Today’s post is heavy with Geo-political stuff. But it’s the signs of the times. Most of the articles are a few months old, but that is preferable as we can compare the reactions of THEN to the reality of NOW.
Anyways…
I wish to relay a story about something that happened when I was attending university. Me and my friends went up to New Hampshire into a “notch” which is kind of a valley region in the mountains. And it was around Thanksgiving. A bit cold, with light snow, but not yet fully Winter.
And we were young and drunk and doing stupid stuff as 20-somthing young adults tend to do.
And so we broke into a outside region of rocks streams and crevasses. It was a very beautiful area, and in the Summer must have been glorious. You go up and down ladders climbing around the rocks and boulders. But it was closed because it was far too dangerous for people to be around there.
But we were young and stupid and so we broke into the park and started to go though the entire course. So many frozen wooden ladders, and ice and snow covered everything. With three and five story drops, and frozen deep ponds everywhere. Truly a treacherous place to be.
And yeah, when we finished the path, we found the police waiting for us.
They read us the “riot act”, abut it really didn’t hit me until ten years later.
I suppose most of my classmates forgot about this incident, but I didn’t. We were fools, and could have died. Really.
Don’t be a fool.
Don’t be like I was.
Today…
Trump’s ‘US First’ Doctrine in Latin America
The Donald Trump administration is implementing a foreign policy designed to assert exclusive control over the Western Hemisphere through force while eliminating China’s influence. Within just a couple of weeks of assuming office, the President compelled Canada and Mexico to comply with his terms under tariff threats, pressured Panama to withdraw from the Belt and Road Initiative, and reinstated more aggressive policies against Venezuela and Cuba. I had accurately foreseen these moves before his inauguration, and they align precisely with expectations. Trump is effectively reviving a 21st-century version of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine has long been a fundamental principle of American foreign policy, dating back to President James Monroe. Observing the fragmentation of Spanish territories in North America into a collection of independent nations, Monroe declared that the Western Hemisphere would be the exclusive “backyard” of the United States. He asserted that the U.S. would actively oppose any intervention by foreign powers—such as Britain and France—in the region.
In essence, the United States established its dominance over the Americas as a cornerstone of its national security and strategic interests. Over time, it has consistently employed diplomacy, regime change, and even military force to uphold this position, seeking to remove governments deemed hostile or adversarial to U.S. influence. This principle has underpinned American containment strategies, particularly toward Cuba, and has driven numerous conflicts and regime changes. Although this approach was somewhat relaxed in the post-Cold War era due to a lack of serious geopolitical rivals, it has resurfaced with the onset of renewed global competition, starting with Trump’s first administration.
While Trump’s actions may appear erratic, impulsive, and reckless according to mainstream media narratives, they are in fact guided by a clear strategic objective: leveraging American power to force regional nations into compliance with U.S. preferences and interests while systematically eradicating China’s foothold in the Western Hemisphere. This strategy is particularly intertwined with protectionist policies, which emphasize that the region should primarily serve American economic interests. Furthermore, the U.S. aims to exercise complete control over regional supply chains, particularly in critical minerals. This logic also explains the U.S. interest in Greenland, an issue that may seem irrational but is deeply rooted in strategic considerations.
Such protectionist measures were already hallmarks of Trump’s previous presidency. He insisted on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to include a “poison pill” clause, stipulating that the U.S. could unilaterally exit the agreement if any member nation entered a free trade deal with a “non-market economy” (namely, China). In these economic disputes, the balance of power overwhelmingly favors Washington. The U.S. remains the largest and most influential economy in the region, acting as the primary consumer, while Mexico and Canada rely heavily on exports to America. When the U.S. imposes demands, it often secures rapid compliance.
In advancing these conflicts, Trump’s approach frequently involves dramatic exaggerations—if not outright misleading claims—regarding issues such as the fentanyl epidemic, border security, and the false assertion that China has militarily occupied the Panama Canal. These narratives resonate with his support base, which embraces a “MAGA Imperialist” ideology, as I have previously discussed. The notion of U.S. territorial expansion is not entirely taboo within this political framework. Consequently, Trump openly regards certain nations as subordinates, vassals, or even potential future territories of the United States.
However, taking these claims at face value overlooks the broader policy logic behind them. Marco Rubio, who leads Trump’s State Department, operates with a more strategic mindset. Within a week, he successfully orchestrated Panama’s withdrawal from China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This development signals the administration’s broader agenda: a determined effort to roll back Beijing’s influence in Latin America. Similarly, the U.S. will likely pressure Canada and Mexico to prevent them from becoming conduits for Chinese access to the American market or strategic mineral resources. Parallel to this, Rubio is expected to escalate hostility toward Cuba and Venezuela.
In summary, the United States views the Western Hemisphere as its exclusive domain and sphere of dominance. This region will serve as the foundation of American economic strategy, with the administration working to integrate it into a U.S.-centric trade system, reinforced by protectionist policies that systematically exclude foreign competitors.
Is it realistic to shift manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?
The jobs have been shifted back to the US, but, unfortunately, the manufacturers are learning a bitter lesson.
Today’s Generation E, young people won’t do any job where they might get their hands dirty.
I live two miles from a community college. One of my favorite programs there leads to an Associate’s Degree certifying graduates to install and maintain robots. The maximum cost to earn this degree would be $10,000 however some of the classes are free—government grants. The jobs are full time with benefits–$25/hour. There is one serious problem—very little interest. The class sizes run 3-4 students.
There is a mechatronics program at Gateway Community and Technical College in Northern Kentucky. Mechatronics is a mixture of skills: electronics, mechanical engineering, and computer technology. The state of Kentucky and local industries have invested millions. They have the capacity to train 200. They graduated 27 students last spring—no interest. Local industries are not happy.
There is a community college nearby, Cincinnati, where with 400 hours of training over a year’s time, a young person could be making $21/hour as a CNC programmer. Hardly anyone is interested.
These jobs are stigmatized. Instead of getting trained for a job that will pay $25/hour, teenagers choose to go to college and major in something like puppeteering, with the understanding that they reserve the right to whine, endlessly, about their student loans.
PS
As you can tell, this “burns me up.” For the record there is a GAO study that shows 22% of recent college grads make $12-$16 per hour.
China’s AI hospitals will transform medicine across the world. But not in the United States.
Indian Roast Turkey
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 (8 pound) turkey
- 1 pound butter
- 6 green cardamoms
- 1 pound cream cheese
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons ground coriander
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon turmeric
- 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander leaves
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
- Salt
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 425 degrees F (225 degrees C/Gas 7).
- Starting at the neck end of the turkey, use the point of a knife to make a small slit between the skin and meat, taking care not to cut the skin. Using your fingers, and working from the small cut, gradually separate the skin of the bird away from the breast and leg meat. Do not remove or cut the skin: the idea is to create a pocket which can be filled with the cream cheese stuffing. Set the turkey aside.
- Melt half the butter, then cool it slightly, if necessary, as it should not be hot enough to melt the cream cheese.
- Split the cardamom pods, scrape out the tiny seeds and add them to the cream cheese; discard the pods.
- Mix the melted butter into the cream cheese, then add the garlic, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, cumin seeds, grated ginger and ground cinnamon. Season to taste, mix well and stir in the chopped coriander leaves and mint.
- Spoon the cream cheese stuffing into a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle and carefully insert it between the skin and leg meat of the turkey. Squeeze the mixture into the pocket between the meat and skin, carefully patting it and spreading it to ensure that it covers the flesh evenly. Repeat the process to cover the other leg and the breast meat.
- Place the prepared turkey in a roasting tin.
- Melt the remaining butter.
- Cut a piece of muslin large enough to cover the whole bird and soak it in the melted butter. Lay this over the top of the turkey to keep it moist during cooking. If you do not have muslin or very fine cotton, brush the butter all over the turkey and cover with foil.
- Roast the turkey for 2 hours 40 minutes, or until cooked and golden brown. To check that the meat is cooked through, pierce the thick area on the thigh with the point of a knife: the meat should be firm and look cooked and the juices should be clear. If there is any sign of pink meat or blood in the juices, re-cover the turkey with the muslin or foil and continue cooking, then check again after about 15 minutes.
- Remove the muslin and transfer the turkey to a warm serving platter.
- Carve the turkey and arrange the portions on individual plates.
- Serve immediately.
Will we ever bring manufacturing back to United States?
