Summary
Trump had to reverse his aggressive tariff rhetoric after CEOs from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot warned of empty shelves and higher prices due to supply chain disruptions.
Investors reacted negatively to his threats against Fed Chair Jerome Powell, prompting a market sell-off.
Trump backtracked, expressing optimism on a China trade deal and now denying plans to fire Powell.
Global markets remain volatile, and the IMF cited Trump’s trade war as a “major negative shock” to global growth.
That’s what fascists do when you stand up to them.
Trump: “Nuh-uh. I won because I have economy-proof armor”
Art of the seal
**Fart
It’s trump so more likely Art of the Shart
🦭💨
The shart of the steal
China should tell us they’ll drop their tariffs by 20% a month until gone barring further impulsive fuckery to dissuade further infantile American shenanigans.
As an American, someone’s got to be the geopolitical adult in the room, and we don’t qualify.
Why would China do anything that helps us pick ourselves up and onto our feet? This is the goal they and Russia have been working towards for decades.
Nah-uh. No blaming China or Russia on this one. The United States did this squarely to themselves with the world pleading otherwise. They inserted their own head in the vice and started spinning the handle.
Sure, it aligns with the communist block’s benefit, but the US really needs to be held accountable for its own idiocy on this one. Its the first step in recovery.
It’s been fucking wild as a resident of a non-us country seeing some of the commentary coming up. We must radical empathy! How dare other countries take advantage of X Y or Z? The shoe is on the other foot, and by GOD is it a problem if anyone but the US starts doing what the US has been doing to everyone else on the planet my entire freakin’ life
We all know they’re propaganda riddled exceptionalists but goddaaaamn. Need to learn to accept cause, effect and consequence
Trump provided China an excellent excuse to start a trade war and look like the heroes while doing it. This is absolutely Trump’s fault, but China has no reason to not take full advantage of it.
That’s true. The US has been interfering in other country’s domestic affairs for decades. Organising the odd coup, overthrowing elected leaders. Suddenly people are shocked to learn that it can work both ways.
A country with strong democratic institutions are pretty resilient to these tactics. You might not trust the politicians, but you trust the officials, the military and the courts.
It seems that the US has dismantled trust in these institutions for a long time. It has let corporations run the show. So Russia and China have an easier task.
A country with strong democratic institutions are pretty resilient to these tactics.
That’s a bit tautological, like “It they could break it, it needed fixing anyway.”
And that’s a bit too much like “If Hitler could invade France, it’s the French’s fault for not fighting back harder.”
Russia has been at war against the American people since Putin and traitorous US oligarchs imposed Trump on us in his first term. It’s victim-blaming to say that’s the American people’s fault.
I’m not sure your allegory is very apt.
Ah, yes, the famous denial of fascists in your own country.
YOU VOTED IN TRUMP WITH A MAJORITY KNOWING HE IS FASCIST.
This is squarely the fault of the American people. Lack of education and political will might be to blame, but to say that you are victims is such a farce that I don’t believe you live in reality.
He won by razor thin margins and many didn’t even vote. So yeah, most Americans are victims here.
TBF we already started it ourselves
it aligns with the communist block’s benefit
Neither Russia nor China are communist anymore. Russia is run by corrupt capitalists and has been since the 1980s, and the only thing Communist about China is the name of the totalitarian party that runs its government, which consists of a mix of state-funded and private capitalist enterprise.
China is very much a socialist economy
China is very much a socialist economy
Really? The workers control the means of production? From here, it looks like state capitalism augmented by inconsistently regulated private enterprise (which sometimes leads to the entrepreneurs disappearing when they’ve neglected to grease the correct set of Party palms).
The workers control the means of production?
More than 60% of the Chinese economy is state owned and controlled, and as of I think a year ago they democratized Chinese company structures by mandating assemblies of employee representatives. The state having majority control and direction of the Chinese economy and market is the primary complaint of western trade partners, I don’t know why people are always surprised by this.
I get that people really do not like the authoritarian aspects of the Chinese government, but state-controlled economies are pretty much the exact intent behind ‘worker-controlled means of production’ in marxism.
Socialism isn’t just when the government does things. In between workers and the state needs to be a free and functioning democracy.
