Market politics

[wdolson]

Practically all of it. I grew up in a nice semi-rural area with minimal industry, and the environment is *still* cleaner than it was when I was a kid -- they shut down the local lead bullet factory when I was two years old (it has been a Superfund site since then), and of course they got rid of the leaded gasoline in cars. (Horrifically, private planes are still allowed to use leaded gasoline, which is an atrocity and a crime against humanity.)


Leaded gasoline burning is, historically, the major source of enviromental lead which poisons children. It's much larger than the lead paint or lead pipe sources. Trump was exposed to large amounts of all three; New York City had particularly high exposure due to high numbers of cars and trucks, ancient buildings, *and* gasoline refineries and chemical factories spewing lead in the air right across the river in New Jersey.

My SO's father started out as a mechanic. He was a forensic air crash investigator in the USAAF in WW II (the engine guy on the team) and was offered a job at Boeing after the war, but her mother hated Seattle so he didn't take it. Instead he became a car mechanic and ended up owning some car dealerships in Portland. His family had zero history of Parkinsons, but he developed it. His doctor thought it was probably from various chemicals he was exposed to working on cars.

I don't know how much of Trump's problems are from lead exposure. One of his sisters is a retired appellate court judge (Donald wanted to put his sister up for the first SCOTUS opening, but she is very pro-choice and is 81). The other sister worked in banking and is also retired. His youngest brother has worked for Donald and is rabidly pro-Trump. His oldest sister is best known other than Donald and by all accounts is quite sharp.

Donald almost certainly has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder that has turned into Malignant Narcissism (the worst form). Nobody knows what causes personality disorders. It runs in some families, but in other cases it just crops up with no family history. From what I've read of Fred Trump Sr, he may have been a sociopath/psychopath and Donald has some of those same traits. It's possible Donald picked up some of those traits from his father (genetically or learned or a bit of both) and the other kids took more after their mother.

It can be tough to figure out where traits come from. Some are certainly genetic, others happen from conditions in the womb, and yet more happen due to childhood experiences and exposure to various things growing up. It's all a mix of nurture and nature and we still haven't figured out what causes what in most situations.

Some studies have shown that Borderline Personality Disorders are both a mix of nature and nurture. In a study done on BPDs, they did brain scans of Borderlines and they had a control group. They found that Borderlines had a misfiring in the emotion centers of the brain, but they found the same patterns in some non-Borderlines. When they interviewed the controls with the same condition, they found these people could be emotionally labile, but didn't have the break with reality characteristic of BPD.

For most people there is a cause and effect connection with their emotion centers, but some people have emotion centers that cook off emotions spontaneously. It's beginning to be thought of as a form of epilepsy. For people who had a good upbringing, they just feel things from time to time and might be considered "touchy" by those around them, but they can be talked down. For people with this condition who suffered some kind of childhood abuse, when they feel emotions come up from nowhere, they invent causes and spin stories to back-fill for the emotion they're feeling.

I've never seen any similar research on NPD, but there may be some combination of childhood stuff combined with some miswiring of the brain.

And there's basically no emissions regulations on light planes, either, meaning that horrific amounts of unburned hydrocarbons during climb, and NOx during cruise are spewed. (This happens at high altitudes, which... is a double-edged sword, some pollutants AFAIK are worse at high altitudes, some are better at high altitudes.)

A lot of the aviation engines still being produced today are fundamentally 1930s technology: here's a huge displacement aircooled pushrod flat 4 with a carb or two on top, with manual mixture control during climb, and magneto ignition with fixed timing.

Granted, fuel injection is more common, but even then mixture control is often manual. On a few of the newer engine designs, watercooling is a thing. And, some engines are designed to run on "mogas" (unleaded, lower octane gasoline meant for cars), but often it needs to be ethanol-free for various reasons, so availability isn't great.

Europe is ahead on some of these regulations, and for a while, diesel was being pushed as the general aviation engine solution, but AFAIK the diesel stuff turned out to be too expensive and far too heavy (or rather, light diesels were tried, but they were too unreliable), so now it's basically "IDK, mogas and maybe fuel injection on a gasoline engine I guess?" for general aviation there (with some work being done on hybridization and electrics, but airplanes are far more weight sensitive than cars, and regen doesn't really help much because most flight is steady-state)...

It's going to be a long time before we see practical electric planes. Batteries don't get lighter as they discharge, liquid fuel tanks do and the energy density of the best batteries is about 1/30 that of liquid fuel.

