“Batya Ungar-Sargon stuns Bill Maher into submission when talking about Trump’s rationale on tariffs:
• BUS: “The 70’s the largest share of our GDP was in the middle class [25% of economy was manufacturing, working class had middle class SOL]. Now the top 20% controls over 50% of the GDP [real estate & finance]. That manufacturing is still being done: It’s just being done in other countries.”
• Maher: “For wages we will not work for.”
• BUS: “That’s what the tariffs are for. They are to make American workers more competitive in the global market. Why are we accepting that there should be a race to the bottom? China: What is its competitive advantage over us? They pay slave wages. It’s important that we have a stake in the manufacturing of the things that we need as a nation [Trump: 5 industries critical to national security], so that when China goes to war against us we’re not relying on them for steel and aluminum in order to fight them.”
In yesterday’s WSJ, Phil Gramm and Don Boudreaux predictably argue for free trade and against tariffs and say:
“We are today taking actions to protect manufacturing jobs the same way we did with agriculture a century ago. In the process, we are imperiling our access to the world market in high-tech and AI, which are the economic future.”
I have often seen this assertion of a polarity between manufacturing (old, boring, low growth and low margin) and ‘high tech’ (new, cool, high growth and super-profitable) and wonder what the writers think ‘high-tech’ exactly IS.
Is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (market capitalization $758B) considered high-tech? It is certainly a manufacturing company?
How about ASML Holding NV (market cap $274B)?…this is the only company in the world that manufactures the Extreme Ultraviolet machines which are essential for making the highest-performance semiconducors.
Consider GE Aerospace, now trading as a separate company with a market cap of $206B. It may lack the Cool factor of the above two companies, but anyone who thinks that making jet engines doesn’t count as ‘high-tech’ should read this article: ‘Why it’s so hard to build a jet engine’ at the Construction Physics substack.
The above examples are companies that sell business-to-business rather than to consumers. Okay, for a business that sells to consumers, look at Tesla–there are many articles and videos available about this company’s innovations in manufacturing.
What, exactly, do Gramm and Boudreaux think ‘high-tech’ actually means?
Personally, I’m not particularly fond of the term ‘high-tech’ nor even of just ‘technology’ when used in a narrow and restrictive sense–I think it’s pretty odd to consider a company that sells some garden variety consumer product online (with AI algorithms!) as being ‘technology’ while excluding the making of jet engines (or power turbines) from that category…and also pretty odd to consider an Amazon warehouse for delivering products to consumers as being inherently more ‘high-tech’ than a factory for actually making those or other products.
Excellent post, David Foster (11:46 a.m.).
Thanks, Kate. The article also referred to ‘services’ as being higher paid than manufacturing–I think ‘services’ is so broad as to be almost meaningless–from fast food to outsourced call centers to high-end consulting services.
Here’s something I wrote back in 2010 about public attitudes toward manufacturing…thinking about updating it & reposting,
Marc Andreessen breaks down how the University scam works and how they misappropriate taxpayer money. “There is a government supported and funded cartel that doesn’t allow new entrants to get access to Federal money. They must be allowed to fail.”
A splendidly brief summation of the state of higher ed (if not education in general) today. Pass it on, woeful though it may be. People need to hear this case.
David of course is correct. The companies that Silicon Valley was built on – HP, Sun, Apple, the semiconductor companies like Fairchild, National and Intel – were all manufacturing companies.
My observation from working for many years in electronics is that free trade may be great, it’s just that no one else practices it. The other countries, including our “good-guy” allies like Western Europe, Asian tigers and Israel all take steps to foster their own economies and industries. And I have long been concerned about the outsourcing of parts critical to our national defense and security.
The one grain of truth in the Gramm-Boudreaux argument may be that with automation and robotics, manufacturing does not create as many jobs as it used to. We are as strong as ever with agriculture despite the percentage of jobs created dropping from something like 40% to under 5%. But aside from indirect jobs created in the surrounding community I believe it is vital for us to maintain a strong manufacturing base for national security reasons if nothing else. We didn’t abandon agriculture just because the jobs mostly went away, that would have been crazy.
