China Explores Limiting Its EV and Battery Exports For US Tariff Negotiations (msn.com) 145
"China is considering trying to blunt greater U.S. tariffs and other trade barriers," reports the Wall Street Journal, "by offering to curb the quantity of certain goods exported to the U.S., according to advisers to the Chinese government."
Tokyo's adoption of so-called voluntary export restraints, or VERs, to limit its auto shipments to the U.S. in the 1980s helped prevent Washington from imposing higher import duties. A similar move from Beijing, especially in sectors of key concern to Washington, like electric vehicles and batteries, would mitigate criticism from the U.S. and others over China's "economic imbalances": heavily subsidized companies making stuff for slim profits but saturating global markets, to the detriment of other countries' manufacturers...
The Xi leadership has indicated a desire to cut a deal with the Trump administration to head off greater trade attacks... Similar to Japan, the Chinese advisers say, Beijing may also consider negotiating export restraints on EVs and batteries in return for investment opportunities in those sectors in the U.S. In some officials' views, they say, that might be an attractive offer to Trump, who at times has indicated an openness to more Chinese investment in the U.S. even though members of his administration firmly oppose it.
The article notes agreements like this are also hard to enforce, "particularly when Chinese companies export to the U.S. from third countries including Mexico and Vietnam."
The Xi leadership has indicated a desire to cut a deal with the Trump administration to head off greater trade attacks... Similar to Japan, the Chinese advisers say, Beijing may also consider negotiating export restraints on EVs and batteries in return for investment opportunities in those sectors in the U.S. In some officials' views, they say, that might be an attractive offer to Trump, who at times has indicated an openness to more Chinese investment in the U.S. even though members of his administration firmly oppose it.
The article notes agreements like this are also hard to enforce, "particularly when Chinese companies export to the U.S. from third countries including Mexico and Vietnam."
Make your own batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
Recovery your own raw material and make your own batteries. If that means you have to compromise a bunch of environmental nest feathering you'd prefer to keep, well then, maybe you can learn from that and evaluate the supposed environment saving properties of EVs properly.
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And who will you sell those batteries to?
Let's allow for the sake of argument a trade war with a major trading partner might turn out well for us. But it's not *China* we're playing this game with. It's *everyone*.
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
Battery manufacturing is a race to the bottom. Over the past quarter century energy density has become 10x better. At the current rate of improvement even the cheapest piece of shit hand me down will be able to hold such a large charge that energy will be everywhere. You will find yourself installing battery battery packs in the space between the 2x4s in your wall that cost like $15 and each one being capable of running your entire house for 4 hours. A century later one pack will be able to run your entire
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:4, Informative)
Over the past quarter century energy density has become 10x better.
Where are you getting this figure from, and what battery technologies are you comparing against one another to get this figure? It seems as though you'd have to be comparing lead-acid batteries to cobalt lithium-ion in order to get a difference in energy densities that large, and cobalt lithium-ion batteries have been in commercial production since the early nineties.
Battery technologies have not advanced nearly as much as you're suggesting.
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If you believe China (I know you probably don't) they're doing 711 Wh/kg lithium batteries which is 10x anything from the 90s
Lithium ion batteries by the late 1990s were almost 200 Wh/kg, so no, it isn't anywhere near 10x unless you're comparing to the very first versions in 1991 (~75 Wh/g). They are, of course, much, much *cheaper* than lithium ion batteries in the 1990s.
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Yet somehow their batteries are the best. You can get a Tesla with US-made Panasonic batteries, or Chinese made LFP cells. The Chinese ones are better in every measurable way, and it's very easy to compare since the cars are otherwise identical.
That's why so many Western manufacturers buy Chinese batteries for their EVs. They can build their own gigafactories, but the tech is mid to low end. Hard to get it cheap enough for their affordable cars, and not offering the performance of affordable Chinese models.
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There is a physical limit to the energy density of an elecro-chemical battery. Failure to recognize this is a failure of the understanding on how batteries function.
We are not on the "cusp of some insane energy densities" as there is a limit on how densely we can pack chemical energy. One issue is that as we pack the energy more densely the more protections we need to prevent an unintended release. There's a number of examples of unintended release of densely packed chemical energy in videos of EV fires.
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"To get to where batteries fit in small spaces and provide heat and light for our homes for hours"
Um, a Tesla powerwall's components could *easily* be reorganized to fit in single 16" floor to ceiling space between 2x4s. Already there. Given L-Ion fire risk obviously not the best idea, but for LFPs or other non fire prone chemistries it's entirely doable.