The Germans had some diesel powered aircraft in WW II, but they were mostly lower powered transport aircraft. Diesel engines need to compress the fuel more than a gasoline engine and have to be able to handle the higher internal pressures. We do have more sophisticated materials now, but that meant a heavier engine block then, which is not a good thing for an aircraft.

The problem with using unleaded gas in any engine without a catalytic converter is the exhaust is spewing carcinogens. Even cars with catalytic converters spew the carcinogens until the engine warms up. If I smell that raw exhaust smell coming out of a cold ICE, I hold my breath.

 

[lolachampcar]

Actually, I've advocated for much stricter driving exams for a long time. I have no sympathy for drunk people whatsoever. Driving a car on public roads is a privilege, and anyone who is driving while intoxicated should have that privilege permanently revoked. (Which does not happen currently.) But anyway...

The thing is, I'm practical. You're not. I've *watched* the history of "money out of politics" laws. They don't work when there are ultramegarich people around.

There's always another way to get the money back into politics, an indirect way. The only way to solve the problem is to make sure nobody is rich enough to buy Congressmen with pocket change. Otherwise there's always a way to indirectly buy a Congressman in a deniable fashion -- always. You name your set of laws, I'll tell you how to get around them.

If you reduce the maximum fortune (or increase the base wealth of Congressmen and judges) so that buying a Congressman or a judge is always *too expensive* to be done on a whim, even for the Koch Brothers, then they'll stop buying Congressmen and judges for funsies as they do now. Right now they can buy 'em without even thinking about how much it'll cost.

This is a tactical matter. I prefer to use tactics which actually work, rather than ones which don't.

I'll make this my last go at this as I'm sure others are getting bored with it.

To say you are practical and want to take rich people's money away as a solution because you are too practical to think the vote can make money illegal in politics makes no sense.

Which is easier-
Getting money controlled politicians to take the money away from their benefactors
or
Use the vote to replace current money controlled politicians with ones who are not and make money in politics illegal?

Setting aside which is the proper way to solve the problem, your approach is not practical.

The sad thing about it is that we, the electorate, are not going to do anything about this problem until we hurt and hurt bad. There is no practical need for this hurt but that is what it is going to take.

 

[bhtooefr]

It's going to be a long time before we see practical electric planes. Batteries don't get lighter as they discharge, liquid fuel tanks do and the energy density of the best batteries is about 1/30 that of liquid fuel.

Really, where I see it happening is... if you don't need batteries to get your electricity. And I don't mean hydrogen fool cells, either, I mean solar. Use batteries to climb up high where the air density is lower and therefore drag is reduced, have glider-like construction, and solar cells on every surface you can find room for them.

Of course, this only works in sunny skies, but hey.

(There's also limited-application things like the Pipistrel Alpha Electro, which works perfectly fine for flight training flights with short range.)

The Germans had some diesel powered aircraft in WW II, but they were mostly lower powered transport aircraft. Diesel engines need to compress the fuel more than a gasoline engine and have to be able to handle the higher internal pressures. We do have more sophisticated materials now, but that meant a heavier engine block then, which is not a good thing for an aircraft.

Weight for diesels still is a problem, and one manufacturer tried to make ultra lightweight engines very loosely derived from Mercedes car engines... and ended up making engines with very short time between replacements. Another manufacturer just took the car engines as-is, which were much heavier, and got decent time between overhaul (instead of replacement) out of them, but a couple hundred pounds more weight, which is... extreme.

The problem with using unleaded gas in any engine without a catalytic converter is the exhaust is spewing carcinogens. Even cars with catalytic converters spew the carcinogens until the engine warms up. If I smell that raw exhaust smell coming out of a cold ICE, I hold my breath.

Also, leaded gas without a catalytic converter will spew the carcinogens and worse, it's just that unleaded means you can actually run a cat (but nobody in aviation does)...

 

[wdolson]

Really, where I see it happening is... if you don't need batteries to get your electricity. And I don't mean hydrogen fool cells, either, I mean solar. Use batteries to climb up high where the air density is lower and therefore drag is reduced, have glider-like construction, and solar cells on every surface you can find room for them.

Of course, this only works in sunny skies, but hey.

(There's also limited-application things like the Pipistrel Alpha Electro, which works perfectly fine for flight training flights with short range.)

