The Trendaddy (formerly The McFuture)

What's the deeper truth & philosophy behind Trump's focus on manufacturing & tariffs? Get all charts & deep dives in The Trendaddy newsletter at https://stevefaktor.com/

https://youtube.com/shorts/lFtOziQXPNM?feature=share Finally, does Trump have a plan? Yes. Can it deliver the results America needs? Reply hazy, try again. I lay out the plan and my issues with it here. Then, finish this series with a BANG over the next three killer episodes. All the charts and thoughts that couldn't make it into the video, below. First, NOBODY gets manufacturing back by changing one incentive. Some of Trump's tariff edicts barely last one week. Meanwhile, supply chains are long, complex, expensive investment decisions that require certainty and stability — contracts, legislation, ecosystems (universities, job training, infrastructure, housing), and tax abatements...or as my transcription software called it, "Jason Batemans". On Trump’s terms, this is like building your dream home on a raft. Or, in the Palisades. These moves are not designed for long-term investment decisions, but invitations to negotiate. Not great invitations. Like 4th of July at Ted Kaczynski's . This is a chaotic turducken of high stakes bets, built on the idea that America can force other countries to capitulate. Everything has to go right. Even then, we will have alienated our allies and damaged trust in the US and the dollar. This video is a more coherent breakdown of Trump’s plan than anyone, including him, has ever articulated. The steps make sense, on the surface. I’ll break down how they fall apart, in practice. https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1910027744496550207 1. chaos as leverage Using chaos to stimulate manufacturing is like yelling at a fat friend to run faster. Maybe they can, or maybe they'll die. Trump’s first move is meant to destabilize opponents by expanding the Overton Window. That makes previously unthinkable positions look like rational compromises. A 10% global tariff may have been unthinkable, until a 110% tariff was a reality. It’s all part of a pattern. Sign up to Unlock You'll get a link to unlock this free post. Plus, all charts, links & preview of future episodes. your email address (you can unsubscribe anytime, no hassles) Loading... Remember when he announced we're taking over Gaza? Suddenly every Arab nation that was sitting out this latest war, woke up. ‘Oh my God, we don't want the US in our backyard!’ Now, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are all trying to figure things out on their own. Or when Trump threatened to drone bomb Mexican Cartels? The goal was to push Mexico to handle the problem so we didn’t have to. Same thing with leaking plans to bomb Iran. Same with threatening to annex Greenland, Canada, Panama Canal, and Ukrainian minerals. Now, Canada dumped Trudeau and Arab states are working on their own solution for Palestine. In a trade war, our panic is the point. It’s what convinces adversaries that this is real, that we're ready to gut this out. Except… If you pull the trigger, you can’t blink. Trump’s been blinking like a Bedouin in a sandstorm, with one backtrack after another. Blinking invalidates not only the tariff threat, but every other use of this tactic. Now the only way to regain credibility is to bomb Cleveland. OK, Iran will do. Even Trump's 'blinks' are incoherent. Giving Apple and Nvidia tariff exemptions on iPhones and other finished goods, while hiking it for steel, is the exact opposite of bringing manufacturing back. It raises costs on inputs, lowers them on outputs. According to Goldman-Sachs, US input tariffs could raise US manufacturers' production costs by 5-15%, making them less competitive vs foreign producers, especially overseas.

If manufacturing comes back, will jobs follow? A definitive answer right here.

The definitive answer to how much manufacturing we can bring back to America with lots of great charts and analysis.

Can America just make high value goods and leave the other junk to the rest of the world? The answer is hard as steel.

The US military is in trouble & it's the biggest reason we're talking about manufacturing in America and tariffs right now.

In this first of a 9-part series on manufacturing, I explain the 2 strings holding up the entire US economy

You won't believe what hackers just uncovered...or maybe you will.

