Well here we go again. The farmers are again being paid to dump the food, wasting millions of tonnes of Soybeans. Trump is paying 12 billion dollars of state money to large farmers, for food that will be destroyed.
The justification for this is that China only bought 2.7 million tonnes of soybeans this year, after promising 12 million, in a large purchase planned by Biden and his government. Trump has alienated China so badly, with 45% tariffs the current number, they didn’t buy the beans this year.
The last time Trump was president the farmers regularly received tens of billions of dollars, and the dumping of soybeans was also practiced in the pandemic.
It is a prime example of overproduction; the soybeans are useful, they are good quality. But due to social conditions, they cannot be sold, rather, the bourgeoisie is sort of paying for them to be dumped. Apparently flooding the market with cheap soybeans is also not possible.
They have about 2 weeks to purchase the beans, before they get dumped. It seems physically impossible to move the about 10 million metric tonnes to China they were expected to purchase. In an event of overproduction, inability to plan ahead for this calamity, the direct cause Trump’s tariffs, food otherwise consumable is all a loss.
We still to this day have famine, often in war torn countries. Gaza is hungry, but the beans are unsaleable. Clearly overproduction is a social problem, not a physical one. It is occurring due to the style of government; the capitalist one.
At this point it looks like the bourgeois will not even be buying the beans, rather just issuing checks to big farmers. Checks were issued last time based on acreage, the more acres, the more welfare.
“The highest per-acre payments will be paid to rice farmers, who could receive $132.89 an acre; cotton farmers, at $117.35 an acre; and oat farmers, at $81.75 an acre. Meanwhile, farmers are eligible for a payment of $44.36 per corn acre, $30.88 per soybean acre and $39.35 per wheat acre. The payments are calculated using 2025 planted acres, cost-of-production data, and market conditions, USDA said.”
Reuters 12 31 2025
This has yet to change. Small farmers will be selling their farms, when their crop is unsaleable due to overproduction. This will concentrate ownership of land further in the hands of the large landowners, who are all Republican bourgeoisie.
The 12 billion dollars comes from part of the surplus value sectioned off for taxes. It is created in the labour process; wage labor is what is paying for this 12 billion dollars. But to the capitalist this money is his property,as it was a deduction from his surplus value, gained through his control of the means of production, in this case the land.
It is a crisis of overproduction, due to a glutted market for soybeans. The only thing different this time is Trump is the cause of the crisis, as he had to tariff China massively, mostly to protect non metric industries like automobile production, which would have a tough time competing against Chinese EV’s. They cost half as much as a Detroit car, or a Muskmobile Tesla. They are not selling them to workers, they are luxury cars. Honda is selling a Chinese EV this year, the Prologue. I was at the Honda dealer recently and asked about Honda EV’s. I was told about the Prologue. I asked if it was Chinese produced. The answer from the dealer was yes.
The bourgeoisie should have remembered the last time, in Trump‘s first term, when tariffs started with solar panels (30%) and washing machines (20%), then expanded under Section 301 to hit steel, aluminum, and eventually a broad range of Chinese products with 25% tariffs. That time they bought the soybeans elsewhere too. The beans were probably dumped the first time Trump pulled a stunt like tariffing China. The farm subsidies of tens of billions also got flowing under Trump in his first term.
It should be obvious there is no gain for the worker here. It is not like Trump is even paying for land, as in a purchase, nationalization of land with a price tag. Instead the 12 billion dollars will go to mostly large landowners, who will use it to pay wages, cementing their control over the labor process on land itself. He just doles it out, and it is the large landowners who pull Trump’s puppet strings.
Not even a year into Trump’s presidency there is already an economic crisis, this time a glutted market for soybeans resulting in millions of tonnes of food being destroyed. Overproduction occurred, and now big pockets are required to keep the landowners happy. They all know Trump represents the gravy train, and regardless of how bad decisions regarding economics go, they are insured through him if their crops fail. They even went along with the tariffs, at least until Chinese tariffs in line with Trump’s made American soybeans unsaleable. Will they keep supporting him if it means economic failure for their crop?
How many more failed years of crops will there be until there is nationalized land? Clearly the USDA planning is not working. It failed in Trump’s first term, when he pulled the same thing, big tariffs on China, resulting in counter tariffs, and overproduction. A more rational planning process, especially regarding the effects of large tariffs on markets, was required. Instead we have failure, another lost year, with Trump to blame for the fiasco.
Donald Trump has raised tariffs on Canada again, a whole 10%. He also suspended communication with Mark Carney, deciding to skip a meeting planned with him. This was due to Doug Ford, Ontario premier, who ran this advertisement during the ballgame:
It is rather humorous, a full throated rejection of the very thing Trump has made himself famous the world over for, taxes on imports, tariffs. In Reagan’s own words we see a leader who was a free trader, who predicted a crisis would occur if tariffs were used in dealing with a close trading partner, in this case, Japan.
It is unknown if he went ahead with tariffs. But given his feelings about it, it looks unlikely. As Reagan noted in the speech, tariffs take center stage. (see above),
“ What eventually occurs, first, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs, they stop competing, and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all of this is going on, something worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs, and subsidised inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens, markets shrink and collapse, business and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. The memories of this occurring back in the 30’s made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity.”
Ronald Reagan, ex president, at camp davis april 25, 1987 (see above)
A recording of what Reuters has called pieces of this thread was played in a 30 second advertisement during the ballgame in Canada, resulting in a 10 percent additional tariff on Canadian goods. Some Canadian commodities will be spared if they are in a free trade agreement.
Canada already got it by 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, this brings the tax to 60%.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
““The advertisement aired Friday during the broadcast for Game 1 of Major League Baseball’s World Series, in which the Toronto Blue Jays are facing off against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump posted.
“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” he wrote.”
Trump’s neighbors all love him. Cuba, back under embargo Trump restored in his first presidency, are no doubt Trump supporters. America’s nearest neighbor in the north, Canada, was also propositioned by Trump to be a “51st state”; they now face Trump’s ire as they are sovereign. Mexico now is expected to call the gulf there the “Gulf of America”, instead of the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the west was once called Mexico, until 1846 when it was occupied by the American army. Is it a land claim?
His own party is divided; but there are still free traders in the bourgeoisie, although they seem to be remaining quiet. This advert risks awakening them, resulting in Trump’s latest taxes on imports.
Trump is also placing large tariffs on Russian oil, in an attempt to fight the war there against Ukraine. He is supplying satellite communication with Starlink to Zelinsky’s army there; they use it to target Russian oil production with American guided missiles.
About 4 million people nationwide came together to denounce Trump on the 18th of October, 2025. It was the second “No Kings” demonstration; it took place in many cities, as well as New York, Chicago and LA. There was no violence, they shut down downtown for hours.
It is this type of activity and the response to it that could determine what Trump is thought of. Canada has yet to retaliate, but when it comes Carney will be tested. Retaliatory tariffs seem to be all that Trump understands.
But if enough people would show up for the demonstrations, Trump could be brought under control. Right now the bourgeoisie won their first elections for president after 20 years, they also took Congress. As usual, they are having a revolution.
