A man hammers quality Japanese steel as he makes a traditional Japanese sword at his workshop in Himeji, Japan, on Nov. 28, 2017. (Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
First Biden removed the tariffs from the Europe Union, now he’s removing them from Japan. I normally don’t support tariffs, but our allies were dumping their products like Steel and Aluminum below cost. Who was crying the most? California steel companies wanted to buy that cheap steel Would rather import from Japan and other companies instead of buying from American companies.
The United States reached an agreement with Japan on Monday to lift the 25 percent tariff imposed on Japanese steel products by Trump during his presidency, according to U.S. Trade Representative and Department of Commerce officials.
The agreement will allow up to 1.25 million tons of Japanese steel imports per year into the U.S. market without being subject to Section 232 tariffs, starting April 1. U.S. steel industry executives had voiced concern that the Biden administration would negotiate too much access for foreign steelmakers, which might result in a flood of imports as they invest billions of dollars in new capacity.
And the giant sucking sound of jobs leaving will continue.
California state Democrat senator Dave Cortese. (California State Senate)
By Matthew Vadum for Epoch Times February 6, 2022
A California state lawmaker wants the government to give $500 a month to impoverished college students as a test for a controversial kind of social program known as universal basic income (UBI).
Legislation that would create the program may be introduced later this month by Democrat Dave Cortese, a state senator who represents part of Silicon Valley.
The measure would “establish a UBI pilot program at 3-5 [California State University campuses],” according to a summary Cortese provided to reporters.
The pilot program would cover about “9,500-14,000 eligible student participants,” and “the total cost for the proposal would range between $57 million and $84 million, excluding minimal administrative costs.”
“College students are couch surfing and sleeping in their cars. This could be enough money to rent a room, and if you don’t need a room, by all means, use it for what you do need it for,” Cortese told The Los Angeles Times.
“It’s like a booster shot. It could help get them off of this treadmill and stop them from dropping out, being on the streets, and becoming homeless long term.”
Cortese could not be reached over the weekend to elaborate on his proposal.
George Kamel, of Ramsey Solutions, a financial consultancy, told The College Fix that Cortese’s proposal was “not a solution to the actual problem.”
“Giving up to 14,000 students $500 a month is not going to change what caused the problem. In fact, costing the state $57-84 million over 3-5 years will add to the problem,” he said, adding that UBI “only works when the people receiving the money actually use the income to lift themselves out of poverty.”
“All students, not just low-income students, should avoid the traps of student loans and the outrageous cost of higher education,” he said.
Support for UBI programs, in which a simple cash payment is made to every citizen without other requirements or restrictions, surfaces periodically in the United States, a country that is traditionally more hostile to government-funded welfare programs than European nations.
Liberals have been pushing the idea of giving people money for doing nothing for years and the idea has popped up recently on the campaign trail as Democratic candidates compete for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Republican President Richard Nixon flirted with the idea in 1969, supporting legislation that would have paid $1,600 annually to a family of four, but the bill never made it out of Congress. In the 1960s and early 1970s, New Jersey and Pennsylvania experimented with such income maintenance programs.
Last year Oakland, Calif., launched Oakland Resilient Families, which it described as one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. The pilot, a collaborative effort between Oakland-based nonprofit UpTogether and the national organization, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, will provide 600 low-income families with $500 per month for an 18-month period.
“Poverty is not a personal failure, it is a policy failure,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, said at the time. “Guaranteed income presents one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we’ve seen in decades,” she said, adding evidence is growing to justify a federally guaranteed income program.
According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, various UBI programs have been tested or are currently being tested or planned in: New Orleans; Ulster County and New York City, N.Y.; Stockton and Los Angeles, Calif.; St. Paul, Minn.; Richmond, Va.; Columbia, S.C.; Gary, Ind.; Paterson, N.J.; and Cambridge, Mass. The center is participating in creating some of the programs.
UBI programs don’t work well in the real world, according to a 2019 study by a left-wing global trade union federation that The Epoch Times previously reported on.
