Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“The Trump administration unveiled a $12 billion aid package on Monday for farmers hurt by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other economic challenges.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/08/white-house-to-announce-farmer-bailout-package-00680633
China is using its stranglehold on rare earth minerals to wage economic warfare against the world. If a company wants such materials from somewhere else, they will be more expensive, and those companies’ products will no longer be competitive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dASaGYbN0dw
When countries like China focus on heavily investing, initially it works well because they invest in productive things and this grows their economy. However, later, they run out of that many productive things to invest in, in which case they are robbing their citizens of consumption and outcompeting other countries’ manufacturing, but not gaining much actual new productive benefits. This leads to debt.
Bilateral tariffs like Trump is doing don’t work. The U.S. has a huge deficit because it consumes more than it exports. A global tariff could work by making goods more expensive and incentivizing people to consume, now relatively cheaper, domestic products. Bilateral tariffs just mean Americans will import cheap goods from country C and D instead of the heavily tariffed countries A and B.
Getting foreigners to invest in the U.S. hurts the U.S.. The U.S. has plenty of capital to invest and doesn’t need more. Additional investment means driving up the dollar, making U.S. goods less competitive internationally, and hurting U.S. exports.
China has debt to support investment. The U.S. has debt to support consumption. The system is out of whack and needs adjustment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSNdzfydRU
“While annual inflation through August 2025 came in at 2.9 percent, the price of audio equipment like new speakers had risen 12.2 percent. “They’re some of the few electronics not exempt from tariffs (most smartphones/computers are still tariff-free),””
https://reason.com/2025/11/20/the-sindex-speak-up/
“”The U.S. is our least trustworthy trading partner right now—and I say that as an American,” Price Johnson, COO of Cephalofair Games, told Reason last month. “I can’t trust what the policy is going to be tomorrow, let alone next week.”
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The Yale Budget Lab estimates that Trump’s tariffs will cost the average American household around $1,700 this year.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/28/trumps-1-1-billion-tax-hike-on-toys-and-games/
“From knitting needles to garment fabric to bottles of paint, American crafters work with many materials produced abroad. That has left them particularly vulnerable to Trump’s trade war. Imports from Europe currently face tariffs of 15 percent, and while sky-high tariffs on China are currently subject to a 90-day pause, they still stand at 57.6 percent, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Worse still, Trump has done away with the de minimis exemption, which allowed goods valued at under $800 to enter the U.S. tariff-free.
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Exclusively stocking U.S.-produced materials isn’t an option for most craft stores. “Tariffs impact American-made yarns as well,” pointed out Fibre Space, a yarn store in Alexandria, Virginia. That’s because “American-made goods still rely on materials made in other countries.” Yarn “is an agricultural product,” observes Chadwell, “so certain crops and certain livestock produce the best fiber in very specific climates that aren’t necessarily” found in the United States. Meanwhile, “needles, notions, doodads, [and] bags…can only be produced at much higher prices” here.
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Tariffs prevent all sorts of voluntary transactions that shape lives and culture in big—and often inconspicuous—ways. That means shops that won’t be started, gifts that won’t be made by hand, and hobbies that won’t be taken up. And more immediately, tariffs are punishing business owners who want to help Americans fill their lives with more creativity.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/30/knitters-need-free-trade/
The BRICS Prepare the BIGGEST ATTACK on the DOLLAR at its Most FRAGILE Moment: “Brics Pay”
Brics Pay would allow countries to trade in their own dollars rather than needing the U.S. Dollar. It’s still being set up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOg7aYeV5eM
Tariffs degrade long run efficiency, but uncertainty caused by Trump’s erratic use of tariffs has a greater negative effect on the economy in the short term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPXbtFx8v4
Trump’s deal with China has made things less bad than they were before the meeting, but they are still way worse than they were before Trump engaged in a trade war with China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr-gB3BNykQ
“Board game makers have been hit particularly hard by Trump’s tariffs, which have raised the cost of importing just about everything. Cephalofair is based in California, but like many other businesses in the industry, Johnson’s company relies on contractors in China and Vietnam to make the tokens, pawns, cards, and other physical elements of its games.
Manufacturing all those parts in the U.S. is not possible if game companies want their products to be competitively priced. With high tariffs in place, the costs compound quickly. Nathan McNair, the co-owner of Pandasaurus Games, broke down the math in a post on his company’s website. The added cost of the tariffs makes every step more complicated, from design to sales, and can even change what games a company chooses to make in the first place. “This has not just squeezed our margin; this has substantially increased our risk,” he concluded.
Trump’s tariffs have already stung Cephalofair in several ways.
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for businesses like Johnson’s, which can’t afford to risk the possibility of being hit with a massive tariff bill just because a shipment arrives at the wrong time.
Instead, those businesses will do what Johnson has done: Delay orders, slow production, and hope more stability emerges.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/31/trumps-tariff-chaos-crushes-board-game-makers-the-u-s-is-our-least-trustworthy-trading-partner/