Trade Wars

[trochetier]

The techniques to both improve quality and reduce costs were developed in the USA - look up Deming...
US manufacturers weren't interested... he took his work to Japan, and the car companies there, adopted it in full...
Within a few years, their quality went up dramatically, AND their costs went down.

The methods travelled to Europe, to Korea, and only started taking hold in the USA, in the 1990's....

Look at European factory workers, their wages aren't that far off from US worker wages, the cost of labour is not the only ingredient in the mix - and China is not the only point of comparison.

Good point Edward Deming, Japanese eagerly learned and adopted statistical methods in manufacturing. How sad here he was laughed off by Detroit when he tried to convince them to adopt the same.

In addition the Japanese sense of aesthetics has a lot to do with their product quality and fit and finish. This even trickles down to simple things like pharmaceutical tablet appearance. I worked for a quintessential Japanese company and my team was based in Japan all Japanese of course.

 

[trochetier]

Who is winning the trade war?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/30/elon-musk-starlink-bangladesh-tariffs/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

 

[GO-NAD!]

Who is winning the trade war?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/30/elon-musk-starlink-bangladesh-tariffs/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Democratic senators call for investigation into Elon Musk’s foreign Starlink deals

In a letter Friday to President Donald Trump, several Democratic senators accused Musk of “the possibility of self-dealing” while in government.

www.nbcnews.com

Asking Trump to investigate Musk's self-dealing is beyond ironic.

 

[Trell]

Democratic senators call for investigation into Elon Musk’s foreign Starlink deals

In a letter Friday to President Donald Trump, several Democratic senators accused Musk of “the possibility of self-dealing” while in government.

www.nbcnews.com

Asking Trump to investigate Musk's self-dealing is beyond ironic.

As an example of my own motivated reasoning that could be laying the ground for investigations if/when the Democrats takes control of one of the Congressional houses, or the Presidency.

Also, I think that the Democrats should (quietly?) make clear that there are limits to quiescence/support of Trump and trespassing those limits will have consequences when they once again are in power.