Solar cells add weight on top of the batteries. Plus with aircraft 99% of the time the reason you're in the air in the first place is to move a payload and usually to get it somewhere as quickly as possible. A plane that is essentially a glider is going to travel very slowly and probably not carry a very large payload. Above the clouds in daylight, you will have full sunlight, but it's doubtful you will be able to get enough real time energy from the solar panels to keep the plane's engines running.

The problem with all renewables is the energy density per sq meter is much lower than any form of fossil fuel or nuclear power. As a result, there is no way your ever going to get enough energy out of a renewable on any kind of transportation that will be enough to do more than contribute a very tiny amount of energy for propulsion in real time.

There may be some form of biofuel for aircraft use someday, but any form of electric propulsion that will be economically feasible is a long ways off. The Physics of existing materials prevents it.

Weight for diesels still is a problem, and one manufacturer tried to make ultra lightweight engines very loosely derived from Mercedes car engines... and ended up making engines with very short time between replacements. Another manufacturer just took the car engines as-is, which were much heavier, and got decent time between overhaul (instead of replacement) out of them, but a couple hundred pounds more weight, which is... extreme.

The power to weight ratio is critical for aircraft

Also, leaded gas without a catalytic converter will spew the carcinogens and worse, it's just that unleaded means you can actually run a cat (but nobody in aviation does)...

I've never seen anything about carcinogens from lead exposure, but exposure to fossil fuel emissions is not good. For some uses fossil fuels will be the only practical solution for some time to come, but I'm all in favor of doing everything we can to electrify what we can as soon as possible.

 

[AudubonB]

Jet-A and the stuff we use in Alaskan winters, Jet-B, are very, very close to diesel in its most refined form, that which we call Diesel #1. And that itself is very close to kerosene (aka “paraffin” in British English). All those substances form something of a spectrum; all have flash points far, far lower than gasoline and its variants. And none uses tetraethyl lead as an octane enhancer. They do, of course, have other noxious effects.

 

[wdolson]

Jet-A and the stuff we use in Alaskan winters, Jet-B, are very, very close to diesel in its most refined form, that which we call Diesel #1. And that itself is very close to kerosene (aka “paraffin” in British English). All those substances form something of a spectrum; all have flash points far, far lower than gasoline and its variants. And none uses tetraethyl lead as an octane enhancer. They do, of course, have other noxious effects.

Jet and turboprop aircraft use jet fuel, but piston engine aircraft still use some form of av-gas or gasoline.

 

[neroden]

I don't know how much of Trump's problems are from lead exposure. One of his sisters is a retired appellate court judge (Donald wanted to put his sister up for the first SCOTUS opening, but she is very pro-choice and is 81). The other sister worked in banking and is also retired.

We can never know for sure (without tooth or bone samples), but his sisters were born earlier -- there was far less lead being dumped in the enviroment in 1937 (Great Depression) or 1942 (gasoline rationing) than in 1946 (post-war boom in cars). His sisters were born with substantially lower early-childhood environmental exposure to lead than he and his brother.

His youngest brother has worked for Donald and is rabidly pro-Trump. His oldest sister is best known other than Donald and by all accounts is quite sharp.

Donald almost certainly has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder that has turned into Malignant Narcissism (the worst form). Nobody knows what causes personality disorders. It runs in some families, but in other cases it just crops up with no family history. From what I've read of Fred Trump Sr, he may have been a sociopath/psychopath and Donald has some of those same traits. It's possible Donald picked up some of those traits from his father (genetically or learned or a bit of both) and the other kids took more after their mother.

Yeah... Fred Trump seems to have been a really nasty person, and that may be where the nasty personality-disorder behavior comes from... but he also seems to have been substantially *smarter* than his son.

Anyway, since I read the lead-crime studies, I start checking *everything* to see whether they fit. That's enough on that topic.

 

[neroden]

Which is easier-
Getting money controlled politicians to take the money away from their benefactors
or
Use the vote to replace current money controlled politicians with ones who are not and make money in politics illegal?

Ask Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and also Teddy Roosevelt, James Garfield, Chester A Arthur, and William Howard Taft whether it was easier to "make money in politics illegal" or whether it was easier to just raise taxes on rich people. Hint: the first three raised taxes on rich people, successfully; the latter three tried to tinker around with "anti-corruption laws", mostly unsuccessfully (although Arthur's Civil Service laws did work).