Oh so we’re denying that Russia and China led disinformation campaigns squared solely at disrupting American politics for decades? Are we also ignoring the Murdochs from Australia?
Just wanted to get that straight before I started saying whatever the fuck I want.
I don’t see anybody stopping you from saying anything you want to say, so stop playing the victim.
Trump is a uniquely American problem. You guys either elected him, or didn’t care enough to vote. Shit, his popularity is still almost 50% now even after he destroyed the economy.
Your argument is that the American people are so stupid that they were manipulated by foreign actors (TWICE) into electing an obvious fuckwit.
Well, ok, if you insist,
Didn’t realize a stagnant 40% means almost 50%, what a lesson in math!
Hahahha fucking scomo got lower than that, and his chief crime was being an unlikeable cunt and about half as incompetent. jesus christ america where the fuck are your heads
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Your argument is that the American people are so stupid that they were manipulated by foreign actors (TWICE) into electing an obvious fuckwit.
You underestimate the power of propaganda.
And you underestimate the disadvantage of an uninformed and disinterested electorate, a politically chosen Supreme Court and a political system co-opted to serve corporate interests.
Nope. Those are factors too, some closely aligned to the same sources as the disinformation.
Mate, the Murdoch’s? America’s lap dog newspaper moguls.
They’re you’re mouth piece of shit trying to force Australia to be more like you sepppos
Rupert Murdoch was born in Australia, what even are you talking about?
I’m saying that Murdoch doesn’t work for Australians and our interests. He’s a lapdog of the US
Murdoch has never served the interest of any state. He has relentlessly pursued his agenda, which is to undermine the centrist quasi-democracies in English-speaking countries and to promote nationalist authoritarianism.
And bailed his citizanship the instant the US proved more likely to give him the easily manipulated press he wanted
i believe russia be to blame, it kinda obvious weakeaning america helps putin, it has been his goal for 10years,.
it has been his goal for 10years
Trump was getting fat on Russian mob money since the 1980s, probably as a reward for him ratting out the Italian mob to Giuliani, which created expansion opportunities for the Bratva.
putin ramped up his misinformation, conveniently around the time he was elected , '16-17 on reddit we saw significant purges for the very first time, and peoples sensitivites as massively increased. my very first bans of an og account around that time.
The embarrassing thing is a lot of that disinformation was shared on social media networks that were created in the US.
Creating the tool that your enemy uses effectively against you is not a good look.
And they do it to their citizens too…
…And we do it to other countries and we do it to our citizens.
You can’t condemn another country for what we’ve been actively doing considerably longer than them having never stopped credibly. Our house is made of that candy glass they use in movies in this particular arena.
The oligarchs and their increasingly captured government, including both parties, have been poisoning us against anything that isn’t hyper-capitalist greed enabling from the great depression to the McCarthy witch hunts into today. Very few Americans could define socialism or communism in any sense with a gun to their heads, but they’ve been misinformed into being filled with hate and/or dread when they’re uttered.
Name one world superpower that doesn’t actively engage in mass disinformation campaigns both within and without, I’ll wait. I’d also argue that like our general military, we certainly spend the most on our global Orwell machine. Our CIA, along with the KGB, are the OG playbooks other nations refer to when doing it themselves.
How does that make any of it right? And how does it negate my point?
So far you’ve said a lot of obvious things, none of which refute my point that this end is what Russia and China have been working towards.
I’m saying that you can’t credibly go “you… You fucking shot me! What the fuck?!” at someone who shot you because you shot them a few seconds prior to that.
It doesn’t make it right. It’s wrong. But it’s also a non-sequitur for a serial killer to condemn another serial killer over the sanctity of life.
As an American, Americans have no business condemning other nations about misinformation campaigns until we clean our fucking house up and provide reparations to those both within and without who were hurt by our misinformation campaigns.
As an American, Americans have no business condemning other nations
Yeah, yeah, because there is absolutely no difference in degree between some of the heinous shit the US has done and that practiced on a daily basis by mafia states like Russia, or totalitarians like the jolly old USSR.
Two things can both be bad. And one instance of something bad can be worse than another. That’s nuance. Binary thinking is barely thinking at all.
I have friends who emigrated from Russia in the late 1970s. None of them said that things were worse in the US, despite the US’s many problems.