The report by the France-based global trade union federation Public Services International and U.K.-based New Economics Foundation think tank, concluded “making cash payments to individuals to increase their purchasing power in a free-market economy is not a viable route to solving problems caused or exacerbated by neoliberal market economics.”
Pressing for UBI, which some claim is a “silver bullet,” wastes political energies that could be better used on “more important causes,” stated the report, which also found there was no evidence that UBI has achieved durable improvements in well-being anywhere it has been tried. There is no evidence that such programs “can be affordable, inclusive, sufficient and sustainable at the same time.”
Supporters of the Freedom Convoy protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions in front of Parliament of Canada, in Ottawa, Canada, on Jan. 28, 2022. A convoy of truckers started off from Vancouver on Jan. 23, 2022 on its way to protest against the mandate in the capital city of Ottawa. (Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images)
The resistance reveals itself always in unexpected ways. As I type, thousands of truckers (numbers are in flux and are in dispute) are part of a 50-mile-long convoy in Canada, headed to the capital city of Ottawa in protest against an egregious vaccine mandate imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They will be joined upon arrival by vast numbers of protestors who are defying the restrictions, closures, and mandates of the last nearly two years.
The triple-vaccinated Trudeau, meanwhile, has decided that he has to go into deep hiding because he was exposed to Covid. A clean, ruling-class, fit, and fashionable lefty like him cannot be expected to face such a pathogen directly. As a member of the vanguard of the lockdown elite, he must never take risks (however small) and must keep himself safe. It is merely a matter of coincidence that he will be locked away in hiding as the truckers arrive together with hundreds of thousands of citizens who are fed up with being treated like lab rats.
Previously, Trudeau had said nearly two years ago that the truckers were heroes. On March 31, 2020, he tweeted: “While many of us are working from home, there are others who aren’t able to do that—like the truck drivers who are working day and night to make sure our shelves are stocked. So when you can, please #ThankATrucker for everything they’re doing and help them however you can.”
It’s true. Like many “essential workers” in the United States, these truckers bravely faced the virus and many already gained natural immunity, which Canadian law does not recognize. Trudeau decided that they needed to be forced to get the vaccine anyway. Keep in mind: these are the people who get food to the stores, packages to homes, and all products that keep life moving. If they don’t drive, the people don’t eat. It’s that simple. Now Trudeau must deal with #FreedomConvoy2020.
Few events in modern times have revealed the vast chasm that exists between the ruled and rulers, especially as it pertains to class. For nearly two years, the professional class has experienced a completely different reality than the working class. In the United States, this only began to change once the highly vaccinated Zoom class got Covid anyway. Only then did we start seeing articles about how there is no shame in getting sick. It appears that in many countries, the working class that was forced into early confrontation with the virus are saying that they aren’t going to take it anymore (and many are playing that song to make the point).
It’s a massive workers’ strike but not the kind of communist dreams. This is a “working class” movement that stands squarely for freedom against all the impositions of the last two years, which were imposed by an overclass with almost no consultation from legislatures. Canada has had some of the worst, much to the shock of its citizens. The convoy is an enormous show of power concerning who really keeps the country running.
The convoy is being joined by truckers from all over the United States too, rising up in solidarity. This is easily the most meaningful and impactful protest to emerge in North America. It is being joined by as many as half a million Canadian citizens, who overwhelmingly support this protest, as one can observe from the cheers on the highway along the way. Indeed, it’s likely to break the record for the largest trucker convoy in history, as well as the most loved.
Trudeau, meanwhile, has dismissed the whole thing as a “small fringe” of extremists and says it means nothing to him and will change nothing. This is because, he says, these truckers hold “unacceptable views.”
This is setting up to be one of the most significant clashes in the world in the great battle between freedom and those governments have set out to crush it.