Claiming we don't have small enough batteries to power houses for days is flatly false.
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
You're overestimating what a powerwall is capable of. A powerwall can run an average home on an average day for less than 12 hours assuming "normal" use. Which is an awful lot of hand waving, and is implicitly ignoring things like regional differences in weather, home fuel configuration (gas vs electric heat), etc. People using Powerwalls for storm backups are advised to disconnect basically everything but a chest freezer, and then it will limp you a few days. If you think they're going to run your AC on ev
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I'm simply saying that battery size isn't an issue to run a house for days like poster was claiming. I said nothing about cost.
Powerwall 3 is 11.5 kwh
Average house uses 10-20 kwh/day https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]
Lets go big and say 30kwh, so 3 powerwalls per day of use. Hardly 'room sized', I can *easily* fit that amount of energy storage in 3 2x4 16" wall spaces. And I have a spare 100 of those spaces still available.
Poster I replied to is a well trodden /. troll lying about battery density....th
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
I mean, the guy you responded to wasn't wrong in implying there are physical limitations for battery density when considering safety. Your counter to that was a residential powerwall, and it just isn't a real example. You're also implying 30kwh-day household use is some kind of engineering margin type worst case, and frankly it isn't. The August average is higher than that in the American south, and daily draw could be a multiple of that depending on a lot of factors (home size, efficiency, outdoor temp, et
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:5, Informative)
> Over the past quarter century energy density has become 10x better.
1996 Toshiba Libretto 20CT battery pack PA2452UR was build using 1300mAh 17670 cells. Its been 30 years and we can barely buy 3x the capacity in slightly bigger 18650 form factor. Afaik Industry tops out at 3600mAh (Panasonic NCR18650G ) since 2019?
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
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A large part of energy density improvements do not come from assuming the density in a circular form factor but rather the density in the final device used. You're disingenuously limiting the argument comparing only cylindrical cells. One of our biggest improvements came from the move away from this inconveniently shaped battery.
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Batteries also cost at least the same, if not more.
The first thing that $15 battery will do when you install it into your house is burn it down.
from 4 hours to 20 hours in a century? what happened to that 10x density claim.
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Sure, it's 20% of the whole world economy. That doesn't make up for the impact of losing export markets on investors in domestic projects, which is what we're talking about here. Especially as presumably the "conservative" government isn't going to be subsidizing battery uses for things like renewables or even EVs.
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, back in the 90s when we weren't as entangled with China as we are now, and before NAFTA took effect, there was still cheap shit that was made in China or hecho en Mexico on the store shelves, but not as much of it. And while the marginally higher fraction of stuff that was made in US was a little pricier but was of much higher quality and more importantly kept people here employed and productive rather than the alternative.
The last two decades have been a stark demonstration of why cheap shit at w
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:4, Insightful)
U3 has been under 5% for the entire year and U6 under 8%, maybe longer, we don't really have a job demand. Why are these manufacturing jobs for consumer goods so important?
Is it good wages? What makes manufacturing line work so much more valuable than whatever Americans are doing now (the answer traditionally has been unions and pensions but those are gone now, conveniently). Do Americans even want these jobs? If that's the case let's just work on raising wages, regardless of sector.
Is it national security? That's a different matter also and our supply of American made cheap consumer crap critical to that when American's can get it at better prices from elsewhere?
So what's the reason to take such an economical hit and make Americans potentially sacrifice higher productivity work that we do now to do factory style line manufacturing?
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
The honest answer I have to your question is a long and multipart one. Fitting that outsourcing has been not so much one big hit as it has been death by a thousand little cuts..
First is the national security angle. Productive capacity is what wins wars, not stockpiles and not software. You're seeing that in Ukraine. The west is drawing down stockpiles. The Russians are running factories. They might be North Korean factories but the point is they are producing munitions. If it ever comes to blows with the Ch
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:4, Interesting)
You work at a factory you can say with pride that you make things. Even if it's children's toys or shoelaces. You can see your product on store shelves. You can see it being used.
Sorry, it ain't the 1950s. These days, manufacturing work for consumer goods means babysitting the robots that run the production lines. Entailing stuff like refilling parts bins and making sure everything is running smoothly.
