• BCsven@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 day ago

    I’m so sick of him, I wish every country would just band together and boycott trading with the USA till trumps admin resigna. Sure we’d suffer to but putting up with this guy is too much headache. And he’s not going away.

    We are at companies that have daily meetings to see how the tarrifs are affecting orders, supplies and pending deliveries. The amount of time wasted by departments is ridiculous.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 day ago

    Rutte’s ass kissing went to his head, he thinks he’s the world’s “daddy”.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    2 days ago

    Fun fact: Japan owns an obscene amount of US national debt. Guess what would happen if they decided to sell it off?

    • BCsven@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’m ignorant on this, how does selling held debt affect a country?

      • ZDL@lazysoci.al
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 day ago

        What happens, do you think, to the value of US Treasury Bills on the market if Japan just dumps what they have in a massive sale?

          • ZDL@lazysoci.al
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            Supply and demand answers the question. When there is a large supply with no change in demand, prices drop. When there is a short supply with no change in demand, prices rise.

            There’s not going to be any reason for a sudden rise in demand for US Treasury Bills, likely, at the same moment that Japan dumps its 4.3% of the US Treasury bills on the open market. And a sudden sale of 4.3% is going to cause a precipitous drop in the value of the bills. (This is going to be even worse if China takes that opportunity to dump its own 2.9%.)

            And then comes the free-fall.

            Because if T-bills drop suddenly in value, other holders (like the UK, with 3.1%) will sell off quickly to avoid taking a bath. Which will make the value drop more quickly causing other people to sell off etc. etc. etc. To make up for this, the US is going to have to do some serious work. With a free fall in price, the US Treasury is going to have to boost interest rates a lot to make up for it. This makes it more expensive for the USA to borrow money to finance its government operations. Interest bills on the national debt go up. (So does the deficit budget, probably, or the US starts killing its citizens instead the Trump way).

            Oh, and that’s just governmental cost. Private borrowing starts getting more expensive too. Loans have higher interest rates, which will negatively impact all businesses big and small. Which will eventually negatively impact everybody.

            But … this will hurt Japan (and China, say) as well, right? I mean selling off the T-bills will raise the Yen/Yuan and hurt the Japanese/Chinese economy, right?

            Traditionally, yes, that would be true. But, see, the USA’s idiot of a president now has tariffs greater than 100% on China and is threatening 35% even on Japan. The damage on exporting is already done!. Because a bumped up currency hurts exports, but if exports have already been virtually eliminated, there’s nothing that a bit of a currency rise is going to really do anymore. Trump’s “beautiful” tariffs have made the sudden sell-off of T-bills more likely and given foreign debt owners (Japan, the UK, and China in decreasing order of proportion) a more powerful weapon as a result.

            Combine this with the retaliatory tariffs and the US economy is being ass-fucked sideways with a rusting spiked dildo if Japan (and probably China) suddenly drop their T-bill load.

    • Tenderizer@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 days ago

      Japan owns a lot of American debt but most of it is owned by American domestic companies.

        • ZDL@lazysoci.al
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          WAY more than enough.

          A sudden sale of 1% of the T-Bills in circulation would be devastating.

          Japan owns 4.3% of them. (The UK has 3.1% and China 2.9%.)

          Japan alone could make the US squeal like a piggy. If they coordinate with China (possible) and/or the UK (far less likely), it’s an economic nuke.

  • Flickerby@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    2 days ago

    Man born with golden lips attached to his ass attempts to judge others on excessiveness

  • k0e3@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    19
    ·
    2 days ago

    We don’t import their rice or cars because they’re both shit.

    • Laser@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      Yeah the infamous Japanese cars, nobody ever said anything good about those right? Like the garbage Corolla. Or did anyone ever drive a Prius? Or a Hilux?

      • k0e3@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        Wait, are people downvoting me because they think I’m saying Japanese cars are shit?

        I’m a Japanese-Canadian living in Japan; I’m saying we don’t import American rice and cars because they’re shit.

        • Laser@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          2 days ago

          Oh then I misunderstood (but didn’t downvote). But yeah American cars aren’t really a thing outside of the American and maybe middle east. The American brands produce different models for different continents.

          • ZDL@lazysoci.al
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 day ago

            There are some persistent, no-taste losers here in China who buy Buick (and sometimes even Caddilac). Most people won’t touch 'em any longer, though.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      its a little complicated for the rice thing, japan wants thier own rice domestically because they can charge more for it, if they import rice they would have to lower the price of rice in general.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 days ago

      Didn’t they used to import a ton of shitty rice from the US due to some fucked trade deal? Which they just let sit around because they don’t want to eat it?

      • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 days ago

        A lot of the old emergency stockpile rice gets sold off as animal feed as it ages out. I would imagine something similar happened for that.

      • k0e3@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 days ago

        I mean we have em already, but nobody buys them.

        I bought a bag to see, but I never ate it because it was full of those rice beetle things. Probably just a coincidence, but I’ve NEVER had that happen in the 15 years of living here so I don’t wanna take that chance again.

          • k0e3@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 days ago

            ??? I’ve never heard of that. Is that something that you need to do?

            We just wash and put it in the cooker. We even have pre-washed rice. There’s a lot to complain about here in Japan, but rice isn’t one of them. At least, it wasn’t. It’s more than doubled in price in a year or so :(

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 days ago

              If you use it quickly no, but rice and flour in the united states should be assumed potentially contaminated with pest eggs. They won’t be a serious problem but they are gross and so any long term raw grain storage here should include a freeze period just to kill it. Tbh I’d just assumed thst was a byproduct of it being natural agricultural products, sorta like you gotta check your dry beans for pebbles that the mechanical sorter may have missed

              • k0e3@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 days ago

                Ah ok! I bet it’s also because Americans tend to buy bigger bulks, so it stays in your pantry longer once the seal is broken. So the chances of those little critters hatching/entering is higher.

                I know Japanese rice isn’t immune, because they sell resealable containers and natural repellents specifically for this reason. But personally, I’ve never had a problem in my resealable container and certainly never had bugs crawling out of a freshly opened bag until the import. This was before the whole 51st State thing so there’s no way I’ll ever give that rice a second try, unfortunately.

                • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  We also generally eat a lot less rice. I’d say I probably eat a ton of the stuff for a white American (Asian, Caribbean, and Latin descended folks are a lot more likely to eat a lot of rice as Americans tend to pass down certain aspects of cultures from wherever we immigrated from), but that means I eat it most weeks.

                  And yeah, that makes sense. Boycotting us is the right call, for yourselves, the world, and honestly us too. Financial pain and hunger are nothing compared to the consequences if the current regime is able to take whatever they want without consequence.