Speaking as a corporate executive in US manufacturing, the US will not bring manufacturing back as long as Americans continue to shop for the lowest price. Walmart (and other discount) shoppers are the primary reason we don’t have manufacturing here. Americans would prefer to buy cheaper Chinese-made products at Walmart than buy US-made products from a local manufacturer. When Americans are ready to deliberately support the domestic economy, instead of supporting the Chinese and Southeast Asian economy, manufacturing will return.
Now, the reason people are so focused on shopping for the lowest price, is because working-class wages have been flat for 30 years. The typical middle class wage earner doesn’t have the buying power he had when manufacturing was booming in the US.
So, if wages go up, AND if people stop shopping at Walmart, then manufacturing will return.
Tiny happiness
Here’s my tiny lakhouse. Built in the 1920s, It’s been in the family for over 70 years.
Growing up here, the lake was filled with many cottages, similar in size.. a nod to a simpler time.
Today 90% of them have been torn down and replaced with extremely large lake houses, a few of the homes now sport elevators, restaurant worthy kitchens, huge open floor plans, you get the idea, some are very nice and check all the buttons.
As the house is now in my possession, I decided to do an update.
The feedback from some family members was tear it down or add a large addition.
For me it didn’t feel right. I liked it as it was, so I thought I’d try to bring it back as much as I could to a simpler, slightly more nostalgic time.
These are the results. Still working on the interior. 
Can the US bring manufacturing back to America? Is this a beneficial decision?
The annual manufactured goods trade deficit is $1.5 TRILLION. The regulatory environment here has been purposely designed to keep heavy manufacturing from returning. The loss of income tax contributions from all those jobs in and directly supported by manufacturing is around $700 billion annually, which would have covered the federal spending deficits before Biden’s (or Obama’s) spending binges. Chinese exports to us are produced at what would be well below our COP if made here because of the way they structure their industries, absence of regulatory costs vs. ours, and control of their currency’s internal value. The yuan’s Purchasing Power Parity vs. the USD is 3.5 vs. the USD, meaning things that cost $100 to make in China would cost $350 if made here. And then there’s the VAT subsidization China and all of our major trading partners employ that gives them a huge COP advantage.
Would ending that trade deficit be beneficial? Probably not to our Elite investment class whose portfolios would earn significantly less if invested in U.S. manufacturing done with well-paid American workers in plants that must meet stringent pollution and worker safety and health controls.
China is mass producing endangered fish and wrecking European caviar markets
Is it realistic to shift manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?
Yes it is.
General Motors seems to be an outlier as they continue to produce crapulous cars that have to be sold at a loss. Honda builds cars within commuting distance of my house. TS Tech builds the seats for Honda North America in a factory that is 1 1/2 miles from my front door.
You can’t force the grandchild of the equally crapulous Chevy Vega on Americans as we can go down the street to the Honda shop and buy a Civic. The Civic is as boringly reliable as a sunrise. Every morning the sun comes up in the east, every morning a Civic will get you to work. A Chevy Cruze in the other hand is known for its maintenence issues.
We have to build good stuff, not junk. We need to realize that consumers have the choice. We also need to teach the young that a job repairing robots in a car factory is a good thing. The pay will be high enough to support a family and isn’t beneath them.
If you buy a Honda Accord Coupe in England or Japan it came from Ohio. The same thing with an M class Mercedes. It also comes from the USA.
Proof: “USAID” Created by . . . . . . . EXECUTIVE ORDER
A big bru-ha-ha is developing over the ongoing audit, and disclosures of astonishing corruption, from the US Agency for International Development, known as USAID. Members of Congress are squealing that President Trump cannot be doing what he is doing. They appear to be factually wrong.
It turns out that USAID, was created by EXECUTIVE ORDER issued by then-President John F. Kennedy.
What one President does by Executive Order, another President can change by Executive Order.
The administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson marked a revitalization of the U.S. foreign assistance program, signified a growing awareness of the importance of humanitarian aid as a form of diplomacy, and reinforced the belief that American security was linked to the economic progress and stability of other nations.
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States provided economic assistance to European nations to aid in their reconstruction, and extended security assistance to these and other nations as a bulwark against a perceived communist threat. The mechanisms for deploying this assistance were spread over several government agencies and, as a result, problems arose concerning the coordination of these efforts.
Kennedy sought both to improve the administration of U.S. assistance and refocus aid to meet the needs of the developing world. In September 1961, Kennedy signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (Public Law 87–195), which mandated the establishment of a single agency for the coordination of foreign assistance. The Agency for International Development (AID)—established under Executive Order 10973—assumed responsibility for the disbursement of capital and technical assistance to developing nations. AID symbolized Kennedy’s invigorated approach to fostering the economic, political, and social development of recipient nations.
Below is the Executive Order signed by President Kennedy on November 3, 1961:
Is it realistic to shift manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?
There are two significant obstacles to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US.
- Americans have made a sport out of finding the lowest possible price for everything they want to buy. This behavior definitely puts pressure on us to keep manufacturing in China.
- Corporate capitalism is keeping wages low for the working (consumer) class. This is why Americans have made it a sport to find the lowest price.
If Americans change their behavior—making a sport out of finding domestic-made products instead of finding the lowest price—the manufacturing jobs can return.
Not until then.
Americans Are Flocking to RedNote – The TikTok Alternative Changing Social Media!
Is it possible to bring back manufacturing jobs to the USA?
No it’s not.
Not only do we not have the real estate to build the factories, rehabilitating abandoned factories would be expensive since so much toxic waste has been allowed to leach into the ground. They are also not designed or constructed to support the kind of modern manufacturing used today. We could not, for example, build the same kind of iPhone plant as the Chinese have and reach their cost of production. If you can’t build a product for a competitive price, then why are you building it at all when you can source it from the low cost builder under license?
In addition, we don’t have the workers and we have dismantled most of the vocational education required to teach people how to be machinists, engineers, etc.
The abandoned Packard Factory in Detroit is probably the largest abandoned building in the world.
Do you think the US is going to be able to re-start the many abandoned steel mills dotting the country? Steel is a dirty, difficult to make product and requires enormous volume to achieve low cost of production. And while Kaiser was the first major steel to close in 1972, many followed. The Youngstown Steel Sheet and Tube collapse in 1972 was an unimaginable horror at the time but it was followed by one plant after another.
Even if these plants could be restarted, Arcelor still uses 1/100th the number of employees to make more steel than these inefficient, slow and costly plants ever did.
Lavrov vs. Rubio On Multipolarity
I have lauded Marco Rubio’s view which declared that the short period of a unipolar world has come to an end.
The new Secretary of State had said:
“So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet.”
If find that a much better concept than the ‘rules based order’.
There are however different flavors of multipolarity.
The one Rubio likely thinks of is one in which might makes right. Several ‘big dog’ countries are sharing the globe, avoiding each other, while a number of small nations must do as they are told by whatever big power that can make them do so.
Witness the recent interactions between the U.S. and Colombia, Panama, Mexico and Canada. The Trump administration has threatened these countries with tariffs and other measures. After it had got what it wanted it pulled back at least a part of the threat (tariff). Unless it meets strong resistance it will repeat doing that again and again.
Another flavor of multi-polarity, one which Russia and China will likely support, is acknowledging that all countries, big or small, have equal rights. This is the base of the United Nations system which was born during allied talks in Yalta and Potsdam at the end of World War II.
Sergei Lavrov, the long term Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, is arguing for upholding it:
The UN Charter Should Become the Legal Foundation of a Multipolar World – Global Affairs, Feb 4 2025
Eighty years ago, on 4 February 1945, the leaders of the victors of World War II―the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain―opened the Yalta Conference to determine the contours of the postwar world. Despite ideological differences, they agreed to eradicate German Nazism and Japanese militarism. The agreements reached in Crimea were reaffirmed and elaborated upon at the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945.One result of the negotiations was the creation of the United Nations and the approval of the UN Charter, which to this day remains the main source of international law. The Charter set forth goals and principles for countries’ international behavior, which are designed to ensure their peaceful coexistence and sustained development. The principle of states’ sovereign equality laid the foundation for the Yalta-Potsdam system: none may claim dominance, as all are formally equal regardless of territory, population, military capabilities, or other metrics.
…
It was at the UN that, with a key role played by the USSR, the foundation was laid for the multipolar world that is now emerging before our eyes.
…
As Russian scholars rightly note, any international institution is, above all, “a way to limit the natural egoism of states.” The UN, with its consensus-adopted Charter, is no exception.
With this in mind Lavrov set out to criticize Marco Rubio’s (and Donald Trump’s) word-view.