Then there's also faux "Made in the USA" assembling, which is pretty much paying people crappy wages to basically do the equivalent of assembling Ikea furniture:
When companies say they "assemble" electronics in the USA, it usually means they’re receiving pre-built components - often down to pre-assembled circuit boards, display panels, and other key parts - from overseas manufacturers (typically in China or other low-cost production hubs). Then, they handle the final steps, such as putting the main components into the outer casing, attaching speakers or stands, running quality control checks, and boxing the products for shipment.
It’s a bit like getting a nearly completed Ikea shelf where you just have to screw in the legs and call it "made in the USA." It does technically qualify as domestic assembly, and it might create some jobs, but the high-tech, labor-intensive manufacturing (like making the LCD panels or circuit boards) is still happening elsewhere.
That's pretty much like going to a restaurant and asking the chef to just give you all the individual parts of your burger on a plate, so you can do the final assembly yourself. Viva la gourmet!
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
If that were true, then that's what you'd see in Chinese factories. Except you don't see that at all. You see people making things on an assembly line. Sometimes with simple or not so simple tools and occasionally with their hands.
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If that were true, then that's what you'd see in Chinese factories. Except you don't see that at all. You see people making things on an assembly line. Sometimes with simple or not so simple tools and occasionally with their hands.
That's because China operates under a different economic system than the US. Here, people expect to be paid livable wages because, well, company provided dormitories just doesn't fly here. Plus, your factory also has to compete for labor against every other employer where you can earn a low-end income just for showing up on time and sober. China has something of a different culture, where for some reason people who are capable of doing semi-skilled manual labor are willing to work for lousy wages. Again
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Productive capacity is what wins wars, not stockpiles and not software.
I would say the combination of all 3 wins wars and I agree with productive capacity of necessary military gear being on shored and really, a lot of it is we just have slashed the capacity. I suppose building that back up like the artillery plants that *were pumping out shells for Ukraine but that's neither here nor there with regards to tariffs or manufacturing jobs, it's a distraction from the greater point. Defense policy has some overlap but little to do with greater economic policy. I can make that cas
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Northrop will build those F-47s in America
From what I can tell, the F-47 is, at the moment, completely imaginary. An act of fellatio to extract a few billion of taxpayer money.
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Sure, I might even agree it's existence entirely depends on the next election as written. 6th Gen fighter programs have been in evaluation and early stages for years, two of them actually, one for the USAF and one for the Navy
F/A-XX program [wikipedia.org]
Next Generation Air Dominance [wikipedia.org] (This is the program Trump named the F-47)
Now, since that was before this election so this is classic Trump "take credit something already already long in the works", the man knows how to market, never gonna deny that.
So when these programs
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The thing most economists like to omit is the value of shoving money at the lower classes. They *spend* it. A gov't doesn't make money on tax rates...it makes money on tax frequency.
It mixes in helping socially with national security. By paying people *good* wages, even above scale, you're cycling money through the economy. Every major industry has been showing record profits; there's more than enough to pay higher wages across the board.
The national security piece is you do need a solid local manufa
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Nah, I have it on good authority (Howard Lutnick) that people who trust the government don't need to be paid regularly. If they miss a Social Security check, for example, only the scammers and fraudsters will complain.
https://thehill.com/homenews/a... [thehill.com] (see paragraph 4 and beyond)
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"Only scammers and fraudsters complain"
and the response absolutely should have been
"well Trump certainly complains a lot...."
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Well, I think we're mostly on the same page here. Free trade really did deliver on its promise of super-cheap consumer goods, but it had other, undesirable, and in-hindsight-foreseeable consequences that we foolishly ignored.
Even allowing that we should "re-shore" many of those jobs that went overseas, we shouldn't make the same mistake of making a sudden radical change in direction because we have a particular and desirable policy goal in mind. Businesses, workers, and consumers need some modicum of stab
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The last two decades have been a stark demonstration of why cheap shit at walmart or on amazon doesn't make up for massive losses in manufacturing jobs.
In what way?
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The US market is big...but it's *entirely* dependent on import/export. Hell, just look at gasoline. "We produce more than we use!" Except we *can't* use what we produce for gasoline.
And thinking that the US doesn't use it's own form of slave labor is hilarious. A working class with a majority that can't scrape up $400 for an emergency, with none to barely there health insurance and now you're going to gut the remnants of that social safety net...
oh yeah, that's gonna work just fine.