But 4 million showed how many really feel about the protectionist bourgeois, who know non metric industry only sells in America. Huge tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles is keeping GM, Ford and Stellantis alive. The tariffs allow for American exports to be priced higher than they would be sold without tariffs. Detroit has yet to go metric, Trump has gone as far as suggesting gasoline should not be abandoned as climate change is a farce.
An isolationist America, with protectionist economic structures to prop up non metric industries, which have yet to even publicly announce an attempt to go metric, in Detroit and DC.. An electric vehicle is out of reach for most, yet in China EV’s cost about $20,.000 US. Thank you Donald for placing fetters on the means of production, keeping America non metric for another 4 years.
The solar panels for the roof fall the same way, it is too expensive due to tariffs to invest in them, as they are also made in China.
It makes you wonder if someday Trumpers will build a wall at the Northern border. Like the Mexico one, only also to keep American workers from defecting. Detroit is basically there already. Will Don “Build That Wall”?
At the start of what is looking like what could be a crisis, the question is if the financial bubble will burst. The speculation on financial capital is reaching a fevered pitch, with investment in money capital feeding a market that is now further and further away from industrial capital, and is producing a mountain of financial services, hedge funds, money markets, etc.
The bourgeois are in bonds heavily too, speculating on the ability of the state to be able to pay off its debts, with the interest paid for by taxes.
The purpose of circulation capital, merchants capital, is to make the turnover of capital occur more smoothly. Credit and the large banks are also connected with this, they use the stored money to do banking operations that include loaning out money to capitalists to smooth the exchange of commodities.
But beyond this lies the world of joint stock companies, which are simply companies with several owners. The stock is a title to ownership of the company, and the companies control capital.
But is all this buying and selling of stocks really a movement of industrial capital?
To some degree yes. But it is invested in by money market funds, and other financial services that draw interest from industrial capital. They are a cost of production, and we should always remember the value of a commodity is the amount of labour contained in it, whether or not it is paid for. David Ricardo showed us this in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Clearly circulating capital does not miraculously create value; the exchange of commodities does not create surplus value, what Ricardo called profit (surplus value). The surplus value is the unpaid section of the workday, based on the amount of labour required to produce a commodity. Profit is calculated on the whole capital expenditure, including the means of production and raw materials.
All this speculation and corresponding financial capital has formed a bubble, and in the end, if it breaks, industrial capital will be all that remains. And if you are a country that has leveraged other countries resources, with money from the home country, importing much more than exporting, financial capital becomes increasingly more important.
The question becomes how much financial capital has accumulated, and what happens when there is overproduction, and crisis occurs. At this point large amounts of capital are destroyed, we saw this as the markets were crashing of late. The money is just wiped off, the financial capital rendered useless paper.
Perhaps this is due to the fact the bank does not produce commodities, rather it is connected with merchant capital, circulating capital. It also makes the process of production turn over more quickly by means of credit, making turnover more smoothly than if the industrial capitalist had to be the one who had to sell his own commodity.
The banks also invest financial capital in industry, in the 20th century they were quickly becoming ever more powerful. The ability to gain seats in joint stock companies led to the monopoly conditions, led by JP Morgan, who controlled US Steel, most of the eastern railways, General Motors, etc. Financial capital was connected with this, he used credit to buy companies, which he obtained through the bank.
But the question remains how much is financial capital used to simply turnover commodities? The stock market is still called the ‘“Stock Exchange”, implying something tangible is being exchanged.
“What does a mercantile exchange do?
“The Merc trades several types of financial instruments: interest rates, equities, currencies, and commodities.
Google search mercantile exchange
“Equities, also known as stocks, represent an ownership stake in a company, giving investors a claim on the company’s assets and earnings. Investors purchase equities to gain potential returns through capital appreciation (an increase in share price) and dividends. The value of equities fluctuates based on market demand, company performance, and economic conditions, making them a popular but inherently risky investment.”
Google search equities
Equities seem to now equal stocks., as the jargon in capitalism changes sometimes; Milton Keynes would have been proud of this one. People buy stocks “to gain potential returns through capital appreciation (an increase in share price) and dividends.”
“Capital appreciation is the increase in an investment’s market value over time, leading to a higher price than its original purchase price. This growth occurs due to factors like increased demand, better asset performance, or favorable market conditions. Investors seek capital appreciation for passive growth, while the actual profit realized from selling an asset is known as a capital gain.”
Google search capital appreciation
So now we know profit results from selling an asset, which is an active relationship of the owner of stocks to his glorified hoard.
“Passive growth” refers to growth achieved without continuous, active effort, appearing in several contexts including investment strategies where wealth accumulates over time with minimal management)….
Google search passive growth
And naturally investors in stocks want to think or do as little as possible, and still be able to wring the surplus value out of the workers, whose labour represent the profit..
” increased demand, better asset performance, or favorable market conditions” as reasons for the exploitation of the proletariat is not clear. There are conditions which make it easier or harder for the bourgeois to reap the profits from is ownership of means of production, referred here to as assets. Sort of a more technical term for the accumulation of capital in stock, obtained upon selling, “capital gain”.
google’s explanations are always witty. I don’t know who writes them. It would not seem to be a task to just let a computer so to say wax philosophically ab.out
The bubble occurs when financial capital is divorced from reality, when circulating capital starts to cease to function,
But it is definitely better to be a producer of commodities than a financial capitalist speculating on the price of commodities when the crisis comes. I think that should be obvious, the bubble may break, and the speculation on financial capital becomes more risky. The next stage will be in production, when the companies who all rely on China for cheap raw materials and machinery have to pay double for them (Trump’s now on now off again tariffs in 2025). . The financial capital may cushion the blow, but when the merchant cannot pay the bill at the port, his creditors will be the first to react. The spectacle of yards in port, parked, waiting for a consumer, and conversely a working class suffering layoffs and loss of employment, the result of the speculative bubble breaking.
And there are the exports to China, now tariffed 138% by them to enter, now not tariffed, etc. . America produces commodities China uses, they may have a huge deficit in overall trade, but they still rely on products from America. Overproduction will likely occur here too, unless new markets are found for finished commodities. As far as commodities produced in both countries jointly, the tariff would be a real impediment to production.
The speculation on financial capital has created a bubble. Overproduction is looking likely, we will probably again see the state in its role to bail out the failing companies and agriculture. We see this taking effect in regard to the threat by Trump to lower the price of money to banks to near nothing. A large subsidy to capitalist industry. It is also a clever way to use the states money, the segment of surplus value separated off and called taxes, by alternately pulling the taxes out of the surplus value, then returning them to capitalists who are having trouble making a profit. The only question is, is it using the state money to make a profit? The bourgeois has a fetish about state assets capable of making a profit, they are sold off, often at bargain basement prices, to any capitalist who wants to take the risk of running them. I fit is the state making money here, it is quite clever. But it is also not capitalism.
Generally it is agriculture that is subsidized and bailed out; the milk wasted and dumped as it cannot be sold at $2.19 a gallon. The government paying farmers to dump the milk. At the same time the soup kitchens with long lines, often outdoors in winter.
