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Trump Administration Approves Tariffs of 30 Percent On Imported Solar Panels (axios.com)

The Trump administration just approved tariffs of 30% on imported solar panels. Axios explains why it matters: "Most of the American solar industry has opposed tariffs on panels, saying they would raise prices and hurt the sector. A small group of solar panel manufacturers argued -- successfully -- that an influx of cheap imports, largely from China or Chinese-owned companies, was hurting domestic manufacturing. It's also part of President Trump's broader trade agenda against China." From the report: The tariffs would last for four years and decline in increments of 5% from 30%: 25%, 20% and finally 15% in the fourth year. The tariffs are lower than the 35% the U.S. International Trade Commission had initially recommended last year, per Bloomberg. This is actually the third, and broadest, set of tariffs the U.S. government has issued on solar imports in recent years. The Obama administration issued two earlier rounds of tariffs on a narrower set of imports. Monday's action also imposed import tariffs on washing machines, a much lower profile issue than solar energy.

445 comments

  1. frist psot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    frist psot

  2. TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    1. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by kenh · · Score: 3, Funny

      How many times does Trump have to literally extinguish all life on planet earth before you fools listen?

      You literally have no idea what the word 'literally' means, do you?

      Assuming you still live on planet earth, I don't think he has even once 'literally' extinguished all life on the planet...

      --
      Ken
  3. Not sure if this is good or not by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cheap Chinese panels were probably going to kill local production. OTOH those cheap panels were getting us off dirty fossil fuels. But OTOOH the reason those Chinese panels are cheap is they don't have much in the way of labor law or environmental regulations. But OTOOOH I don't expect to see much in the way of other tariffs (This one was easy to get through because the coal lobby got Trump elected).

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      OTOH those cheap panels were getting us off dirty fossil fuels

      If this is true the correct action is to tax fossil fuels, not subsidize solar.

    2. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, it's pretty obvious you don't understand how this Trump thing works.

    3. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worst case was to subsidize Chinese market manipulations that leave us vulnerable to price fixing and make us more dependant on oil and coal.

    4. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 2

      If those imports are made with fossil fuels you can't tax because they aren't from your country, all that does is put the tariff on in-country manufacturing that uses taxed fossil fuels. I don't think that's what you intended.

    5. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If this is true the correct action is to tax fossil fuels, not subsidize solar.

      Oh, you want us to tax fossil fuels? You must HATE America.

    6. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by gravewax · · Score: 0

      It is awful. basically you are now subsidising local less efficient manufacturing. Everyone loses, less panels will be installed, you may maintain a few manufacturing jobs but they should be offset by the reduction in retail and installer jobs you will lose by increasing costs by 30%.

    7. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're three more "O"s away from being an octopus.

    8. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by psinet · · Score: 0

      On what grounds is 'local production' of a non-essential, non national security product required, when you can already aqcuire them at high quality at a cheap price? That is the very opposite of a good business plan. Direct competition is idiocy.

      Innovation, parallel technologies and applications is where the money is at. Why let American ego ruin your economy?

    9. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 2

      If in doubt, make it locally. Tariffs would likely stimulate local manufacturing, and then if we own the industry we don't have to worry about what China might do -- that's a step towards energy independence. Solar panels aren't going away.

    10. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't understand the conversation.

    11. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by fred911 · · Score: 1

      " Chinese panels are cheap is they don't have much in the way of labor law or environmental regulations"

      Partly, but mostly because the industry is heavily subsidized by the government. It's significantly easier to assure you own the market when you have the ability to sell at a loss to prevent competition (especially when protection of IP isn't an issue). After you own the market, then you control the price.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    12. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The American manufacturers aren't going to come in and sell them at the lower price. All that's being done is lower the demand after raising the prices. This is going to put a lot more people who were installing the panels out of work than the number of people who ever going to be employed making them. There are 10,000s people in the US working to install panels and that work can't be outsourced to any other country. Who cares where the panels come from? The cheaper they are, the more projects (residential and industrial) will become viable and started meaning more people employed.

    13. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We care because China is creating these cheap panels by making workers work in inhumane conditions and dumping all of their industrial waste from creating the panels into the local lakes, rivers, and oceans and using dirty power to power their factories. Isn't the whole point of installing solar to "be green" and "protect the environment" ?

      Using these cheap panels just means a good chunk of the cost of the panels went towards dumping more industrial waste into the environment. If the panels get manufactured here whether by humans or robots, the factories are still going to have to meet EPA regulations to make them which means you have a much greener, environmentally friendly solar panel.

    14. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China is known for quantity not quality. Right now it is cheaper to do business in the US than China and almost any other country in the world.

      The cost of doing business includes real estate prices, energy costs, shipping costs, tax rates, and labor costs. The savings created by the first 5 items makes it possible to absorb higher US labor costs and still turn a profit.

      Add in fewer governmental regulations and general interference from the government and you find the US a very profitable location to setup shop.

       

    15. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by kenh · · Score: 0

      Right, because currently all refined crude oil is not taxed - seriously?

      More than 50% of the price you pay for gasoline at the pump in the US goes to the government in the form of taxes - I assume that is the case in most other countries, but I lack the motivation to find a link to support that belief.

      --
      Ken
    16. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Trump caring about the environment? What world do you live in????

    17. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but those tens of thousands of people don't make campaign donations worth sh!t.

      It has become so expensive to run for office, the only realistic way is to take bribes, you donate $1 Million and I will see certain legislation goes your way.

      So long as they can put the fear of god into US citizens about owning guns, they will happily ignore all the other ways they get screwed, including loss of democracy.

    18. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      More than 50% of the price you pay for gasoline at the pump in the US goes to the government in the form of taxes

      Care to provide some support for the claim that 50% of pump prices in the USA are taxes?

      Yes, in Europe, it's well over 50%, but the USA?

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    19. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that work can't be outsourced to any other country

      Being a Canadian, you should be familiar with the acronym "TFW" by now. Yes, anything can be outsourced.

    20. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Because having our own solar industry and not being dependent on a hostile nation like China is a worthwhile goal. If it means short term pain, then so be it. It's long term gain. I'm glad we have people in the government who have the courage to make the right decisions, even in the face of bigoted opposition.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    21. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But think of the coal miners.

      Black lung doesn’t just make itself. We need real people down in the mines.

    22. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America has been dependent on hostile nations for coal, gas, and oil for decades. Why change now just for solar and maintain the existing dependency instead?

      You're basically arguing that you don't want to buy from China because you're happy buying from nations that go on to fund groups like ISIS with the money instead.

    23. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because having our own solar industry .

      retaliatory tariffs will mean that nobody outside the US will buy our solar panels

      yes indeed motherfucking idiot, the world pushes back when we fuck with them

      shitty tax policy in the US means americans will buy few solar panels, no matter where they are made

      the rest of the planet will buy China's solar panels

      our solar industry will wither and die

    24. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      These tariffs might actually reduce employment in the US. Think about it, US factories aren't going to employ that many people because they cost too much compared to robots, and anyway robots are better at this sort of thing (no hair/skin contaminating the panels, higher precision and consistency etc.)

      The jobs are in installing solar panels. But if the panels cost more there will be fewer installed. And less on-going maintenance. And less work upgrading the grid to handle the transition. Manufacturing is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to solar jobs.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    25. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      More than 50% of the price you pay for gasoline at the pump in the US goes to the government in the form of taxes

      Gas tax is $0.56 per gallon in California, one of the highest tax states, while the total price is $2.80 a gallon, making it a 25% tax rate.

    26. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Real nazis care about the environment. They would want to restore American forests and prairie as much as possible so that they can enjoy the land and lebensraum, without any undesirable views or sights. We have hereby proven that Trump is actually not a nazi, but something else.

    27. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we don't take action soon, we'll all find out just what kind of environmental problems cheap solar panels will cause when they start deteriorating. In fact, this is a dirty little secret about solar energy and battery storage. We trade one form of pollution for another while the problem we are trying to solve is less dangerous than a planet with 71% water and less than 1% of it is drinkable do to toxic leaching. I think most sane people would take the chance of a few degrees C warmer over drinking their own piss to survive.

    28. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you install solar panels, you're also an experienced roofer capable of working with shingles, flashing, etc. There's lots of work for roofers with all the illegals from the industry being told to go home.