Once you've actually voted to put non-money-controlled politicians in power, do you have them pass a law which is quick to write and foolproof, or one which is hard to write, loophole-prone, and typically evaded within weeks? I mean, I'll support all your campaign-finance-reform law proposals, there's nothing *wrong* with them, they just won't *work* the way a high income tax on million-a-year-plus incomes will work.

The sad thing about it is that we, the electorate, are not going to do anything about this problem until we hurt and hurt bad.

That, I agree with you on. We're close to that point.

 

[neroden]

It's going to be a long time before we see practical electric planes.

I follow this. For flight trainers, they're practical now. The current work of many startups and NASA is on practical electric one-seaters, two-seaters, and four-seaters. I expect them to be practical within 5 years. This allows the replacement of most of the piston-engine fleet, which is the exceptionally problematic part of the fleet which is using leaded gasoline.

(Jet engines, turboprops, etc. use Jet-A which is basically kerosene, and is unleaded. There are also some piston diesel engines which use the same Jet-A, but they tend to be used in larger private planes, not the little two-seaters.)

 

[lolachampcar]

Once you've actually voted to put non-money-controlled politicians in power, do you have them pass a law which is quick to write and foolproof, or one which is hard to write, loophole-prone, and typically evaded within weeks? I mean, I'll support all your campaign-finance-reform law proposals, there's nothing *wrong* with them, they just won't *work* the way a high income tax on million-a-year-plus incomes will work.

Requirement to receive a vote - Take no money while running and make the illegalization of money in politics your top domestic priority.

It will take time.
Some will lie to get elected and will need to be bounced the next cycle.
It will take a Constitutional Amendment to make money in politics akin to yelling fire in a movie theater.
All of K street must go.
All politicians will need to identify the source and amount of any change in wealth during their term or in any way related to their term.
and on and on and on....
It took a long time to get to where we are and it will take a long time to get out of this hole we dug for ourselves.

We, as an electorate, do not posses the wisdom to understand this must be done or the patience to take the boring hard un-entertaining path to get their. We want The Apprentice.

 

[Intl Professor]

Actually, I've advocated for much stricter driving exams for a long time. I have no sympathy for drunk people whatsoever. Driving a car on public roads is a privilege, and anyone who is driving while intoxicated should have that privilege permanently revoked. (Which does not happen currently.) But anyway...

The thing is, I'm practical. You're not. I've *watched* the history of "money out of politics" laws. They don't work when there are ultramegarich people around.

There's always another way to get the money back into politics, an indirect way. The only way to solve the problem is to make sure nobody is rich enough to buy Congressmen with pocket change. Otherwise there's always a way to indirectly buy a Congressman in a deniable fashion -- always. You name your set of laws, I'll tell you how to get around them.

If you reduce the maximum fortune (or increase the base wealth of Congressmen and judges) so that buying a Congressman or a judge is always *too expensive* to be done on a whim, even for the Koch Brothers, then they'll stop buying Congressmen and judges for funsies as they do now. Right now they can buy 'em without even thinking about how much it'll cost.

This is a tactical matter. I prefer to use tactics which actually work, rather than ones which don't.

There is a slight tactical switch or two which might help. First, British Parliamentarians are often shocked to learn we permit TV political ads. That would help and can be done through FCC power to regulate airwaves. Not likely, though, as media opposition would prevail. Second, though not yet proven in general elections yet, this primary season seems to favor old retail political approach of shoe leather campaigning and getting out the vote. I've spent hours with successful local candidates going door to door. Of course for many reasons that is much more typical at the local level. There is also a corollary: campaigning on appeals to local concerns even though they have a national implication, like health care, protecting social security, etc. The Republicans had a warning in the Prius Report but ignored it.

 

[Intl Professor]

I'm sure most here are already aware of this, but there is also the popular vote initiative at the state level. Here's a succinct statement and updates on what to do

25 of 38 Michigan Senators sponsor National Popular Vote

 

[TSLA_Hopeful]

What does everyone think about Trump's tariff strategy?

I'm conflicted because I'm both Chinese and American. On one hand, there are some things China does that it needs to reform, and are blatantly not free-trade like. E.g. import tariffs and forced technology transfers. When Trump initially complained about them, I was 1000% behind him.