This is a recurring feature of capitalism. It may be here again, crisis. If it is, it was sparked by Donald Trump’s protectionism. The taxes on imports could cause overproduction, social overproduction, at home and abroad. He backed off this time, but it could be enough to cause confidence investors had in dealing with Americans to be depleted; how can they be trusted? It is a crisis at least partially of their own making.
What looked an awful lot like Donald Trump wishing he could make the stock market numbers rise by tampering with the central bank, lowering the cost of money to a percentage or less, we receive the employment data from the government.
Google points out: “in August 2025, U.S. employment growth slowed significantly, with nonfarm payrolls adding only 22,000 jobs.”
Employment data july 2025
More from Google:
“Job growth in May and June was drastically weaker than initially reported, with Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showing May’s gain revised from 144,000 to 19,000 jobs and June’s from 147,000 to 14,000 jobs. These downward revisions, totaling a 258,000 job difference, reflect a significantly weaker labor market than previously understood, with job gains falling to their lowest points since December 2020.
Google search May and June job growth
When the latter was released, the downward revisions, Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics leader Erika McEntarfer. He apparently felt the numbers were wrong, that unemployment was not growing under his bourgeois rule. At the same time he was pressuring Jerome Powell, the Central Bank leader to resign, and cut the interest rate.
If there was no employment problem, why would Trump cut interest rates, except to buoy the stock market? If he knew the number of workers employed was hardly rising fast enough to stop greater unemployment, why fire Erika McEntarfer.?
Jerome Powell will probably now raise rates, given August’s poor showing in job creation. Which is what Trump originally wanted. The only differences now we get to see some real numbers, the kind that indicate interest rates have to fall, due to the prospect of a coming recession.
With the reserve army of unemployed workers growing, and lowering interest rates a way to make the markets keep rising, regardless of the real health of the economic system, it begins to look like Trump’s first term, when the federal funds rate was about 1%.
The market responded to the massive influx of state money positively, at least as far as the numbers went. Everything on the exterior looked fine, but the milk was being dumped, and the price supported at $2.19 a gallon. Clearly there was a crisis.
If Powell was really concerned about inflation, he would not lower the rate of interest. Inflation is already here, any proletariat can tell you prices at the store are growing higher. Automobiles are getting more costly, tariffs are stopping Chinese autos from competing with non metric American large engine petroleum vehicles. The tariffs are causing inflation, the price of commodities is rising.
What has been rather humorous is Trump’s efforts to remove Central Bank employees he dislikes.
“The U.S. Justice Department has launched a criminal mortgage fraud probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and has issued grand jury subpoenas out of both Georgia and Michigan, according to documents seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter.
The investigation, which followed a criminal referral from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte…”
“Pulte, who was appointed by Trump, has accused Cook of committing fraud by listing more than one property as a primary residence when she applied for mortgages, potentially to secure lower interest rates. Cook owns properties in Michigan, Georgia and Massachusetts.
Trump terminated Cook over Pulte’s allegations, prompting her to file a lawsuit challenging his effort to oust her.
“Close relatives of the federal official who has accused a Federal Reserve governor of improperly claiming primary residence on two properties have declared the same status on two homes in two different states, public records show.
“Local tax officials in both states told Reuters that claiming more than one home as a primary residence isn’t generally allowed in their jurisdictions and could be punishable by fines or back taxes. After Reuters contacted tax officials in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire about the dual claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, on Thursday said the township “as of today” would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence there.”
“The claim of more than one property as a primary residence has been the basis for Bill Pulte’s accusations against Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor Trump fired as a result and who has since filed suit against the president to fight the dismissal. Pulte referred the matter to the attorney general, prompting a probe of Cook by the Justice Department.”
Clearly there is trouble in the Central Bank, and it looks like they are all spending a good deal of time and money to evade paying taxes.
“The salary for the Chair of the Federal Reserve is set by the U.S. Congress. In 2025, the annual salary for the Fed Chair is $250,600. The yearly salary of the other Fed Governors is $225,700.”
Google Search: Central Bank governors salary
Apparently they felt they were not receiving enough money, so did tax evasion? A simple scam too, declaring two primary residences, which is illegal. First we find Lisa Cook guilty of tax evasion, then Bill Pulte, the very official who just accused Cook of fraud.
All this to lower interest rates. What a circus.
WIth inflation returning due to tariffs, it seems reckless to lower rates. The employment rates falling could be seen as a recession coming, which could be perhaps avoided with cheaper money. But it is a bail out when rates are a percent or less. It may be good for the stock market numbers, but will not lower the inflation problem caused by Trump.
If he lowered the tariffs, the tax on imports, prices would fall. Inflation is higher prices. The tax is due on the importer of foreign goods, who is subject to paying the tariff once the commodity reaches America. If he tacks it on to his price, the next seller of the commodities also tacks on the price increase, and the next one too etc. until eventually it is the consumer who pays the tariffs.
It is only another form of surplus value, Trump’s money raised from tariffs, it is taxes on the consumers in America, mostly those who ship at places like WalMart or Amazon who buy imported cheap commodities. Trump is the tax man. He taxes the workers, with a zeal. He said his favorite word was tariffs. He meant it too.
The economy is slowing, due to Trump’s governing. More unemployed workers, the prospect of bailouts, massive debts created by his Big Beautiful Bill, payable through taxes.
It’s always interesting to try to figure out what the central bank is going to do next. Previously, under Joe Biden, they raised rates as inflation was rising. They thought it would lower demand, which was supposedly why the prices of commodities were above their value.
Well here we go with Jerome Powell again, who is under pressure from Donald Trump to lower interest rates. Trump has raised tariffs to most of the rest of the world, and the prices of products at the store are already starting to rise.
When the price of commodities rises, it is referred to as inflation. Yet Powell is under great pressure to lower rates, which is the exact opposite of what he did last time inflation was an issue.
Given the weak jobs report that came out last week, and the lowering of gross domestic product under Trump, signs point to efforts to bail out the companies again with low interest rates.
Trump wants the state to subsidize capitalist industry, by having a low or no interest rate at all. During the pandemic the rates were a percent or so. We remember when they were dumping the milk, yet it was record after record for the stock market numbers.
Why not, it worked for Don then? This time when Don got jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing poor job growth, he fired the leader of the group, and installed a loyalist who helped write the Heritage Foundation’s project 2025. Now it is no longer providing monthly job statistics. Soon it may be like trying to get real numbers out of the press about profit, surplus value, the expenditures on labor as compared to the whole investment including the constant capital. It may become even more of a free masonry regarding the average rate of profit.
Which leaves one wondering just what these big investors go on when they invest in a company?
Perhaps they are privy to more than the Washington Post or Reuters. But without government data, how can they predict what the market is doing, especially the bond market? All we know is the BLS data Don banned is showing the economy is slowing down. That makes a rate cut likely.
But that is the exact opposite of what Don was trying to prove. He wanted the jobs numbers to reflect strength, which they did not. The clever bail out of free credit to bourgeois owned industry seems to be in order, the rates may fall.
Again we have to question Powell, whose raising of the interest rate under Biden occurred. We were told to keep inflation at 2% of GDP the interest rate, the cost of money, had to rise. Now we see inflation rising again, but this time in conjunction with the economy shedding jobs. What will he do?
