**The Argentine Stockholm Syndrome**
Argentina suffers from a collective Stockholm Syndrome. The government and a few "industrialists" have held the market hostage for decades, forcing us to pay double for outdated tech. Yet, many people defend their captors, terrified that "jobs will be lost" if we stop subsidizing billionaire oligarchs. We are literally paying for the ropes they use to tie our hands.
#StockholmSyndrome #Argentina #EconomicCrisis #Protectionism #MentalChains
The mastermind behind this mess was General Alejandro Lanusse, a military dictator who signed Law 19.640 in 1972. The excuse was "geopolitics"—occupying the empty south to prevent a Chilean invasion. Fifty years later, the military is gone, but the law remains as a fossilized scam that forces 46 million people to subsidize a handful of "screwing-bolt" factories.
#History #Argentina #DictatorshipLegacy #Protectionism #TierraDelFuego
They say tech factories are in the freezing south because of the climate. It is a lie. Modern electronics need stable, air-conditioned clean rooms, not dry Antarctic cold that creates static electricity—a chip’s worst enemy. It is just a tax-haven excuse to force us to pay double for old technology.
For 70 years, industrial growth has been held hostage by the Tierra del Fuego bureaucracy—a tax haven for 'fake' local assembly. Not one president has dared to scrap these protectionist regulations that force us to pay double for tech. Pure incompetence.
"Governments worldwide face mounting pressure to simultaneously expand domestic clean energy industries and accelerate decarbonisation. Recent policies combine subsidies for clean technology with various protectionist measures, including domestic content requirements and tariffs on imports. Yet, evidence from the solar sector suggests tariffs undermine rather than support climate objectives.
Since 2012, the US has imposed substantial tariffs on solar panels imported from China. The EU erected related trade barriers on solar panels before lifting them in 2018. More recently, the US and EU have imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. These actions illustrate a policy tension: even as governments commit to rapid decarbonisation, protectionist measures raise the cost of deploying the clean technologies needed to achieve climate goals. Recent research helps illuminate this conflict and points toward better policy approaches."
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/beyond-tariffs-better-approach-green-industrial-policy
#USA #China #GreenTransition #GreenIndustrialPolicy #Tariffs #TradeWar #Protectionism #BigOil #Decarbonization #FossilFuels
The new face of the Republican Party. Forget RINOs. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the "Depublicans".
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-01-22/real-rinos-arent-who-you-think-they-are
#bigGovernment #conservatism #creditCard #Depublicans #GOP #horseshoeTheory #housingPolicy #industrialPolicy #MAGA #nationalism #populism #priceControls #protectionism #RINO #socialism #USPolitics
"Stand for nothing and fall for anything." The implosion of a conservative think tank, as explained by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' own book:
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/the-book-that-explains-the-heritage-foundation-meltdown/
#conservatism #freeTrade #HeritageFoundation #KevinRoberts #newRight #protectionism #Reaganism #tariffs #Trumpism #willToPower
"The new research, published Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a well-regarded German think tank, suggests that the impact of tariffs is likely to show up over time in the form of higher U.S. consumer prices.
The findings don’t mean that the tariffs are a win for Europe—on the contrary. German exports to the U.S., which have rocketed in recent years, have contracted sharply in the past year.
The German research echoes recent reports by the Budget Lab at Yale and economists at Harvard Business School, finding that only a small fraction of the tariff costs were being borne by foreign producers.
By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their prices, while American consumers and importers absorbed 96%.
The tariffs had a significant effect on trade volumes: Facing higher U.S. tariffs, Indian exporters maintained their prices but reduced the volume of shipments to the U.S. by 18%-24% relative to the European Union, Canada and Australia, the report found.
Rather than acting as a tax on foreign producers, the tariffs functioned as a consumption tax on Americans, the report said."
#USA #Trump #EU #Tariffs #TradeWar #Protectionism #ConsumptionTax
"Protection doesn't mean #protectionism, but today's Europeans are too naive," #Macron added.
"The Europeans are the only ones not to protect their own companies & their own markets, when the other countries don't respect the level playing field."
He called for more Chinese foreign direct investment in #Europe "in some key sectors to contribute to our growth, to transfer some technologies".
#geopolitics #tariffs #economy #NewWorldOrder #law #InternationalLaw #WEF
In creating one of the world’s largest #FreeTrade zones, the accord — pushed by #SouthAmerica’s renowned cattle-raising countries & #Europe’s industrial sectors craving new markets for cars & machines — brings together a #market of more than 700 million #consumers that accounts for a quarter of #global #GDP.
#geopolitics #trade #economy #inflation #tariffs #EU #Mercosur #protectionism #NewWorldOrder
The signing ceremony in Paraguay’s humid capital of Asunción marks a major geopolitical victory for the #EU in an age of #Trump #tariffs & surging #China exports, expanding the bloc’s foothold in a #resource-rich region increasingly contested by Washington & Beijing.
#geopolitics #trade #economy #inflation #Europe #Mercosur #SouthAmerica #FreeTrade #protectionism #NewWorldOrder
The #EU & the #Mercosur bloc of #SouthAmerica countries formally signed a long-sought landmark #FreeTrade agreement on Saturday, capping more than a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen #commercial ties in the face of rising #protectionism & #trade tensions around the world.
#geopolitics #economy #Trump #tariffs #inflation #Europe #NewWorldOrder
“Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister, and Gillian Tett, Financial Times columnist, assess the current state of international relations and global politics, and the impact of the policies of President Donald Trump. The pair also look at the direction of travel of politics in Europe and the challenges facing the UK economy. Hosted by Victoria Derbyshire.”—BBC Newsnight
“We're returning to a pre-1945 world” Yanis Varoufakis & Gillian Tett on "fractious" global politics >
https://youtu.be/Q9aD1ViB0BE?si=JwJ00TRNlETrP9x3
#politics #Trump_regime #toxic_masculinity #broligarchy #USA_politics #UK_politics #political_news #BBC #Newsnight #fascism #nazism #Putin #Yanis_Varoufakis #China #EU #Gillian_Tett #Victoria_Derbyshire #economy #poverty #global_politics #MAGA #masculinism #Pre_WW2 #protectionism #populism #nationalism #fascist_USA
"The entire ideology which underpins international economic relations has to be rethought. Perhaps we have to create a new system which would allow for trade blocs and tariff rates, no labor migration, and no transfer of technology but it has to be codified and explained to the rest of the world. Yet nobody has so far as much as mentioned that we (the world) need to create such a new system. This is why we are currently in the situation where the rules do not exist anymore. They are being treated in an entirely ad hoc manner: a certain set of rules are being used in one country or in one set of countries and other rules are being used in another set of countries. All of this is justified on the grounds of national interest. This is not an illegitimate position to take but one has to be clear about what it implies. It implies the return to mercantilistic policies where the interests of individual countries are paramount. It also means the abandonment of any cosmopolitan and internationalist perspective where the rules are at least in principle universal. We no longer have universal rules and the main culprit for not having universal rules is not Trump, but the view of the world where domestic political interest and the so-called security concerns are above everything else. This is not a world of globalization, but of parceled regionalisms and even nationalism."
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/how-the-mainstream-has-abandoned/
#Neoliberalism #Globalization #Economy #Economics #Nationalism #Tariffs #TradeWar #Protectionism
Greenland & EU New Approach
cheap chinese gpu to the rescue? some of it is hype but they are making huge progress they may sell at a discount to take mkt share initially. chinese ev should sell also and there is a demand for them - tesla would have competition which is sorely needs, the US should be much less protectionist or have them open up factories here just like bmw, honda etc #the pc great depression #compute #protectionism