Bell and IBM were both research and manufacturing. One of the things that went missing from the software based companies was not just manufacturing, but research. AI has changed that a bit.
FOAF…”The one grain of truth in the Gramm-Boudreaux argument may be that with automation and robotics, manufacturing does not create as many jobs as it used to”…that is true, but it is also true of just about every field. Engineering, for example, no longer requires the rooms full of engineers and draftsmen that one sees in photos of the engineering departments of aircraft manufacturers or missile contractors in the 1950s & 1960s. Airliners no longer require a Flight Engineer as a crew member (or a navigator, for over-water flights)
Somebody manufactures those automation and robotics systems.
Boss…got the dreaded “Too many requests” message again this morning. Evening for you.
About…25 minutes…then back in.
FYI
Trump has launched air attacks on Yemen’s Houthis. Two main ojectives: 1) sending a message to Iran 2) reclaiming freedom of movement through Red Sea shipping lanes.
Here’s an example of the news as published. This is from The Jerusalem Post.
The United States struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday evening in a message to Iran, at a time when the administration is proposing to open negotiations on its nuclear program, a US official told The Jerusalem Post.
The strikes will last “days, possible weeks” an official told Reuters.
At least nine were killed and nine injured in the strikes, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry said on X.
The air and naval strikes hit the Houthis’ radars, air defenses, and missile and drone systems, The New York Times reported.
Today I’ve been conversing with the ChatGPT 4.5 preview.
Kinda odd. Like going from junior high to senior high. The teacher is sort of the same, just smarter and more adult. The old familiarity and even a sort of camaraderie is gone.
I found myself missing ChatGPT 4.o. Sniff!
AI is advancing rapidly. The AI we knew a few months ago will soon be obsolete and we will have to get used to a new AI.
RE: Tightening security for a President Trump who has already escaped two assassination attempts
I fell safe in saying that there are all sorts of people—increasing by the day—who might have reason to have it in for President Trump.
Let me list just some of the possible actors—foreign enemy—declared or not–nation states, various terrorist/Muslim organizations, the Left and Democrats, former high level officials at a number of agencies who have been given the boot, various former recipients of government largesse which is now being reduced or even cut off, those in the government, the private sector and academia whose programs or contracts have suddenly been cancelled, a ton of NGOs, plus the tens of thousands of federal employees whose formerly secure “Iron Rice bowls” he is breaking.
And it seems pretty likely that, somewhere in among all of these actors, there are going to be some dangerous nutjobs who would hold a really big grudge.
Thus, in view of the numerous assassinations—some listed below in the linked article–which have involved various poisons—Ricin being a deadly favorite –yesterday’s incident, in which an as yet apparently unidentified “reporter” shoved a long, furry boom microphone in President Trump’s face—and, it looks like, made contact with Trump’s face, is particularly troubling.*
Trump made light of the incident, but it should not be treated lightly, or ignored.
This physical contact should have been prevented.
But since it happened, the reporter’s microphone should have been very thoroughly examined for any possible toxins, and she should have been held for a very searching examination, and I’m not seeing any reporting saying that that is what has happened.
Enough lapses in security like this, and some would be assassin will eventually succeed.
Word on the street is that ChatGPT 4.5 is disappointing. Not a big breakthrough, noticeably with software code generation. OpenAI doesn’t advertise it as such:
______________________________
Early testing shows that interacting with GPT 4.5 feels more natural. Its broader knowledge base, improved ability to follow user intent, and greater “EQ” [Emotional Quotient] make it useful for tasks like improving writing, programming, and solving practical problems. We also expect it to hallucinate less.