    29. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is going to put a lot more people who were installing the panels out of work than the number of people who ever going to be employed making them.

      To drill down on that:

      The US solar industry employs between 260,000 and 374,000 workers, with about 38,000 in manufacturing and the bulk of the remainder in installation. “Solar installer” is poised to become the fastest-growing job in the United States over the next 10 years.

      The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents solar installers, estimates this decision will cause roughly 23,000 American jobs to be lost this year.

    30. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OTOH those cheap panels were getting us off dirty fossil fuels

      If this is true the correct action is to tax fossil fuels, not subsidize solar.

      I've no idea why Trump did it, but I presume it is flat out protectionism.

      Now a more reasonable phased in approach that adds a tarriff based on the estimated cost savings for the foreign companies lack of pollution controls is fair game, imnsho. Such an approach would be increased or decreased presumably yearly after a reasonable analysis, but would still limit huge changes at once.

      Taxing coal in this country, imnsho is also fair game.

      Trumps apparent goal was not to help the environment, but maybe to just stick it to solar energy, or help his polluting contributors.

      In short, corrupt as usual.

    31. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      Gas tax is $0.56 per gallon in California [bankrate.com], one of the highest tax states, while the total price is $2.80 a gallon, making it a 25% tax rate.

      And that's just state taxes. There are Federal taxes on top of that. And don't forget in some places you pay city, county, and/or sales taxes on top of that. And don't forget the "embedded" taxes such as those paid by the corporations who prospected, drilled, pumped, transported, refined, and transported again the gasoline that finally made its way into your fuel tank. I'd be shocked if the total taxes didn't total up to at least 50%.

      Make no mistake, the biggest profiteer of petroleum products isn't the oil industry. It's the government.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    32. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The American manufacturers aren't going to come in and sell them at the lower price. All that's being done is lower the demand after raising the prices. This is going to put a lot more people who were installing the panels out of work than the number of people who ever going to be employed making them. There are 10,000s people in the US working to install panels and that work can't be outsourced to any other country. Who cares where the panels come from? The cheaper they are, the more projects (residential and industrial) will become viable and started meaning more people employed.

      Isn't this the Wal-Mart argument? Cheap chinese imports on the shelves of large retailers like Wal-Mart equals more jobs... The problem is that those jobs are crappy jobs. If solar panel installers are well paid with benefits, perhaps that is different but I always thought that in addition to creating jobs in America, the idea was also to support fair labor practices.

    33. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      I believe that but we have to start somewhere. After domestic manufacturing picks up those same jobs will too. I think all the essentials -- and solar panels are among them -- should be made at home. The only reason to have buy them cheap in China is to ignore the environmental damage that the cheap production makes, but that's to me worse than making them here.

    34. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      'Profiteer' is a bit of a stretch. Gas taxes largely go to fund highway construction and maintenance. Those cars need something to drive on. While, I'd argue that some of those taxes should go toward public transit to encourage a healthier mix (in terms of pollution, CO2 emmissions and traffic congestion) of transportation modes. And of course, the purpose of a proposed carbon tax is to make fossil fuels costlier to discourage their use - to the extent that many of those proposals recommend returning the revenue directly to taxpayers. Hardly what you could call 'profiteering'.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    35. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by networkBoy · · Score: 2

      Supposed to go to roads, yes. California raided the coffers so many times that our roads suck, based on the taxes we pay they should be smooth as glass, not tied with the dirt roads in the congo.

      --
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    36. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can actually make the same panels here for the same price as in China. Automate our production. We send the raw materials to China to be made into solar panels. Just keeping the materials here will cut some costs. We keep feeding the Chinese economy and starve our own. It has to stop.

    37. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're also ignoring the near monopoly China has on rare-earths required to make solar panels. That is why it is so cheap for them to make it in addition to them selling at a loss periodically to keep competition down.

      Tariffs are tricky but more likely this is just going to reduce supply and thus increase the cost of panels. Companies that manufacture in the U.S. currently will be able to sell their panels for more and make more profit but they will never reach government backed manufacturing capacity that China is bringing to the table. As a result of higher costs on the panels you'll see fewer installs which will reduce demand now so you're effectively shrinking the market that has been growing at a phenomenal rate over the last decade.

      Protectionism didn't work before, I see no reason why it would work now. You get ahead by making a better product, providing better support, and being reliable. You don't have to be the cheapest to out-compete and outperform China.

    38. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Yes, but is local production necessarily a good thing? American consumers have limited dollars, and the employment market adjusts to job availability--just graph the absolute labor force from 2000 to 2017 and look at what happened around 2008's huge unemployment spike.

      You can see a drop in H1-B approvals in 2009 and 2010, with some of that drop lingering in 2011. We also had students going to grad school to avoid the job market, and people retiring earlier (fewer late retirements). These are spot reductions in the labor force.

      There's a well-debated theory of population growth called Mathusian Theory. Simply put: population grows in abundance, and shrinks in scarcity. Modern economists don't know what to do with this, because it seems about right, but they've never been able to pin down what exactly we're talking about being "abundant" or "scarce".

      As a corollary, I've suggested with the above data that the labor force exhibits this behavior based on perception of job scarcity and the need for jobs. The ultimate scarcity is the scarcity of the means to survive. It's not "food", "housing", or anything else; it's whether your economy is currently able to carry people. The labor force responds in ways Malthus would find reasonable.

      So what?

      More-expensive solar panels means people work, get paid, and spend their money on more-expensive electricity and other infrastructure. It doesn't necessarily mean more jobs, and could even mean fewer jobs.

      Less-expensive solar panels means we can pick something else we're better at and do that. Maybe we can sell it as export (although too much export is a threat to national security; it does bring wealth). Maybe we can just enjoy a thing we would otherwise be unable to afford (thus for which we wouldn't create the demand, thus jobs). These are real, likely outcomes.

      Finally, China's wages, social insurances, and labor laws have been rapidly improving, in part to their dominance in global manufacture. We've been feeding them the economic power to improve their infrastructure and their technology, thus leverage labor better. They can pay labor better, provide better social services, and still come out cheaper. Trade benefits both parties--especially when one party can't afford the GDP-breaking cost of the machines and infrastructure necessary to build their economy up (see: some, but not all, nations in Africa).

    39. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We also pay sales tax on gas, so add another 7-10% on top of that depending on location. Gas at my local pump was $3.45 this morning. I haven't seen it sub $3 in a long, long time.

    40. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are wildly off base thinking that 50% of the price is taxes. It is considerably less than that. It ranges from a high of 30% in Pennsylvania to about 10% in Alaska. This is why gas is so much cheaper in the U.S. vs Europe where gas taxes are much much higher.

      So much of our economy runs on gas being cheap though so raising that tax to 50% would cripple the economy as all goods skyrocket in price due to dramatically increased transportation costs.

    41. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      Yes, we've been feeding China, who is in no way a US ally, and who rivals North Korea in oppressive censorship. While income inequality in the US has never been greater, and wages stagnant for the past 30 years, communist party officials are getting rich and the globalists who owe no loyalty to any nation and benefit the most from the race to the bottom we've committed ourselves to are laughing all the way to the bank. Nothing to see here, nothing to be concerned about.

      It is a truism that cheap is expensive. Instead of insisting preferred trading partners have parity with our own environmental and labor laws, we will now pay in the form of only being able to afford cheap imports. This of course will be spun as a Good Thing by those whose election campaigns are financed by multinational corporations.

      Maybe we can recoup our losses by selling them cancer drugs and suicide netting.

    42. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      we will now pay in the form of only being able to afford cheap imports.

      It's not so much that as we would have always paid more for more-expensive things. A made-in-America set of pants costs about 3 hours of minimum-wage pay to purchase, based on adjusting the same labor-hours investment from 2006 Chinese wages and social insurances to 2006 American minimum wages and social insurances, versus 1.86 minimum-wage labor hours to buy the Chinese-made pants. That's not even a full analysis: the Chinese are not only more-skilled at manufacturing, but they're extremely skilled at scaling quality requirements downward: a decent pair of pants has less of an American-made premium than a Wal-Mart pair of pants, because Americans can't efficiently reduce to Wal-Mart quality.