An uneducated, poor
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Your "uses slave labor" would hold more water if that was the only target but the reality is the USA has a long history of blocking trade for any market segment that it's local industry is noncompetitive, notably your farmers. What did Canada ever do to deserve being called "One of the Nastiest Countries" by trump?
Re: Make your own batteries (Score:2)
Roll coal to stick it to Trump!
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Progressives have declared an all out holy war against Tesla, complete with firebombs, bullets, and swastikas, and you know the first conspiracy theory they'd come up with is to claim that mining our own lithium is some kind of oligarchic power play for Trump to help Elon at the expense of the environment.
Well you did a fine job of listing all the least effective methods to stick it to Elon. Is there any particular reason you didn't mention the most spectacularly effective one? Hint: Just not buying Teslas.
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It's one thing to hold a boycott, but this is something else entirely. Especially when you're targeting (including doxing) people because of what car they drive.
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It's one thing to hold a boycott, but this is something else entirely. Especially when you're targeting (including doxing) people because of what car they drive.
I don't condone vandalising random Teslas and I've had many arguments with anarchist activists over it. They are cars owned by innocent people who just decided to buy a car without intending their purchase being some high flying declaration of political allegiance. What brand/type of car you drive may be a declaration of what political tribe you belong to in the US but over here in Europe it is simply a function of what car you liked that is reliable, affordable and best suits your needs. I know this is an
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So then are you going to start painting "el salvador" on them instead? I don't see how that helps.
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Well you did a fine job of listing all the least effective methods to stick it to Elon. Is there any particular reason you didn't mention the most spectacularly effective one? Hint: Just not buying Teslas.
Or dumping Tesla stock, where most of his wealth come from. In the past 3 months, Tesla employees have sold 745,228 shares and bought 0 shares of Tesla [youtube.com]. Also noting that Tesla has several factories in China including its largest and more than 50% of all Teslas in the world are made in China, which could be affected by changes in U.S./China trade -- and another reason to not share U.S. military plans with Musk as he now has more financial ties to China than the U.S. and makes one wonder where his allegian
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Of course that that is the least of Tesla's worries while they remain associated with Elon who is hell bent on seeing how many people he can get to hate him. Fucked if I know what the guy is thinking but it feels like he went to the South Park school for business and social skills.
Mr. Mackey: "Ruining peoples' lives and destroying America is bad Elon. m'kay" :-)
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However, given Trump's willingness to just shill for Tesla outright (and SpaceX, and Starlink) it seems likely that the major grift will come in a less subtle way.
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I couldn't imagine why a person who isn't qualified to fire people and is actually firing people finds himself unliked.
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We have a sitting president who is running a damned cryptocurrency scam. Don't you dare pretend that law and order suddenly means something only when it's the other party's supporters being jackasses. Shit, even a damn LLM can figure it out:
The phrase “elect a clown, get a circus” suggests that when an unqualified, unserious, or reckless leader takes power, chaos follows. But the deeper implication is that such a leader erodes norms and the rule of law, which can have a cascading effect on the
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People are setting Teslas on fire because an unelected oligarch has seized the reins of the government
So let's go dox and paint swastikas on cars belonging to people who have nothing to do with this? Yeah that will totally solve the problem and rally everybody to your cause.
Besides, he's not in a position that demands an election. He's effectively part of Trump's administration. Here's a hot take for you though: The current path of spending on the part of the government couldn't last, so overall this is the right thing to do, but probably a bad approach. I think Steve Wozniak's recent comments (there's a fu
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So let's go dox and paint swastikas on cars belonging to people who have nothing to do with this? Yeah that will totally solve the problem and rally everybody to your cause.
See, that's the thing you're still not getting. Inviting chaos means you're going to see rash, irrational, illogical behaviors coming from both sides of the aisle. These people aren't trying to work towards a solution - they're just frustrated and angry at a system they believe has failed them.
The electorate knew full well how inflammatory Trump is to the people who can't stand him, and now we've got literal fires resulting from that.
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However I don't understand why people a destroying Tesla's on the street? Almost all of them will have been brought before Elon decided to go off the rails and damaging them does not affect Elon or Tesla. In fact it does the opposite as Tesla get to sell replacement parts and cars when insurance claims
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Don't worry, I'm sure the next Democrat president will pardon the Tesla protestors. After all, that is our new normal now.