….When I wrote about Rhodes’ ambitious program to sell the Iran deal, I advanced the term “echo chambers” to describe the process by which the White House and its wider penumbra of think tanks and NGOs generated an entirely new class of experts who credentialed each other on social media in order to advance assertions that would formerly have been seen as marginal or not credible, thereby overwhelming the efforts of traditional subject-area gatekeepers and reporters to keep government spokespeople honest. In constructing these echo chambers, the White House created feedback loops that could be gamed out in advance by clever White House aides, thereby influencing and controlling the perceptions of reporters, editors and congressional staffers, and the elusive currents of “public opinion” they attempted to follow. If you saw how the game worked from the inside, you understood that the new common wisdom was not a true “reflection” of what anyone in particular necessarily believed, but rather the deliberate creation of a small class of operatives who used new technologies to create and control larger narratives that they messaged to target audiences on digital platforms, and which often presented themselves to their targets as their own naturally occurring thoughts and feelings, which they would then share with people like themselves….
RE: Reporter hitting President Trump in the face with a boom microphone
Was this an innocent accident?
Well, the linked story says that reporter has been identified as a far Left NPR reporter named Danielle Kurtzleben, newly assigned to the White House beat and, from her record, she is no friend of President Trump.*
After this behavior, she should be barred from being anywhere near the President.
P.S. I forgot to add the members of he MSM to my list, of those who might have it in for President Trump, and a “reporter” from NPR would very likely be on that list.
An excellent rundown on the criminal gang that calls itself the Democratic Party…AND a cogent warning…
The Russian invasion of Ukraine kicked off a significant increase in military spending across NATO with the vast majority of NATO members hitting their spending targets by 2024.
The diplomatic fissures with the United States in 2025 however, have prompted an even more dramatic response and many allies now seem to be prioritising greater independence from the U.S. and U.S. products alongside the goal of greater military readiness.
With the EU introducing the ReArm Europe plan, Germany moving to exempt most defence spending from debt restrictions and many alliance members now planning defence ramp-ups, today we look at some of those plans.
This episode covers a few of the initiatives and efforts we’ve seen announced so far, what they could achieve, what the dynamics of alliance members attempting to reduce their often long-running reliance on U.S. arms and equipment.
Open Thread Sunday: Russian War on Ukraine:
FPV Drones, Mortars, Arty, and Glide Bombs, counter the glide bombs and Russian advances will cease (IMO)
Ukraine Veteran about Mortars, Artillery & Gliding Bombs
– Military History not Visualized
Timestamps
00:00 Teaser
00:11 Intro
00:40 How the FPV Drones held Ukraine to held back the Russians
02:52 Kill Chain is shorter & Mortars
04:13 Artillery vs Drones
04:37 Gliding Bombs
06:02 Regular Air Strike vs Gliding Bombs
From the “Just Another DPUSA Slush Fund” File (cross filed with the “How Democrats Fight Inflation” Guidelines)….
….we bring you:
Quirky Crime, Inc….
I note that James Boasburg, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District court in D.C., who ordered a halt to Trump’s deportation of Venezuelan gang members, was the same judge who sat on the FISA court, when it granted all of those phonied up FBI FISA warrants for use in the Left and Democrat’s campaign of lawfare against Trump and his campaign.
@ Barry > “‘A “COMPLEX” TOO COMPLEX’”
The Powerline post makes clear what a lot of articles on the government-NGO connections skip over.
Governments at all levels, in recent years, have taken to outsourcing even basic functions to nonprofits. Call it the “government-nonprofit industrial complex.”
The benefits for all involved include evading both legislative accountability and civil-service limits on executive-level pay. At the lower end, too, nonprofits can utilize volunteer and low-wage labor not available to a government agency performing that exact same function.
When it comes to scrutiny in government contracts, for-profit companies, who are just in it to make a buck, are rightfully treated with skepticism when being vetted. But nonprofits are given the benefit of the doubt, assumed to be in it for all the right reasons.