Meanwhile, I’m looking now for information on this in the mainstream media. It is almost nonexistent outside social media. Fox is covering some of it but that’s about it. The Epoch Times is a wonderful exception, as we’ve come to expect in recent months. It’s not being covered in any depth in Canadian papers and TV. All the usual subjects in the United States have completely ignored this mighty movement. It’s almost like these venues have created an alternate version of reality, one that denies the astonishing reality that anyone can see outside the window.
Yes, I know that we have all come to expect that the corporate media will not cover what actually matters, and much of what it does cover it does only with a strong bias toward narratives crafted by ruling elites. Even so, it seems to stretch credulity beyond any plausible extent for the major media to pretend that this isn’t happening. It is and it has massive implications for the present and the future.
This is not really or just about vaccine mandates. It’s about what they represent: government taking possession of our lives. If they can force you to get an injection in your arm over which you have doubts, all bets for freedom are off. There must be evidence that you complied. The phone app is next, which gets tied to your bank account and your job and your access to communications and your ability to pay your rent or mortgage. It means eventually 100 percent government control over the whole of life. The technology already exists. Everything going on now with these passports is driving to this point.
This is why the truckers are striking this way. It is an act of bravery but also of desperation. Once the tyranny of health passports arrives, there will be no escape. The window of opportunity to do something about this will have closed. So this is the moment. There might not be another one. Something needs to be done to fight for human rights and freedom, and put in place systems that make lockdowns and mandates impossible in the future.
This is the largest and latest example of the revolt and one that could make the biggest difference yet. But it is only one sign among many that the ruling elites in most countries have overplayed their hand. They have arrogantly imposed their plans for everyone else based on the opinions of only a few and without real consultation with experts with differences of opinion or with the people whose lives have been profoundly affected by the pandemic response.
In the US the revolt is taking many forms. There was the rally in D.C. this past weekend. It was impressive. Also the latest polls on political alliances show that the Democrats have lost a major part of their base. Virginia right now points to where this is headed. The party lost vast amounts of its political power in elections last year and now Republicans rule the state with great popularity.
Meanwhile, I’m looking at Biden’s latest poll numbers. I almost cannot believe my eyes. We are talking about an overall 14-point split between approve and disapprove. If this is an indication of what happens to the pro-lockdown political elite, it stands to reason that Trudeau should be worried.
In the Vietnam War, many Americans fled the draft by going to the safe haven on the northern border. That’s one way that Canada had earned its long reputation for being delightfully normal, peaceful, and mercifully boring. Pandemic policies in Canada changed that, with some of the longest-lasting stringencies in the world.
No one asked the workers. Now they are rising up. Nor does it matter that 90 percent of the Canadian public is vaccinated. Possessing that status alone does not mean that people no longer feel resentment for being forced to accept what they do not believe they needed and did not want in the first place. The vaccinated do not automatically give up their longing to be free and to have their human rights recognized.
The resistance to tyranny in our times is taking many unexpected forms. There will be many confrontations on the way, and there is still a very long way to go. At some point, and no one knows when or how, something has to give.
Joe’s having one hell of a week. So what comes next? Joe keeps on saying crazy things the media and thewhite house says what Joe said is not what Joe meant. Joe’s met by Let’s go Brandon howls, Joe petting and hugging kids, and Joe Manchin says let’s put on the brakes to this madness.
The online behemoth Amazon is trying to bypass the supply chain crisis by hiring private shipping vessels to transport products to customers from around the world, a move that reflects the retailer’s increasing global influence.- Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Amazon is doing what many companies have been doing. Using their own freight forwarders and avoiding the ports of Long Beach and LA. A friend of mine brings in all his goods into Miami than trucks it up to Chicago. Half the time and a third of the cost.
Ocean freight analyst Steve Ferreira said in a CNBC report:
They are doing over 10,000 containers per month of the small- and medium-sized Chinese exporters. Amazon’s volume as an ocean vendor — that’s right, you heard me correct, they’re considered an ocean vendor — would rank them in the top five transportation companies in the Trans Pacific.
This isn’t the first time the retailer has hired private ships to transport goods, according to CNBC. But Amazon has expanded its plan, which has cut waiting times in ports from more than a month to just days.