But when Trump wants China to stop subsidizing technology(MIC 2025), follow US IP rules only, and not retaliate when the US subsidizes products (e.g. agricultural subsidies, insane cost + defense contracts, and university basic research) and excludes Chinese investments, that is 100% unreasonable. The frustrating thing is the current Chinese administration is actually very open to free trade, and I think would be willing to drop all import tariffs and eliminate forced tech transfers, which would allow Tesla to boom. Hell, they allowed Tesla to build a factory in China, showing it really wants competition for new ideas in the marketplace.

I'm really beginning to think Trump doesn't want free trade, with the putting up of tariffs on every country. For the country, that is a VERY BAD thing in the long run. Closing a country off is a recipe for long term disaster. How do I know? Ironically China tried it in the 1800s and during the cultural revolution. In fact, most Chinese regard closing off the country as a unanimous disaster that weakened the country. It will only make America less competitive and more stagnant in the long run.

I'm curious everyone else's perspectives.

 

[Intl Professor]

I think you've got it right. If memory serves China offered to give up many of those self-serving practices and Tesla has benefitted. It is building or soon will, a Gigafactory near Shanghai with a lot of local money pledged as loans for construction and no demand for joint ownership with a Chinese company. Also, apparently, China made other concessions on trade, like some tariff reduction and pledged to do more in the service sector, especially financial services. But the Administration demanded more so China declared US unwilling to negotiate. Now negotiations have resumed, and Trump has upped the ante again on tariffs. He is a monomaniac on tariffs, earning the ire of many contributors to the Republican cause. Almost all mainstream economists say he's really doing all the wrong things, except for Peter Navarro, his close economic adviser. He really has a very narrow vision of reality which is decidedly resistant to change.

To shift media attention today, he's ordered the release of highly classified documents without redactions, usually used to hide sensitive information on other issues, particularly how we got the intelligence. Think about this. We have information on everybody and some of it is given to us by foreign agencies with the understanding their information source, say their spy's cover name in Russia, and he's going to expose that. No other spy agency will ever notify us of a terrorist attack if their spies may be exposed.

If he really follows through on this zany fixation we will come to understand exactly why the former director of national intelligence has accused him of treason. We already know he shared coded information provided by Israel when he permitted Russian media, but not ours, to film his first meeting in the White House with the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Secretary. The Russians, ever collegial, shared the film with the US public.

We elected a man boy president. Worse. He is a baby throwing tantrums with nuclear bombs at his disposal and totally incapable of grasping the complexity of an intertwined world. Wait till you see the howls of consumers when they pay more when the tariffs are priced in, or when Apple can no longer depend upon Chinese suppliers. No wonder the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is under attack as well.

 

[neroden]

What does everyone think about Trump's tariff strategy?

It's not a strategy. Trump just yells "tariffs!" He doesn't have any specific targets, he just wants to generically put tariffs on "something".

Mexico, the EU, and China all immediately instituted *very well thought out* retaliatory tariffs, which targeted the US where it hurt Trump. Targeting specific industries where the local industry was competitive against the US industry, or where the US industry was dependent on exports to Mexico/EU/China -- and specifically targeting industries resident in districts that voted for Trump, even. That's a strategy.

Trump doesn't have a strategy. He's a screaming toddler.

 

[ggr]

It's not a strategy. Trump just yells "tariffs!" He doesn't have any specific targets, he just wants to generically put tariffs on "something".

Mexico, the EU, and China all immediately instituted *very well thought out* retaliatory tariffs, which targeted the US where it hurt Trump. Targeting specific industries where the local industry was competitive against the US industry, or where the US industry was dependent on exports to Mexico/EU/China -- and specifically targeting industries resident in districts that voted for Trump, even. That's a strategy.

Trump doesn't have a strategy. He's a screaming toddler.

I agree that the retaliatory tariffs are well targeted, but the problem is that they don't hurt Trump unless the Trump voters understand that the tariffs are hurting them. Mostly, they don't.

 

[tander]

What does everyone think about Trump's tariff strategy?

I'm conflicted because I'm both Chinese and American. On one hand, there are some things China does that it needs to reform, and are blatantly not free-trade like. E.g. import tariffs and forced technology transfers. When Trump initially complained about them, I was 1000% behind him.

But when Trump wants China to stop subsidizing technology(MIC 2025), follow US IP rules only, and not retaliate when the US subsidizes products (e.g. agricultural subsidies, insane cost + defense contracts, and university basic research) and excludes Chinese investments, that is 100% unreasonable. The frustrating thing is the current Chinese administration is actually very open to free trade, and I think would be willing to drop all import tariffs and eliminate forced tech transfers, which would allow Tesla to boom. Hell, they allowed Tesla to build a factory in China, showing it really wants competition for new ideas in the marketplace.