He could keep the rates where they are, and let the next Central Bank chairman who will be appointed by Trump lower rates. He has to wait until May when Trump gets to appoint whoever he likes the post of Chairman.
Use of the state to prop up failing industry is common in capitalist Germany. In their case, the state buys stocks in the distressed companies, with no votes in decision making. They sell the shares after the company can again make a profit without the state assistance. It is an example of why nationalized companies do not always represent something radical, like socialism. The key here is the government pays for the shares, they do not simply appropriate them.
Trump’s bailout is coming; it will be here by May. Farm subsidies are already here, at 12 billion dollars for large farms. Among Trump’s ideas about the state one might find unusual is his tariffs. When you tack on a money amount to a sale, it just gets passed on to the next seller or buyer; it changes nothing to the buyer as he simply passes on the additional sum to the next seller. It is the consumer who pays ultimately for the tacked on cost, the tariff. That is why prices are rising at the store, the consumer is paying for the tariffs.
But here comes Trump with the tariff money he gained, which he considers surplus value. It’s the value of the product, which he obtained through taxing imports. He touts this as progress, a sign of his strength he can raise taxes at his discretion.
But in the end the taxes are paid for by the consumer, even if the buyer or seller simply passes on the cost to the next guy, with no real effect on the merchant.
Another clever use of the state, this time to bring in additional taxes by taxing imports. Trump has his billions from tariffs. But inflation is the result. Which puts Powell in an uncomfortable position; will he bend to a bailout, even though inflation is rising? Again, it is the exact opposite to what he put Biden through when he raised the interest rate due to inflation.
These bourgeois slight of hand games change nothing about the fact the taxes, profit , etc. all represent surplus value. The tariffs and taxes now have in common with profit; it is not a transparent process; with the statistics people compromised, no one will have any way of knowing the real numbers, perhaps until it’s too late.
Prepare for Trump’s big bailout, anything to keep those stock market numbers rising.
Nicholas Jay Boyes
Milwaukee Wisconsin
American Democratic Republic
8 15 2025
I edited this 9:23 2025. Powell’s rates fell a quarter percentage.point yesterday.
The drama of Donald Trump’s budget continues. The Senate cannot rectify the cost of the bill, which will add about 4 trillion dollars to the national debt. They are trying to use a new method to calculate what the bill actually costs. The Republican bourgeoisie has lowered its estimates of cost 90% less than what it actually is going to cost, if calculated in the traditional manner.
By what I guess one could call clever:
“If Congress doesn’t act, most of Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts will expire this year. Extending those cuts through 2034 accounts for the vast majority of the bill’s estimated impact on the national debt. But the Senate’s method of cost-counting compares the cost of extending the tax cuts against the government’s finances with the cuts in place, not against the government’s finances if the cuts expire. “
Washington Post 6 28 2025
So Trump’s “tax cuts” are what is making the 4 trillion dollar debt that is going to have to be paid by younger generations, risking default. By not including the extension of the tax cuts, which is probably the most important part of the bill, to the price of the bill, its cost is lowered 90%.
Which perhaps pleases the following of the Republicans who like to think they are masters of economics. Without the legislation, the tax cuts expire. By reasoning the tax cuts would not expire, the Senate simply adds on the cost of the bill without the tax cuts.
Would you feel comfortable about this group doing your bookkeeping? It overlooks a massive expenditure that will likely never be paid off. It defers payment to another generation, long past Trump’s ripe youth of 78 years old.
But what the heck? They always said someone would come to their assistance with nuclear waste. But it just keeps accumulating, a gift from the 20th century when long term effects of industry were less important than creating surplus value.
The government’s credit rating has already been degraded due to Trump. Moody’s was the last rating agency to downgrade the government’s credit rating. Yet Trump thinks he can remove the chairman of the Central Bank, and have lower interest rates.
The government’s credit rating falling means the bonds they are buying are riskier. This if anything would raise interest rates, as money is harder to get; the risk of default is rising.
In the end where this seems to be going is the currency is currently being devalued, which makes the debt lower as money is worth less. It also seems to make the stock market value rise.
If this continues wages will have to rise. If the value of money is less, workers have to undergo privations. This can only be maintained for so long without civil unrest, strikes, etc. resulting when workers on multimillion dollar machines are being paid minimum wages.
The whole thing looks increasingly like a powderkeg, and the Republican bourgeoisie are totally in control of the capitalist state. The debt was contracted to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At some point it became clear Afghanistan’s natural resources, which was probably about all the country had for assets, could not pay the trillions of dollars borrowed.
This culminated in the defeat of the bourgeois state, and the subsequent debt. The whole adventure has to be written off as a failure, no profit is flowing in due to Afghanistan. Rather the opposite, with the weapons designed to be used there no good for fighting in Ukraine. The bomber planes may work in the developing world, but in Europe they seem to be a failure. They even gave Ukraine long range missiles, to no avail.
At some point the hard reality is going to have to sink in, probably when Moody’s cuts the government’s credit further. Then interest rates will have to rise again, just like now.
The downgrade of the government’s credit also came with the tariffs Trump is trying to place on Canada. He has gone so far as to suggest Canada becoming part of America.
After the overwhelming success of Afghanistan, how could Trump go wrong? I suppose Trump thinks the Canadians will just give in.
We have seen this road before. Iraq looked like a cakewalk, two interventions later the only profit to be made is selling the once nationalized oil under Iraq. They have yet to explain why they felt the need to expropriate the assets of the people of Iraq, who were represented by the Baath Socialist Party, the party that had nationalized the oil.
It is morally offensive that a sovereign country would have to endure this type of harassment. Canada is the second largest trading nation to America. They risk trade coming to a halt rather unceremoniously, if Trump attacked our neighbor to the north. I suppose then he thinks interest will fall.
Trump’s bill passed, and the tax cuts, at some point down the road, crisis is looming. Accounting tricks will not help them then, default or partial default will be the only answer. It already looks ridiculous to raise the interest rate, the amount of money the government buys its debts for. The bill could be more than 4 trillion if Trump has a new Fed chairman just keeps buying debt.
With both houses of Congress, and the president all being in the same political party, the Republicans, it would seem to be now that the bold moves would take place. Given the Republican bourgeoisie always preaches less government, and less taxes, just now has this unfolded?
Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, just attempted to gut the state. They removed thousands of state workers and officials, in what was an attempt to pay off the national debt, which stands at 34.2 trillion dollars. It costs about a trillion dollars a year in interest. This money comes from taxes, through the more mysterious bond borrowing by the Central Bank. They buy money, to pay off expenses of the state, and the interest is paid for by taxes.
The Central Bank are indebting the state, and the bourgeois speculate on the ability of the state to be able to pay off its debts.
Musk’s effort seemed bold, and he promised to cut 2 trillion dollars from the state.
But then, things started to unfold that contradicted the Republican message we were so used to hearing about; how fat the state was, and how the assets of the state could be made private property. Musk started issuing to state offices and state industry ultimatums regarding their employment.
Musk really believed the Republican bourgeoisie, and attempted to gut the state. Things started to unravel though, and 2 trillion dollars became 1 trillion dollars. State workers really were losing their jobs, but it was becoming clear the state employees were there to help the bourgeois run industry that was needed but could not create a profit. The state industry could not be sold off to private businessmen, it turned out the state could not shrink in size much smaller than it already was, without causing civil unrest.
