XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Paul S Person   wrote:   
   >On Fri, 26 Dec 2025 08:48:17 -0500 (EST), kludge@panix.com (Scott   
   >Dorsey) wrote:   
   >   
   >>mess), but there's no tariff on board fab from Vietnam.  Board fab is =   
   >kind of   
   >>an odd duck since most of the cost of board fab in the US and Vietnam is=   
   >=20   
   >>waste disposal, while in China they just drop all the heavy metal waste=20   
   >>into a sump in the basement.  So it's very hard for anyone with sane=20   
   >>disposal laws to compete with the Chinese.   
   >   
   >Just thought I should point out that those "sane disposal laws" are   
   >/exactly/ the sort of thing rabid idealizers of unfettered capitalism   
   >oppose.   
      
   Yes, and this is what governments exist for... to prevent the despoiling   
   of the commons.   
      
   Right now we're still paying lots of money to clean up the waste from   
   industry in Pittsburgh back in the fifties.  It's much cheaper to control   
   the waste today than to kick the can down the road, but since someone else   
   will be paying it later down the road corporations with a short-term   
   outlook don't care.   
      
   Governments exist in part to deal with the long-term outlook.   
      
   >Raw, unfettered, capitalism is, indeed, a bitch.   
      
   I am very much in favor of capitalism... but it is in the best interest of   
   individual capitalists to eliminate competition and therefore eliminate   
   capitalism itself which is dependent on competition to work.  This is why   
   it all collapses unless it has government support.   
      
   I think what you mean by "raw, unfettered" is what is classically called   
   "laissez-faire."   
      
   >>So, I do see some of these tariffs possibly pushing some production out   
   >>of China and into Vietnam and Thailand in the future, but I don't see it   
   >>doing anything other than hurting customers right now.   
   >   
   >If by "customers" you mean people in your situation (and you are,   
   >indeed, a customer), that's fine.=20   
   >   
   >But I am not reading articles stating "95% of MAGA rejects Trump's   
   >tariffs because they raise the price they have to pay at the store".=20   
      
   It's raising the prices they have to pay at the store, and it is hurting   
   them.  The fact that they aren't up in arms about it is a different issue.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)