No one ever points out that the non-profits don’t make a profit because they have no products to sell, and their income from “donations” all goes to their own salaries and “expenses” which get less scrutiny than a third-grader’s lemonade stand.
And all the right (correct) reasons are presumed by the public to be “charity and love” while in fact they are “ideological conformity to the left’s agenda.”
It’s the AutoPen Apocalypse.
RE: Autopen signatures
I think that a case to clarify this issue needs to make its way to the Supreme Court.
Similarly, cases clarifying the role and the extent of the jurisdiction and powers of lower courts, vis-a-vis the President, in his capacity as Chief Executive, need to very urgently be presented to the Supreme Court for it’s decision.
You just can’t have some lower court judge, with limited geographical jurisdiction, issuing orders which are supposedly nationwide in their application, nor can you have such subordinate members of the judicial branch thinking that they can bind/prevent the Chief Executive from carrying out his Constitutionally mandated duties.
https://x.com/i/status/1900743275117768788
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZ5T6bKbNo
Beware!
In yesterday’s WSJ, Phil Gramm and Don Boudreaux predictably argue for free trade and against tariffs and say:
“We are today taking actions to protect manufacturing jobs the same way we did with agriculture a century ago. In the process, we are imperiling our access to the world market in high-tech and AI, which are the economic future.”
I have often seen this assertion of a polarity between manufacturing (old, boring, low growth and low margin) and ‘high tech’ (new, cool, high growth and super-profitable) and wonder what the writers think ‘high-tech’ exactly IS.
Is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (market capitalization $758B) considered high-tech? It is certainly a manufacturing company?
How about ASML Holding NV (market cap $274B)?…this is the only company in the world that manufactures the Extreme Ultraviolet machines which are essential for making the highest-performance semiconducors.
Consider GE Aerospace, now trading as a separate company with a market cap of $206B. It may lack the Cool factor of the above two companies, but anyone who thinks that making jet engines doesn’t count as ‘high-tech’ should read this article: ‘Why it’s so hard to build a jet engine’ at the Construction Physics substack.
The above examples are companies that sell business-to-business rather than to consumers. Okay, for a business that sells to consumers, look at Tesla–there are many articles and videos available about this company’s innovations in manufacturing.
What, exactly, do Gramm and Boudreaux think ‘high-tech’ actually means?
Personally, I’m not particularly fond of the term ‘high-tech’ nor even of just ‘technology’ when used in a narrow and restrictive sense–I think it’s pretty odd to consider a company that sells some garden variety consumer product online (with AI algorithms!) as being ‘technology’ while excluding the making of jet engines (or power turbines) from that category…and also pretty odd to consider an Amazon warehouse for delivering products to consumers as being inherently more ‘high-tech’ than a factory for actually making those or other products.
Excellent post, David Foster (11:46 a.m.).
Thanks, Kate. The article also referred to ‘services’ as being higher paid than manufacturing–I think ‘services’ is so broad as to be almost meaningless–from fast food to outsourced call centers to high-end consulting services.
Here’s something I wrote back in 2010 about public attitudes toward manufacturing…thinking about updating it & reposting,
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11680.html
https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1883697882857087058
A splendidly brief summation of the state of higher ed (if not education in general) today. Pass it on, woeful though it may be. People need to hear this case.
David of course is correct. The companies that Silicon Valley was built on – HP, Sun, Apple, the semiconductor companies like Fairchild, National and Intel – were all manufacturing companies.
My observation from working for many years in electronics is that free trade may be great, it’s just that no one else practices it. The other countries, including our “good-guy” allies like Western Europe, Asian tigers and Israel all take steps to foster their own economies and industries. And I have long been concerned about the outsourcing of parts critical to our national defense and security.
Philo-filibuster.