2 trillion went to 1 trillion, and at the end of Musk’s official work to make the state smaller, he saved about 150 billion dollars a year. This was about a half a percentage point of the expenditures of the state for 2024. This is about one sixth the size of the interest payments the bonds issued this year are paying.
Then Trump’s efforts at legislation, his budget “big Beautiful Bill” he was trying to pass, would indebt the state 2.4 trillion to 5 trillion dollars in 5 years.
So lowering taxes was fiction.
The massive tariffs also followed Republican leadership, taxes on imports. It’s simple; the importer buys a foreign product. When it arrives at the dock, the importer receives his receipt, with the tax on the purchase displayed on the bottom. In this case it is the tariff that is the tax, paid for by the importer. It is like Sales Tax, paid by the purchaser of the product, in this case the importer.
So much for lowering taxes. As far as the consumer goes, for instance WalMart has said prices there will be rising due to tariffs. Trump has said WalMart should make less profit, simply “eating the cost of the tariffs”. But stores like WalMart, where the proletariat shops, already were stretched to make a profit, having to compete with other stores like online giant Amazon. Amazon also has said prices are rising, due to tariffs.
The taxes from Trump on imports, whose Republicans preached about the “tax and spend” culture of Washington constantly to get elected, showed the latter was also fiction. At best they passed on the taxes to the next generation, by which time the next president will have to pay off the debt, or default.
Moody’s credit ratings are used to assess the creditworthiness of debt issuers, providing investors with insights into the likelihood of default and financial loss. The repayment of obligations is what is key here, and on May 16, 2025, Moody’s Ratings (Moody’s) downgraded the Government of United States of America’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings to Aa1 from Aaa and changed the outlook to stable from negative.
This was the last credit ratings organization to downgrade the government’s credit rating, the others already concluded default by the bourgeoisie on its debts is a risk worthy of a downgrade.
Yet Trump kept suggesting the taxes he created on imports would help pay off the debts. But it was a drop in the bucket compared to the 32 trillion dollars owed by the government for its debts.
At this point Musk began sensing he had been made on ass of, and left the government. He would have a falling out with the president he paid 260 million dollars of his money to elect. It started getting ugly on social media, with Musk going so far as to suggest Trump should be impeached.
Trump then said Musk had a drug problem, which would explain why he was so easily taken when he heard the state was too fat, and its assets could be privatised.
I guess the only real question is why there are some who believe the economy has been helped by Trump and his Republicans. He threatened 150% taxes on Chinese imports. He backed off, but it remains about 50% on imports from China.
Trump is the taxman. And he is this with complete control of Congress, Senate and House. Perhaps the only question is is this not exactly what happens when the bourgeoisie has total control the state?
So now that the Republicans finally, after 20 years, gained the sanction of universal suffrage, they have been active. One of their main projects has been to shake up the federal bureaucracy. They have Elon Musk in charge of a semi official post to make government more efficient.
They have sent most all federal employees notice they can quit and receive 6 months pay, without having to work the 6 months.
It seems to have resulted in tens of thousands of federal employees deciding to quit their posts. It is not clear if they plan on replacing them, and how this would make the government more efficient if they do. It may be cheaper for a little while, as a younger person, a Trump supporter, gets a job. But in the long term, it is difficult to see how this could result in a large savings of money, as in time they would receive a similar paycheck.
To save money they are removing the “soft power”, the aid that small countries receive to make them support Washington. This type of thing would seem to be something they would not be so apt to do, as these small countries receiving aid sometimes prove strategically important.
Nevertheless the national debt is now 36.2 trillion dollars, Musk has suggested he can make government save trillions of dollars by making it smaller. Thus the logic behind allowing a billionaire to run roughshod over Washington’s bureaucracy.
I don’t think anyone would not agree Washington”s is bloated; we remember the 100 dollar toilet seats, the two hundred dollar screws of the Pentagon budgets we periodically hear about. Or workers in the bureaucracy receiving 6 digits a year, and not doing any lifting, or producing a commodity.
Many of the people Musk has removed may not be essential, and the government getting smaller to pay off the debt may work. But we have overlooked something, a thing about the national debt Musk is not attempting to tame.
That national debt is sunk into the bond market, and someone is drawing interest from it. The money, the state’s debts, are being speculated on. There are investors who have bought ten year bonds, and are speculating on tax money being collected and spent ten years from now.
Figure 5 percent on a trillion dollars of bonds, that’s 50 billion dollars every 6 months. The bond’s interest rates are currently at 4,45%, paid every 6 months, known as a “coupon payment”. It is easier for me to use 5%, so bear with me.
So figure half (which is absurd I know, the total is probably much larger) of the national debt was in these 10 year bonds, that’s about 16 trillion dollars. Every 6 months our money creates 5%, that’s 16 50 billion dollars. That’s 800 billion dollars, and in ten years, at every 6 months, a total of $16 trillion has been paid as interest on our bonds that have matured, over a period of 10 years.
So if you figure the whole 36.2 trillion dollars the debt really is, is in 5% bonds, that’s 32 trillion dollars in interest that has to be paid on the debt in ten years with “coupon payments”.
According to Google , in 2024, the interest payments on the national debt totaled $882 billion. Our calculation is more than double this, but even if it were half, and in this case half the national debt was not in bonds, rather it was simply paid for by taxes, $882 billion every year for ten years is 8 trillion 82 billion dollars.
Which when you think about it is probably for more money than Musk can save by gutting the bureaucracy.
But if it was twice this, which we calculated first, on a 6 month interest payment (coupon payment), we get a total of about 17.64 trillion dollars in ten years.
The point of this is to suggest you are going to pay off the debt just by making government smaller, without attending to the source of funding for the government, which is often in bonds, you may not get too far. Clearly the national debt is speculation on tax dollars being paid to the Treasury, paying interest to investors.
If they want to lower or remove the national debt, the first thing that would have to be done would be to stop issuing bonds. Straight taxes carry no interest rate. If you just did that you would save trillions of dollars, and in ten years you would have paid off a large amount of debt, even if you consider Google’s number for the interest on the debt.
Just what they are speculating on is a real question. The state does not produce commodities that can be sold and make profit, they are not speculating on GM auto production, or Union Pacific railways, which as a joint stock company would pay dividends.
Rather this is speculation on the debts of the state, paid for by taxes. The surplus value flows in every 6 months as interest on the 10 year note, keeping our bourgeoisie in power.
It would be a remarkable turn of events if Elon Musk reduced the size of the bond issues. This would result in less surplus value accruing to the bourgeois who buy these bonds, something which would seem the opposite of Musk’s set of prerogatives. It is just too attractive to speculate on tax money being paid; I mean, they very rarely default. They could not pay in 2009, and their credit rating fell. But other than that, it just never happens. They paid it back eventually, but the bourgeoisie does not like their credit rating being downgraded. They basically always pay the interest, bonds are pretty much a safe speculation.
