Category Archives: Economy
Climate Fire
Click the yellow vest to enlarge.
When wild fires destroyed the town of Paradise, California Governor Jerry Brown blamed climate change. For the past few weeks Paris has been burning and French President Macron can blame the climate too. The French revolted against a carbon taxed aimed at reducing France’s .4% share of global warming caused by cars.
The €8 billion tax bite comes on top of a 9% unemployment rate. The peasants are pissed.
And so far it’s peasants 1, president 0. Macron backed down and delayed the tax.
Tariff Man
Click on Tariff Man to enlarge the image.
On Saturday President Trump and Chinese President Xi backed away from the precipice of trade war. And stocks jumped up.
But on Wednesday, Trump being Trump, tweeted “I am Tariff Man.”
And Wall Street jumped out the window.
Trump Base Battle
Click the image to enlarge
The economy is booming but the Trump base is taking a hit.
GM is shutting down Chevy Cruze production at its 6 million square foot Lordstown plant. And Reason says the billion dollar cost of steel and other tariffs might have something to do with it. Steel workers are an important part of the Trump base. So are autoworkers and 1400 of them are about to lose their jobs.
Trump Base
“The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get!,” tweets Trump.
Kevin Williamson at NR says it was dumb to bail out GM in the first place. American carmakers can’t compete on sedans with the likes of Honda or Audi. But they’re good at making trucks and SUVs people like. They should have focused on that sector long ago, he says. But we “paid them not to.”
Electric cars too. NPR reports the government subsidies electric cars to the tune of a $7,500 tax credit for buyers.
So now GM will focus on what it’s good at. In Mexico.
Menthol Cigarettes
Click the cigarette to enlarge the image.
Flavored e-cigarettes are the Mike’s Hard Lemonade of the smoking world. Kids like em. So the FDA is cracking down. The government plans to go after menthol cigarettes too. But not the stuff that actually kills you – tobacco. Before it kills you you will have paid lots of taxes on tobacco. And governments are addicted to that.
Amazon Tax Breaks
Click Bezos to enlarge the image.
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, just got $2 billion in tax breaks to move his company to New York and Washington, DC. The L.A. Times says Amazon played American cities for suckers.