      If you want to manufacture efficiently for a given lifecycle, durability, or other metric, the Chinese can tune that perfectly, sacrificing the least to save the most. American manufacturers struggle to find corners to cut in an attempt to save small costs.

      It's not that we can now only afford cheap imports; it's that we can now afford things we couldn't buy before--like Netflix, high-speed Internet, and better medical care--and we became capable of affording those not by cutting our manufacturing cost by 5%, but by cutting 40% off by having someone even better at it do it for us. Comparative advantage.

      As noted: China has been stepping up its wages and labor laws as its access to technology grows, and is now making major inroads in environmental policies and reform. Without the vast wealth of being the global power in manufacturing, China would have sat at an economic level at which environmental and labor reforms were its lesser concerns for decades longer, while being quite huge a population to be pumping out unfiltered coal smoke.

    43. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      Hardly what you could call 'profiteering'.

      When the government collects more money from selling me a product than the people who actually made the product, what would you prefer to call it? I have a strange feeling if the oil companies and the government's positions were reversed you'd have no issue whatsoever calling it profiteering.

      And, as one of the other commenters pointed out, the government's track record for efficiently and effectively spending said revenues is marginal even in the best of cases. Have you checked on the progress of California's high-speed rail project lately? Late, badly designed, over-budget, and with questionable potential ridership. But hey, those campaign contributors who lobbied for it sure made out like bandits didn't they?

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    44. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Saying we need to start somewhere sounds like you're advocating shutting down imports so we have to produce everything ourselves, driving prices up. If you can classify solar panels as essentials, you can classify almost anything as an essential. You're setting up a slippery-slope argument by yourself.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    45. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      "Chinese are not only more-skilled at manufacturing, but they're extremely skilled at scaling quality requirements downward"

      That does explain why pet food made in China keeps killing dogs and cats and noone can understand why; they're just that good at scaling quality.

      Cheap goods that are less durable and less capable of being repaired only tacks on to the externalized costs as this junk fills landfills and causes further pollution. In a time when sustainability is a serious issue as world populations become more westernized, we need to look for alternatives to a throw-away society rather than encourage it.

      There is no 'comparative advantage' in offshoring our industry to nations that practice unfettered capitalism. That chinese peasants are finally choking to death on smog and they are having to deal with it now rather than a decade later, is no argument for having such unfair and unconscionable trade practices from the onset.

      Don't be in such a rush to defend myoptic, insatiable greed.

    46. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      People on the left -- if you fall in that group -- often seem to take an opponent's argument to the extreme in order to show how wrong it is. I didn't say anywhere we need to shut down imports. I'm just saying I'm agreeing with temporary increase in tariffs for solar panels in order to give the domestic production a temporary boost.

      I can classify solar panels -- as well as say oil, industrial machinery and so on -- as essential because in the case of solar panels we energy in all forms for our basic day to day things. If we have solar panels but not disposable plastic we'll manage.

      It would seem to me rather that you are setting up a slippery-slope argument by myself.

    47. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of the jobs in the US solar industry are in installation, repair, and making ancillary components like switching equipment and inverters. The cheap Chinese panels were part of their value chain.

    48. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 1

      Fuck dude, how many hands can you have?

      --
      I tend to rant.
    49. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      That does explain why pet food made in China keeps killing dogs and cats and noone can understand why

      Actually, that's because there was a point several years back when some Chinese manufacturers adulterated foods with melamine to raise protein measurements by nitrogen decomposition. It was a huge problem, and the Chinese government quickly cracked down on it when it became known. Two executives from the main offending producer were actually executed for this.

      China has been refactoring itself for a couple decades. The Chinese government isn't as experienced with regulation as the EU and the US; they are, however, highly intolerant of things which tarnish the international image of China--a problem which, as you can imagine, they are quite sensitive to since it just won't go away.

      Cheap goods that are less durable and less capable of being repaired only tacks on to the externalized costs

      We know that. The problem is American companies demand lower cost, and press down on the quality. That lets them get low, low prices. The Chinese are capable of--and frequently do--producing some of the highest-quality manufactured goods on the planet at surprisingly low costs; practically nobody wants that. All of their clients want them to produce it cheaper. Even mid-range producers want that mid-range cheaper than the same quality coming out of Germany or America.

      That chinese peasants are finally choking to death on smog and they are having to deal with it now rather than a decade later, is no argument for having such unfair and unconscionable trade practices from the onset.

      With natural growth, it wouldn't be that they would do what they're doing today later; it's that they'd be pumping out old-tech, dirty-coal and dirty-oil emissions longer, unable to sustain their economy if they go expending their resources on smokestack emissions scrubbers which produce nothing of value. They can't sell clean air; it's an immediate cost. Clean air only buys you long-term stability: your healthcare and environmental resources don't fall apart and create extreme costs sometime down the road. When poor, developing nations just shrug and let that be a problem for later.

      China has been forcing new environmental controls and getting this stuff retrofitted, catching up to countries like the United States. That's been going on for a few short years now. Imagine if they were rolling coal and talking about maybe getting some environmental controls in 2080, instead of working on becoming the world leader in solar energy and electric cars (China's behavior suggests they want to go in this direction, which is self-reinforcing: cleaner air means better solar generation).

      Because China is such a global manufacturing superpower, they have the economic basis to do all of this stuff now, instead of generations down the line.

    50. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      "I believe we have to start somewhere" is an open-ended statement, suggesting more and more tariffs on imports, and not suggesting an end to it. As a prelude, it's setting up a slippery slope. Classifying solar panels as "essentials" and not defining "essentials" suggests that lots of things would be "essentials", leaving me with no idea what you wouldn't want to slap tariffs on. If you're recommending temporary tariffs for a few things, that's another thing.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    51. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      Chinese manufacturers adulterated foods with melamine

      I was glad to see that at least they draw the line at profiting from poisoning infant formula. But that is a different issue from the one of unsolved pet deaths attributed to chinese made jerky treats. I'm sure that being "skilled at scaling quality requirements downward" has something to do with that. What is worse is that it is impossible to avoid Chinese food products as their spices are imported and used as ingredients.

      The problem is American companies demand lower cost, and press down on the quality. That lets them get low, low prices.

      Long term planning for the public interest, or anything other than the next quarterly report, is not their concern. In theory, that is the job of elected representatives and appointed regulators to provide necessary oversight and forcibly drag the Job Creators kicking and screaming to where they give even the slightest shit about the welfare of the country. I say in theory, because the reality is adversarial authoritarian regimes who do not share our civil liberties being catapulted into 'global manufacturing superpower' status, as an example.

      Because China is such a global manufacturing superpower, they have the economic basis to do all of this stuff now, instead of generations down the line.

      And the Waltons and Bezos of the world are all better off for it. Instead of having used tariffs and access to our markets to incentivize democratic reform and environmental regulation early on, now we'll gladly sell them the tools they need to suppress and censor their population in a digital age. It is our corporations that must now capitulate, unmasking journalists and dissidents if they want to do business there. While it is good that there is hope that in the next decade they may not have to worry as much when the wind changes direction, there is still a larger picture to look at.

    52. Re: Not sure if this is good or not by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Transport costs average 1%. Try again.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    53. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Long term planning for the public interest, or anything other than the next quarterly report, is not their concern

      Just tracing the problem back. People like to portray Chinese imports as Chinese brands, not as the result of American business engineering.

      In theory, that is the job of elected representatives and appointed regulators to provide necessary oversight and forcibly drag the Job Creators kicking and screaming to where they give even the slightest shit about the welfare of the country

      Testing, approval, import restrictions, quality standards, and the like. It's actually the job of the administration, once the elected officials let them do it: Congress passes laws authorizing things like the FDA, and the President orders them into existence and appoints oversight. The FDA and others are then responsible for using that granted authority to regulate the markets. When they don't... we make new laws to clarify what specifically they're supposed to achieve. It's kind of irritating, really: the administration is more-agile than Congress, and yet sometimes doesn't care to do its damned job.

      And the Waltons and Bezos of the world are all better off for it.

      Along with middle-class and minimum-wage workers who can buy more quality goods and live at a higher standard of living.

      Instead of having used tariffs and access to our markets to incentivize democratic reform and environmental regulation early on, now we'll gladly sell them the tools they need to suppress and censor their population in a digital age.