Without looking at the source of funding for the state, bonds, reducing the expenditure of the state looks more like a doctrinaire experiment than reality. These billionaires like Musk are just too sunk into speculating, on the tax money, to give up their cash cow, even to satisfy Elon’s desire for thrift.
Foxconn, Wisconsin, and Delusions of Grandeur 10 23 2020
In 2017 Foxconn and Donald Trump announced they would be building an LCD screen factory in Wisconsin. Mount Pleasant was chosen to host the factory, south of Milwaukee, near Racine Wisconsin.
This was when the bourgeois Paul Ryan was speaker of the House of Representatives, the congressman from the district of what was promised by Foxconn to be a huge project. Scott Walker, another Republican bourgeois, was governor then. Donald Trump came to Wisconsin to officially open the project, digging the first shovel of soil in 2018 with the leader of Foxconn, Terry Gou.
It was done with fanfare, and reported by the press as a major accomplishment for Trump and his followers Paul Ryan and Scott Walker. But from the start there were strange things about the factory, a 4 billion dollar state subsidy approved by Scott Walker, that was to arrive as 250 million dollars a year to Foxconn. There was also the diversion of 7 million gallons a day of water from Lake Michigan, which was to be returned polluted.
Along the same lines there was little or no Environmental Impact Statement, the project was simply approved by the government to go forward.
Perhaps at this point it should have been clear something was wrong with this picture. There were no protests, but opposition to the factory due to ecological concerns was common among the people who inhabited the regions near the Great Lake that was going to be polluted to make the LCD Screens, with heavy metals. It was also going to create air pollution on a large scale.
But the project seemed to be going through, and by 2018 work was underway building the beginnings of the factory. There were huge buildings constructed on land that had to be removed from the residents, often against their will. A dome started to take shape, and the factory was being built. The state and local government began investing 400 million dollars into construction of roads and bridges for the factory in Mount Pleasant.
“Hopes were high among the employees who joined Foxconn’s Wisconsin project in the summer of 2018. In June, President Donald Trump had broken ground on an LCD factory he called “the eighth wonder of the world.” The scale of the promise was indeed enormous: a $10 billion investment from the Taiwanese electronics giant, a 20 million-square-foot manufacturing complex, and, most importantly, 13,000 jobs.
“Which is why new recruits arriving at the 1960s office building Foxconn had purchased in downtown Milwaukee were surprised to discover they had to provide their own office supplies. “One of the largest companies in the world, and you have to bring your own pencil,” an employee recalls wondering. Maybe Foxconn was just moving too fast to be bothered with such details, they thought, as they brought their laptops from home and scavenged pencils left behind by the building’s previous tenants. They listened to the cries of co-workers trapped in the elevators that often broke, noted the water that occasionally leaked from the ceiling, and wondered when the building would be transformed into the gleaming North American headquarters an executive had promised.
“The renovations never arrived. Neither did the factory, the tech campus, nor the thousands of jobs. Interviews with 19 employees and dozens of others involved with the project, as well as thousands of pages of public documents, reveal a project that has defaulted on almost every promise. The building Foxconn calls an LCD factory — about 1/20th the size of the original plan — is little more than an empty shell. In September, Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage.
“Soon, the office began to fill with people who had nothing to do. Many just sat in their cubicles watching Netflix and playing games on their phones.
The Verge
The Eighth Wonder of the World
10 23 2020
Foxconn was attempting to gain state money to build by gaming the system to make it look like they had been hiring, as the subsidy was based on how many employees they had hired. The office for Foxconn was being packed full of bureaucrats, to make the required number of employees to be able to get the Treasury’s money to keep building.
It was the employees who began to see there was something wrong, that Foxconn was not what it seemed. Working for Foxconn was a rough job, with no real work to do in the office, in a broken down old building.
“Even the handful of jobs the company claims to have created are less than real: many of them held by people with nothing to do, hired so the company could reach the number required for it to get tax subsidy payments from Wisconsin. Foxconn failed at that objective, too: last week, Wisconsin rejected the company’s subsidy application and found it had employed only 281 people eligible under the contract at the end of 2019. Many have since been laid off.
“Foxconn did not return repeated requests for comment.
“It’s not unusual for either the Trump administration or Foxconn to make announcements that prove hollow. But for Foxconn, the show went on — for two years, the company, aided by the vocal support of the Wisconsin GOP, worked to maintain an illusion of progress in front of a business venture that never made economic sense.
The Verge ibid.
The jobs never came, and Foxconn would not get their subsidy. But the money for the roads and bridges would be spent, all to host what was supposed to employ 13,000 workers, at a 10 billion dollar investment.
The illusion Foxconn had of a partially completed factory that would soon be producing LCD Screens continued for several years, until now, where it is now obvious there will be no 10 billion dollar LCD factory in Mount Pleasant. But in the leadup to this realization, the Republican bourgeoisie tried to mislead the public about the progress made by Terry Gou and his Foxconn factory.
“That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage.
“Foxconn would spend the next two years jumping from idea to idea — fish farms, exporting ice cream, storing boats — in an increasingly surreal search for some way to generate money from a doomed project. Frequent leadership changes, a reluctance to spend money, and a domineering corporate culture would create an atmosphere employees described as toxic. Many of the employees The Verge spoke with have since left the company, and all of them requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. It has been a baffling ordeal for the people who thought they were building the Silicon Valley of the Midwest — “Wisconn Valley,” Walker called it — all the more so because so many others still believe the vision.
The Verge ibid.
The broken promise of an LCD factory led to attempts to figure out how Foxconn could possibly make a profit doing something other than producing LCD Screens. By this time desperation was starting to set in, and it was clear the factory would never produce LCD’s, or any commodity for that matter.
“Foxconn’s Wisconsin saga began two days after Trump’s inauguration, when the company’s founder and CEO, Terry Gou, told reporters he was considering building a $7 billion factory in the US and employing as many as 50,000 people.
“A contract with WEDC (Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, a state-run organization that administers the Foxconn deal and approves the tax subsidies if the hiring quotas are met) signed in November made it official: nearly $3 billion in “refundable” tax credits, most likely to be made in the form of direct payments to Foxconn. Combined with infrastructure the state promised to build, approximately $800 million in additional incentives mostly from the small town of Mount Pleasant, where the “Fab” was to be located, and other contributions, the package totaled more than $4 billion. In a best-case scenario, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau found the state wouldn’t break even until 2043. Depending on how many people Foxconn hired, each job would cost taxpayers somewhere between $200,000 and more than a million dollars. The average subsidy in the US is around $24,000 per job.
“Such announcements are far from unusual for Gou, and often, nothing comes of them. In Vietnam in 2007, in Brazil in 2011, in Pennsylvania in 2013, and in Indonesia in 2014, Foxconn announced enormous factories that either fell far short of promises or never appeared. Just this year, the industries minister of Maharashtra, India, which aggressively pursued one of Gou’s multibillion-dollar projects in 2015, finally confirmed the factory isn’t coming, saying the state had learned a lesson about believing businesses promising big investments.
Ibid.
Yet the illusion of Foxconn building in Wisconsin continued, and the subsidy for building was not negated until 2020, when a new governor, a member of the liberal progressive bourgeoisie Tony Evers, removed the subsidy.
