Why is it any of my business what people want to buy and consume? If someone wants to buy little trinkets from Amazon or Walmart which comes from China, that's a win win. The consumer gets a product, Walmart(or the local seller) takes a cut, and a company in China gets an order. Win, win, win.
Discussion
The part where the planet dies isn't a win for people who want to survive and protect loved ones. I find it odd how you leave that out of your train of thought
Oh, because I don't believe that humans are able to kill the planet in any way.
They're doing it
Who is? And what are they doing to kill the planet?
1. Humans
2. Attempting Venusification
That doesn't mean anything.
CO2? Pollutants? What are you referring to?
Your guess is spot on, pollutants but mainly CO2
Ah. Well my friend, I have some amazing news for you.
The c02 levels in 2025 are less than 1/10th the levels of what they were 50million years ago and the earth is still here with an atmosphere and everything. 👍
We had different plants and stuff back then and the sun itself was less intense at the time
Yes, because they thrived in the high c02 environment. The planet is constantly changing and always adapts.
To think that humans adding a tiny bit of CO2 to the incredibly benign .04% of co2 that exists in the atmosphere will harm the earth is a bit silly, don't you think?
The earth existed long before and will exist long after humans are gone.
The amount of CO2 humans have added isn't tiny
You're ignoring reality
Oh I suppose it's not, just saying that there's a panic about specific things going up in price, when we might discover that they weren't as important as we thought afterall.
Yes, governments are screwing around with mutually beneficial trade between 2 parties. Trade is alwaysutually beneficial or it isn't done.
It's not just plastic toys. It's ASIC Bitcoin miners, it is chips, servers, ships, cars, lithium, batteries, paper, ink, electricity, energy, raspberry pi and esp32 devices that are changing the world, meshtastic mesh networking devices, ham radio equipment, and on and on....
Yes, I'd put assumption that free p2p trade economy is optimal up there as my main belief on economics. Arguably, and maybe I'm just being defensive, the previous state of affairs was perverted by a different set of central forces, so it's not necessarily closer to optimal than updated state of affairs. Still thinking about it...
If there's less of it, people will just make more efficient use of what they have. Computers from 30+ years ago could do much of what they do now. Software is bloated because hardware is cheap. If desktops and servers were more expensive, the software that is low memory and CPU usage would dominate the market.
And I'm pretty sure people buying ESP32s can afford an extra $30. Plus, like you said, if they don't like it, they can switch to a chip made domestically.
If we can't get cheap lithium batteries, we can make sodium-based batteries. Innovate, or support people that do.
A lost of this is in jest, but there's also a fair amount of truth there.
Says who? Who made you God?
I would never buy an esp32for $30 more.
Instead I just wouldn't continue developing my espn32 based hf radio for HAMSTR.
Sure, you could quit. Just like you said, you don't have to engage in international trade. And if you stop innovating, it leaves a gap that other people will fill (if there is demand).
Just like espressif might open a little assembly line in the US to bypass the tarrifs, and if they don't, someone else will spring up and make a comparable chip (that is, if these tariffs remain in place for years, which there's no evidence that they will, especially considering most of them are already on pause)
It's neither me nor God telling people what to do, it's just the nature of things.
Except manufacturing is elsewhere for these things because that's how the US dollar was designed and capital flows.
It goes the other way.
"Why should I worry what other people **don't want anyone** to buy & consume?" Evidently over time it leads to win, lose, lose, lose... because that's how monopolists think & derive fulfillment, and that part of human nature runs deep.
Telling 300m people to go figure it out themselves seems...less damaging in the long run 🤷♂️
Because interjecting into people's commerce and trade always leads to encouraging this type of government interruption and stoppage. You are on essence trying to change another's buying habits and wanting the governments help in this.
I will always push back on this dangerous ideal.
Allowing people to freely for what they wish trade harms nobody and in fact helps.
Who is losing in commerce and trade? Not the consumer. Not the retailer, not the wholesaler/importer/exporter. Not the manufacturer
If someone feels they are osing, then they don't have to participate.
Not Participating is best accomplished by being fully independent, or suicide. Don't argue as if that's a real option for civilizational prosperity.