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I really doubt it. The entire point of the next non-MAGA government will be to restore the rule of law. Pardoning a bunch of vandals isn't going to send the right message. Though if Trump does follow through with his threats to deport alleged vandals to prisons overseas known for human rights abuses, you might, at best, see commutations.
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Passenger cars contribute about 7-10% of global CO2 emissions. Tackling climate change requires that other 90-93% of emission sources to be addressed in some manner, and that's not happening with the GOP running the show.
So, there's no logical inconsistency in wanting to see Tesla burn to the ground while still being concerned about the bigger picture, regardless of how much you may wish it to be the case.
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> Progressives declaring war on the largest EV manufacturer in the world just shows how much they value lowering CO2 emissions.
You do know there are plenty of other EV makers right now? Nobody's "declared war" on EVs, just on Musk and by extension the keeper of his wealth, the ridiculously overvalued Tesla shares. And Tesla may be the company with the largest division focused on EVs, but it's not the largest company that makes EVs. Virtually all major car manufacturers are churning out some variant of EV
Volvo (Score:2)
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I think is the only Chinese company that sells cars in the US.
Polestar is also launching in the US during Q2 this year so that makes two, three if you count BYD and its buses as 'cars' but I'm not sure if they have been ban-hammered but the angry orangutang yet.
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Polestar has been selling cars here for years.
tariffs are theft (Score:3)
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It is unsustainable long term to keep buying everything from an outside source. It's one-way money pump and you are on the sucking end.
America becoming an ICE island in a world of EVs (Score:2)
So, Americans got what they wanted, you cannot buy so-called "heavily subsidized" Chinese EVs like BYD, and you guys also do not want Elon's Teslas.
From now on, GE, Ford and their likes could pretend EVs never happened and continue to sell gas-guzzling ICE vehicles, keeping America as an island of ICE in the sea of EVs around the world.
Right at the time when BYD announced 1000kW charging giving 400km range in 5 mins, on par with filling a gas tank. The switch to EV is inevitable and Americans chose to live
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EVs have reached price parity with fossil fuel cars, and we should be heading into the realm of them being cheaper in the next few years. Battery costs will keep coming down, and the drivetrains are much simpler.
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Even if we did have a GE branded car, it would just be more Chinese junk with the named licensed and stamped on it.
What's the motive for the tarrifs? (Score:2)
If it is just to support and encourage domestic us production by increasing the costs of imported competition, then China can just sell them to the USA at a higher price. The old dvd market used to be like this - they wanted to extract the maximum profits and people in different geographies could afford different prices.
However, if Mr T just wants a tax income for his administration, then that won't help at all, and the US consumer will just have to suck up the higher costs, irrespective of if they're from
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" the consumer still gets the cheaper prices" and the U.S. consumer gets increase national debt., or increase taxes to pay for it. Either was, the consumer gets screwed as el Bunko knows.
It's not just EVs. It's not just batteries. (Score:3)
Perhaps it is time for China to quit subverting governments, setting up covert Chinese police stations in other countries, presuming it owns what it does not own in the South China Sea, stop its wasteful military build up, and quit declaring they are at war with the US in their internal military literature and classrooms. I for one choose to believe, literally, anybody who declares I am an enemy he is willing to destroy at any cost. It is time to believe China, lock the doors, and be ready to demonstrate that attacking the US would be foolish, even at only a financial level.
{^_^}
Two ways of artificially restricting supply (Score:2)
Both a tariff and an export restriction will artificially restrict supply and thereby raise prices. In the former case, the US Government collects the surplus. In the latter case, it is Chinese manufacturers that collect most of the surplus, and non-Chinese manufacturers may also collect some.
Toyota is smart (Score:2)
Tokyo's adoption of so-called voluntary export restraints
When you have tariffs you sell less product and any money collected by the US government is never seen by the foreign company. They just loose business. But if you make an agreement to voluntarily limit the volume of products going to the US, to stave off the need for tariffs, then the price of the goods in the US is still higher. Supply and demand. But instead of the US government collecting the difference in pricing the manufacturer can then d
That'll work, sure. (Score:2)
Re: Winning! (Score:3)
You, no.
Someone is winning and it's certainly not anyone who would post on Slashdot
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it's certainly not anyone who would post on Slashdot
Because they spend all of their time posting on Twitter?
Re: Winning! (Score:2)
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MAGA was always a euphemism for Make America White Again
There is a Politico article [politico.com] that argues that the real origin of the religious right in the US was desegregation.
