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Trade War with Europe! Here we come!
From the Guardian, here: Trump threatens car tariffs after EU sets up £2.5bn of levies on US
Excerpt:
The upshot of it all is that trade between the US and EU will suffer - or, we can hope so.
Hope so? Howzatt?
Because when export-businesses are reduced by shenanigans such as Trump has manipulated then TopManagement begins to scratch its head and ask itself, "Why the hell did I give this dork so much money to become PotUS??!??"
What Americans have not yet grasped is that the unlimited funding of election campaigns has put all governance - Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches - in the hands of the Replicant Party.
Donald Dork was not elected PotUS by the American electorate. Hillary was. He lost the popular vote. He was nonetheless made PotUS by the Electoral College that (abracadabra!) made him PotUS. It is understandable that Europeans should scratch their heads in amazement.
How the hell does an Electoral College refuse the winner of the popular-vote and elect the loser. Whatever happened to democracy in America?
Well, the historical reason for this asinine outcome (which has elected 5 illicit presidents in the history of the US) goes back a long, long way. In fact, the original Constitution contains the formulation of an Electoral College that, instead of counting vote across the expanse of the 13 original states - a map of which is here - reports to Congress the result of the popular-vote.
Howzatt? The year is 1796 and vote counting across those original states is hazardous at best. There were no major interlinking roads. So, the Electoral College (EC) was "concocted" to assure that state-votes for the presidency could be delivered to Congress (then in the town of Philadelphia) by means of EC-representatives in each state.
What history teachers fail to tell students of American history is that the popular-vote in some states had no relation (in terms of numbers of EC-voters) with the original popular vote. The southern-states, less populated than the northern-states, used the EC to get more "voting power" in the selection of the American president.
Whyzzat? Because they feared that the northern-states would outlaw slavery without which the major source of income to the landed gentry of farming cotton would become impossible.
And thus the EC-mechanism throughout the history of the US has produced 5 presidents that lost the popular-vote but were elected nonetheless by the EC!
They are:
From the Guardian, here: Trump threatens car tariffs after EU sets up £2.5bn of levies on US
Excerpt:
Raising the stakes in the tit-for-tat exchange of import tariffs threatening to spark a global trade war, the US president tweeted in response to the EU tariffs which came into effect late on Thursday: “If these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!”
Most economists say the consequence of higher international import tariffs will drive up costs for consumers, offsetting much of the benefit of protecting domestic industries for the country imposing them.
Analysts at the Oxford Economics consultancy said the consequences for the European economy could be contained in the short term, as the affected imports only account for about 1% of all goods coming into the EU from the US, although it warned tariffs on cars would have a greater negative impact. The EU will impose an additional €3.6bn of tariffs if the dispute is still active in three years’ time.
European consumers would be able to find alternatives, said the European commission vice-president for trade, Jyrki Katainen. “If we chose products like Harley-Davidson, peanut butter and bourbon, it’s because there are alternatives on the market. We don’t want to do anything that would harm consumers,” he said. “What’s more, these products will have a strong symbolic political impact.”
The upshot of it all is that trade between the US and EU will suffer - or, we can hope so.
Hope so? Howzatt?
Because when export-businesses are reduced by shenanigans such as Trump has manipulated then TopManagement begins to scratch its head and ask itself, "Why the hell did I give this dork so much money to become PotUS??!??"
What Americans have not yet grasped is that the unlimited funding of election campaigns has put all governance - Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches - in the hands of the Replicant Party.
Donald Dork was not elected PotUS by the American electorate. Hillary was. He lost the popular vote. He was nonetheless made PotUS by the Electoral College that (abracadabra!) made him PotUS. It is understandable that Europeans should scratch their heads in amazement.
How the hell does an Electoral College refuse the winner of the popular-vote and elect the loser. Whatever happened to democracy in America?
Well, the historical reason for this asinine outcome (which has elected 5 illicit presidents in the history of the US) goes back a long, long way. In fact, the original Constitution contains the formulation of an Electoral College that, instead of counting vote across the expanse of the 13 original states - a map of which is here - reports to Congress the result of the popular-vote.
Howzatt? The year is 1796 and vote counting across those original states is hazardous at best. There were no major interlinking roads. So, the Electoral College (EC) was "concocted" to assure that state-votes for the presidency could be delivered to Congress (then in the town of Philadelphia) by means of EC-representatives in each state.
What history teachers fail to tell students of American history is that the popular-vote in some states had no relation (in terms of numbers of EC-voters) with the original popular vote. The southern-states, less populated than the northern-states, used the EC to get more "voting power" in the selection of the American president.
Whyzzat? Because they feared that the northern-states would outlaw slavery without which the major source of income to the landed gentry of farming cotton would become impossible.
And thus the EC-mechanism throughout the history of the US has produced 5 presidents that lost the popular-vote but were elected nonetheless by the EC!
They are:
Elections dates:
- 1824: John Quincy Adams.
- 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes.
- 1888: Benjamin Harrison.
- 2000: George W. Bush.
- 2016: Donald Trump.
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