Lavrov is specifically aiming at Rubio’s January 15 Opening Remarks Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rubio stated in these:
So while America too often prioritized the global order above our core national interest, other nations continued to act the way nations have always acted and always will: in what they perceive to be their best interest. And instead of folding into the post-Cold War global order, they have manipulated it to serve their interests at the expense of ours.
…
The post-war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us. And all this has led to a moment in which we must now confront the single greatest risk of geopolitical instability and of generational global crisis in the lifetime of anyone alive and in this room today. Eight decades later, we are once again called to create a free world out of the chaos, and this will not be easy. And it will be impossible without a strong and a confident America that engages in the world, putting our core national interests once again above all else.
Eight decades after the declaration of the UN Charter Rubio has set out to demolish it. He rejects the ‘principle of states’ sovereign equality’ and replaces it with an ‘America First’ and might makes right order.
Lavrov is warning, staunchly, that this will lead to chaos:
In 2025, with Donald Trump’s Republican administration back in power, Washington’s interpretation of international processes since World War II has taken on a new dimension, as vividly described to the Senate by new Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 15 January: not only is the postwar world order outdated, but it has been turned into a weapon against U.S. interests. In other words, not only the Yalta-Potsdam order is undesirable; so, too, is the ‘rules-based order’ that had seemed to embody the selfishness and arrogance of the U.S.-led West after the Cold War. “America first” is alarmingly similar to the Hitlerite slogan “Germany above all”, and a wager on “peace through strength” may be the final blow to diplomacy. Not to mention that such statements and ideological constructs show not even the slightest bit of respect for Washington’s international legal obligations under the UN Charter.
…
Brazen attempts to reorder the world in one’s own interest, violating UN principles, may beget instability, confrontation, and even catastrophe. Given the current level of international strife, recklessly rejecting the Yalta-Potsdam system, with the UN and UN Charter at its core, will inevitably lead to chaos.
(A few years ago the German ‘above all’ slogan was copied by the U.S. Air Force but later pulled back.)
China has a more guarded but similar take. A recent op-ed in a Spanish language newspaper by the Chinese Ambassador to Panama has been taken up as the lead headline in China’s Global Times:
Chinese ambassador to Panama calls on US to ‘learn to respect’ as Rubio visits the country to exert pressure – Global Times, Feb 04 2025
Xu’s article came as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in his first trip abroad since taking office. Rubio aimed to exert pressure on the country concerning its relations with China.Xu wrote that while chanting “Make America Great Again,” the US delegation’s visit to Panama caused a stir greater than a tropical storm.
…
In the international community, all countries are equal and have the right to independently develop diplomatic relations. No one has the right to dictate to others or issue commands. If the US wants to create the golden age of the Americas, it must first respect other countries and listen to Latin American nations about their vision for the future, Xu wrote.
The Trump administration’s version of multipolarity is incompatible with the one China and Russia have in mind. It contradicts the UN Charter.
If that does not change we will be in for a big clash.
/Sidenote:/
Under pressure from Rubio Panama declared that it would not renew its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This was lauded as Rubio’s victory.
However there were only three BRI projects ever in Panama:
Panama is contracting with Chinese companies for a fourth bridge over the Panama Canal, as well as a third line for the Panama City mass transit system.China has also submitted a $4.1 billion proposal to build a 391-kilometer (243-mile) high-speed rail line from Panama City to the town of David near its border with Costa Rica — a project to be carried out under the rubric of the Belt and Road.
After some planing hustle the fourth bridge over the Panama Canal is finally being build. The third line for Panama city was and is however a Japanese project. The high-speed rail line from Panama City to David is not economically feasible. Five years after the initial plans its construction has not even started. It is unlikely to ever being build.
Neither Panama, nor China, will thus lose anything from Panama’s BRI retreat.
Rubio’s ‘victory’ in Panama was pure propaganda.
/End sidenote/
Posted by b on February 4, 2025 at 16:52 UTC | Permalink
Is it possible to return manufacturing jobs back to the USA?
It’s feasible, but it’s also contingent on your economic model. If your economic model prioritizes corporate socialism, i.e. the government supporting favored companies, but letting them otherwise operate privately, and squeeze as many dimes and nickels as possible, as profit, etc., then the answer is “not so much”. If your economic model prioritizes national self-sufficiency and the government gets more directly in the business of producing things, including housing to keep housing cost down for workers, then your labor cost can be lower. The Chinese have done this successfully since the 1990s. It’s not a coincidence that so many jobs left not only the West, but also other eastern countries, like Japan and Korea, for China.
ignorant westerners like to laugh about some Chinese person that makes the equivalent of maybe $3000 per month (a good month).. they live pretty comfortably on that and in an apartment of equal or greater luxury. it’s not about the dollars you’re getting – it’s about you’re buying power. Nobody cares if you earn 100 K if you’re living the same lifestyle as a Chinese dude that makes 40 K equivalent. Who cares? It’s irrelevant. It just means you’re country has spiraling costs. But! That suits the purposes of people who are invested in owning your real estate. So you have stagnating wage relative to inflation and even going quite negative relative to the cost of housing. It’s no wonder your middle-class shrinks year on year since the 80s
All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet | John Pinette Comedy
Is it realistic to shift manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?
From the other answers, two things are clear: people are quite confused about jobs, and people have a very compartmented understanding of their dual roles, those being worker and consumer. To try and shed a little light on these issues, I would submit the following:
First, the idea of the “job” is fairly recent. Until the second industrial revolution, back in the 1800’s, there was no such thing as a job. The vast majority of people made things and sold them, raised crops and sold them, or they were indentured (or enslaved), and did what they were told in return for bread, bed, and a chance to learn a trade so that they too could then make or grow things to sell.
The job was invented so as to support the new technologies of the industrial age, and for around a hundred years or so, it worked quite well, generally, as a means for distributing the surplus produced by the collective activities of the population. People came to accept that a person should earn their share of the wealth being produced by the country by getting a job and working hard at it. Later on, as the jobs became more technical and less physical, people accepted that getting a good education was also required. Today, people have completely forgotten that all these beliefs about what life should be (go to school, get a job, get promoted, save for your retirement, etc.) are entirely arbitrary! Those who came before us made this up out of whole cloth.
The problems of income inequality we are seeing today result mainly from the new reality that the output of the nation, and in fact, the world, no longer needs the efforts of all the able-bodied in order to be produced. In the past, the primary limitation on the output of the world was the number of people who could be enlisted in the work that produced that output, so there was a balance of sorts, that helped ensure that pay for work was fair and would support the worker in an ever increasing standard of living. Not so today. Today, the primary limitations on the size of the output of the world’s economy are the amount of capital a firm can bring to bear, the availability of scarce resources that go into production, and the amount of energy that can be obtained to support that productive effort. Increasingly, the economy needs less and less human effort, resulting in waning power of the workers, which means wages fall, and jobs disappear. We have low unemployment today mainly due to shitty wages at the available positions, which are primarily in the service sector. The gig economy is thriving because it enables many of those who cannot get a good job to make more money than they could working at a fast food joint, their other alternative.
The other issue I commonly see is the compartmented view most people have of their dual roles, which are always in conflict; those being the role of worker, who always wants higher wages for less effort, and consumer, who always wants lower prices and more choices. Most economic policies bear on both these roles, putting people into cognitive dissonance, and so they talk our of both sides of their mouths, depending on which role is being discussed. When the discussion is about jobs, as this one is, people deplore the companies that move production to low wage sites because that reduces job opportunities here as well as putting downward pressure on wages in general. However, shift the discussion to consumption and suddenly the argument is quite different. Now everyone wants lower prices and they complain loudly that they are being overcharged. They deplore a minimum wage hike because that will make the things they buy more expensive. They despise unions because union wages make things more expensive.
I would submit that we are rapidly moving into a post-job world. In the not-so-distant future, the notion that everyone must have a paying job or be discounted as worthless, will be seen as absurd. Arranging an economic system so that it will supply enough good paying jobs so that everyone can have one, when the economic system does not need the work, is stupid.
Today we are beginning to redesign the economic system to better serve the people, which, by the way, is the only reason the economic system should exist. We are so brainwashed by our recent history and our current culture that it is difficult to imagine an economy that does not need all of us working 40 hours a week.