Having said all that, I agree we have to “clean our fucking house up,” though that might not mean the same thing to you that it does to others.
So what you’re saying is, because America’s government is doing shady shit, American citizens have no right to call out other countries for the shady shit they’re doing?
Since you like your weird conversational analogies, that’s like you saying;
“China gets to shoot whoever the fuck they want because other countries have shot people!”
Two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s a dumb argument. Stop doing it.
Huh? I’m the American government now? I reserve the right to condemn any government, anywhere, for any reason. Especially when they make choices without my consent.
You speak emotionally, betraying that you know very little about the problems that truly need to be solved.
russia maybe, because putins directing trump to do this, more or less it helps russia in the long run.
I’m starting to feel like this is a controversial opinion, but maybe the American people should be the ones holding their own government accountable? Interventionism is the worst way to fix a country and I very much doubt it even could be done for a country like America.
I am hoping the US splits apart, allowing the red states to destroy themselves. Conservatism is a cancer, and the condition would be easier to excise if it was a solid tumor.
Too many innocent people will be taken down as the cult self-destructs.
One way or another, the cult will murder people just because, and will continue to do so until the cult is extinguished. It is better to hasten that by being willing to oppose the regime. Many people are being trafficked by ICE.
We can just show up in ICE uniforms and take them to the free state.
Difficult to argue against, except America is doing this too us as well, and we don’t get a vote.
All the more reason to not do anything about it. Let America implode and their interventionist power also takes a hit.
What “communist” block are you talking about? Is this 1989?
Only if you take what I said very literally. The Chinese and the Russians are concluding, I’m sure you would agree.
Colluding, you mean?
Colliding, colloidally.
Of course, spelling was never my strong suit.
I do appreciate being corrected. Thank you…
“Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.”
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It’s like that t.rex scene in Jurassic Park. It got really scary, there was plenty of damage, but it all worked out in the end. Peak entertainment. 🍿
Well, except if you’re that one guy who got eaten alive. I guess Americans might feel like that.
… Were you dropped on your head as a child?
I’m kinda curious, which part you found so offensive?
… I mostly found your comment pitiable, not offensive.
As in, your metaphor is so crass and demonstrates such a fundamentally unserious approach to understanding reality, that it barely even registers as offensive, and immediately transcends into pity.
If you think this is some sort of… brush off your hands, phew, glad we made it out of that! type situation… if you think the suffering is over, disproportionately for Americans but also for the rest of the world…
This conveys to me that you have an extremely naive and simplistic grasp of how history moves, how international relations work, how fascism works, how economics works… etc.
Thanks for taking the time to analyze my wrecklesly risky comment.
Local Autist at your service, analysis is what my brain is optimized for.
Odd that you thought that sp3ctr4l was offended by your comment, was that your intention? To offend people?
It was a risky comment, and people didn’t like that. Fair enough. Occasionally, taking these kinds of risks produces interesting results though.
What about Jurassic Park worked out in the end? The park got destroyed and subsequently abandoned for decades until the remains were bought out, a new park restarted, that promptly suffered the same fate. Nothing in any of those movies ever worked out.
Exactly. There were only moments of relief between being chased by a t.rex or a bunch of velociraptors. Even when the protagonists ride into the sunset, the seeds of the next disaster are already sprouting.
He’s so useless!
We’ve KNOWN he’s useless!
Get RID OF THIS GUY he SUCKS
How about in 3 years and 8 months we have an election and every one can vote for Nancy Pelosi who has Dick Cheney as her running mate?
You’re naive in thinking that you can have fair elections in 3 years and 8 months.
Tariffs were never meant for anything other than using the us economy to force other countries to bend the knee to Trump himself. Convince me I’m wrong.
You are incorrect, they are also for Market Manipulation.
Why not both?
Because OP wrote “never meant for anything other”
Spinless dipshit reverses course when confronted with consequences. More on this at the top of the hour…
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Spinless dipshit reverses course when confronted with consequences. More on this at the top of the hour…
Hope he starts spinning again
The Trump moron has spin of zero.
That’s actually newsworthy for Trump.
Not really. Like most bullies, he caves as soon as he faces any real resistance.
Agreed.
Normally he would just shit his daiper even more aggressively.
