So did you ever have appointments cancelled before the 4500 or so people have been laid off?
Those 4500 are 1% of the total number of VA employees. I cannot beleive these 1%ers would make a difference in care. Unless the rest of the VA slowed down in protest.
Any large organization will have at least 10% deadwood. Based on my friends that work at the VA and vet friends that are treated there, there is at least 10% deadwood.
Long before any VA cuts my friends that were suffering from Agent Orange were fighting for the benefits they deserved. One died trying and his wife was a VA nurse advocating for him. That nurse testified in front of congress about the problems that existed in the 80s and 90s.
Maybe a few less condition deniers sitting behind a desk would be of benefit.
The stripping of the shelves of American Liquor in Canada was a publicity stunt, a way to show solidarity in the fight against tariffs. Within a few days all the product was back on the shelves… No retailer is going to refuse to sell hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars of product just to make a point. Not when the customers are clamoring for it… Liquor is much like cigarettes, if you want it, you will pay the price… Just look at the cigarettes, in spite of the Surgeon General’s warning of impending cancer and death, television public service anti-cancer commercials of folks coughing up lungs, and the price of a pack of cigarettes averaging over $10.00 a pack, tobacco manufacturers like Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company are doing just fine.
There are products/parts/raw-material that you MUST BUY outside the United States.
I’ve been buying almost exclusively New Balance for decades.
I live about 10 miles from a New Balance Factory store and just 30 miles from their Headquarters in Boston. Most of their shoe lines are made in the US, but 30-40 percent of the material ISN’T. 20 years ago - it was 50%. And none of their clothing is made in the US.
The government of British Columbia has actually stopped the importation of US wine, beer, and liquor for their government-run liquor stores. I don’t know whether the same holds true for Ontario & Quebec.
This statement (which I agree with) is the exact point I was making. Buy domestic, avoid tariffs. But to Mike’s point, there is very likely imported materials in that domestic product. The tariffs, however, would be a smaller portion of the overall price than an imported product.
Agree with this and it is the primary way the US financed the government before income taxes. It is a somewhat progressive tax but less so than the current federal system where half the workers pay no federal tax.
True, you won’t be paying the tariffs (or at least less tariffs, depending on domestic content), but you’ll still be paying a higher price, that was my point. It’s still money out of my pocket, for a mistaken policy that is constantly being revised, delayed, restarted, all to the damage to our markets and economy.
Depends on the product and how materials are defined. The company I last worked for had to buy some components for our proprietary boards and finished products. So, the materials in this case are defined as circuit boards and fans and cases. They are NOT the raw materials gold, silver to build circuit boards. The materials were fully assembled circuit boards built to our specs and then we finally assembled them. The tariffs would increase the price of the final product by well over 30%. New Balance shoes are mostly assembled in the US, but the soles, inserts and many of the skins are imported and all they have to do is sew them together. New Balance has stated that consumers may see significant increases.
A domestic producer has the choice of increasing the sale price on an item not tariffed at all to make a greater profit per unit or they can maintain the price and sell more units because of the higher costs their foreign competitors.
The result comes down to the decision of each individual company.
Yup!
A 10% (or more… ) increase in the price of a food product or the price of children’s clothing is essentially meaningless for someone who is financially “comfortable”. For families that are struggling with monthly expenses, the added costs can be crippling. Ergo, the burden of tariffs represents an extremely regressive method for raising revenue.
What exactly is an American made car? One manufacturer builds cars in the US, but the engine blocks are cast in Japan, sent to Mexico for final machining and assembly, then shipped to the US. Surely the engine is subject to tariffs, raising the price of the car as a whole.
And that’s the crux of it for me. There’s a reason that manufacturing has moved overseas, it’s cheaper there. American made goods tend to cost more because they cost more to make. If a consumer wants to spend more money on a pair of shoes or a car, they should feel free to. They should also feel free to spend less on those things. 20 years ago I was giving a customer a choice for brake rotors, and he asked what the difference was between the $40 rotor and the $75 rotor. I said one was white-box Chinese and the other was Made in USA. Guess which ones he chose?
They’re all pretty much vehicle-related, the same issues apply. Today I hear the car tariffs are being ‘scaled back’. More instability, more market disruption, continued uncertainty.
… which leads to the inevitable question:
How could foreign car companies make a definitive decision on whether to build new factories (or to expand existing factories) in The US if they don’t know what next week, or next month, or next year will hold? Business planning requires certainty.
That is the reason many foreign brands moved HERE to build cars, too. BMW makes SUVs in the US that get exported to other countries. Shipping is expensive.
A large battery company (I think it was Crown) started setting up manufacturing in China about 2007-8. About the same time fuel costs went through the roof. The shipping cost for those batteries killed the savings and stopped the project.
My former employer, Delphi, set up a plant in India to make struts. The Indian plant substituted a leaded steel for the strut rods without understanding that you cannot induction harden leaded steel effectively. We had a shipload of useless scrap struts on a 10 week journey to the US and an Indian plant scrambling to build thousands of new struts with the proper steel. That snafu cost Delphi millions. After several of these screwups and 3 management team changes, that plant was closed.
The 3 most “American made” cars are the Tesla Model Y, the Honda Passport and the VW ID.4 EV. Tesla Model S is 4th followed by the Honda Odyssey and Ridgeline, Toyota Camry and the Jeep Gladiator. Start with those, I guess.
It’s interesting how things change. Many years ago, the US-made Mazda 6 had the most US content of any car. I pointed this fact out to our custodian, who bragged about his “wonderful American made” Buick–which was actually made in Mexico.
The state run BC Liquor Stores have emptied their shelves, but all the independents are still allowed to sell and what has been pulled from the shelves in the BC Liquor Stores will probably be sold of to the independents.
As for Ontario, they have not joined the boycott, and their 7-11 stores not only sell hard liquor, they are allowed to drink it on premises… The strongest I can get from my Virginia 7-11 is a Pina Colada Slurpie…
Totally agree with this statement. My old Dodge Challenger was made in Canada, and our Honda Odyssey was made in Alabama, I think it was. Explain that “foreign” vs domestic math to me.
And while a lot of people will yell and preach Buy American and all that… the dirty truth about most Americans is…we look at the price first. I’d say easily 90% of all Americans will buy the cheaper item every time, regardless of where it was manufactured. Quality might be 2nd on the criteria list.
Some might even say that buying based on price and perceived value is…capitalism at work. Which is supposedly the most “American” idea of all.
Vans with removable seats are classified as multi-purpose vehicles/trucks. The U.S. truck market has been protected by a 25% tariff since 1962 (tariffs don’t work), this is the reason foreign manufactures produce trucks in the United States.
The NAFTA agreement allowed vehicle manufactures to move production to Canada and Mexico. It will take many years to correct 30 years of bad policy.