My favorite idea being batted around is the UBI (universal basic income) in which every citizen, rich, poor, or in between, gets a cash stipend sufficient to keep body and soul together, plus access to a free education, and free healthcare. Then, those who choose to do so, can go to work to earn more money. Most people in such a system, will choose to work because they want more than a basic income. This system will let disabled people have the resources they need to live good lives, retired people will be able to live without suffering poverty, and nobody will go bankrupt because they get sick. In such a system, the economy will be stable and reliable because the money that consumers spend will be recycled back to the people to enable them to buy what they need over and over. Such a system need not grow to thrive. It can become stable and renewable, and when new technologies are introduced that free more people from having to work, the UBI can be incrementally increased, the hours that must be worked in a job can be reduced, and so the standard of living increases for all. Those who want to struggle to gain wealth will still have ample opportunity to do so, while those who just want to focus on their families and their communities will be able do do that.
It will take several generations to get us to such a new economy, and the struggles to overcome our collective cognitive dissonance will be considerable. Very exciting though.
Be well…and do the right thing.
Tom
USAID: “Money Laundering?” “Overthrowing Governments?” Democrat Slush Funds?”
The situation with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is exploding into public view today. The reality, and the fact-based revelations, are both horrifying and stunning.
The chart above shows the money funneled by USAID to just ONE entity: Bill Kristol’s “Defending Democracy” organization.
If ever you wondered why Bill Kristol, allegedly a “Republican” and former Editor of “The Weekly Standard” was so adamantly opposed to Donald Trump, you can look at the chart above and realize, he was being PAID big bucks through USAID, to . . . keep the status quo? Keep an “outsider” out? All speculation, but it does make a lot of people wonder.
This is what the network for “Defending Democracy Together Institute” looks like. The graph represents grants from various USAID-affiliated Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) flowing to Kristol’s non-profit:
The circle at bottom, with Employer Identification Number (EIN) 831567380, is Bill Kristol’s “Defending Democracy.”
Tracing the actual funds is a staggeringly enormous task, but it is being accomplaished.
According to once source, who is personally involved in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is auditing everything “48 vCPUs are maxed-out, curating the USAID grant network for every single EIN. It will take a while (~12 hours). Which is fine, it gives time to prettify it in the morning.”
As the computers crunch all the data – and it is an utterly enormous amount of data, they are finding all the paperwork for all the money distribution. In just ONE transaction to Bill Kristol’s “Defending Democracy” andother Foundation “Hopewell” distributed two million dollars to Kristol’s group! Here’s a screenshot of that:
That’s just ONE transaction. Look at the chart above and now try to imagine how much MORE got funneled in from all those other entities! And *****ALL***** of it, coming from American Taxpayers, through funding to ****ALL**** those groups, by USAID.
Now you know how the political class stays awash in cash money. It comes from sources like USAID, which bulldozes cash out the door under the guise of “International Development.”
Many people who have looked at the chart above, tell me it appears TO THEM to be a “Money Laundering Operation.”
Others are saying “The only reason why you need to have a system complex like this is you are trying to hide something.”
The graph above is also called “structuring” by people that prosecute money laundering. The bottom left EIN (..1860) is Hopewell, a non profit slush fund run by “Arabella Advisors.” The big three Arabella fund donors are Bill Gates, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Why is so-called “Conservative” Bill Kristol, getting money from folks like THEM?????
Can anyone who sees this believe that Bill Kristol is actually any kind of “conservative?” He’s being fund by the leftist of left-wing sources!
Does the phrase “controlled opposition” come to mind?
One source told me “Money laundering shown as a flow chart. The picture is indeed worth a thousand words! ”
Remember folks, this is just one of MANY Organizations . . . . and they’ve been doing this for DECADES all while blocking any attempt at forcing transparency.
Moreover, they couldn’t have done this without help from politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle!
Looking at this mish-mash of money flow, it seems to me, in my personal opinion, the complexity is intended. If this wasn’t the government, we would be insisting on RICO indictments. In fact, maybe we should.
In my view, this is starting to look worse than any MAFIA in the world.
It’s designed to be a labyrinth so confusing that even GPS would need therapy after trying to find its way out.
The more complex they make the interconnections, the more difficult it is to locate the corruption.
This is how shell companies work to avoid paying taxes. Creating a complex web such as this only solidifies that the actors know they were doing something nefarious and would like to avoid detection. But when this is done by the very government responsible for prosecuting crime, will there be any prosecution that follows?
Whatever ultimately comes out of this, one thing is now crystal clear:
This is worse than 9/11 for Democrats. USAID is the primary vessel they use to achieve their political agenda. USAID is — and always has been — the primary source of funding for their influence peddling schemes and for their indirect sources of income. USAID is how they accomplish their nefarious social engineering, overthrow of foreign governments, politicizing the legal system, and crushing dissent.
As more and more details emerge from the DOGE computers now crunching all these transactions and exposing the money flows, the level of squealing we begin to hear will rise.
Politicians are already out in public screeching that shutting off the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is “cutting off food to starving people.” No. It’s not.
What we will now be hearing is the corrupt, trying to cover what they’ve been doing. Don’t be fooled.
Is it realistic to shift manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?
No.
It might be realistic to shift manufacturing back to the U.S., and it might possibly (but probably not) be possible to increase the percentage of the worlds manufacturing jobs that the U.S. has. But the actual number of manufacturing jobs, both in the U.S., and in the rest of the world is going nowhere but down.
150 years ago, most people in the U.S. worked in agriculture. The number of agriculture jobs shrunk until by 50 years ago the agriculture sector had less than 2% of the U.S. jobs. The U.S. produces more than enough food with less than 2% of its labor force. The number of agriculture jobs in the U.S. is still slowly shrinking, and is never ever going to grow above 2% again, let alone the 50% it was in previous centuries.
The same thing is happening with manufacturing jobs. I would not be surprised if 100 or 200 years from now less than 2% of the potential U.S. labor force is engaged in manufacturing. And that the U.S. manufactures most of what it needs within its own borders. But the factories are going to be automated. Manufacturing probably will come back to the U.S. Manufacturing jobs, will continue to vanish.
Panic in global metals markets as China rare earth export bans close brokerage hubs
Can the US bring manufacturing back to America? Is this a beneficial decision?
The short answer is no, manufacturing is never coming back to America in the way we had it in the 70′s and 80′s. Those manufacturing jobs all disappeared and went overseas for one extremely simple reason: capitalism. The other thing that plays a big role is international trade deals such as NAFTA, TPP, and so on. In a capitalist economic system, corporations are only focused on cutting costs and maximizing profits. Whatever is the cheapest and most profitable, is what they do, in every situation, no matter what. This includes breaking the law or skirting around regulations, because it very often ends up saving them more money to break the law. Even if they get caught, they very rarely get anything more than a proverbial slap on the wrist, and a monetary fine that’s a literal pittance compared to the company’s annual revenues. When you look at other developing nations, such as Mexico or Indonesia, you can see from their currency exchange rate that companies are saving MASSIVE amounts of money by relocating their manufacturing to those countries. If they actually followed through and shut down their operations overseas and moved their production back onshore, it would simply cost them too much money for it to ever be feasible, in any scenario. The only way those jobs are coming back is if it somehow ends up being cheaper to produce items here in the US than it is in Mexico, Indonesia, Taiwan or wherever else, and the math just ain’t mathing, as the kids say. They will never bring those jobs back to the US, ever. Tariffs be damned, LOL. Trump is blowing smoke up people’s asses when he insists his tariffs are going to “bring back” manufacturing jobs. If that was the case, why didn’t the jobs come back after his first term in office and the tariffs and trade war he did then? It honestly makes zero sense. Tariffs are a way of adding costs to a company when they’re importing or exporting products, and again, when companies are only focused on profits, how would higher costs induce them to bring jobs back here to the US? It makes no sense. I would bet $50,000 of my own money that ZERO manufacturing jobs will be coming back after this Trump term, much the same as the last time he was in office, and similar to the coal jobs he insisted he would “bring back” as well. I’m from the Appalachian part of eastern KY and I can assure you, there has been little to no change in the number of coal company jobs here in KY, if anything, they’ve gone down in the past few years. Trump’s stupid trade policies are not going to bring back jack shit, LOL. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but, also people could just take a look at the numbers from Trump’s first term in office to see that tariffs have absolutely no impact on the number of manufacturing jobs in the US, and in fact, none of Trump’s policies have improved anything with respect to those numbers. The only thing he’s capable of doing is crashing the economy and causing prices to skyrocket from the tariffs and his other bad policies.
Technomancer 2: Monterrey Monster
Submitted into Contest #280 in response to: Write a story that includes someone (or something) saying, “No, don’t!”… view prompt
KC Foster
“Masa Gomez. Are you going to turn me in now?” she said, keeping her head hidden.
“No.” Leron sighed. He sat silently for a time before continuing, “Matias is a good man. The bandits killed over half of us. We had to bury them this afternoon including the kid’s mother. Matias…he….he’s just trying to prevent everyone from killing each other. That also happened early on.”