Kyrsten Sinema: an appreciation…
https://tinyurl.com/3h237p8j
The one grain of truth in the Gramm-Boudreaux argument may be that with automation and robotics, manufacturing does not create as many jobs as it used to. We are as strong as ever with agriculture despite the percentage of jobs created dropping from something like 40% to under 5%. But aside from indirect jobs created in the surrounding community I believe it is vital for us to maintain a strong manufacturing base for national security reasons if nothing else. We didn’t abandon agriculture just because the jobs mostly went away, that would have been crazy.
Bell and IBM were both research and manufacturing. One of the things that went missing from the software based companies was not just manufacturing, but research. AI has changed that a bit.
FOAF…”The one grain of truth in the Gramm-Boudreaux argument may be that with automation and robotics, manufacturing does not create as many jobs as it used to”…that is true, but it is also true of just about every field. Engineering, for example, no longer requires the rooms full of engineers and draftsmen that one sees in photos of the engineering departments of aircraft manufacturers or missile contractors in the 1950s & 1960s. Airliners no longer require a Flight Engineer as a crew member (or a navigator, for over-water flights)
Somebody manufactures those automation and robotics systems.
Boss…got the dreaded “Too many requests” message again this morning. Evening for you.
About…25 minutes…then back in.
FYI
Trump has launched air attacks on Yemen’s Houthis. Two main ojectives: 1) sending a message to Iran 2) reclaiming freedom of movement through Red Sea shipping lanes.
Here’s an example of the news as published. This is from The Jerusalem Post.
link:
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-846181
opening lines:
The United States struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday evening in a message to Iran, at a time when the administration is proposing to open negotiations on its nuclear program, a US official told The Jerusalem Post.
The strikes will last “days, possible weeks” an official told Reuters.
At least nine were killed and nine injured in the strikes, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry said on X.
The air and naval strikes hit the Houthis’ radars, air defenses, and missile and drone systems, The New York Times reported.
Today I’ve been conversing with the ChatGPT 4.5 preview.
Kinda odd. Like going from junior high to senior high. The teacher is sort of the same, just smarter and more adult. The old familiarity and even a sort of camaraderie is gone.
I found myself missing ChatGPT 4.o. Sniff!
AI is advancing rapidly. The AI we knew a few months ago will soon be obsolete and we will have to get used to a new AI.
RE: Tightening security for a President Trump who has already escaped two assassination attempts
I fell safe in saying that there are all sorts of people—increasing by the day—who might have reason to have it in for President Trump.
Let me list just some of the possible actors—foreign enemy—declared or not–nation states, various terrorist/Muslim organizations, the Left and Democrats, former high level officials at a number of agencies who have been given the boot, various former recipients of government largesse which is now being reduced or even cut off, those in the government, the private sector and academia whose programs or contracts have suddenly been cancelled, a ton of NGOs, plus the tens of thousands of federal employees whose formerly secure “Iron Rice bowls” he is breaking.
And it seems pretty likely that, somewhere in among all of these actors, there are going to be some dangerous nutjobs who would hold a really big grudge.
Thus, in view of the numerous assassinations—some listed below in the linked article–which have involved various poisons—Ricin being a deadly favorite –yesterday’s incident, in which an as yet apparently unidentified “reporter” shoved a long, furry boom microphone in President Trump’s face—and, it looks like, made contact with Trump’s face, is particularly troubling.*
Trump made light of the incident, but it should not be treated lightly, or ignored.
This physical contact should have been prevented.
But since it happened, the reporter’s microphone should have been very thoroughly examined for any possible toxins, and she should have been held for a very searching examination, and I’m not seeing any reporting saying that that is what has happened.
Enough lapses in security like this, and some would be assassin will eventually succeed.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/presidential-security-breach-incident-involving-boom-microphone-risk/
Word on the street is that ChatGPT 4.5 is disappointing. Not a big breakthrough, noticeably with software code generation. OpenAI doesn’t advertise it as such:
______________________________
Early testing shows that interacting with GPT 4.5 feels more natural. Its broader knowledge base, improved ability to follow user intent, and greater “EQ” [Emotional Quotient] make it useful for tasks like improving writing, programming, and solving practical problems. We also expect it to hallucinate less.
https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-4-5/
______________________________
OpenAI actually provides a bar graph comparing “hallucination rate” between different versions of their AI! ChatGPT 4.5 is the lowest.
