Ross Perot: “People who don’t make anything, can’t buy anything. Never forget that.”
I think it’s safe to say we forgot that. pic.twitter.com/EEWOz4L2NQ
— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) April 9, 2025
And today. “They didn’t just lose their jobs, they lost their towns.”
Ross Perot was right about everything.
First time I smiled from the inside out for the last week about politics.
Looks like he was.
And I was rooting for him then.
Have to be honest I hope to God , Pierre is no Laurentian elite.
Canadian rationality is obviously off the table.
He got my vote in 1992.
No, you voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. There’s a spot on your dress too.
No, my vote paved the way for Trump, who has effectively transformed the Rep. Party into a 3rd Party. I’ll take the temporary Clinton malaise for that. I’ll take the dot.Con stock market crash for that.
I still have his pin and bumper sticker….truth teller
Who is that mealy mouthed jack wad sitting next to him…..ya I know
Mine too. Bush the Senior was a terrible president. All he had to do was sit there and continue the wildly successful policies of Reagan but instead went all squish. Then he compounded the stupidity with his dopey son who effed up so badly it set the stage for the commie Obama and the intentional destruction – sorry – “fundamental transformation” of America.
Bush Senior didn’t even TRY to win the Presidency either … he was the most inert lump of a candidate EVER! Well … until the (R)’s decided to run the “moderate” McCain and Romney. Gawwwwd. By then … We the Republicans were DONE with that crap … and opted for a Ross Perot styled outsider candidate.
Reality:
– US manfacturing has the highest annual output since ww2 even adjusted for inflation. 2.7 trillion
– If US manfacturing was it’s own country, it would be the 8th largest economy
– Output per worker has skyrocketed since 1990 and the US leads the world in output per worker in manufacturing
There’s some good – albeit slightly dated – data here:
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/phenomenal-gains-in-manufacturing-productivity/
– Both Canada and the US have experienced a decline of 25% of manfacturing jobs due to automation since 2000.
– US manufacturing share of the economy is declining, it is still growing just not as fast as the rest of the economy. This is also true globally.
– US manufacturing is a juggernaut, anyone who says otherwise is intellectually lazy. The only reason politicians repeat this baloney is because it works on the intellectually lazy, not because it’s true.
– everything Trump had said about Canada.is either a lie or misleading. Except for military spending.
Agree with you Allan. Trade is what builds prosperity. Whether it is local, provincial, or international. Trade made Britain the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Tarriffs are just another example of socialists and pseudo-socialists thinking they can control the economy. The logic being, if there is a monopoly and we control it, we will be rich. The stupidity kicks in when you realize your LADA is a piece of shit and you’re starving.
I understand the appeal of Trump as an F-U to the establishment, however, the man is a baffoon.
No. Everything Canada has said about Canada is a lie or misleading. We started w the tariffs as soon as the ink dried on NAFTA. Our greatest export, by a long shot, is and has always been sanctimony.
We’ll even fleece our own citizens and call it a helping hand, for someone else (and a kickback).
One of my clients 45 years ago was a glove manufacturer. It was Jewish owned and likely back in the 1920s and 1930s had employed Jewish immigrants but in the early 1980s employed maybe 100 – 200 mostly Cambodians and Vietnamese. The company is likely long gone and Canada is better off for it. Now the gloves are made in Cambodia and Vietnam and cost next to nothing and we don’t have to provide health care, education, and social services to these people. I am not sure how screwing foreigners by exploiting their cheap labour makes America the victim. International trade makes everybody richer, like every economics text since antiquity says. Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade bitch apparently has a PhD. from Harvard, the only economist in the world who thinks you can tax your way to prosperity. Note – Harvard just instituted a remedial math course for all students. A bit late.
Am I understanding you correctly? Are you suggesting that everyone gets rich when someone else does the work?
Honest question.
Maybe it’s attitudes like that over the last 40 years which have gotten us into this economic mess.
That must be the result of remedial math.
Wow. Do I understand you correctly that you do not get rich by mobilizing others? That the guy who built the pyramids owned the pyramids? That Elon Musk builds the Teslas? That Bill Gates writes the software for the Windows operating system? You get rich employing others, otherwise you are limited by the hours of the day. It’s been like that since the guy starting wheels outside his cave.
“attitudes like that over the last 40 years which have gotten us into this economic mess.”
Canada is in an economic mess because Turdeau, the moron, deliberately killed the economy to save the world.
The US was as rich as it has ever been before Orange Hitler decided to tank it all by himself. There was nothing broken that needed fixing.
That is not true (re: nothing broken). It works like this. You become the largest economy by making things (mining commodities, producing steel and aluminum, erecting buildings and bridges, designing and building cars, electronics, the best military equipment in the world etc.). Then someone decides it’s easier to offshore these to people who will produce the same things, but at a lower cost. You like it because you make more money, the government likes it because they can tax incoming products without having to worry about who is making what (e.g. no environmental or human safety standards) and most of the population love it (everything is cheaper – at first). As time goes on, the countries making your stuff learn how to make it without you and start trading the stuff you taught them how to build with each other. You realize (too late) that they are eating your breakfast and lunch and they want your dinner. You can fight back via military, economic, or political means but the people getting the cheaper stuff (big city folk) become unhappy really fast. So maybe you just do nothing until your country is no longer the largest economy and the other countries start dictating to you their new rules. Or you fight back.
America is on the decline. Trump knows this and so do a few Americans who are more interested in staying “great” than falling behind. It won’t be easy to reopen mines, start producing steel, smelting aluminum. But show me a world power that just sat there living off cheap imports from other countries forever. High debt, large deficits, a population that depends more and more on the government, no mining, no manufacturing. That is not the hallmark of an ascending world power. Imagine if the WEF people were successful in America dropping its oil & gas industry (which grew mainly through fracking technology that those idiots tried to ban in the name of global warming).
The US economy is not tanking. Trump is attempting to transition it back to that of a leadership nation. I personally think it’s too late because most other “friendly” countries (like Canada, UK and the EU) have already thrown in the towel. And you need allies. Some people are just too fat to lose weight.
The top ten GDP per capita countries are Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Switzerland, Ireland, Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Singapore, and Norway. One, Ireland, does primarily manufacturing. Switzerland does quality manufacturing. Norway does oil. What is the primary business in all but Norway and Ireland. It is financial services. Manufacturing does not appear to be an especially good way to make people rich.
The last time I looked Norway was not a world power. You can attain a very high standard of living based on limited opportunity (e.g. oil for Norway) but you cannot remain a world power without an integrated economy that is firmly self reliant and has a strong military with cutting edge technology.
The two largest economies in the world by far are America and China. Pick one.
US economy by industry – Finance etc 20.7%; Professional and business services 13%; Government 11.4%; Manufacturing 10.3%. Agriculture, forestry and fishing is less than 1%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/
Manufacturing is something poor countries worry about.
Orange Hitler? Nothing broken that needed fixing?
Trudeau finished the work of the WEF, started by Mulroney, carried by Harper and will see Carney take a victory lap for saving the world from clear thinking that threatens all the experts and superior know-it-alls.
I was referring to the US, but then you knew that. Canada is effed.