      They're becoming less-authoritarian and more democratic as they become a stronger economic superpower. It's one of those things that generally leads from one to the next, albeit we can influence the process.

    54. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by yfeefy · · Score: 1

      He clearly does care about it. He is actively trying to increase pollution, etc... to spite the treehuggers. Like Chuck Grassley eating twice as much meat on meatless mondays...

    55. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      Just tracing the problem back. People like to portray Chinese imports as Chinese brands, not as the result of American business engineering.

      While I'm often critical of how litigious our society has become, I'm also glad for it as vendors marketing Chinese made children's toys containing lead paint can be sued, whether or not they made the design decision. For a society that provides examples of extreme callousness such as bridges made of garbage, American businesses have good reason to be extremely diligent in monitoring supply lines.

      Along with middle-class and minimum-wage workers who can buy more quality goods and live at a higher standard of living.

      Again, with the problem of income inequality, only being able to afford chinese 'goods' even as majority of families are dual income makes a declaration of higher standard of living questionable. I fail to see how this will be a net benefit in the long run.

    56. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      American businesses have good reason to be extremely diligent in monitoring supply lines.

      That's true in any case, but point taken. I'm a social democrat: I like capitalism; I don't trust it.

      Again, with the problem of income inequality [pewresearch.org], only being able to afford chinese 'goods' even as majority of families are dual income [bls.gov] makes a declaration of higher standard of living questionable.

      Income inequality is unrelated, and isn't helped by moving manufacture here. Income inequality isn't really a problem, anyway; inequity is the problem.

      I designed the Universal Dividend and its growth-based minimum wage policy in such a way that an unemployed, single individual can only have as little as 10% of the mean (not median) income; two-adult household is 20%; one-adult with a full-time, minimum wage job is 30%; and two-adult with a full-time, minimum-wage job is 40%.

      That means a two-adult household in 2016 with one full-time worker would theoretically have $21,600 (half of which doesn't count as taxable income), but I started the Dividend at 14% with a plan to lower it to 10% later. In 2016, that household has $30,000, half of which is not taxable income: they pay 10% Federal income taxes on $3,000, plus 14% FICA on $15,000, total $2,400. $27,600 or $2,300 monthly take-home.

      By 2023, a single adult with a full-time job is making the equivalent take-home of $15/hr minimum wage, although the wage is only really around $9.25/hr.

      It grows faster than cost-of-living from there (even in the phase where I start moving toward 10%). I might consider changing my target to 12.5% to ensure a two-adult, one-worker household ends up halfway to what might be called "middle-class"; I'm uncertain. This is brand-new tech, and the post-keynesians are going to need a while to get a grasp of all the impacts. Nice, round numbers are also not necessarily optimal, but eh.

      If you want to talk bare economic policy, that's a different beast than trade.

    57. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      The principle of equity seems appropriate for western nations allowing free trade deals with developing countries, but the illustrated metaphor rather breaks down when applied.

      I'll agree that developing a form of UBI to counter the effects of late stage capitalism should be a priority over restoring domestic production of consumer goods, since automation and lights-out factories are poised to take over eventually anyway. You picked an interesting time to go into leadership, since one way or another it's going to be a bumpy ride.

    58. Re:Not sure if this is good or not by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      I'll agree that developing a form of UBI to counter the effects of late stage capitalism

      Actually, it's less of a basic income and more of a fair share of productivity. It's not designed to provide enough for anything; it's designed to provide fairness. The welfare system takes up the slack. Because productivity increases continuously, the load on welfare comes down over time.

      should be a priority over restoring domestic production of consumer goods, since automation and lights-out factories are poised to take over eventually anyway

      It's more than that. Any rise in prices without a corresponding rise in consumer spending (and consumer spendable income) brings a loss of jobs. Bringing factory jobs back from China will actually cause a net-loss of American jobs if Chinese production (notably, wages and payrolls) is cheaper by a small fraction.

      Even if production in America is more-expensive, you can have a net-gain in jobs since the associated spending now represents domestic income. You still end up with everyone poorer because they have to spend more for the same goods. A minimum wage worker suddenly works 3 hours instead of 1.5 to buy pants, for example; while a middle-class worker is spending 1.5 hours instead of 0.75 (the proportion is the same to all workers).

      Open, free trade is great for both sides. The transition is a problem: people lose their jobs in trade and technical progress. Jobs come back later as our industries shift around. Those in the path of progress are cast aside; this is not right. We need to keep them stable, to carry them to the next opportunity.

      That may, at times, mean slowing the transition. Trade deals may need to drain the potential over years--prevent jobs from flooding out all at once when there is a clear market drive to move millions of jobs ASAP--so we can handle the fall-out and ensure people aren't abandoned in the process. The end goal should always be to zero that potential so there isn't the threat of the next administration signing an open trade deal and making a 20-million-job industry vanish overnight.

      That's why I told PCCC I don't oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership: it may have some rough edges to work out, but going in the direction of fair trade (which eventually just becomes open trade, since fair trade drives up the economic situation of the exporting countries and causes the natural price to meet or exceed the fair-trade price) is a good thing. If the terms are outright bad, we need to modify the terms; that's different from support (of the current proposal) or opposition (of the proposal entire).

  4. Seems reasonable. by Templer421 · · Score: 0

    Just making up the difference in the Environmental laws.

    1. Re:Seems reasonable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you arrive at 30% tariff being "reasonable" as opposed to 25 or 40%? It's pretty much the definition of a nice round arbitrary number selected because Trump promised it off the top of his carpet.

    2. Re:Seems reasonable. by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      It is close to the 35% the USITC recommended (in TFS).

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    3. Re:Seems reasonable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you arrive at 30% tariff being "reasonable" as opposed to 25 or 40%?

      And then......

      It is close to the 35% the USITC recommended (in TFS).

      Boom! Bitch slap so hard the neck snapped open and it's a blood fountain over here!

  5. It's about time by glenebob · · Score: 1, Funny

    Now maybe we can get back to mining coal.

    1. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have to power houses in northern climates some how. It isn't going to be solar.

    2. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe we can get back to installing solar panels that will last longer than a couple of weeks and weren't manufactured by dumping a bunch of toxic chemicals into the environment while paying workers pennies.

    3. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just stating the reality. Last time I called someone names I was in third grade.

    4. Re:It's about time by scatbomb · · Score: 1
      Why is GP a moron? It's not a moronic statement. Do you know anything about annual solar irradiance of northern and southern lattitudes? It is very weak for a large fraction of the year. This is a legitimate concern.

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Insolation.gif

    5. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coal isn't a legitimate solution obviously, derp.

    6. Re:It's about time by glenebob · · Score: 1

      You expect anyone to believe the very last time you called someone a name was in third grade? I think we can add "Big Fat Lying Liar Pants" to the list.

    7. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you're fresh out of 3rd grade too, with that little phrase at the ready.

    8. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we were, sadly we are going back to that if the poor quality US made ones.

    9. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad those bio gas systems are still not very well developed. Some Germans try to solve the dire sewage issues in some Vietnamese cities with such installations. I'm very curious how that will work over time. Then onward to making it work reliably at -30-50 degrees C colds in cities of the North! Warmth and energy generated from biomass is stored solar power, so maybe some new kind of artificial material to convert and absorb solar energy would be useful.

    10. Re:It's about time by John.Banister · · Score: 1

      And perovskite

    11. Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ugg we're dealing with a adolesence mentality.

    12. Re:It's about time by scatbomb · · Score: 1

      AC said "Have to power houses in northern climates some how. It isn't going to be solar." Somehow potentially means a variety of things.

    13. Re:It's about time by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      AC has little retort.

      GP is something, but not a moron. It was a snide remark, maybe in jest, maybe to try to discredit OP's sarcastic remark by suggesting solar can't power some places and so we need to bring in the coal and oil.

      The obvious answer is high-voltage DC transmission lines. HVDC can transmit nearly a thousand kilometers with under 3% loss, whereas AC overhead lines transmit so far with over 10% loss. The US is 2.5 times that in height, and we can potentially get solar power into Alaska from areas just south of Calgary with that kind of ratio. We can get it to Canada and Alaska with maybe 10% loss--the same as classical AC lines.