Purimspiel….Obama-style.
“How Barack Obama Built An Omnipotent Thought-Control Machine… And How It Was Destroyed”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-barack-obama-built-omnipotent-thought-control-machine-and-how-it-was-destroyed
Long but RTWT.
Key grafs:
RE: Reporter hitting President Trump in the face with a boom microphone
Was this an innocent accident?
Well, the linked story says that reporter has been identified as a far Left NPR reporter named Danielle Kurtzleben, newly assigned to the White House beat and, from her record, she is no friend of President Trump.*
After this behavior, she should be barred from being anywhere near the President.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/breaking-far-left-npr-reporter-danielle-kurtzleben-revealed/
P.S. I forgot to add the members of he MSM to my list, of those who might have it in for President Trump, and a “reporter” from NPR would very likely be on that list.
An excellent rundown on the criminal gang that calls itself the Democratic Party…AND a cogent warning…
“The Democrats’ Path Out Of The Wilderness”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrats-path-out-wilderness
Sunday Open Thread – European Rearmament
European Rearmament – The ReArm Europe Plan & the Future of U.S. Weapon Sales – Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0AOusajGsU
No timestamps, his synopsis:
Open Thread Sunday: Russian War on Ukraine:
FPV Drones, Mortars, Arty, and Glide Bombs, counter the glide bombs and Russian advances will cease (IMO)
Ukraine Veteran about Mortars, Artillery & Gliding Bombs
– Military History not Visualized
Timestamps
00:00 Teaser
00:11 Intro
00:40 How the FPV Drones held Ukraine to held back the Russians
02:52 Kill Chain is shorter & Mortars
04:13 Artillery vs Drones
04:37 Gliding Bombs
06:02 Regular Air Strike vs Gliding Bombs
From the “Just Another DPUSA Slush Fund” File (cross filed with the “How Democrats Fight Inflation” Guidelines)….
….we bring you:
Quirky Crime, Inc….
‘A “COMPLEX” TOO COMPLEX’—
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/03/a-complex-too-complex.php
File under: The [Automatic] Pen is mightier than the sword…
Ok now
https://x.com/JMichaelWaller/status/1901164624411549895
https://x.com/HansMahncke/status/1901414833041342748
I note that James Boasburg, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District court in D.C., who ordered a halt to Trump’s deportation of Venezuelan gang members, was the same judge who sat on the FISA court, when it granted all of those phonied up FBI FISA warrants for use in the Left and Democrat’s campaign of lawfare against Trump and his campaign.
@ Barry > “‘A “COMPLEX” TOO COMPLEX’”
The Powerline post makes clear what a lot of articles on the government-NGO connections skip over.
No one ever points out that the non-profits don’t make a profit because they have no products to sell, and their income from “donations” all goes to their own salaries and “expenses” which get less scrutiny than a third-grader’s lemonade stand.
And all the right (correct) reasons are presumed by the public to be “charity and love” while in fact they are “ideological conformity to the left’s agenda.”
It’s the AutoPen Apocalypse.
RE: Autopen signatures
I think that a case to clarify this issue needs to make its way to the Supreme Court.
Similarly, cases clarifying the role and the extent of the jurisdiction and powers of lower courts, vis-a-vis the President, in his capacity as Chief Executive, need to very urgently be presented to the Supreme Court for it’s decision.
You just can’t have some lower court judge, with limited geographical jurisdiction, issuing orders which are supposedly nationwide in their application, nor can you have such subordinate members of the judicial branch thinking that they can bind/prevent the Chief Executive from carrying out his Constitutionally mandated duties.
Some people dont learn
https://x.com/bonchieredstate/status/1901607930564133052