The attacks on "Woke" and "DEI" are just the current versions of the same thing.
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Trade Wars is where everyone looses. But it comes down to which side is willing to suffer for longer.
While the US has more capital. The general citizenship has been mostly use to a level of comfort, that will hurt more if lost. While China will loose a lot, but the people on average have less, so the pain would be less.
China also has a tight hold on public opinion as hey! stated. Which would restrict decent.
However what makes it worse, is the US is not just hitting China, but basically the whole world, thi
Re:Both sides are skating on thin ice here. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are rare instances of trade wars working out for one side, but this won't be one of them. In the 80s, the US conducted two trade wars against Japan, over autos and semiconductors which were settled on US terms. So on the surface this was a success for the US, just at the time we began to engage with China and encourage China to engage in international trade. In retrospect less of a zero sum resolution to the Japan dispute -- one that didn't permanently weaken a key ally in the region -- might have been a good idea.
In this case, I think the US is better positioned to weather a trade war than China is. China is in a parlous state; as huge as the economy is, it has multiple hair-raising structural problems: a real estate bubble that just won't go away; eye-watering debt loads by corporations and local governments; foreign technological dependencies that it just can't shake; inefficient state owned enterprises; party meddling and endemic corruption and favoritism; and, oh, God, the fuse burning down on the mother of all demographic time bombs.
If the only thing that mattered about a trade war was "winning", then this might be the time to have a trade war against China. What it is not, as you point out, is a time to have a trade war against *everyone*. That is a thing so monumentally stupid nobody has ever attempted it before. And even if we do win the war against China like we did against Japan, we might not like the results of pushing an economy that size further into peril.
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I wouldn't be so quick to bank on the USA's might. The USA is also has significant structural economic problems, namely it's insane debt. The USA weathers through this debt as the dollar is a powerful internationally traded currency. But one of the key things that would weaken that position is ... getting into a trade war with trading partners.
China alone holds $1.2 trillion of US debt. There's a lot of damage you can do with that.
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I'm not sure Japan lost those trade wars. Japan has a unique ability to look at the long term, and over that time frame their cars have done quite well in the US.
The semiconductor side was more to do with Taiwan and China starting to produce them at lower cost and eventually higher end. We shall see if Canon's new fabrication system has any impact. I do miss NEC chips.
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Thanks, some interesting history. I like NEC and Hudson's video chips in particular. Very interesting devices. Yamaha made some fun but a little weak video chips, and of course defined the sound of Japanese machines of that era with their sound chips.
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Worst still the damage is already done, even if trump removed all tariffs tomorrow the rest of the world now sees them as unreliable and unt
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Well, yes they're concerned about public opinion. That's why they put so much effort into controlling it. This is true of all authoritarian regimes, they are afraid of negative public sentiment, however they have a lot more leeway than a democratic government in how to deal with that.
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This is true of all authoritarian regimes, they are afraid of negative public sentiment, however they have a lot more leeway than a democratic government in how to deal with that.
Being afraid of negative public sentiment is different than managing it. As I understand it, China has a massive citizen participation program to engage people in decisions. Its manipulated to produce acceptable outcomes, but that is not much different than how democracy works. Not the schoolbook civics version, but the real operative versions. China also has an advantage in that it culturally values social conformity.
There are plenty of Hamiltonians out there who don't believe people are capable of self-
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In short, I don't think autocracy and democracy are different.
This is consistent with the type of batshit crazy I've come to expect from you.
But elections can just as easily be used to cement autocratic power.
Not if you don't have the votes to change the constitution.
As they are in Russia and many other autocratic states, which now includes the United States.
No it doesn't.
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Not if you don't have the votes to change the constitution.
What constitution are you talking about? In Russia, Putin won a democratic vote. Then he got Mendev elected as President and he became the prime minister. Then he got elected president again and he even got the votes to change the constitution so he could run again. All very democratic. That hardly makes him less an autocrat. No matter what batshit crazy nonsense you believe.
In the United States, 5 members of the Supreme Court can change the constitution by simply declaring the words to mean whatever they
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What constitution are you talking about?
The US constitution.
In Russia, Putin won a democratic vote. Then he got Mendev elected as President and he became the prime minister. Then he got elected president again and he even got the votes to change the constitution so he could run again. All very democratic. That hardly makes him less an autocrat.
WTF is the point? Russia != USA ... I have no idea how Russia turned into a full fledged autocratic dictatorship nor do I care.