“It’s only been a few days since whatever happened.”
“A lot can happen in a few days.”
Masa looked up at him, “Oh.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. It felt good to be close to someone, anyone.
Leron wrapped his arm around her. “The American Matias killed was keeping us here, but it’s been days. If anyone was coming to rescue us, they would have. Your attempt to shoot him from here shows how dangerous it is to stay. Where did you come from?”
“A small town on the other side of the mountains.”
“Are there more people there?” he asked, his voice filled with hope.
“No. I was the only one who survived.”
“And I thought we had it rough.” He sat for the time, picked up a rock, and began playing with it in his hands. “Do you want to meet the others?” he asked at last.
“No…I don’t know,” she croaked. Masa swallowed back the tears and hid her head once more. Did she? Would Leron allow her to escape if she didn’t? Would she still have to shoot him? Was being with people worth being forced to serve someone like Mattias? She had longed to be around people so badly. And what if she left and the other groups of people were just as bad or worse?
“My parents both died,” he said, breaking the silence. “They heard the sirens and threw me in the refrigerator at their restaurant along with some of the people here.” He began to shake and she looked up and saw the tears in his eyes. “There…There was no room left and it had to be shut from the outside.”
“I’m sorry. I lost my father, too. We were out working on the satellite dish and it collapsed on us. I don’t know what happened to him.”
Leron shook his head, “I can’t believe it all ended so fast.” He sighed and climbed to his feet, “I need to go or they will be wondering where I have disappeared. Will you come with me?”
Masa stared at his open hand. “Will you let me go if I say no?” she asked.
“Won’t say a damn thing.”
“I will stay.” Masa reached up and took his hand. He led her from the shadows and towards the fire.
Matias was warming his hands over the flames, he turned and scowled at Leron. “Where have you been? I was about to send out a search party.”
“This is Masa. She came down from the mountains and wants to stay with us.”
“The community of preppers? Did anyone survive? Are there any supplies left?” he said with an air of desperation. He approached Masa, madness filled his eyes and she backed away, afraid of what he had done earlier. If she couldn’t help him, would he kill her too?
“No, there is nothing left,” Masa lied. She had no intention of telling him about the secret basement beneath the communications center. This man might protect them as Leron said, but she wasn’t going to help him any more than she had to.
Matias grew angry and took hold of her shirt, pulling her close to his face and studying her eyes. “You’re lying,” he seethed. The stench of his breath was sickening.
“Leave her alone,” cried Leron, trying to push them apart.
“Get away, Chico.” When Leron didn’t back down, Matias slapped him out of the way.
“Tell me!” he yelled.
“Let go of me. I’m not lying.” Masa reached for the gun at her waist and considered shooting him point blank. Before she could shoot, Matias released her, throwing her back to the ground. She groaned as the wind was knocked out of her. The brute of a man sighed and returned to the fire. “Find a place for her to sleep then.”
Leron rubbed the side of his face, eyes narrowed with rage. He climbed to his feet and helped Masa back on hers and towards a set of stairs leading down beneath one of the ruined buildings.
“I should have shot him,” she said, “It would have been better for everyone. He really is a monster.”
“Maybe, but every monster has people they protect. In this world, I would rather be protected by a terrible monster than none at all.”
Mother Cat Introduces Newborn Kittens To The Golden Retriever Who Raised Her
Shorpy
HOLY! U.S. Just Started a SHOWDOWN With China: Global Economy to Change Forever
The GDP per capita in China is 1/5 of that of the USA, but how come the average Chinese citizen has a better quality of life than an average USA citizen?
It’s not true
GDP Per Capita of Urban USA is $ 93,460
GDP Per Capita of Urban China is $ 29,112
It’s 3.21 times more not 5 times
Urban China
It’s simple
Most things in China are extremely affordable
Even Housing!!!!
So the Per Capita income of an Average Chinese in a Tier 1 City is 201,200 Yuan a year which is $ 27,000 a year
Healthcare :-
The Average American pays $ 646 a month for healthcare (Individual) and $ 1,516 a month (Family)
This is a whopping 13.36% to 21.32% of Post Tax Salary
This is in addition to employer contribution to premium which is 17% to 29%
The Average Chinese pays 710 Yuan a month for Healthcare (Family)
This is a mere 6% of Post Tax Salary
This ensures that 88% of Healthcare costs of a Chinese family are covered by the State and Employers Insurer
Even without Employer insurance, the State Insurance covers 65.25% of the Healthcare costs of a Chinese Family
Furthermore, the balance payable can be paid across a maximum of 84 Installments without interest in China
Utilities:-
In China, Utilities (Maintenance, Electricity, Heating, Water and Gas) average 936 Yuan a month which averages only 7% of the Take Home Salary
So consumption of 750 Units a month comes to only 414 Yuan ($57.30)
In USA, Utilities (Maintenance, Electricity, Heating, Water and Gas) average $ 15,914 a year which comes to around 12.53% of the Take Home Salary
Consumption of 750 Units a month has a bill of $ 357.85
So even though Per Capita income is 5 times more – the Electricity is itself 6.24 times more in the US
Tuition:-
University Education in China and US make a huge difference
An Average American owes $ 127,632 in Tuition Loans at the time of graduation (Graduate) and all Americans owe $ 1.76 Trillion in Loans to the Federal Government
The Median Starting Salary of an American Graduate is $ 72,753 a year or $ 62,890 a year post taxes and contribution
That’s 2 Years Starting Salary in Debt for a graduate
The Average Chinese owes only 35,000 Yuan in Debt (Graduate) at the time of graduation
The Median Starting salary of a Chinese Graduate is 97,700 Yuan a year and even Internship Stipend is 38,000 Yuan a year
That’s a mere 0.358 Years Starting Salary for a Graduate and only 0.92 Years Starting Salary for even a Trainee
Taxes:-
FICA, State Taxes and Federal Taxes cost an Employee 32.95% of his salary on an Average in USA
Income Tax and Contributions cost an Employee only 11.25% of their salary in China on an Average (Rest is contributory pay)
Chinese pay only 1/3 tax on their income compared to Americans
The Share of Indirect Taxes in USA is 36.26% in 2024 against only 15.80% in 2013
In China, VAT share in indirect taxes is only 20.52%
This is because VAT is waived on 37 essential grocery items and healthcare
Groceries:-
A Family of Four eating 2100 Calories (Adult) a day and 1700 Calories (Kids) spend 352 Yuan a week on groceries
This comes to only 12–15% of the monthly salary
The same in US , costs a family $ 2,300 a month
This comes to around 24% to 33% of the take home salary
This means if a US family can spend only 15% of their salary on groceries, they have to EAT ONLY HALF OF WHAT A CHINESE FAMILY EATS
Here is a quick snapshot
I said Per Capita is 3.21 times right
1 Loaf of Bread, 1 Pound Chicken Breast, Cooking Oil, Butter, 12 Eggs, Lettuce, Broccoli, Mushrooms, Tomatoes
Cost in US (Chicago) – $ 84.60
1 Loaf Bread, 1 Pound Pork, Cooking Oil, Soy Sauce, Haitian Vinegar, 30 Eggs, Bok Choy, Potatoes, Mushrooms, Cherry Tomatoes, Regular Tomatoes , Oyster Sauce
Cost in China (Ningbo) – 119.90 Yuan – $ 16.53
This Grocery Bills relative to each other is a whopping 5 times higher in US and even assuming the per capita differential, US prices are 150% higher!!!!
Thus the Urban Chinese definitely have a better quality of life than the Urban American
They do live in smaller homes (51.7 Square meters vs 90.33 Square meters) but apart from that, everything else is way more affordable
Semi Urban China and US
The GDP Per Capita of Semi Urban USA is $ 68,872 and Semi Urban China is 132,421 Yuan ($ 18,265)
Here the Average American Per Capita is 5 times the Chinese Per Capita
So US Per Capita GDP in Semi Urban US is only 3.77 times higher than Chinese Per Capita GDP
So again Semi Urban Americans are definitely likely to be worse off than Semi Urban Chinese
This is because prices are more than 5–7 times lower in China while GDP Per Capita income is only 3.8 times higher
Rural China vs US
This is where US Citizens are much better off
The GDP Per Capita of Rural USA is $ 56,636 a year against a mere 46,700 Yuan a year ($ 6,441)
The US Per Capita GDP is a whopping 9 times higher than China
So even with a 5–7 times lower cost, Rural Chinese don’t have a better standard of living than Rural Americans
And there are 136 Million Households in Rural China even today
That is Xi Jinping s challenge
Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zimin have done their jobs and ensured Urban and Semi Urban China is ahead of Urban and Semi Urban USA
Xi Jinping is to do his task to ensure Rural China also prospers and surges
He did eliminate absolutely poverty and rise the Per Capita GDP by 8.90% a year for the last 5 years
Still China has quite some work to do on this
No Laughing Matter
Submitted into Contest #280 in response to: Start or end your story with a character asking a question.… view prompt
Pam Brown
“So not just in ordinary conversation?”