“Los Angeles, there’s 79 vessels sitting out there up to 45 days waiting to come into the harbor,” Ferreira said. “Amazon’s latest venture that I’ve been tracking in the last two days, it waited two days in the harbor.” Ferreira said:
Who else would think of putting something going into an obscure port in Washington, and then trucking it down to L.A.? Most people are thinking, well, just bring the ship into L.A. But then you’re experiencing those two-week and three-weeks delay. So Amazon’s really taken advantage of some of the niche strategies I believe that the market needs to employ.
Amazon has produced probably 5,000 to 10,000 of these containers over the last two years I’ve been tracking it. Ferreira said. When they bring these containers onto U.S. soil, once they unload them, guess what? They get to be used in the domestic system and the rail system. They don’t have to return them to Asia like everyone else does.
Even so, Amazon is still feeling the pinch like other retailers because of the supply chain crisis, including a 14 percent rise in out-of-stock items and an average price increase of 25 percent since January 2021, according to the e-commerce management platform CommerceIQ.
Amazon has been on a spending spree to control as much of the shipping process as possible. It spent more than $61 billion on shipping in 2020, up from just under $38 billion in 2019. Now, Amazon is shipping 72% of its own packages, up from less than 47% in 2019 according to SJ Consulting Group.
It’s even taking control at the first step of the shipping journey by making its own 53-foot cargo containers in China. Containers are in short supply, with long wait times and prices surging from less than $2,000 before the pandemic to $20,000 today. A cargo vessel called the Star Lygra called at the Port of Houston on October 5, 2021, filled with Amazon containers.
Then in 2017, Amazon started quietly operating as a global freight forwarder through a Chinese subsidiary, helping move goods across the ocean for its Chinese sellers who pay to be part of the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Internally, Amazon dubbed this project “Dragon Boat.”
Amazon is also using long-haul aircraft to transport its “highest-margin goods,” which can get smaller amounts of cargo from China to the U.S. much faster.
A handful of other major retailers are also chartering vessels, including Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Ikea, and Target, according to CNBC.
UPS is laying off hundreds of workers in Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Louisville, KY, and President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.-AP Photo
UPS is laying off hundreds of workers in Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Louisville, KY, and President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“UPS is transitioning some of the work currently done at one of our Global Business Services offices in Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Louisville, KY, and Scranton, PA to another location,” UPS said. “We are having one-on-one meetings with the affected employees to discuss their next steps with the company, which includes the opportunity to apply for open positions at UPS.”
“This layoff will be permanent, and ‘bumping rights’ (that is, the right to avoid termination by displacing another employee) do not exist,” UPS said in a letter to affected employees.
Employees told local news outlets they feel like “we don’t matter” and that it is “just a terrible blow” for those who have worked for the company for years.
As Newswatch 16 reported:
The employees at the UPS facility in Dunmore we talked to wanted to remain anonymous, but they said they feel like they are “being used” for the company’s busiest time of year before the layoffs take effect.
Jim Bognet, a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district, expressed his support for Pennsylvanian workers on Twitter. “I will FIGHT for the workers of Northeast Pennsylvania,” Bognet tweeted.
“UPS should be embarrassed to announce their shameful plan to layoff 232 hardworking employees. Unfortunately layoffs, inflation, and misery are all too common in Joe Biden and Matt Cartwright’s America,” Bognet said in a statement. “When I’m in Congress, I’ll fight for the workers of Northeast Pennsylvania. I will fight to cut regulations and help businesses grow.”
“‘Scranton’ Joe Biden and ‘Lapdog’ Matt Cartwright have let down the people of Lackawanna County that they claim to represent,” Bognet said.
General Motors plans to invest more than $1 billion in a plant in Mexico to produce electric vehicles.
The facility will begin producing at least one EV beginning in 2023, GM said. Getty Images.