Until Trump and Yarvin are hanging by their ankles, I won’t believe that the United States will get better.
Mussolini got beat to death after his lil foray into fascism.
Fascism only seems to end with the death of their figurehead.
The Portuguese got rid of their fascist junta without waiting for them all to die off, or having to kill them all.
trump for piñata 2026!
Why wait so long?
but he isnt reversing any tariffs? he must be really obsessed with them.
He bas been, which is the wild part. He’s not saying “oh this was a bad idea, whoops” but he is adding all kinds of exceptions all the time as major corporations tell him how awful they are. Terrified of being seen as weak, so many tariffs will remain but it is really funny watching them scramble to pretend like they aren’t the absolute worst at their jobs.
Is there any evidence that a single cent of Trump’s tariffs has yet been collected by the US government?
I remember reading that, in at least one case, collecting them is difficult to the point where ports aren’t bothering. And that’s difficult on the admin side, they’re just so insane about it that the relevant authorities aren’t even really sure what’s going on or how to deal with it.
Another method of control: exceptions to whoever has the biggest bribes, personal favors and enrichment. Tariffs for everyone else
It’s a simplistic solution and he’s simpleminded, so it’s hard for him to let go of it since all the other approaches are harder.
He’s been obsessed with it since the 1980s.
yea i know, and conveniently thats around the time the soviet union starting working with him, laundering money through his real estate.
China shouldn’t give a femtometer.
Restrict exports to the US until all tarrifs on Chinese goods are lifted. And even then, tarrif US exports just a bit just as a Find Out gesture.
Make it clear that Trump gains absolutely nothing for all this. Not even a little 1% he can claim as a minor victory. Humiliate him in the eyes of the world and expose him for the worthless negotiator he is.
I fully agree but also stfu I’m trying to exist here!
Eh … if played out like the above comment suggests, with China giving us a little token tariff on US imports to twist the knife, we on the ground won’t be affected. Fuck, we’ll be vastly better off than under the Trump tariffs plans. We all win, he loses.
As a struggling American, I hope so too. The fucking rural parts of the country need to feel the suffering and understand exactly what caused it.
But how can they understand? Fox News will never correlate their suffering with Trump
the media can’t lie about things that are right in front of you very successfully
neither will any of the MSMs they are as complict as fox.
Pain is real when it’s right in front of you.
Don’t forget how dumb the average person is.
If they get what they want, they typically stop complaining about what happens to everyone else.
We are going to hate this president until the day he dies, then many of us will be making plans on how to best piss on his grave. That’s not a metaphor. Logistical discussions reveal that in order to avoid an indecent exposure charge a bottle must be used to hold and pour the piss.
I look forward to the new gender neutral bathroom
They’ll probably hang up security cameras and send whomever does it to a prison in El Salvador (once you open that door, it’s not going to get closed, just look at fucking Quantanamo Bay)
Instructions very clear. Stocking up on empty plastic bottles.
Gives a whole new meaning to pouring one out. I’d so, so happily pour a bottle of piss on Trump’s grave.
I’m not even kidding. I will wear a damn MAGAT hat if it gets me close enough to do it. I’m also not going to just hit grass, that masoleum/tombstone is gonna smell like piss.
now denying plans to fire Powell
As an outside observer, one of the funniest things about Trump (and this whole crowd actually) is the amount of just denying things that they do. There is never a single time that they admit fault or the capability to learn and improve. Drunkard clowns like Hesgeth have to be dragged out kicking and screaming for something to be rectified, at which point they’ll just go “Uh, well anyway, here’s the next guy, he’s going to be great! Tremendously bigly!”
Elon didn’t do that famous hand gesture that we all saw him do twice in a row. Fox News guy didn’t use a 3rd party app for a top secret war chat and didn’t include a journalist in the group. Trump didn’t apply those tariffs or throw unhinged temper tantrums on social media. It’s all just the fake news librul agenda trying to discredit these fine upstanding members of society as usual. And if it’s true - onto the next thing. How about that woke agenda amirite?
Roy Cohn: Never admit you are wrong. Never admit defeat.
I find it funny because you could literally have lost everything and still stay in this mindset.
For sure. It’s a lot like chicken-race.