“Oh no, there are many occasions where it happens, often involving great numbers of people, whose attention is focused on one or several individuals. They all make the sound together, and it can go on for a long time, or it just comes out in short bursts. And then the proceedings continue as if it never happened. Until the next time.”
He wanted to impress her with some intelligent input, and thought for a moment. “Does it only happen during communication, or is there evidence of it in a visual context?”
“Visual? How do you mean?”
“Erm, not sure. Maybe as a reaction to something observed?”
“Well, yes, you might have something there.”
“Oh, goody! I’m glad I’m able to contribute something useful. I was beginning to develop a slight inferiority complex.”
“Impossible.”
“I know. So, where are we? They react to something they hear or see, and according to you, they do it when one starts it, or several begin it, and others join in.”
She looked at him. “You’ve just hit the nail on the head.”
“That’s got to be another figure of speech. I haven’t hit anything.”
She ignored that. “It affects them when they’ve been exposed to it. What does that suggest to you?”
“It’s an infection?”
“It’s the only explanation.”
Suddenly the door swished open, and a research assistant dashed towards them waving her hands and making the same sounds demonstrated previously by her boss.
“I’ve got it! Hahahaha! It’s called laughing! I’ve got it!” She paused, drew a deep breath and then collapsed on the floor, giggling.
He looked at her in horror. “You’ve been infected! How did that happen? There’s been no physical contact.”
The victim look at him with tears in her large oval eyes. “There doesn’t have to be. You just have to see or hear something…. that…… is…….FUNNY!”
“Funny? What do you mean, funny?”
She frowned. “It’s a kind of concept. I don’t understand how it happens, or why. I just saw something that some humans were doing, and they started this laughing, and I knew it was funny.”
The memory of it started her off again, and they knew they were not going to get any further without being infected themselves.
“We’ve got to quarantine her, and get out of here,” he said urgently. “This could be catastrophic for our civilization. An epidemic like this could wipe us all out.”
She looked at him in horror. “It could be Armageddon, in fact.”
“Armageddon? Wait a minute!” A slow smile began to transform his face. “In that case, Armageddon out of here!”
“What? I don’t understand what you’re saying!”
“I think – I’ve just made a play on words.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?
“Yes, I think it is a sort of funny. What do you think?”
“I like it.” She paused for a moment. “It makes me feel – peculiar – odd – funny, in fact!” She started to laugh, and this time the sound came more easily, and she was surprised at how it amused her. “Yes, that was funny!”
“You see? It’s contagious. I was right!”
The damage was done. They realised that there was nothing their society was going to be able to do for this little planet. It was doomed to destroy itself. The only consolation was that they would probably die laughing.
With a great deal of effort and concentration in between giggles, they programmed in a course for home, and resigned themselves to a period in the contagion tank, which they did not regard as frightening a prospect as they might have otherwise expected.
And as the little craft sped towards the centre of the galaxy, it left in its wake the pealing sounds of laughter which echoed in the spaces between the stars.
Why is China hiding 700 billion dollars?
Is manufacturing returning to the United States?
No, and it never will.
The bourgeoisie try to make it seem like manufacturing is increasing based on some production number. But that is just an issue of increased business, not manufacturing. The capitalist class has no desire to be increase manufacturing as it would only decrease their profits. The best thing for them to do is to import those items that are no longer manufactured here. This increases their profits as their own workforce can then become more profitable as higher type workers.
The bourgeoisie would also have you believe that the manufacturing jobs went overseas. Only capital can go overseas, not jobs. But most of the decline of the manufacturing industry is due to the increases in its own productive ability. As it grows more productive it lowers its percentage of its workforce relative to the overall population.
Looks like you took the capitalist blue pill lie.
Sir Whiskerton and the Great Rodent Roundup: A Tale of Cats, Rats, and Feline Diplomacy
Ah, dear reader, prepare yourself for a tale of intrigue, rivalry, and one very determined cat who proved that brains always beat brawn. Today’s story is one of pest control, power struggles, and a clever plan that saved the farm from both rodents and rogue felines. So, grab your sense of humor and a bag of popcorn (or catnip), as we dive into Sir Whiskerton and the Great Rodent Roundup: A Tale of Cats, Rats, and Feline Diplomacy.
The Farmer’s Frustration
It all began on a quiet morning when the farmer emerged from the barn, his face red with frustration. “Rats! Mice! Rodents everywhere!” he bellowed, shaking his fist at the sky. “This farm is overrun! Sir Whiskerton, where are you?!”
I sauntered over, flicking my tail with my usual air of feline dignity. “Yes, Farmer?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “What seems to be the problem?”
“The problem,” the farmer said, glaring at me, “is that you’re not doing your job! You’re supposed to be a mouser, Whiskerton! A rat-catcher! But all I see is you lounging around on the barn roof while these pests run amok!”
I sighed. “Farmer, I am a detective, not a common barn cat. My talents lie in solving mysteries, not chasing rodents.”
“Well, it’s time you learned,” the farmer said, crossing his arms. “And to make sure you do, I’ve brought in some… reinforcements.”
Enter Bigcat and Catticus
At that moment, the ground shook as a massive feline emerged from the horizon. It was Bigcat—a towering, rotund cat with a swagger that could only come from eating one too many pies (and possibly the baker). Behind him stood his hench-felines: Putter, a scrawny Siamese with a calculating gaze, and Goliath, a muscle-bound oaf who looked like he could bench-press a cow but couldn’t figure out how to open a cat flap.
“Bigcat,” the farmer said, gesturing to the enormous feline. “He’s the best mouser in the county. And this is Catticus, his… uh… general.”
Catticus, a sleek and menacing tabby, stepped forward, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed the farm. “This place is a disgrace,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “But don’t worry. Bigcat and I will whip it into shape.”
I bristled at the insult but kept my composure. “Well, isn’t this delightful,” I said, flicking my tail. “A couple of overgrown alley cats think they can waltz in and take over my farm.”
“Your farm?” Bigcat said, letting out a deep, rumbling laugh. “This farm belongs to whoever can protect it. And right now, that’s us.”
The Plan
I knew I couldn’t take on Bigcat and his gang alone, so I enlisted the help of my friends. Rufus the dog, Porkchop the pig, and even Count Catula agreed to assist me in my plan to rid the farm of rodents—and, more importantly, to get rid of Bigcat.
“Here’s the plan,” I said, gathering my team. “We’ll round up all the rats and mice and send them back to Catnip’s farm where they belong. Once the farmer sees that the pests are gone, he’ll have no reason to keep Bigcat around.”
“But how do we get rid of Bigcat?” Rufus asked, tilting his head.
“Leave that to me,” I said, smirking. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
The Great Rodent Roundup
The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. With Rufus’s keen nose, Porkchop’s brute strength, and Count Catula’s dramatic flair, we managed to round up all the rats and mice on the farm. We even convinced them to return to Catnip’s farm by promising them a lifetime supply of cheese (courtesy of Chef Remy LeRaccoon).
“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Porkchop said, munching on an apple.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I said, flicking my tail. “Now comes the hard part.”
The Showdown with Bigcat
With the rodents gone, I confronted Bigcat and his gang. “Well, Bigcat,” I said, smirking. “It seems your services are no longer needed. The farm is pest-free, thanks to me.”
Bigcat narrowed his eyes. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, Whiskerton? But you’re no match for me.”
“Perhaps not in size,” I said, flicking my tail. “But in wit? Well, let’s just say I’ve got you beat.”
With that, I set my plan into motion. Using a combination of catnip, a well-placed feather duster, and a strategically placed bucket of water, I managed to outsmart Bigcat and his gang. Bigcat, distracted by the catnip, stumbled into the bucket of water, while Putter and Goliath got tangled up in the feather duster.
“This isn’t over, Whiskerton!” Bigcat roared as he slunk away, his tail between his legs.
“Oh, I think it is,” I said, smirking.
The Moral of the Story
As the farmer congratulated me on a job well done, the animals reflected on the day’s events.