“…the 1,040 people Foxconn intended to hire by the end of 2018, per its contract with the state, or even the 260 needed in order to receive subsidies, an audit found the company had managed to hire only 113. At the Mount Pleasant campus, it had erected a single structure, a 120,000-square-foot space that sat virtually empty. Its very name, “the multi-purpose building,” seemed noncommittal. As for the promised LCD factory, the “Fab,” Foxconn boasted in a letter that a contractor had moved 4 million cubic yards of dirt. As 2018 came to an end, the company froze budgets and canceled planned career fairs. The project entered a complete stall.
“Foxconn’s vacillations spilled into public view in January 2019, when Woo told Reuters, “In Wisconsin we’re not building a factory,” having finally discovered it was unprofitable to make LCDs in the US. The comment caused an uproar. State Republicans swiftly blamed Evers for driving Foxconn out; the administration expressed surprise at the change; Trump spoke with Gou, and Foxconn immediately announced that LCD production was back on. “Great news on Foxconn in Wisconsin after my conversation with Terry Gou!” Trump tweeted, claiming credit for bringing Foxconn to Wisconsin a second time.
Ibid.
In Works volume 4 I detailed when this occurred, Terry Gou’s admitting the factory could not be built in Wisconsin, as there was no way the company could compete in America. It looked like the end of Foxconn, until Donald Trump intervened to keep the illusion going, saying he was keeping the project going. At this point many of us were starting to question whether or not the factory would go forward.
“If the factory was meant to earn Trump’s goodwill, the January incident showed that the company couldn’t simply vanish as it had elsewhere. Foxconn was stuck in Wisconsin, and it needed to find a way to cut its losses. Employees at every level of the project were enlisted in a search for something — anything — Foxconn could do to generate revenue.
“In meetings at Racine’s City Hall, Foxconn representatives and city officials started developing a plan, elements of which Racine submitted to a competition called the Smart Cities Readiness Challenge in 2019: camera-festooned autonomous vehicles would patrol high-crime areas, the city said in its proposal, guided by 5G cells mounted on lamp posts. Self-driving vehicles — retrofitted golf carts at first, then shuttles as soon as 2020 — would ferry Racine’s workers to Foxconn’s campus. Foxconn, the city noted in the submission, was a “particularly important stakeholder” and would help provide financing and technology.
“But when city officials started asking basic questions about the sort of infrastructure they needed to build in order to accommodate Foxconn’s technology, Foxconn employees found they were unable to get clear answers from the company. “They were losing confidence, and then we parade in more new shiny ponies, and more people who couldn’t answer what should have been easy questions,” an employee said.
“Foxconn only ever got as far as buying the golf carts. They arrived from China disassembled, in orange, pink, and other festive colors. One employee described them as “the biggest pieces of shit,” like something “bought off Wish.com.” Unable to make them autonomous, Foxconn put them in storage in the multipurpose building. At one point, the company discussed outfitting them with lights and turning them into security vehicles, but the subsidiary in charge of security refused to pay FEWI (Flying Eagle Wisconsin, the Foxconn subsidiary run by Alan Yeung initially tasked with laying the foundation for the Wisconsin project) for the carts, according to one employee. As the divisions bickered, bored employees would come down from the Milwaukee headquarters to race the carts around the empty building, until the batteries finally died.
Ibid.
It looks like Racine was easily fooled by promises of high tech industrial development from capitalists; in the form of a company from Taiwan, that would make a massive amount of profit doing manufacturing in Mount Pleasant. The fraud is a product of the more reactionary bourgeois desperation to appear to be making progress by partnering with large capitalist companies, that society would miraculously prosper if the workers just accepted their leadership, and supported them.
Racine should have known they were being taken, that Scott Walker was not telling them the whole truth about who was going to invest in their city. But their trust of Republicans led them to believe the false promises delivered by a billionaire with the support of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan. and Scott Walker.
“Earlier partnerships announced with local companies like Rockwell Automation had been followed by total silence. (Employees say they quickly fizzled; Rockwell did not return a request for comment.) Of the $100 million gift Gou promised the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the school confirmed that only $700,000 ever arrived.
“The original plan had been grandiose: the sphere was to be the dot in the “i” of a complex of data centers spelling out “Fii” (Foxconn Industrial Internet) when viewed from the air. But according to three employees, Foxconn balked at the cost. An employee with knowledge of the project said that Foxconn finally moved forward with the sphere — and only the sphere — when the architect told the company it had to put a deposit down for the steel if construction was going to finish in time for a long-promised visit from Trump.
“But the building without the data centers was just a glass orb in a field — at best, “really, really, really expensive office space,” in the words of one employee. Adding to Fii’s troubles, FEWI (Flying Eagle Wisconsin, the Foxconn subsidiary run by Alan Yeung initially tasked with laying the foundation for the Wisconsin project.), also trying to cut its losses, had “tricked” Fii into buying more land than was needed for the sphere, according to a second employee. A Foxconn executive briefly entertained an elegant solution, according to two employees: starting a Foxconn tree farm, so the company could get free trees for the terrarium-like interior of the sphere that Gou wanted, and sell the excess trees for profit.
“It’s endless,” said an employee, noting with frantic exasperation that the sorts of tropical trees Foxconn wanted can’t even grow in Wisconsin’s climate. “When you’re desperate and you have no product to sell and the only asset you have is land, what can you do? You build on it or you grow crops on it.”
Ibid.
The sphere now sits empty in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, surrounded by farmland. There are roads to it though, thanks to the state that picked up the costs of building them to the factory. The buildings that were supposed to be factories are now considered useful for storage. Their official purpose is now this, storage.
“In many ways, the Foxconn debacle in Wisconsin is the physical manifestation of the alternate reality that has defined the Trump administration. Trump promised to bring back manufacturing, found a billionaire eager to play along, and now for three years the people of Wisconsin have been told to expect an LCD factory that plainly is not there. Into the gap between appearance and reality fell people’s jobs, homes, and livelihoods.
“The buildings Foxconn has erected are largely empty. The sphere has no clear purpose. The innovation centers are still vacant. The heart of the project, the million-square-foot “Fab,” is just a shell. In what an employee says was a final cost-cutting measure, only the portion that was to host the Trump visit was ever finished. Recent documents show the “Fab,” once intended for use as manufacturing, has been reclassified as a massive storage facility.
“WEDC, as part of its audit of the company’s 2019 subsidy application, had Foxconn survey its employees about what they were working on. Not a single respondent mentioned LCDs because no one is working on LCDs, and they never were.
“The project has fallen orders of magnitude short of its hiring and investment targets. WEDC found Foxconn had only 281 eligible employees at the end of 2019, 13 percent of what it had originally aimed for. (Many of the employees Foxconn tried to claim were paid too little or hired too late in the year to get a paycheck in 2019.) After this year’s layoffs, it is nowhere near meeting its 2020 target of 5,200 employees. Foxconn itself acknowledged, in its subsidy submission, that it has so far invested 2.8 percent of the $10 billion it promised. It has built less than 2 percent of the 20 million square feet of manufacturing space it originally planned.