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As an inside observer, I assure you that there is nothing funny about it whatsoever.
Good point. Poor choice of words. It’s not funny haha or even funny peculiar. It’s just fucked up.
As an adjacent observer(Canada, and we have our own idiots) it’s kinda funny. The US has had so much time and so many resources to not being the shithole it is today and they just couldn’t bring themselves, as a country, to get there. Other countries have done way better with less so we know it’s possible.
So, as much as it is also scary, awful, and just plain garbage, it is a little funny as well.
Well, as it turns out, America’s status as an economic juggernaut has always been dependent on keeping our occupied territory as shitholes that are terrible for the people who live there, so we can exploit their labor and resources. We learned well from the British Empire. The shitholeness is just being turned against a larger swath of our population now.
It gets thrown around a lot but Orwell’s 1984 has a passage, the context in the book is the protanonist realizing specifically about how it is impossible to argue against the fascist party as they happily substitute alternate facts whenever desired, and mandate the loyal adopt them wholesale.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
This is the chapter. https://george-orwell.org/1984/6.html
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
I actually hate this quote because idiots around me use this thought pattern to reject the results of rigorous scientific studies in favor of their isolated, personal experiences.
To them, “Science” is an much an authoritarian imposition as “The Party” and “Scientism” is the worst “cult”.
Yes, your experience is valid. But, it doesn’t trump shared objective reality, which good science reveals.
My favorite phenomonon is anti-vaxers and the like saying “Science is hogwash! Ever notice how they just say ‘Trust the science!’? That means it requires faith!” Sure, that’s all well and good, except an actual scientist will NEVER say “Trust the science!” The foundations of science are NOT built on blind trust. It’s built on truth which is established experimentally, which is the opposite of blind trust. It’s very telling that people saying science is flawed are the same folks that don’t understand it.
It’s largely the same thing as someone saying “Evolution is hogwash. I’ve never seen a monkey turn into a human!” (except evolution doesn’t say that it will either…)
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yea most fields dont even require bio as part of thier degree, not even remdial, felt that should be part of the curricilum colleges.
This is a direct result of the degradation of education. Countries that have a higher standard of living for ALL people: health (mental and physical), fair wages, maternity/paternity leave, etc., also have better education standards. In some cases, free university.
As an American, I can say this sounds like COMMUNISM and I will fight to the death to avoid the specter of universal health care! America leads the world in health care spending and we intend to keep it that way.
This is even more the result of the amplfication of every moron’s stupid comments into memes that are broadcast to millions.
@bss03 @pulsewidth If you are not willing to learn or to be curious about reality then the truths discovered by science would be no different to you than any other form of mysticism. It’s then possible to apply that quote to anything that doesn’t align with your experience.
I read 1984… I really liked it but I thought the whole war is peace, freedom is slavery bit was something that no one would really buy. Then Trump took office and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I now believe 1984 and don’t question it at all. :(
I almost wish 1984 was the reality, but it’s a horrible mix of 1984 and Brave New World. Rather than just being oppressed due to fear of your comrades turning you in, like 1984, we also get people happily ignoring everything bad to get their fix of the fixed slice of the world presented to them.
If it was just 1984, at least I’d have hope that enough people could see the problem, rise up against the problem, and not have to contend with the contented masses that just want the status quo.
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same here in us, plus catcher in the rye. and classical literature as well. they made an attempt to force people write papers for the first time, but it was so haphazard it dint turn it good.
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trump has 2 hand gestures of his own, his accordian hands when hes exaggerating or lying. and his double jerking motion.
Kennedy was assassinated for less. This man has fucked with some higher powers’ money I’m surprised they haven’t ousted him for a canon slightly less loose, but I suppose he is quite the distraction.
Ah, so you know the motive of Kennedy’s assassin(s)? Do tell, and provide evidence.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have said it with such certainty, but I don’t think Oliver Stone’s movie took that many liberties/there’ve been a few papers on how much the movie made up for dramatic effect vs. what it didn’t.
I used to take it all with a grain of salt, but seeing how brazen and desperate the right wing gets to hang onto their money today in broad daylight, I pretty much believe it.
consequences are for progressives
But Kennedy was a liberal. They don’t assassinate their fellow conservatives.
they tried
They want their business plot 2.0.