      That assumes an optimal economic of transmitting the power at 10% loss. Much of Canada has 15% to 20% lower solar generation potential, so might be better off buying transmitted power.

      At the same time, solar panels are cheap: it's reasonable (not most-efficient) for Canada to generate its own solar power by building panels over wide open parking lots, where trees and buildings don't shade at least 70% of the lot. That scale of installation is large enough to be near as efficient as utility-scale, and is on ground so is easier to manage than rooftop solar (if your roof has a problem, you have a MASSIVE labor cost). It's even feasible for a third-party utility to manage your parking lot solar roof. Convenient, directly-generated 600VDC power can drive a Stage 3 DC fast charger, or convert to on-site AC to power electric vehicles, reducing grid load and loss.

      This all ignores any sort of wind or geothermal power. Wind must be away from urban areas, so the same HVDC argument applies; wind is also less-predictable than solar, but we'll need advance adiabatic compressed air energy storage to really take advantage of mostly-solar energy, so the infrastructure requirements are the same. Geothermal depends heavily on location and may have unexpected consequences, such as being most-efficient if sunk into the ground or water... right up until people realize the localized change in ground and water temperature is destroying the environment.

      There are a lot of viable all-solar approaches here, as well as mixed-clean-air approaches.

    14. Re:It's about time by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It could include solar from other places on the grid. Whatever it is, it's less likely to be coal all along. Natural gas is cheaper and we've got that in abundance. There's no point in building a new coal plant when gas is less expensive and less likely to be heavily regulated in 2021.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  6. fk... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (*&^%$#

    this will hurt me, a lot. I need 5 to 10kwh of installed panel this year. I buy 100w panels due to shipping costs. they are 125$. now they will be at least 165. o joy.

    1. Re:fk... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not if you buy them before this goes into effect. The Obama administration did the same thing and people complained (while others haled it as a good move). I'm guessing it's a different set of making the same complaints.Don't care anymore,this is one of the most hypocritical websites there is.I think it's a bad idea, but why only now? idiots

    2. Re: fk... by kenh · · Score: 1

      Suck it up, buttercup.

      Your idea of energy independence and saving the planet relies on solar panels built in inhumane factories by laborers earning slave wages, polluting the environment and then put on a cargo ship, shipped halfway across the planet, put on a train and delivered to your city. So far, your good with all that, but you draw the line at paying $165 for the solar panel?

      You could buy a US made panel for slightly less, and satisfy yourself that the workers were likely paid a living wage, that the factory did not pollute the planet, and your panels total carbon footprint doesn't include an ocean voyage from China to to you.

      --
      Ken
    3. Re: fk... by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

      I agree with your overall point, but you need to refine your thinking on the carbon cost of shipping. Container ships from china are so efficient the carbon footprint of shipping a container is about the same as a typical long-haul truck traveling halfway across the country. Here is some further reading.

      Ironically, if you live near a port it is more eco-friendly to have something shipped from china than trucked from the other coast.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
  7. Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But only when Trump does it.

    U.S. Imposes Tariffs On Chinese Solar Cells Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 18, 2012 @08:32AM from the sunshine-of-your-love dept.

    Solar Panel Trade War Heats Up Posted by timothy on Monday October 24, 2011 @07:07AM from the remember-to-only-accept-domestic-subsidies dept.

    US Funds Aggressive Tech To Cut Solar Power Costs Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 27, 2011 @04:33AM from the aim-big dept.

    1. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by gfxguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      TFS explains right there, in the summary, that this is the third round of tariffs after Obama's two... but the Trump trolls keep on rolling. No Trump fan, here, but the Trump derangement is sad, especially from supposedly educated slashdotters.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    2. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because one president made stupid mistakes doesn't excuse the next one from doing the same. Subsidies are bad protectionist behaviour regardless of president, it is backward thinking that trades long term benefits for short term wins. I was just as much against Obama's stupidity too.

    3. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      Good - you're not who I was referring to.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    4. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That would be fine but the rhetoric and hyperbole is that Trump is unique and literally Hitler. Even mundane politics is now ZOMG END OF THE WORLD!!!111!!!!!11111!

      Remember, "this is not normal". #resist.

      Trump has perfected the art of making people go crazy over nothing. It's actually amazing.

    5. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obama never said that white supremacists were good people. Trump did, so he's a hell of a lot closer to being Hitler than anyone should be comfortable with.

    6. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by deathguppie · · Score: 1

      No Trump fan, here,

      but the Trump derangement is sad,

      "so sad".. ya doesn't sound even a bit like a Trump supporter

      --
      once more into the breach
    7. Re: Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Show me where he literally said âoewhite supremacists are good peopleâ as a direct exact quote.

    8. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C'mon, Obama once said the cops acted stupidly in arresting a man in his own house for an offense that was dismissed, which means he criticized the police, that's like 2 Hitlers and half of an Ivan the Terrible!

    9. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      I know... I was actually thinking about Trump tweets when I wrote that, but I couldn't think of a better word.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    10. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      disheartening?

    11. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by houghi · · Score: 1

      Just because Obama did it does not make it ok for Trump doing it. It does not make it a wise decision by default. It just shows there is not really a bi-party system.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    12. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but the Trump trolls keep on rolling. No Trump fan, here, but the Trump derangement is sad, especially from supposedly educated slashdotters.

      Yeah. The Trump derangement is weird. I suspect that many people voted for him as a giant "fuck you" to those who really run the show. What we are finding out now, with re-passing of the surveillance laws, is that the Office of the President has no _real_ power.

      I do not think Trump should have ever been President, but meh. Now it is proven that electing clowns to the Office of President has no real bearing on how the world works.

      I am still mystified at how much irrational hate Trump seems to garner. I mean, I get it, the guy sucks... but a lot of the "arguments" I see discussing how horrible he is seem to have no rational basis. Perhaps it is a smoke screen manufactured ... by the Democrats? I am not partisan, so it could be the Republicans or some weird conspiracy of Republicans and Democrats... I just do not know. But the whole situation is fucking weird.

    13. Re: Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.theatlantic.com/po...

      “You also had some very fine people on both sides,” he said.

    14. Re:Remember kids: Tarrifs and subsidies are evil! by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The Rs and Ds have 'mutually assured destruction' dirt on each other. Have had for decades. Why you saw over the weekend reversals whenever someone like Cheney or Clinton were about to get indicted. It's just about preserving the DNC and RNCs hold on power.

      The mainstream Rs hate Trump even more than the Ds do, but have to pretend.

      Our hope is that the RNC and DNC both dump their dirt on the other. Then we can get started.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  8. This is a good thing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cheap china panels will kill domestic panel creation leaving us reliant on china when they need replaced.

    cheap now. expensive later. if they're even willing to sell later.

    bad deal.

    1. Re:This is a good thing. by gravewax · · Score: 1

      you act as if China and the US are the only places that make the panels. The US has a tiny market share (even in the US) as they are neither cheap nor the best quality. There are more than a dozen major manufacturing countries for panels around the world.

    2. Re:This is a good thing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes they are the only ones.
      the only ones willing to pollute their own country to make them dirt cheap on top of their govt subsidizing them.

      everyone else that makes them of any quality is like us. with our prices. and are irrevelant to this discussion.

    3. Re:This is a good thing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bullshit, the problem with the US is they are neither Cheap like China or the best quality like those coming out of Europe, hell in many cases they aren't even as good as the quality coming out of china.

  9. Not the first administration to take action. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Obama administration also accused China of cheating on solar panels via government subsidies; and tariffs were tacked on as punishment. As I understand it, the World Trade Organization agreed that China cheated, but disagreed with the US's remedy.

    While I cannot stand Trump in general, he is sometimes right about trade and visa workers. Just because you are an idiot does not mean you are always wrong. Go 15% of Trump!

    1. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But this will create more jobs in the US so more people will work. Forcing people to work is slavery, and you have fewer people on the dole so there's less government control.

    2. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      I'm kind of paraphrasing, but I also recall a list on this site, that Trump may introduce policies that foreign worker visas must be over a certain high wage, ensuring that Americans don't import foreign workers (mainly India) yet pay them peanuts, ensuring that local work is available to Americans.