America's Perception Gaps Are Frightening https://youtube.com/shorts/ujsFXnupOoA?feature=share Americans’ perceptions of reality are wildly off. I noted in the video that a big reason is media narratives. But it’s not the only reason. Let’s break down the five big reasons reality is distorted and apply them to some of our biggest misperceptions. First, here’s the original chart from YouGov America: There are at least five reasons for these differences: Media narratives (details below) Data collection - as with many surveys and polls, data collection can be difficult and populations, unrepresentative. Unless I trust the methodology, I take them with a grain of salt. Education - Americans aren’t exactly Rhodes Scholars. We’re a wildly diverse bunch, ranging from Young Sheldon to Young Frankenstein. Credit or blame goes to a mercurial mix of talent, effort, upbringing, and institutions. Interests & biases - Everyone gravitates to what interests them. I’ve hired people for the same job, but each prioritized entirely different tasks. Same goes for information diets. The biggest NBA nerd might know Lebron’s daily assists, but have no clue or interest in how many Americans—or Lebron’s teammates—might be gay. More nefariously, our resentments and biases taint the info we do consume. A single, triggering data point will consume far more mental real estate than justified by the real world. Somewhere right now, there’s a guy raging about ‘illegals’ or Jews in some town that has neither. Aspirations - people often respond to surveys based on how they want to see themselves (noble or smart) versus how they might really be (ignorant or petty). (This one applies least to this survey because there’s not a big aspirational component here.) Media Narratives It’s clear that the more often we’re bombarded with an idea, perspective, or set of words, the more we’re likely to internalize it, especially if it’s from a trusted source—or common in our social circle. I remembered how strange it was hearing a friend of mine to refer to her own five-year old son as “white-presenting”. She’s hardly alone. Few appreciate how an entire new language, conjured by academia, was pounded into us, relentlessly, by corporate media. Did modern-day America suddenly become a vicious den of bigotry? Or, did we get turned on each other? Look at the sudden spike around 2013 of prejudice-adjacent terminology by the New York Times and Washington Post: They’re hardly the only culprits, but representative of the activism that replaced journalism and damaged trust in legacy media. Though in the video I said our misperceptions aren’t political — on the part of respondents, they are ideological. Behind each term was a radical agenda, weaponized to seize power. It nearly worked. Within a few short years, adherents rammed an entirely new language and divisive ideology into nearly every corporate, government, and academic entity. It was an administrative coup, whose excesses and coercion triggered the (over)correction we’re in now. I assigned a likely primary (sometimes secondary and tertiary) reason to each response with a 20%+ gap. The ones highlighted are likely media-driven. What they have in common is identities that have become politicized, weaponized, and amplified by media activism, well beyond their demographic reality. They now occupy prime mental real estate that might otherwise be used for something silly like, learning a skill, playing with our kids, or getting along with Grandpa. Most others deltas can be attributed to education or personal preferences/biases. One, reading books, might be a data collection issue. It relies on reading stats from other surveys that might be aspirational. Reading is dying and the estimated number is likely closer to reality. But I’ll save that for a future newsletter. The most disturbing part is these perception gaps are baked into the logic of our society.

When it comes to climate change, things aren’t as dire as they seem. Three reasons not to panic:

What if healthcare isn't a market commodity or human right, but something else..? Follow as Steve Faktor rates which trends will shape your future and which won't. Get all charts & analyses in The Trendaddy newsletter at https://SteveFaktor.com

Sneak peak at the future of The McFuture

the world's greatest nonpartisan debate analysis with surprise ending

What does the Google Gemini AI debacle reveal about the company, the future of AI, and ourselves?

HUGE revelations from Tucker Carlson's interview of Vladimir Putin that might make you wonder, "Are we the baddies?"

https://youtu.be/mgOHTkhJwXA Notice how quickly we went from “We’re just criticizing Israel’s policies!” to celebrating executions of Jews and bombing synagogues. Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack not only exposed Israel’s fragility, but a global network of antisemitism in academia, media, and our very own friendships. The veil has been lifted. We’re in a Roger Waters wet dream, where he can finally slay Jews and stop milking 50-year-old songs. This episode takes on many of the lost narratives the media won’t dare touch, including: 00:00:00 Why The Deafening Silence, "Friends" and Neighbors? 00:14:55 Donny Deutsch & The Silence of Corporations 00:18:14 The Socialist Macro-Aggressors 00:22:32 Larry Summers & The Ivy League Terror Cells 00:29:56 Three Drivers of Malignant College Leftism 00:32:45 (1) Decolonization 00:38:44 (2) Intersectionality 00:41:43 (3) Demoralization & The KGB 00:47:55 Media Complicity 00:51:32 Jonathan Rosenthal on Moral Equivalency 00:52:45 Dumb & Dahmer: Hamas's Mission (Golda Meir, Sam Harris, Casey Neistat & Ami Horowitz) 01:01:11 Jared Kushner on The Perils of Negotiating with Palestine 01:07:03 Reluctant Conquerors & Noble Victims 01:11:10 What to do with Terror Sympathizers? 01:14:42 Democratic Cleansing 01:16:35 About Colonialism... (featuring Ike Saul) 01:25:27 The Iran Hack 01:33:26 How America Made Iran 01:34:43 How Israel Made Hamas 01:37:52 The Problem With Weaponizing Extremism 01:43:50 Israel's Three Options 01:49:07 More Guns!! 01:50:01 The Shocking Power of X (Twitter) & Corruption of Corporate Media 01:54:20 Conspiracies & Reruns If you enjoy this, please support the show on Patreon & get tons of member exclusives! Also please give a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. Really helps with visibility. Share & subscribe on: YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn, RSS

10 radical ideas for reinventing CNN & saving dying cable TV news networks.

The ONE TREND that will decide future of humanity is buried deep inside a conspiracy theory whose name we dare not speak.

Why the real problem with Bud Light's Dylan Mulvaney trans influencer campaign is...Hannibal Lecter.

What do Netflix, Google, ChatGPT, New York Times, and Chipotle have in common? Open hacks. A devious little mind trick that makes us feel special and gets us to buy more.