Kenneth Raposa
speaker
133 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Kenneth Raposa’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, what country thinks long term that we're always worried about surpassing the United States?
What place in the world? Is it the Europeans? Are we worried about the Europeans? No, we're not worried about the Europeans. Is it the Brazilians? No, we're not worried about that. Who's the long term planners that we're so worried about taking over us? It's the Chinese.
Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, so it's not going to be long-term pain like we're going to be suffering for years. You know what I mean? Going back to our widget factory, we might be suffering for a few months and hopefully we don't go out of business, honestly. I don't know. And I will say this, and maybe some companies will. Maybe some companies will go out of business. That is absolutely true.
Okay? But I will tell you this. There are many people who manufacture in the United States, like the United Oil Workers, who also went out of business. Tens of thousands, millions over the years because of the policy that has been in place since the 1980s. You can keep doing that. You can keep doing that. And Every passing year, you will have less and less opportunity for blue-collar workers.
They're not going to work for Bain. They're not going to work for McKinsey Group, whatever it's called. They're not going to all become doctors and brain surgeons. They're not going to work for Wall Street. And you know what else? What's going to happen? They're not going to work for AI companies developing software because they're not all geniuses.
And what's going to happen to that service sector on the tech side when China competes with Microsoft and Adobe and Intel? They might not compete with OpenAI in the United States market, but when the Vietnamese and the Brazilians want an AI platform, and the Chinese say, we charge you only $10. The Americans say, we charge $200. Ah, well, now the service industry is going to start to cry.
And they're going to understand what it's like that manufacturers have been dealing with for a very long time. They're going to understand the pain.
That could create a real problem. Yeah. Possible. Anything in life is possible. Anything is possible, right? I mean, yes.
Jeff, did you make up that saying, anything in life is possible? Well, let me give you another saying. And again, we're talking offline about us being X-types. And I'm going to give you another saying from the great Jedi master Yoda. who said there is no... Oh, man, you're geeking out on me now, buddy. Do or don't do. Do or don't do. There is no try. You either do it or you don't do it.
You can stay with the status quo. It's fine. We already know what the status quo is going to lead to. We already know. We already know. Europe knows it's deindustrializing. The European Central Bank former president, Mario Draghi, wrote a big report on this. UK knows it's deindustrializing. It's lucky to grow at half percent.
Their market is in free fall right now because their market depends on us. Jaguar, which is owned by an Indian company called Tata Motors. It's not even a British company anymore. They are worried they can't sell Jaguars. That is ridiculous because if you and I want a Jaguar and we can afford a Jaguar, we are going to buy a Jaguar. We're not going to replace it with a Subaru Forester.
We're going to buy a Jaguar.
I mentioned the Subaru Forester because I have one in my driveway, but I'm telling you, it's not a Jaguar. I would rather have a Jaguar, but I can't afford a Jaguar. If you want a Jaguar, you are going to buy a Jaguar. That is the fact. Look, there's going to be pain if it's that horrific then Trump can reverse course. Hopefully, it's not that horrific. I believe what we're going to see.
So, just to explain to your audience, what we saw on Liberation Day, there was, if you assume this, a baseline tariff of 10%, okay? All countries, this is supposed to be non-negotiable. And then the tariff rose higher. So, other countries might have a 40% tariff, such as the case in Vietnam. 46%, I think it is.
So that might get negotiated lower because they might say, okay, you agreed to, I don't know, lower your tariffs on motorcycles. Wait, I'm just now making it up as if the Vietnamese are importing tons of Harley Davidsons. They could actually import a Harley Davidson from Thailand because Harley makes Harley Davidson in Thailand. So it's irrelevant even if they were to say something like that.
You'd be a fool if you fell for that. But they could say something like that, and Trump could probably fall for it. And then that tariff gets lowered, okay? That's a possibility. But there will be a limit, or there should be.
Because if Trump is going to say that tariffs are X on Monday, and now they're Y on the following Monday, meaning they're non-existent, that is not good for a business and market sentiment. Because business and market sentiment means certainty. If the market understands that tariffs are 10% period or 15% period, that's it, end of story, they can adjust to the new economic regime.
If they think that it's going to be 10% and then two weeks later it's going to be nothing and we're going to go back, it's too confusing and the market's going to be volatile.
And again, back to our widget factory, we're not going to know whether we should be buying more from Mexico or ending our relationship with our Vietnamese suppliers who we love and we love going to hang out with them in the summertime on the beaches in Vietnam, or if we should call our friend from college and tell him, hey, we'll pay the American price, which is a little bit more money for your widget.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as I said in a Compact Magazine piece I did this week is that, you know, you could break out the Grizzly Cooler, which is made in the United States, or a Royal Master Grill, which is also made in the United States. Some of them anyway. Look at you. Look at you. Those are two very good puns. And they're not members of the coalition for fun.
Showing 61–80 of 133 · page 4 of 7
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