      A sound policy to be honest, I wish my government would do it

    3. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I cannot stand Trump in general, he is sometimes right about trade and visa workers.

      This isn't about promoting local solar panel manufacturing. This is about promoting coal over solar.

      Trump just points at something that is wrong and then changes it to be wrong in a worse way.

      Just because someone else is wrong doesn't mean that you are right.
      Trump haven't understood that he doesn't win just because he screws someone else over.
      It is perfectly possible to ruin something for someone else while making it worse for yourself too.

    4. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah right up until you read in the tax bill that while we discourage bringing foreign labor into the country, offshoring entire factories/offices is encouraged.

      Then you look at the tax bill that is going to create a whole lot of jobs, but when you look at the unemployment there are 6.5 million unemployed people in the country and 5.9 million open job postings in the country, and we plan to deport 200k salvadorans, and 800k Dreamers, which if they have similar employment rates to the general population is ~700K jobs that will no longer be done because we deported those people... so we'll have 100K more jobs in the US than people, and in theory that will make labor rates go up as labor has more demand than supply, in reality it will just encourage companies that have the capital to establish offices overseas thanks to tax breaks that they get from such action... and since labor is cheaper over there layoffs in the US are likely to occur...

      Basically the plan is to destabilize the labor market to the point where no one can rely on a job, and we need to accept salaries that compete with those offered in india.... all while keeping those damn foreigners out of our country so they don't contaminate our GDP by contributing to it.

    5. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you are an idiot does not mean you are always wrong. Go 15% of Trump!

      When someone does the right thing for the wrong reason, they should not be praised. Because the lesson they will take from that praise is that their reasons are correct, and they will apply that bad reasoning to more decisions which aren't likely to produce the right results.

      FWIW, Trump's entire shtick is to say "You guys hate X, and I hate X too, so lets be buddies!" But his hate of X isn't principled, its purely about getting buddies, not about why X is bad. And as it turns out, hate is the easiest way to get a strong reaction from a certain subset of people. Its governance by nihilism.

    6. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The way they get away with paying imported labor peanuts is by leveraging the 8+ year delay of getting a green card -while they are in the process of getting a green card, they are for all practical purposes, unable to change employers. Which is effectively a form of corruption (employers leveraging a government power to get something that benefits themselves in a way that is not officially intended as a matter of law). Fix that problem, so that labor isn't being held down to benefit capital owners and all of the problems go away because an actually free market is not zero-sum, bring in more smart people who are paid what they are worth and the entire industry grows which means more jobs for everybody.

    7. Re:Not the first administration to take action. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      While I cannot stand Trump in general, he is sometimes right about trade and visa workers.

      I computed in 2016 that, if we manufactured pants in America and bought zero from China, we would see a net loss of 58,000 American jobs, and would work 3x as long to buy a pair of pants. Of course, it's qualitative, and only shows that trade is not a simple matter: I was using the 2008 $3.20/hr Chinese payroll cost versus a $26/hr American payroll cost, and the Chinese today are paid more than $3/hr while the American factory worker generally averages $71/hr in wages, benefits, and payroll taxes.

      Based on the two payroll costs, the change in domestic jobs can be positive, zero, or negative. The zero point isn't wage parity, either; you get parity with somewhat-lower foreign payroll costs. In any case where the domestic payroll cost is higher, however, you get poverty: the thing being made domestically costs more domestic working-hours at any given wage level. The proportion is the same across all wage levels (e.g. a minimum-wage worker works 3 hours instead of 1, while a median-wage worker works 1 hour instead of 1/3), but varies with the difference in payrolls between countries.

      It costs 6.5 cents to get a pair of pants here from China. Domestic shipping (the trucking from the port to the retail store--and all the movements between) is roughly half the retail price.

  10. Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 4, Informative

    Although economists disagree by how much, the consensus view among economists and economic historians is that "The passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression.

    The act raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      consensus

      There's that word again.

    2. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never learned much about economics in school, but I did learn this - by watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

    3. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff [wikipedia.org] exacerbated the Great Depression.

      Good thing we are not in the Great Depression, the recession ended six years ago, and the market has been making historic highs for weeks.

    4. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      (1) We're not in a depression. (2) China maintains HUGE tariffs on American solar panels. Why? We're getting fucked on this deal. Time to benefit our own people instead of roll over and let the Chinese win, again. The moment that they let down their tariffs, we'll do ours, too. But not a moment before. Fair play or GTFO.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    5. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Powercntrl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Although economists disagree by how much, the consensus view among economists and economic historians is that "The passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression.

      The problem with import tariffs is that they're a burden on the many, for the benefit of the few. I don't know about you, but my source of income will in no way increase due to more American workers building solar panels or washing machines, here in the USA. The only thing I'll notice is a higher price at the store on those items.

      Since this is such a great idea, why doesn't the Trump administration just go ahead and tariff the fuck out of imported everything? I'm sure the MAGA crowd will absolutely love it when that South Korean-made TV they were eyeballing for the Superbowl costs twice as much (along with just about everything else at Walmart).

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
    6. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone? ...the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? ...raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. 'Voodoo' economics.

    7. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Indeed, but think of why.

      If you're depressed and jobless passing a law that increases costs to consumers is like pouring petrol onto a fire to get it to burn better. The reality is if you're trying to help start a fire then the petrol needs to be added before the fire has been lit. The USA still has industries and is currently not in a depression. The passage of the same act in a healthy environment can aid keeping jobs available.

      Like the fire, timing is everything.

    8. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and .. maybe? last twice as long? so if the product is twice as expensive "upfront" but statistically lasts double the time before requiring a replacement then the prices are the same (one could argue that longer lasting stuff is actually cheaper because of the inflation).
      made in china is mostly junk... from our westerner perspective.
      in china-land, stuff doesn't have to last, it's their philosophy and making stuff that lasts is considered a lazy-product because only lazy people who don't want to work would build something that you only need to buy once or twice in your life time...

    9. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What people don't realize is that China doesn't demand insane tariffs, but 51% control of any venture on their soil. Couple that with the fact that a Chinese government officer in a department similar to the NSA or DHS is by law, part of the company's board, and you will see that there is a definite trade imbalance.

      Picture any venture on US soil demanding someone from the CIA to be on your boardroom, and some hayseeds with a pickup truck owning the majority stake of your factory in Alabama? You begin to understand how China is like.

      Oh, the fact that if you don't sign a Chinese friendly deal on their soil, you just might be arrested and put in prison for some vague sedition charges for 20-30 years sort of "encourages" CEOs to give them all their IP and ignore the Chinese's "third shift" of products, not to mention quality fade.

    10. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with import tariffs is that they're a burden on the many, for the benefit of the few. I don't know about you, but my source of income will in no way increase due to more American workers building solar panels or washing machines, here in the USA. The only thing I'll notice is a higher price at the store on those items.

      Since this is such a great idea, why doesn't the Trump administration just go ahead and tariff the fuck out of imported everything? I'm sure the MAGA crowd will absolutely love it when that South Korean-made TV they were eyeballing for the Superbowl costs twice as much (along with just about everything else at Walmart).

      First I want to make it clear that I despise Trump and his xenophobia. Having said that reversing the long term trade balance is good you, good for us and China.

      Because various subsidies to Chinese manufactures direct and indirect (lax labor laws, re-appropriation of land and resources, artificial lowering of saving rate and therefore interest manufacturers pay for loans). Your consumption have been subsidized as well, along with high trade deficit and loss of U.S. manufacturing.

      This is unsustainable. Every great trade imbalance has been reversed, the longer the delay, the more disruptive the adjustment. This time it is no different.

      To correct that imbalance will means you and I will pay higher prices along with more U.S. manufacturing (hopefully along with higher employment as been in the past). You may not agree that a healthier economy with better jobs while you pay more and buy less is benefits you in any way, but it does.

      Conversely China is/will move towards a more consumer economy which means buying more imports including ours. Btw this adjustment is not just with China but with all export dependent economies (Japan, the four Asian Tigers, Germany).

      The adjustment will occur one way or another. Do I trust Trump to help make the transition smoother? Absolutely not. At the same time, I don't know if this tariff is on the whole good or bad, save the the general pressure towards protectionism is unavoidable and will build.