The moral of the story, dear reader, is this: Brains always beat brawn, and teamwork makes the dream work. Whether you’re facing a gang of rodents or a rival feline, a little creativity and a lot of determination can help you overcome even the toughest challenges.
A Happy Ending
With the rodents gone and Bigcat vanquished, the farm returned to its usual state of peaceful chaos. The farmer, impressed by my efforts, declared me the official “Mouser in Chief” (though I made it clear that my detective work would always come first). Even Count Catula, ever the drama queen, had to admit that my plan was “brilliantly executed.”
And so, dear reader, we leave our heroes with the promise of new adventures, new challenges, and hopefully, no more rodents or rogue felines. Until next time, may your days be filled with laughter, love, and just a little bit of feline genius.
Onion and Tomato Salad
(Salata Bonjon-e-Rhumi-e-Piaz — Afghanistan)
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
- 2 large tomatoes, thinly sliced
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 1 serrano chile, seeded and minced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Alternate slices of tomatoes and onions on serving platter.
- Mix remaining ingredients except cilantro; spoon over vegetables.
- Sprinkle with cilantro.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Can the US bring manufacturing back to America? Is this a beneficial decision?
manufacturing of common household products is not that important. That should be competitive so we can see would other countries have. It’s the manufacturing of critical components high technical areas that control stuff like the electrical grid communications, military equipment.
the biggest area the hits is the way they move the debt. It’s like the way the energy companies made venezuela dependent on the energy sector when they have one of the largest water sheds in South America then they moved the market and crashed there economy then they starved. The crash of the Venezuela’s economy had nothing to do with the current administration or socialism it was done by the market of the energy sector they installed years ago. They did the same thing to the dollar.
I do not like dealing with the United States globalist insanity. I like the Russia and China. Russia and China runs a proper government according to there economy and conditions. I do not like dealing with the insanity of the globalist United States government or its insane dollar.
Keyu Jin: China Has Prepared For a Bigger Trade War
How economically feasible is it to bring back manufacturing to the USA?
Not at all economically feasible in a free market. Trade is good for all parties otherwise they would not actively participate. Protectionism breaks the free market. It would be far better to create guidelines and preferences instead of demands. US manufacturing has been sold down the river for my entire career and you cannot just bring it back by saying some catch phrases. It needs a real plan and real focused effort acknowledging that it is not a free market when you impose boxes to stay inside the lines. To compete efficiency has to rule and the US labor of the past has no bearing on what new factories are going to look like today. The nostalgic images of putting a wheel on a Model A work because we know the outcome. New assembly robots will have a small staff of nerd types behind keyboards not wearing greasy overalls. If we let the free market rule then laws to protect low end workers need to directly address those violations instead of indirectly. An industry ecosystem has to GROW over time as every part has to be right sized at each stage. Free markets actively adjust. Edicts just make it harder to get back to a free market. Keep in mind shifting from over “there” to over “here” includes customer opportunities and supply issues. Both sides of the profit/loss column.
“Soros Prosecutors?” No. USAID Prosecutors!
Information is coming out today about the Government program “USAID” – the United States Agency for International Development. It appears the Trump Administration has hit the jackpot on money laundering, dirty deeds, unjust prosecutions and more. Trump shut down the USAID Headquarters this morning; all staff told to STAY HOME today.
For years, many of us have heard about “Soros Prosecutors” allegedly helped into office by the “vast Soros Empire” and misused to prosecute certain groups of Americans; namely straight, white Christians. Wellllllllllllllll, this morning, it came out that Soros, is a minor player in the entire, sordid affair.
It turns out that USAID – a cutout for the Central Intelligence Agency – is where all the big bucks have been coming from for so much of the nonsense we’ve been seeing taking place here in the United States.
With the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) now perusing all the expenditures of the US government, they seem to have stumbled across the “un-Holy Grail” of money-laundering and corruption: USAID.
“In the push to prosecute Trump by District Attorney Alvin Bragg in New York City, Soros was a minor co-funder. He gave them $10,000, that’s it! The $14 million he gave to the parent company, the fiscal sponsor of FJP (Fair and Just Prosecution, a nonprofit that supports and influences progressive prosecutors in the U.S.), well, that ain’t shit compared to the $27 million that USAID gave them. Every time you hear the word Soros prosecutor, no, they’re USAID prosecutors.”
This rabbit hole is deep, and winding. The details are just BEGINNING to emerge.
Long story short: Every time you hear the phrase “Soros Prosecutors” you need to change “SOROS” to “USAID.” ANd as this Rabbit hole is probed . . . . it is extremely likely it will turn out to be “CIA Prosecutors.”
The initial impression by people looking at all the factual data, all the money payouts, is that all the legal trouble for President Donald Trump after he left office, SEEMS to have been paid for and caused by: The CIA.
It is starting to appear that the US Central Intelligence Agency, is the axis upon which all the spokes of state and federal legal cases spun. All funded by taxpayer money laundered from the CIA, using US Taxpayer money against the very US citizens who paid it.
This is going to be huge. As the information dribbles out, more and more spectacular evidence is going to become available.
Elon Musk commented about this publicly today. He said:
“As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless.”
It appears the Trump folks already see they will likely have to permanently shut down USAID. But they also see it is THE hotbed for a huge amount of money being shoveled to all sorts of left-wing causes all over the world, and right here inside the USA.
It seems to many people “The Swamp” is starting to be drained.
The US needs $85 billion to build copper mines to replace China’s. Where are the investors?
Thoughts On Musk’s Raid Of USAID
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy from a unipolar view to a multi-polar concept of strong states.
But, as Brian McDonald warns, that does not mean that the U.S. has given up hope of being the biggest dog in town:
A Washington that stops pretending to rule the world and starts playing smart could be a tougher competitor for Beijing and Moscow than the one we’ve seen desperately clinging to a crumbling ‘rules-based order.’ The era of unipolarity might be over, but the game is far from done.
‘The game is far from done’ can also be said about Elon Musk’s raid of USAID:
The Trump administration and its allies moved to tighten control of the U.S. Agency for International Development over the weekend, signaling an intent to act forcefully to bring the U.S. foreign policy apparatus in line with the president’s “America First” approach to engaging with the world.
…
Over the weekend, Musk repeatedly denigrated USAID without offering evidence that those working there were corrupt. On X, he called the long-standing government agency “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”“USAID is a criminal organization,” he added. “Time for it to die.”Established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, USAID oversees a vast portfolio of programs designed to provide humanitarian relief, combat poverty, support global health and more.
The rarely spoken of ‘and more’ part of USAID involves billion of dollars for regime change operations with the help of ‘civil society’ manipulations via U.S. subsidized media and Non-Government Organizations.
The Trump administration will kill parts of that and reintegrate the rest of USAID into the state department. The CIA offshot National Endowment for Democracy (NED) will likely meet a similar fate.
In their current configuration USAID and NED are under institutionalized congressional oversight. Taking away their independence by putting them under executive control will increase the White House’ power. Neither is likely to completely stop their dirty work but it will become more difficult to detect and expose it.
Trump’s MAGA is not against doing regime changes in foreign countries. Its main beef with USAID is about its abuse by the Democrats which pushed it to promote their ideologies and to incite foreign societies against Trump.
In a world where the U.S. is no longer trying to be the unilateral power, regime change may not longer be needed that much. In a multi-polar world the U.S. does no longer need to create and confront adversaries but can restrict itself to coerce allies to pay up via tariffs, weapon sales or otherwise. Pax Americana may well become Tax Americana.
What was previously produced in America, but have moved production to China? And why isn’t it produced in America anymore?
In summary, stuff that you need enormous amounts of, that’s not safety critical, that requires a large amount of low-skilled manual assembly, that can be 100% quality tested upon arrival in the US if necessary, and that is cheap enough vis-a-vis comparable US products that you would still come out on top if you ended up scrapping 50% of it upon arrival.
I realize this sounds a bit flippant.
I was in supply chain management for a decade or so, dealing primarily with factory relocations (both moving production lines to the US and outsourcing component production to where ever it needed to go).
One of the things that hardly anyone seems to understand is how outsourcing decisions are made and where manufacturing is relocated to based on what criteria, so allow me to paste together several posts I’ve made on the topic on social media to explain that process in greater detail, because China really isn’t the problem when it comes to moving production abroad.
To be clear, I’m not talking about customer service call centers, those are a no-brainer–most of your cost is labor, so wherever you have to pay people that speak the correct language least is where you go. I believe there’s a whole cottage industry in Central America now where undocumented workers deported from the US are finding relatively high paid work in call centers if they speak English (and can therefore handle customer service for the United States). Oh, the irony.
