of anyone putting out statements about Trump? Dr. Ronny Jackson, anyone?

Oh yeah, oil futures are getting cheap as recession expectations rise. Be careful what you wish for, Trumpies.

So stupid. Read the Klain quote. He said Biden seemed more interested in how his decisions would be received in Europe rather than the political implications in the US. The comment about "thinks he president of NATO" was snark.

You know the difference. This is basically printing a press release. It is not investigative reporting, whether it is retweeted by Catturd or reprinted by the NYT.

Find your lane for 2028, Ted! Since JD Vance and now Trump himself occupy the Orange King Can Do No Wrong lane, Ted has to bet on a tariff-induced recession. He's probably right.

Matt Damon figured it out for us. I think I can do it too.

You mean my trip to Mars?

The point, umm, Doc(tor) - when your own physical exam report accepts at face value your obvious lie about one thing, what are the chances it accepts a bunch of other self-aggrandizing lies?

More clever than anything they've done recently! James Austin Johnson is really really good at the Trump thing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-undergo-annual-physical-exam-wednesday-rcna140880 "Fit for duty." Reliable, just like Trump's! Trump is 6'3"? Here he is next to Prince William, who is ... 6'3" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14170459/Donald-Trump-height-Prince-William-Paris-notre-dame.html

Making it up as they go along. No strategy, no actual plan. What did you expect?

Unfortunately, the truth is that all the righties here (and a lot of the non-righties) always view these things through the lens of race.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-stupid-erratic-and-weak says it all.

Another good analysis, also paywalled, because I guess you get what you pay for (example: Catturd vs. the WSJ). Steve Miran, yet another nutcase in the administration: https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/us-dollar-treasury-bonds-trade-war-028e8765?mod=WSJ_home_supertopperbottom_pos_2 The dollar’s reserve status makes it artificially strong, which results in exports being more expensive and imports cheaper, contributing to the U.S. trade deficit. In a speech this week Steve Miran, chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said other countries should share the U.S.’s burden of providing its defense umbrella and a reserve currency. One way, he said, was by paying tariffs. Before joining the administration, Miran had, in a report, suggested other countries could help hold down the dollar through a “Mar-a-Lago” accord, and if they didn’t, the U.S. could impose a fee on their holdings of Treasurys. In an email Wednesday, Miran said that he wasn’t advocating either idea then, and that the administration isn’t considering either now.

You will toil and sacrifice for the motherland and you will like it.

No showerhead gonna bring back that hair on top.

Probably. We've already seen Trump urging the Fed to cut rates. This time it amounts to "I broke the economy, so you better cut rates to avert a deep recession." And the Fed's "unwinding" of it's treasuries is likely to be paused too. It seems Republicans these days love inflation and cheap money too.