For much (most?) of our history federal income came exclusively from tariffs, and the President is very fond of evoking that era. It would not be unprecedented for it to happen again.

Can’t argue with the moderation given the slant of this community (I landed here from “All”), but I continue to maintain I’ve been posting in good faith.

Have a blessed day.

Then you’ll love this one: I saw a post with a map of the Gaza Strip overlaid with the Buc-ee’s logo. Someone replied:

From the River to the Sea, Buc-ee’s Buy One Get One Free

All the old consumer goods would fall apart because they’re built to fail and non-repairable, so you’d need to buy new ones anyways.

Take that, Communists!

/s

It may seem cruel, but this is the price we have to pay for a Disneyland in the Middle East.

/s, in case it wasn’t achingly obvious

Trump’s been pretty loud about the External Revenue Service eventually supplanting the IRS.

If you don’t think he’s serious about tariffs, you aren’t paying attention.

Nissan has manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Mississippi that Tesla may want to get ahold of. In exchange Nissan gets enough cash to survive a while longer until they decide how to waste it.

(DAE remember the Leaf? Shit was dope. What the hell happened?)

Rumblings from Trumpland (and the odd post from Musk) point to the long-term goal being a vastly simplified tax code and commensurately smaller IRS.

Biden seemed content to keep hiring more IRS agents.

Is it reasonable to grow the enforcement bureaucracy ad infinitum in order to keep pace with an exponentially more complicated tax code, or might we be better off simplifying things a little?

Looks like Tesla’s next up to bat. Imagine, the union of the two least reliable car brands! The Japanese government simply will not let Nissan die (or become Chinese).

Financial Times: Japan to court Tesla on Nissan investment in exchange for US factories

Nissan

Never forget

whales

You mean the big shots with their undeclared tips and their Venmo payments?

The Overton Window keeps shifting.

Apple-FBI encryption dispute

My recollection was erroneous, as I can’t (easily) find evidence of them rolling over. But the devices in question still got unlocked, so in the end it didn’t matter whether Apple (openly or surreptitiously) cooperated.

Is anybody really crying for an IRS employee?

It’s a good thing Musk wasn’t elected.

Troubling precedent, but I expect no one used this anyways. Anybody who needs this would be smart enough to know not to trust so proprietary a device and service.

Given how readily Apple has rolled over for law enforcement in the past loudly Apple has opposed working with law enforcement in the past, only for devices to be magically unlocked anyways, this is (probably) just security theater.