    11. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      What does spiraling retaliatory tariffs do to the economy even if there is no depression?.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    12. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Precisely.

      To those who assert that imports are subsidized by the country of manufacture, that strategy, obviously, is effective.

      Answering with domestic subsidies would be a better choice than a tariff war.

      That way, "America First," would be backed by American dollars right at the factories and not with tariffs that disappear into a black hole.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    13. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Addendum

      Starting a "subsidy war" would put a greater burden on foreign solar panel manufacturers (spelled, "China").

      Let them spend their own goddam money.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    14. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by number17 · · Score: 1

      Trade agreements with other countries may not allow subsidies in that sector.

    15. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Nationalization and anti-globalization, and anti-importation of skilled and unskilled labour trump treaties.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    16. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Since this is such a great idea, why doesn't the Trump administration just go ahead and tariff the fuck out of imported everything?

      It's pretty obvious why.

    17. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that OUR products get tarrifed to death when WE try to SELL in THEIR countries. That’s why America is getting poorer and poorer, we don’t manufacture anything since it’s cheaper to do it in China using slave labor and no environmental law. As much as you might hate Trump, his ideas are the ones that work.

      You should wake up from leftist brainwashing. Leftism always results in Venezuela.

    18. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You have a splinter in your foot. Removing it will require digging into your foot with a scalpel. Hurts right? But do you remove it anyway or do you risk the resulting infection putting you in hospital and getting your foot amputated?

      Tariffs like this are not retaliatory, they are correctional. Stopping the flood of cheap imports does nothing for the short term economy, but it may be damn good for the long term economy as outsourcing all your manufacturing overseas and dealing with the resulting unemployment is the "cut it off" option.

      The only interesting thing here is that it's only solar panels affected rather than many other industries. Protectionism isn't always a bad thing. Free trade sure as heck isn't always a good thing.

    19. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      And when you "globalize" your thinking, what does your brain tell you?

      Tariffs are not a domestic issue.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    20. Re: Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of the problems with this is that with the progress of technology in this area then it might make more economic sense to buy the cheaper, but less durable, panels now, reduce opportunity costs and lock in energy savings, and then buy more later. The total cost may be no more, but the savings greater.

      If you were talking about tables or jeans then you'd have a point, as table technology isn't rapidly changing.

    21. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Of course they are. When applied for protectionism tariffs exist due to a difference in the domestic regulation and the foreign regulation and are used as a way to prevent exporting bypasses around domestic regulation to other countries.

      i.e. If your HSE rules mandate that you don't kill someone, and those rules cause a 10% overhead in that manufacturing activity it stands to reason that this domestic rule should come with a tariff on imported products from any country where the rule doesn't exist or is laxer. Likewise the reverse applies too, expect to have a tariff levied against your exports for the same reasons.

      Now tariffs aren't always a domestic issue, but in terms of protecting your industry against a known undercutter they are.

    22. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      So you included the impetus ... non-domestic issues.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    23. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paying 2x the cost =/= 2x quality, longevity, or generally being "better".

    24. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Sure. If your comprehension skills are that low then yes, let's go with non-domestic.

    25. Re:Spiraling retaliation ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Works for me and you.

      Thanks.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  11. Kathleen Fent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has she dumped that loser Taco already? I am very interested in dating her.

  12. Well, he did promise to revive the coal industry by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    This is just part of the plan. Kill the competition.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  13. Ahh yes... by psinet · · Score: 1

    The illustrious forces of the free market at work. That age-old, right-wing, conservative, Republican mantra. Small government, 'hands-off' business.

    I guess the rest of the world doesn't care. We still get the same high-quality 23% efficiency cells from China that we always got - for the same price.

    It is amazing how many innovative commercial projects you can power with them.....we just ignore the 'Made in China' bit, because it does not affect our ego.

    1. Re:Ahh yes... by psinet · · Score: 0

      THAT comment gets downmarked as a troll?

      Holy cow, you certainly know where you are when getting modded on Slashdot. You sure aint anywhere else.

      Just...wow.

    2. Re:Ahh yes... by psinet · · Score: 0

      ROFL, people shouting MAGA HAIL TRUMP etc are not trolls, but I am?

      Great job.

    3. Re:Ahh yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My panels are 14% and I love them. Under 50cents per watt and have already paid for themselves.

  14. Winning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's called MAGA.

    MAGA, baby, MAGA!

  15. Natural Gas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is just part of the plan. Kill the competition.

    He should put more regulations on fracking then. THAT is what has been killing coal - cheap Natural Gas; contrary to what the Republicans have been saying to their base.

  16. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by saloomy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fuck that. It's a boon to the oil and coal industry. Solar panels just went up by 30%, slowing down our energy independence. We could have moved so much more energy production on-shore. Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers? Are we going to impose the same 30% tariff on imported coal-mining equipment?

    Fuck that.

  17. I object: stop interfering with free trade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I get the reasoning for doing this I'm against it on principle. The government should not be involved in regulating peoples voluntary interactions with others. If I were dictator I'd tear down the boarders and open up free exchange of people and movement of goods thereof.

    1. Re: I object: stop interfering with free trade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who are these boarders you're speaking of, and what are they boarding ?

    2. Re:I object: stop interfering with free trade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I get the reasoning for doing this I'm against it on principle. The government should not be involved in regulating peoples voluntary interactions with others. If I were dictator I'd tear down the boarders and open up free exchange of people and movement of goods thereof.

      Good. I assume you would also end all taxation and social programs. Or is it ok for the government to use force to take the fruits of my labor and give it to others?

  18. Remember the 59% Chinese tariff already in effect. by Mspangler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It applies to US produced polysilicon shipped over there.

    The Chinese want a monopoly on PV panels and the entire supply chain, and to that end anything goes. Daqo gets free electricity for one example.

  19. Won't matter by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    The days of the costs of the physical solar cells mattering went out a few years ago.

    The major component costs are now labor costs and permitting.

    It's like me telling you truckers will pay an extra 5 cents at the pump. The market will still price it anyway, and it will just be a sliver of a portion of the price.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  20. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's obviously fake news.

  21. Can someone explain? by psinet · · Score: 0

    Using a financial argument - and without arguing that somehow future solar panel production is linked to national security..........please explain how trying to directly compete with an established global solar panel producer - who already offer the highest quality panels at the cheapest price on the planet (bar the odd quality product) - is going to be a 'good business plan'?

    Debt and credit do not equate to wealth, but I am not even certain the average joe believes that anymore either.

  22. BAU, Modest PR by spinitch · · Score: 0

    While a nice gesture and the non-China supply chain should welcome it is relatively modest and probably a scouting test to see how China responds. China can finds ways to enlighten US of ramifications. If US consulted with China first and they conceded as a tiny pawn for US political appeasement with understanding donâ(TM)t get carried away this might be tolerated but doubt it. There are to many interests with friction on both sides to balance delicately with very different governance systems that conflicts hard to avoid but hopefully both sides acknowledge and settle on pragmatic compromises before our economies get jolted dramatically.

  23. I don't think the manufacturing is less efficient by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    if anything it's probably more so since it probably uses more machines and less labor. Chinese panels are cheaper because the poor working and living conditions of their people. Now, what I wouldn't mind seeing is tariffs that kick in when there's a disparity. Canada suggested the US do these when we renegotiate NAFTA, although mostly as a dig on our low quality of life; suggesting that they'd need such tariffs themselves since we don't have things like single payer health care, mandatory sick and vacation time, etc, etc.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  24. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by jwhyche · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't know, how many times has Trump extinguished all life on this planet? Can you give us some hard numbers? i've search google for it and I've come up with nothing.

    Why don't you get back to us with some hard numbers on this.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  25. Tariffs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... might just end up making stuff more expensive at Wal-Mart and other big-box stores. That's probably not what the huddled masses expect, but then they don't seem to act in their best interest in these areas...

  26. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about American solar panel manufacturers? God forbid the Chinese have the same worker and environmental protections as the US to increase their costs of production. But it's easy to claim moral superiority on the climate when you export your pollution to cheap Chinese labor and unregulated industry.

  27. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must be from China.