In the United States, 5 members of the Supreme Court can change the constitution by simply declaring the words to mean whatever they want the constitution to say.
The supreme court interprets law. It does not have the power to change law. There is no equivalence neither is this a distinction without a difference. The court can later reinterpret the law, congress can change laws or the constitution can be amended to address incorrect decisions of the court.
Presidents have become elected kings almost exactly as Hamilton proposed.
US presidents have not become kings. Some may wish they were,
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WTF is the point?
The point is that autocracy and democracy are not incompatible.
The supreme court interprets law. It does not have the power to change law. There is no equivalence neither is this a distinction without a difference. The court can later reinterpret the law, congress can change laws or the constitution can be amended to address incorrect decisions of the court.
Nice theory, Reality is that the court decides what both the law and the constitution mean. It can, and has, decide that the President rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps is both legal and constitutional.
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Everything you're discussing is from the before times. As things are today, that's no longer the case.
I think the President has had autocratic power for a long time. The difference is who is exercising those powers and how they are being used. There is a new monarch and the old court partrons have lost control. And the new court doesn't value a velvet veneer of civility and tolerance over its iron fist. They come from the corporate world where decisions get made that serve the leadership's interests regardless of the consequences for anyone else.
I think one of the most telling comments was that "My 94 year
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What Constitution? Trump is sending people to prisons in foreign countries with no recourse. No trial, no evidence required. Does the Constitution "allow" that? Trump completely disregards judges decisions. The Republicans have no intention of reigning him in. So how will the Constitution protect you if you're in Trumps crosshairs?
Do you really believe the Supreme Court is going to stop him? Most of what Trump is doing has been authorized by congress over the years. What is different is that people assumed they and people they cared about weren't going to be the targets of those powers. The president ordered an American citizen killed because he allegedly was promoting ISIS on the internet. No trial. Was that constitutional? The answer is yes, ISIS had been designated a terrorist organization by the President. So now the president h
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I don't think the United States leadership realizes it. China is far more responsive to public opinion.
What on earth are you talking about? What policies are you thinking of that elevated from the Chinese populace to be implemented by Xi and the top committee?
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What on earth are you talking about? What policies are you thinking of that elevated from the Chinese populace to be implemented by Xi and the top committee?
The changes to their COVID restrictions for one. What policies do you think they implemented that lack any popular support?
And what policies in the United States do you imagine are "elevated up" from the American population without first being supported by members of the powerful and wealthy elite?
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What policies do you think they implemented that lack any popular support?
If they had popular support, they wouldn't need to censor the opposition.
The changes to their COVID restrictions for one.
You are wrong, the COVID restrictions were unpopular from the beginning, and didn't change until the government wanted to improve the GDP.
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If they had popular support, they wouldn't need to censor the opposition.
In other words you can't name a single policy that lacks popular support. You just think they logically must. But you are wrong.They censor to prevent policies from becoming unpopular and creating conflict.
You are wrong, the COVID restrictions were unpopular from the beginning
COVID was certainly unpopular. I am sure the people quarantined were unhappy. But I am also sure there were a lot of people who were frightened and prepare
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You are using motivated reasoning with made up facts. Fascinating.
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I suspect, improving the GDP was popular as well. Lets be clear. I believe in self-government. China does not. They are ruled by an elite - the communist party. But that doesn't mean they aren't responsive to popular will. In fact, they may be far more responsive than the ruling elite in the United States.
Give me a fucking break. Back on earth in China dozens of people died of starvation in a single day day due to covid lockdowns. In Shanghai people would go out on their balconies at night and scream in ways that resembled the audio track of a horror film out of sheer desperation.
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We want electric vehicles to stop global warming, not because we're trying to increase the GDP. And since batteries are being bought as quickly as they can be produced, it's not even clear that limited exports to the US will make a difference in those terms (since the same number of EVs will be sold, somewhere in the world).
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Well, that's the direction they're taking things, but we've got a long way to go still. It's a real advantage to China in a situation like this that it doesn't have something like a Congressional election every two years.
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Don't know why this is downvoted. It's the fucking truth. https://www.politico.com/live-... [politico.com]
If you need any more reason to see who the real masters of the party are.
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The only Chinese EVs in the US are from Volvo.
BYD is selling in the USA. But that's beside the point. In the USA the major undercutter is not in the cars, but the components. Most US home grown EVs used Chinese batteries.