“The company’s desperate quest to maintain appearances caused it to fail repeatedly and in ways more destructive than mere ordinary failure would have been: local businesses were strung along, civil servants spent years figuring out what the company is doing, residents were removed from land the company didn’t need, and again and again recruits were lured in by the vision of a grand manufacturing renaissance in Wisconsin.
“That vision got Gou regular access to the White House during a trade war and gave Trump a groundbreaking and almost a ribbon-cutting, too. But maintaining the mirage required a culture of secrecy. Employees were warned not to talk to the press (including, specifically, me). Many were afraid to speak — afraid of getting fired, or of retribution even after they’d left. Publicly, the company issued announcement after announcement — innovation centers, career fairs, smart cities, AI 8K+5G, the AI Institute — each one erasing the memory of the last missed deadline. (One employee quipped that one of the few things Foxconn succeeded in making in Wisconsin was press releases.) The illusion was defended by GOP officials at all levels of government, from Mount Pleasant to the State Assembly to the White House, who accused anyone pointing out that the project was off track of trying to scuttle it for partisan ends, as if the existence of the factory were open to debate and positive thinking might make it real.
“…in actual reality, the project has succeeded in manufacturing mostly this: an endless supply of wonderful things for the President to promise his supporters. This past weekend, in an interview with a local Wisconsin TV station, Trump insisted Foxconn had built “one of the most incredible plants I’ve ever seen” in Mount Pleasant and would keep its promises and more if he was reelected.
It was another Trump promise that was an illusion. The grandiose claims of 13,000 jobs, 10 billion dollars for a small town in Wisconsin, was designed to fool people to support him.
Clearly all that would have occurred if Scott Walker was still Governor, and Paul Ryan Congressman, was the fraud would have continued.
But in the end it had to fail, and reality to make itself felt. It was after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the state to build the roads, bridges, etc. to support the Foxconn factory, which will never make LCD Screens, or employ 13,00 people.
The factory is a monument to an illusion, and illusion of a bourgeois with worldly connections bringing investment into small town Wisconsin. Although the office referred to in the article was in Milwaukee, Racine and Mount Pleasant are more like suburbs, the latter mostly rural. It was to convince Trump’s rural following he could deliver investment, and this would result in prosperity.
It seems to have failed. It is a relief that the LCD Screens will never be produced here, as it would damage the ecology of Lake Michigan, which is why I was always against it. Hopefully if anything is produced there, it will have to have a real Environmental Impact Statement, not the farce we were handed last time. But in reality, it looks like nothing will ever be produced there. It is a dream of something that was an illusion, like Trump’s vision of America, that society would progress if everyone just believed capitalism was working.
Taxes on Imports. Attempts to Limit China’s Exports by Raising Taxes here on Commodities. 11 29 2024
The cockeyed idea that you can control production from another country of commodities in demand worldwide by raising taxes on the import of these commodities is running into difficulties. The idea that the American market can pressure China to produce less Electric Vehicles (EV’s) and Solar Panels, by taxing imports; tariffs, seems to be an argument that without Americans to consume China’s production, they will be unable to sell their EV’s and solar panels. What this view lacks is the recognition that the production of high quality finished goods, which will easily find a market elsewhere, are making the taxes only bite the consumers, primarily American workers, who consume cheap Chinese products at Dollar Stores, WalMart, etc.
The latest complaint is capitalist production cannot compete with China’s socialist system.
“China is too large to export its way to rapid growth and would benefit by reducing excess industrial capacity which is pressuring other economies, Yellen said in remarks to an audience of about 40 representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guangzhou.”
“”Overcapacity isn’t a new problem, but it has intensified, and we’re seeing emerging risks in new sectors,” Yellen said in China’s southern export hub of Guangzhou, where she met with Vice Premier He Lifeng and Guangdong Province Governor Wang Weizhong.”
“Yellen and other Biden administration officials are growing increasingly concerned about China’s overproduction of electric vehicles, solar panels, semiconductors and other goods that are flooding into global markets in the face of a demand slump in China’s domestic market.”
“Chinese state media have pushed back against Yellen’s excess capacity message, saying it was an example of a double standard.”
“”While it is just basic economics that surplus products naturally seek out markets elsewhere once domestic demand is met, and Western nations have been doing that for centuries, when it comes to China, it becomes an ‘overcapacity problem’ threatening the world,” the China Daily said.”
Ibid. Reuters
They really look silly telling China to produce less because the market in America cannot compete, and they are starting to refuse to buy the commodities to hurt China. It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face. They are going to deliberately cause inflation with taxes on imports, taxes that will be paid by the consumer, often of products like solar panels for rooftops that have been acknowledged by them as effective to stop climate change.
What logic is it to not buy a cheap solar panel, just because the seller has decided to sell it below its value, the amount of labour time required to produce it? Why should the buyer care?
Creating a surplus is the basic rule of all capitalist production. Suggesting China should not export so many products is a ridiculous request, given this is the overriding goal of capitalist production, to create surplus value. Do as I say, not as I do.
“Nov 29 (Reuters) – U.S. trade officials announced on Friday a new round of tariffs on solar panel imports from four Southeast Asian nations after American manufacturers complained that companies there are flooding the market with unfairly cheap goods.”
Article continues…
“According to a preliminary decision posted on the U.S. Commerce Department’s website on Friday, the agency calculated dumping duties of between 21.31% and 271.2%, depending on the company, on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.”
“Most solar panels installed in the United States are made overseas, and some 80% of imports come from the four nations targeted in the Commerce Department probe.”
“President-elect Donald Trump has called the Inflation Reduction Act too expensive, but also has said he plans to slap hefty tariffs on a range of sectors to protect American workers.”
Trump said his favorite word was “tariffs”, and now he is becoming president again. What he really means is his favorite word is actually “taxes”, because that’s what tariffs are, a tax on imports. He already is trying to figure out what to do with the money from the taxes on imports, with lofty goals of being able to use it for his state.
Apparently there is some contention about if the consumer will be paying these taxes. They will, unless they purchase American made products, the old non metric, fossil fuel dependent production.
Solar panels are becoming more out of reach to the worker daily. China produces 80% of the panels, it is unlikely they will take a loss to sell their panels for less to compensate for the tariffs. You will see inflation on panels, due to taxes levied by the bourgeoisie, who are not really committed to stopping climate change.
It would be nice if solar panels were produced here, but instead the focus seems to still be on pumping as much fossil fuels as possible out of the ground, in the least amount of time. China seems to be rapidly becoming superior to American production of a key component of any renewable energy plans, the solar panel.
China is already talking about putting their own tariffs on large gasoline powered engines, for cars and trucks. This could get interesting. How about a tax on non metric products? Imagine if they had to go metric to access foreign markets.
In all this taxing of imports it is the consumer who is going to pay. This form of taxation will also bite the bourgeoisie, as Sam Walton owns WalMart, for instance, and will have to raise prices on Chinese products popular there due to tariffs. And if those non metric gasoline large motor powered cars and trucks get tariffed, it could cause an economic crisis.
Most large scale production uses Chinese produced raw materials, for welding, for instance. This is s tax on their own production; without the cheap welding supplies the commodities rise in value. Will the bourgeois willingly make less profit to offset the taxes?
Ecological Era 
You must be logged in to post a comment.