General Motors plans to invest more than $1 billion in Mexico to produce electric vehicles, the company announced Thursday. The investment in its Ramos Arizpe production complex is the first major announcement by the automaker for EV production in Mexico. United Auto Workers Vice President Terry Dittes, who leads GM members, called the investment a “slap in the face” to the union members and U.S. taxpayers.
The company declined to discuss what vehicle or vehicles will be produced there. So if the American workers want a raise, guess what happens to the making of GM electric vehicles here. Also this plant he went to in Detroit? The workers make about half of what the regular plant workers make with pay and benefits. Go Electric.
“The Commerce Department’s unwillingness to investigate illegal circumvention by Chinese solar companies is a gift to the Chinese Communist Party that comes at the expense of American companies and American workers,” said Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA. “President Biden promised to create 10 million green new jobs. Instead, this decision ensures that China’s use of Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang to manufacture polysilicon will continue. The Biden administration claims to want to Build Back Better and boost U.S. domestic manufacturing. But a decision like this that only benefits the Chinese Communist Party is a serious red flag that the Build Back Better initiative is nothing more than a slogan.”
Last month, CPA released a statement after five Chinese solar companies—LONGi Green Energy, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar, JA Solar and Risen Energy—issued a statement in a blatant attempt to undermine the Biden administration’s trade enforcement actions and scare the U.S. solar industry into manufacturing a crisis.
Four of these Chinese solar companies were named in an explosive academic report that was released by the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region detailing the widespread use of Uyghur forced labour within the solar industry. The report found that the four largest solar panel suppliers in the world—JinkoSolar, JASolar, TrinaSolar and LONGi—all source from at least one polysilicon manufacturer that is implicated in Uyghur forced labour either through direct participation in forced labour schemes, and/or through their raw material sourcing.
Chinese solar companies, and a Washington special interest group funded by them, have been lobbying the Biden administration and Congress to remove the Section 201 solar tariffs on Chinese solar companies, prevent the Department of Commerce from investigating alleged circumvention of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on solar imports, and against the Biden administration’s actions aimed at Chinese solar companies’ use of forced labor in Xinjiang. Additionally, a group of 12 Senate Democrats recently sent a letter to the Department of Commerce parroting the talking points of Chinese solar companies and their trade association that lobbies on their behalf.
Lordstown Motors gave rides in prototypes of its upcoming electric Endurance pickup truck on June 21, 2021 as part of its “Lordstown Week” event.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
As I’ve mentioned in the past, a few loons told Ohio folks to move after GM during the Obama reign announced they were shutting down auto plants including one in Ohio. Well some sold their homes and fled. The smart ones stayed and are much better off. Here’s why.
Now the GM plant was Union. What did the remaining 700 do? Some probably got a Union job at the TJ Max distribution centre. Or the Union job at the Macy distribution centre. Or the Union job at the Old Dominion Truck depot. Did I mention the 1,500 JOBS AT THE GM battery plant? Over 3,500 Union jobs to pick from.
Foxconn will hire the auto workers ( 600 ) from Lordstown Motors to build the truck. Also Fisker will be building a car at the plant. Another 1,500 workers. And you also have 300 Amazon jobs created. Another 2,400 jobs to pick from.
So GM closes a auto plant. And thanks to President Trump, almost 6,000 jobs replace 1,500. Capitalism at work.
Part of the weakness reflected a 15.5% drop in petroleum exports related to the drilling rig and refinery shutdowns
It’s one thing when our tax money is spent on building border walls and protecting the county. But social programs that protect the undocumented and waste tax dollars is another. Another month of just throwing good money out the window.
The September deficit topped the previous record of $73.2 billion set in June, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The deficit is the gap between what the United States exports to the rest of the world and the imports it purchases from foreign nations.
In September, exports plunged 3% to $207.6 billion while imports rose 0.6% to $288.5 billion. Part of the weakness reflected a 15.5% drop in petroleum exports related to the drilling rig and refinery shutdowns
The Biden Administration reached another record in September. The trade deficit reached the highest amount ever recorded in US history.