And I’m not talking about things such as garment manufacturing, where again most of the cost is labor and while it is a variety of skilled labor, it generally doesn’t require any formal education and never paid well enough even when it was still done in the US.
Let’s talk about skilled industrial manufacturing. The kind of manufacturing that requires a formal education and quite a bit of on-the-job training and an extraordinary level of skill in some cases. That’s the kind of manufacturing you want because it pays very well and offers lifetime employment.
In that kind of manufacturing, very generally speaking, your cost should be around a 60/40 split, where around 60% is material, and 40% is labor. Lean operations will probably run around a 70/30 or better.
(The example shipping/labor rates etc are based on 2013, which is when I got out of that line of work.)
So, say you produce a Doodad the cost of which is $1000, and you’ve chopped away at your material cost as far as you can (because you would always look at your biggest expense first) and you’ve introduced every lean manufacturing practice that makes sense, so your material cost per Doodad is $700, and your labor cost is $300.
And this is where you hire me to do an outsourcing analysis.
Here is how that works:
The first questions I ask you are
a) What’s your labor hour rate (this isn’t what you pay your employees, it’s an average derived from factoring in your employee pay, any benefits you pay for, and varying amounts of your overhead, i.e. your cost of doing business) — in this case $30, just to keep the math simple
b) Can your material sources be changed without incurring significant cost (most often the answer is no)
Maybe you’ve already identified potential contract manufacturers, maybe I find them for you, and then I take your product and I quote it out.
So let’s say, after lots of quoting and engineering evals and sending your QM team around the globe to check out potential suppliers, I’ve found this great contract manufacturer in China and they say they can build your Doodads for $195, at an internal labor rate of $15, plus three extra hours because their equipment is older and they’re not running quite as lean as you are.
Great, right?
Um, no.
Because you’re suddenly incurring a bunch of extra costs:
1) You’ve got to ship your raw material over there. This is probably cheapest if you do it in full container loads, meaning you’re shipping about 6000 Doodads or 6 months worth of material over there at a time. So with your preferred shipping rate of, say, $4000 per container, and a cost of money at, say 5% per year, you/re adding just a touch over 66K to your cost for 6000 Doodads or $11 each.
2) You’re shipping them back on a monthly basis, because once they’re assembled, 1000 Doodads fill a container, so that’s another $4 added to the cost per Doodad.
3) Next, it turns out that you’re going to have to pay duties on your Doodads coming back, and the duty rate on this particular Doodad is 5%, so, add about $45 per Doodad.
4) But because you’re manufacturing in China now, you’ve increased your engineering support and you’re now doing 100% quality inspection, and your averaged labor rate for engineering/quality alone is higher than your averaged labor rate (because those people earn more than your workers), so add 1 hour labor at $60 per Doodad.
5) You’ve also incurred one-time costs of $100K by paying me for the analysis, your quality guys to do a bunch of supplier audits in China and Mexico, your engineers to update all your documentation to be fit for use by a subcontractor, then a trip to send two engineers to China for 2 weeks together with your assembling supervisor and a quality guy to train people over there, which you’re going to have to amortize over the first years’ worth of Doodads. After that, you’re only going to have to pay 10K a year for two supplier audit trips.
So, your total cost per Doodad is now approx $1025 during the fist year, dropping to $1016 in subsequent years.
Conclusion: you’re not outsourcing your Doodads.
But let’s look at a different scenario for your Doohickey.
Now, you only build 500 Doohickeys per year, and they’re *difficult*. They cost you 20,000 to build and a whopping 12,000 of that is labor because there’s very complex metal work involved. You’ve looked at every possible way of reducing that–buying new machines, outsourcing it locally to a shop that already has the machines, etc. etc.–and come up with not very much.
And I look at the Doohickey and it reminds me of a part this shop I know in the Czech Republic built for someone else, so I ask them to quote it. I know their labor hour rate is 70/hr as opposed to your 55/hr, but it’s taking you over 200 hours to build that thing, so if they can shave off some of that, it might work out.
And lo, and behold, the supplier comes back and thinks, as specified, with their machinery and their highly skilled labor force, they can build it in about 170 hours. Now in and of itself, the resulting cost reduction won’t get you anywhere, but then they start asking really good questions, like, “You know that tolerance there that doesn’t seem to serve any purpose? My machinist says that if you can relax that by 5mm, we can make this on an entirely different machine in 160 hours instead,” and “How much are you paying for that part, because my buddy down the road has a foundry that makes castings like that all the time. Can we quote that for you too?” and “While we’re quoting that casting, what do you think of changing the mold right here to get rid off this bit we’re having to machine off?”
And suddenly, you have a quote for your completely assembled doohickey at $17,000 each, even taking into account a somewhat strong Euro. Now, granted, you still have to pay for shipping and duties and there’s a one-time engineering effort of 100K and the new casting mold costs you another 25K, but it doesn’t matter! Because you’re shipping 25 containers of Doohickeys for 100K and at a duty rate of say, 5%, you’re still saving 850K in the first year and 975K every year thereafter. That will accommodate a lot of fx rate fluctuation.
But, you say, let’s take those ideas they all had and run with it and we too should be able to save $3000 per Doohickey, right? In fact, we should be able to save more than that because their labor hour rate is $15 more than ours, and the Euro is stronger, and you’re going to save the shipping and duties.
I’ve been down that rabbit hole more times than I care to remember.
First you figure out that no matter how you try, you can’t manufacture that part on that other machine. Those highly trained skilled guys over in the Czech Republic have some manufacturing mojo you don’t. Now, you can hire a specialist from Europe, but that’s going to cost you a lot and besides, you’re probably not getting an HB1 visa anyway.
You try to outsource to a local manufacturer with better machinery, and they spend 6 months arguing with you about reference values needing to be absolutes (which is impossible) and then, when you’ve changed your damn drawings to get rid of the offending reference values come back with an estimate of 300 hours at substantially the same labor rate you have.
Then you find out that while your casting supplier out in what’s left of steel country on the East Coast can in fact do a new mold like that Czech supplier suggested, any savings you could have realized from that are more or less eaten up by the increased shipping cost (which takes care of the duties as well), because perversely, shipping from the East Coast to California costs more than shipping from Europe to California.
I could go on, but it all leads to the same conclusion: those Doohickeys are going, and they’re not coming back. [At least not unless you’re prepared to make an upfront 20-year investment in education and infrastructure that that same politician is going to decry as welfare and socialism.]
And that right there is the crux of your problem: the kind of artisanal manufacturing that makes money and that could revitalize a manufacturing sector isn’t done in southeast Asia today. You go to China for two reasons: 1) if you need 1 million little parts that cost $1 in the US and $0.25 in China then it makes economic sense to actually quality test 100% upon arrival in the US and throw 50% away for being substandard because you’re still saving money. 2) Parts requiring extensive low-tech manual assembly. And hopefully we can all agree that neither of those is going to revitalize the manufacturing sector.
The real artisanal manufacturing, the kind of manufacturing that requires a very high degree of skill and consequently offers lifetime employment, that kind of manufacturing, isn’t done in low-cost countries–a lot of it is actually done in the Eurozone. You want complex, high-quality castings? Eastern and Southern Europe’s probably where you’re getting them. Forgings? Italy. They invented that shit for God’s sake and they’ve only been getting better at it over that past couple of thousand years. Heavily machined or welded parts? Eastern and Central Europe. The list goes on and on.
There is a way to bring that kind of manufacturing back to the US, which can largely be summarized like this: in order to shorten the lead time to only about 20 years, you aggressively hire a bunch of STEM educators (sourced from abroad and/or private industry if necessary) and pay them enough to actually keep them in the teaching profession. You take a generation of incoming elementary school kids and provide then with a solid STEM education that mirrors that provided in much of the Eurozone. You then get those same kids through college/apprenticeship programs in the chosen fields/industries. Then you pay for them to go to gather work experience in one of the countries that still knows how to do that kind of manufacturing for a few years, and then, when those kids are nearing 30, you’ll have a skilled manufacturing force that can compete with the skilled manufacturing forces elsewhere. The only problem you’ll have at that point is convincing them to actually come back to the US, since they’ll be perfectly qualified to work in countries with higher wages, better benefits, and acute labor shortages.
Alternatively, and possibly more economically feasible, you invest heavily in building a time machine and send agents back to the 60s to prevent the willful destruction of the US manufacturing sector.
Tony can’t be f*cking stopped..
Ending on a high note.