It’s because he’s still fighting for them, albeit a dumb fuck, he’s not fighting them
Nothing says “I am the master of making a deal” like having to back off of nearly all of them every time anyone calls your bluff.
I’ll never see how so many think Trump is one of the smartest people in any room.
He’s a slumlord, just like his father. It is just unfortunate that the entire country will be his shitty government housing block by the time he gets done with it.
People have been calling him the biggest blowhard in the world since he got his first start in the 1970s. Enough people believe him for him to be relevant, sadly.
I’ll never see how so many think Trump is one of the smartest people in any room.
“He’s rich so he must be smart. You have to be smart to get that rich. This must all be part of the plan for the smart rich guy.”
Mix that in with a ‘Just World Fallacy’ (Good people succeeded and bad People fail. Therefore anyone who has as much wealth and power as Trump must be a good person worth listening to) and you have the people who support Trump.
Worthington’s Law.
You could’ve just said trump supporters to dumb af
Didn’t I?
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Yup. That’s my dad. He’s confused now. He thought musk and Trump were smart because they were very wealthy. He’s finding it hard to understand that these people just inherited their wealth, and they’re able to be visible in the public eye, make money and take risks because of how much they have and not because they’re smart. Their arrogance is funny - Ie: musk unable to find the relationship between his nazi salute, his work at DOGE, and decreasing revenue in Tesla. Never heard of causation.
Honestly i saw so many interviews during his first run with trump supporters that said exactly that first phase you said
Way to entrench the status quo benefiting the rich. Get people to believe only the rich are smart and therefore worth listening to.
Much of the US (and developed-world) media is devoted to licking the boots of the rich and famous. There are PR firms that exist solely to feed the bootlicking pipeline, and to launder the reputations of the loathsome shits who think they’re entitled to own us all.
I wish he reversed his “deals” but it looks like he’s only reversing on China? So a big “fuck you” to american manufacturing while also helping our number 1 enemy.
The whole thing is a giveaway for China to step into America’s role on the world stage. I don’t think that can be undone at this point. It’s obvious that the US is not a stable, rational trade negotiator. Who wants to have their currency reserves under a country like that?
Who wants to have their currency reserves under a country like that?
That depends on how comprehensively we root out Trump, those behind him, and all their works. It’s not going to be easy, we’re going to need to strip this ramshackle structure down to the joists, after having tented it for termites.
I don’t think that’s possible. Not to the degree that would rebuild trust in a reserve currency. Once that money starts moving to something else, it’s gone. There would need to be a big incentive to come back, and it’s not clear what that would be.
The change would have to happen before any major moves happen. But then, just the fact that US policy is flip flopping so quickly is itself reason to mistrust it as a reserve currency. How do you know it won’t flip right back?
Trump just allowed Republicans to be racist and bigoted out in the open without censure. They saw how trump doesn’t get much flak for his bigotry
I’m already buying Canadian, I don’t think I’m going back in the foreseeable future.
By that you mean you’re buying indonesian, vietnamese, chinese, ecuadorian… and probably a ton more imported things because nobody really manufactures much of anything in USA or Canada outside of a handful of things that are costly to transport.
I dunno, haven’t seen much Vietnamese maple syrup and bacon…
Check your clothes labels, personal electronics, appliances, fabrics, salt, medical devices, medicines, customer support lines for major businesses, networking equipment…
I’m not canadian and i’m certainly not a dumpy supporter but realistically what the fuck would you ever want to buy from the US that is actually made 100% in the US anyway?
Haven’t bought clothes, personal electronics, appliances, fabrics, medical devices in ages. The last customer support I called was for Revenue Canada. As for my meds, those are all generic and essentially free for me.
The only things I buy regularly is booze (Canadian Club and Laker) and groceries and I buy as much Made In Canada produce as possible.
When I hear people be all nationalistic in regards to their planned expenditures I never expect them to really bite the bullet.
Experiments like this are why I doubt i’m wrong. https://afina.com/blogs/news/made-in-usa
People en masse don’t care about where something is made, they care about how much they are paying for it, assuming both products are of identical quality. I don’t doubt that many will simply avoid spending money altogether. I doubt there are many out there willing to voluntarily pay more just for a made in X badge.
