General politics thread

Soros. Duh.

I don't think this joke has received enough attention. It really has it all: an artful reference to comedy legend, a brief but efficient delivery and a subtle reference to the inside joke of a poster's common inability to properly use punctuation. It's at the very least a stand-up triple.

We need to take more time during the day to recognize efforts like this, not just smirk and move on to the next Lena Dunham thread. I can just imagine doc sitting at his desk, outdoor workstation or checking his phone between Clemson film study and thinking "Really guys? I crushed that one two hours ago and no one even throws a like on it?" We can't let that happen. He deserves better.

We hear you, doc. And we appreciate you.

GM is ending production of vehicles that aren't selling. Some of those jobs will get shifted to plants where they make vehicles that do sell. 

Some of those layoffs are in Canada. 

Not every layoff can be laid at the president's feet.

But, we are winning the trade war with China:

President Donald Trump is succeeding in making China pay most of the cost of his trade war.

That’s the conclusion of a new paper from EconPol Europe, a network of researchers in the European Union. U.S. companies and consumers will only pay 4.5 percent more after the nation imposed 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, and the other 20.5 percent toll will fall on Chinese producers, according to authors Benedikt Zoller-Rydzek and Gabriel Felbermayr.
...
The Trump administration selected products with the highest “price elasticity,” or high availability of substitutes, according to Zoller-Rydzek and Felbermayr. The Chinese products hit by Trump’s tariffs can mostly be replaced by other goods, forcing exporters to cut selling prices to keep buyers.

“Through its strategic choice of Chinese products, the U.S. government was not only able to minimize the negative effects on U.S. consumers and firms, but also to create substantial net welfare gains in the U.S.,” the researchers wrote.

The U.S. is due to raise duties on the largest $200 billion tranche of goods to 25 percent from 10 percent on Jan. 1. In retaliation, China has slapped tariffs on $110 billion in imports from the U.S. and effectively shut off its purchase of key American agricultural exports including soybeans.

With the economic costs shifted to China, the U.S. levies will lead to a $18.4 billion net gain for the American government, the researchers wrote.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/china-is-paying-for-most-of-trump-s-trade-war-research-says

Question for the lawyers... how much of this is reasonable and how much is puffery? Thread.

To clarify/expand on my post from last night ...

There is no "we" here. There are those who're forced to deal with the artificial scarcity a trade war effects, and there are those who benefit from it. No amount of "Look! Over there!" can change that fact.