I'm really beginning to think Trump doesn't want free trade, with the putting up of tariffs on every country. For the country, that is a VERY BAD thing in the long run. Closing a country off is a recipe for long term disaster. How do I know? Ironically China tried it in the 1800s and during the cultural revolution. In fact, most Chinese regard closing off the country as a unanimous disaster that weakened the country. It will only make America less competitive and more stagnant in the long run.

I'm curious everyone else's perspectives.

I'd say as a Chinese/American you probably have the most well rounded perspective on the subject, interesting to read it. IMO, spending a lot of time on general tariffs and tough talk kind of policies are a waste of time for developed nations at best, and potentially very dangerous at worst. Tit for tat stuff is kind of disappointing in 2018. They really only make sense for developing countries that have to use them to stabilize their currency and protect against the big guns like the US or China. When developed nations use them it's a bit like a professional cyclist using training wheels or riding around in circles like a kid.

 

[EVNow]

Tariff's are a difficult subject.

The theory that all countries will benefit with free trade is fairly absurd. If local industries/agriculture can't compete on price/quality with imports, they will perish. How can $15 (or even $8) an hour worker compete on price with a $2/day (!) worked in the developing world ? Its not like US production quality is 32x better.

So, no doubt the globalization has completely eviscerated certain communities. Unions used to look after the interests of the workers - but blue dog Democrats under Clinton started supporting free trade agreements leaving workers nowhere to go. Dems always talked about "jobs going to China" - but did nothing concrete. They wanted even more free trade agreements. BTW, the notion that these are real "free" trade agreements is laughable.

So, politically now you have two forces that oppose "free trade". A fascist right wing "populist" billionaire. A populist Democratic Socialist on the left. There is zero constituency (except for the 1% ?) for continued low tariffs. But it is not clear to me how putting a few tariffs will make a $120/day worker competitive with a $2/day worker.

My friends and relatives in India ask me : How come US was all for free trade when it suited US - but now that developing world is figuring out how to play by the free trade rules, US wants to change the rules.

 

[wdolson]

I'm really beginning to think Trump doesn't want free trade, with the putting up of tariffs on every country. For the country, that is a VERY BAD thing in the long run. Closing a country off is a recipe for long term disaster. How do I know? Ironically China tried it in the 1800s and during the cultural revolution. In fact, most Chinese regard closing off the country as a unanimous disaster that weakened the country. It will only make America less competitive and more stagnant in the long run.

I'm curious everyone else's perspectives.

Trump is absolutely the opposite of a free trade advocate. From everything I've read about what's going on inside the White House, Trump's view of the world is overly simplified and most of his ideas are more than a century out of date. He's a nationalist with protectionist attitudes about trade.

Trump's ideas on trade are so ridiculous that he had to search high and low to find Peter Navarro as his Trade and Manufacturing Representative. Both Trump and Navarro seem to think that the domestic manufacturing sector can magically turn around quickly and make all the things that they are slapping tariffs on. Some things just aren't economical to make in the US, even if there are high tariffs importing them.

Trump could crash the American economy with this. He could crash parts of the world economy too.

 

[neroden]

Trump is absolutely the opposite of a free trade advocate. From everything I've read about what's going on inside the White House, Trump's view of the world is overly simplified and most of his ideas are more than a century out of date. He's a nationalist with protectionist attitudes about trade.

As I was saying, Trump is actually even dumber and crazier than that description would imply. Serious protectionists are horrified by Trump's incompetent, scattershot tariffs, such as the tariff on imported solar panels which damages the much larger US solar *installation* industry.

The US aluminum and steel industry *and its unions* opposed Trump's tariffs on imported aluminum and steel, which shows how stupid they are -- normally at least the local manufacturing industry supports import tariffs on their product, but not in this case.

Lifelong protectionists think that Trump's tariffs are just stupid.

Trump's ideas on trade are so ridiculous that he had to search high and low to find Peter Navarro as his Trade and Manufacturing Representative. Both Trump and Navarro seem to think that the domestic manufacturing sector can magically turn around quickly and make all the things that they are slapping tariffs on. Some things just aren't economical to make in the US, even if there are high tariffs importing them.