In monopolized markets, all consumers suffer perpetual sunk costs in exchange for the monopoly's continued existence. There will always be taxes at many layers of supply chains; let's not put that burden on all (domestic, exponential taxation) but the highest layer (tarriffs), when we can put most of it on the highest layer instead for a more sustainable balance.
Someone is forcing you to buy a product? In what world? I don't follow.
Nobody buys a product they don't get value from.
Monopolies don't exist in free markets. They can only exists due to government. Arguing for more government intervention in trade and this nonsense will form new monopolies as only they will be
Currently, in the global marketplace I can go to China(or Alibaba), make connections, have something manufactured, and sell it on Amazon.
If I make a product people want at a price that is fair, they will buy it.
This cannot happen with 140% tariffs, asost margins are nowhere near this for small sellers. All they will happen is encourage larger players with large legal and trade teams, linguistic translators to go in and fill the void by skirting rules, moving to Cambodia, etc.. the government just forced the small American business to fail and allowed a new monopoly to fill the void
Monopolies **emerge** from free markets. Unless we keep fighting that temptation & overcoming it (which can only happen in a free market!).
Monopolies don't force people to buy their thing; they make people dependent on the utility of the thing, and then put all their energy into preventing any alternatives for as long as possible. They have 2 goals: max profit, min competition.
Like I said...it goes the other way. US needs to reduce its (holistic) domestic tax, which limits domestic monopolies & enables domestic competition again. Offloading it to a tarrif tax seems appropriate to restore a healthy global Trade Balance.
There is no such thing as a free markets monopoly. They cannot utility franchising, regulations, legal concerns, taxing, contracts, bidding, and of course copyright and parents are mostly why they exist.
And even with the help of government, monopolies cannot and do not last.
Look at the largest companiesand monopololies in 1950, 1970, 1990, 2010, and today. Many of them are not even shells of their former selves today if they even exist, or gobbled up by another.
Of the 15 largest companies today, only 2 even existed in 1950, and one is government owned(Saudi aramco), and the other relies heavily on government protections.(Eli Lilly).
The trade balance is a lie. We export dollars to the world. It is hush hush, but it is by design. For a reason.... It keeps the fiat printer enabled.
The largest monopoly in the US in 1950 was the federal reserve. The largest monopoly in the world in 1950 was the United States. I don't think you and I agree on the meaning of the word. Monopolies don't need laws; they only need force.
Lol. The federal reserve isn't company. It is a quasi government arm that is privately owned and partially privately run where all profits go back to the Treasury.
But if you want to include them, ok.
What does the federal reserve need to continue operating? The government...they need the federal reserve act of 1913, aka, a law, to continue operating. Without it they shutdown. Without the government, nobody would listen or use them.
I rest my case.
The federal reserve **bought** the US government; they don't **need** the US government. The 1913 Act can be repealed...you thing the folks who ien the fed will just hang it all up & go sail off into the sunset?
What other organization can produce & sell USD besides the Fed and its subsidiaries? No one (otherwise they'll feel the forceful consequences).
You invoke law a lot, I think that's a fatal fallacy.
Yes, they absolutely need the government. If the US and all states decided to make it only legal to pay debts, trade and taxes in gold, Bitcoin, or liberty notes, the dollar would plummet to zero instantly. The fed would cease to exist. There have been a few central banks, the others don't exist anymore.
You're conflating the natural concept of a monopoly with the legal concept of a company with total success.
The fed bought the governement with real industrial money, not dollars! The Act enabled it, but realistically, the absence of an Act wouldn't have prevented them from monopolizing...something.
These were titans of industrial era capitalism, ultra rich far beyond what we have today. We need to treat them like peer superpower nations, if we talk about removing them.
Coincidentally...I think that's exactly what's playing out right now.
You seem to not understand or are forgetting that these elitist, bankers and industrialists got wealthy BECAUSE of government. Contracts, wars, trade deals, eminent domain, and so on.
I'm not forgetting anything; there's a lot of history before "governments" that's as real as reality today. 😉
Cheers!
And of course nobody else produces the FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE, LOL. It is their note.