  28. Success as cost of goods is not good economics. by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is awful. basically you are now subsidising local less efficient manufacturing. Everyone loses, less panels will be installed, you may maintain a few manufacturing jobs but they should be offset by the reduction in retail and installer jobs you will lose by increasing costs by 30%.

    The problem with modern economic theory is that it doesn't measure success in the right way. It's all about money coming into or out of a country, of the cost of goods, and the cost to manufacture.

    Nowhere in those theories is the human cost taken into effect.

    In the modern theories, it's always better when you have lower costs, even if those costs result in fewer people being employed. You can have lots of low cost products available, and yet no one can afford to purchase them because no one has the money to spare - employment is so low that no disposable cash drives the economy.

    The original argument for Chinese manufacturing was exactly that: Shoes become $1 cheaper and 100 workers lose employment, but the total savings across the country of people purchasing shoes more than compensates for the loss of 100 salaries. Overall, it's better for everyone.

    Do you see the flaw in the theory yet?

    When you say "maintain a few manufacturing jobs but offset by loss of installed jobs" you are making the same argument.

    It measures success as the cost of goods, and nothing else, without taking into account other aspects of the economy.

    A successful economy depends on people having money, to drive the economy.

    1. Re:Success as cost of goods is not good economics. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If that is truly how you feel, then stop voting for Republicans and Libertarians, because that's exactly what you're bitching about. Being a trump fan is hard isn't it?

  29. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by jwhyche · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I care where the manufacturing happens. The Chinese are very far behind on their environmental regulations, not mention worker rights. Also this move will help our energy independence than hinder it. We we just keep importing cheap panels from China we become dependent on them. This will make domestic panels more cost effective and actually speed up our energy independence.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  30. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

    Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers?

    Well...the young US solar panel industry and the domestic workers they employ.

    Domestic manufacturing *IS* a good thing and we need to work to keep as much of it as we can, we've lost waaaaay too much over the past few decades.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  31. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by jwhyche · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Boy some mods really hate it when you ask for hard data on someone hysterical rants. Especially if it shines light on their narrow view of the world.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  32. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by scatbomb · · Score: 0

    Totally a moot point, human life is already extinct due to the tax plan and net neutrality.

  33. Trump! OMG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A solar company would obviously benefit by having artificially cheap panels to sell. No wonder they're angry. Big picture, though, the Chinese are buying the market by bankrupting domestic manufacturers. In this case, Trump is right.

  34. Re:I don't think the manufacturing is less efficie by cayenne8 · · Score: 0

    ...since we don't have things like single payer health care, mandatory sick and vacation time, etc, etc.

    You want those type of benefits...then, get a real job.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  35. Historical question by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    Although economists disagree by how much, the consensus view among economists and economic historians is that "The passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression.

    I thought the reason we didn't have as many recessions in the late 20th was due to the Glass Steagall act, and the reason we had the most recent one was because we dismantled that.

    Is that not the case?

    One could argue that TARP exacerbated our most recent depression (greater than "the great depression", by all accounts), because comparing our results with other countries that *didn't* bail out the banks (notably: Iceland) shows that we fared a lot worse by not simply letting the banks fail.

    So what's really going on here?

    Are you arguing a point of religious dogma, essentially a "school of thought"?

    Or are there clear and unambiguous reasons for the great depression, with close parallels to our current situation? Do all economic models agree that tariffs are a bad idea?

    I'm confused.

    If we reinstitute Glass Steagall -style limitations (which we haven't yet), shouldn't that protect us from exacerbating depressions?

    1. Re:Historical question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we reinstitute Glass Steagall -style limitations (which we haven't yet), shouldn't that protect us from exacerbating depressions?

      It might protect us from rampant financial fraud, which would be the primary goal, rather than nonsense about depressions.

      Assuming it was instituted right, but with today's politicians, they'd probably muck it all up.

  36. Re:I don't think the manufacturing is less efficie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    china is heavily automated in the construction of panels, it isn't a large manual workforce. So cheap labour doesn't do squat, it is the cheap power and volume they manufacture. They also have some very efficient panels coming out of their now making them highly desirable.

  37. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by mattack2 · · Score: 1

    Though the solar tax credit is still (currently) alive for a few more years. 30% of all costs.

    It really doesn't "make sense" for me to get solar financially since I have a city owned power company with low power costs and I use relatively little power.. I still may eventually do it, for environmental reasons (in the long long long run).

  38. I really hope your industry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...gets decimated by competition from Chinese subsidized businesses. We'll see how magnanimous you are then.

  39. You need to do some shopping. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    I need 5 to 10kwh of installed panel this year. I buy 100w panels due to shipping costs. they are 125$

    I assume you mean 5 to 10 kW of panels. Or do you mean about 1/5 that to make 5 to 10 kWh per day, or about 5 times that to average 5 to 10 kW 24/7? (That's figuring 5 solar hours as a rule-of-thumb for a good site in the mid-latitude continental US.)

    That's very expensive. Panels (new, UL approved, in 10-panel pallets) were going for $0.33 per watt last year. Maybe they weren't 100W panels, but shipping a pallet anywhere in the continental US is not all that pricey.

    Even with these tariffs added, at 5 to 10 kW of panels (or 25 - 50, or 1 - 2) you should be able to do lots better than $1.50/watt.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  40. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about American solar panel manufacturers?

    This ensures that American solar panel manufacturers will be shielded from competition, face no pressure to innovate, and fall even further behind in the world market.

    Just more corporate welfare, at the expense of American families, and one more field where America has given up even trying to lead. So much for MAGA.

  41. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1, Troll

    ... slowing down our energy independence ...

    In Republican speak, "energy independence" is code for fossil-fuel companies and them doing whatever they want - like pollute rivers, etc...

    More seriously, complaints about this are over-blown. From United States energy independence

    In total energy consumption, the U.S. was between 86% and 91% self-sufficient in 2016. In May 2011, the country became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. As of 2014, the United States was the world's third-largest producer of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia and Russia and second largest exporter of refined products, after Russia.

    Note the phrase, "net exporter of refined petroleum products."

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  42. Tesla gets a Trump card by seoras · · Score: 1

    Elon Musk must be happy with this news.
    This can't be a bad thing for Tesla who isn't exactly doing it for the coal diggers who backed Trump.
    Solar Roof is made at Telsa's Buffalo Gigafactory isn't it?

  43. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Tariffs only make sense if the Chinese government is subsidizing their solar panel manufacturing to the extent that those companies are essentially dumping.

    Otherwise, if Chinese manufacturers can produce panels more efficiently than U.S. manufacturers, its in our best interest to import panels and focus our efforts to areas where we're more efficient. Being able to manufacture solar panels has nowhere near the impact on energy independence as does producing ones own fossil fuels. Existing panels don't suddenly stop working if we stop trading with China.

  44. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economics by orlanz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What you are talking about has been tried many times in the past and has always come out behind the current systems.

    The objective should never be to "employ the maximum number of people". That is the intended side effect; not objective. There are many failed and current states that tried to make that an objective. India, Russia, Poland, a few South American countries, a few African countries, etc.

    "Modern economics" was built upon these many many lessons learned over centuries. I wouldn't dismiss them so lightly. Given a few considerations, scope, and boundaries, there are slightly better models than today. But, as shitty as our models are, they are far better than the ones before.

  45. Remember when the US went around trying to lower g by shm · · Score: 1

    The US, directly and through the WTO used to coerce other countries into lowering their protectionist tariffs. This was supposed to make US exports cheaper.

    Unfortunately manufacturing costs in those countries was way lower, leading companies to shift production.

    Now you have the reverse.

  46. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So how does that view fit in with the fact that the tariffs will reduce to elimination over the next 4 years?

    Sounds to me that it's an opportunity for american manufacturing to get their feet before competition resumes, and nothing else.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  47. Solyndra by h8sg8s · · Score: 1

    Would an import tariff like this have saved Solyndra, or was the company just a shell for political contributions.

    --
    Organization? You must be joking..
    1. Re: Solyndra by kenh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Solyndra was simply a textbook horrible business plan from beginning to end:

      Built fragile, complex solar panels, in a heavily automated factory, on some of the most expensive land inte world, paying some of the highest wages and taxes, that sold at a premium that way exceeded the slight performance boost their curved design provided over plain, flat Chinese imports.

      Their plan was so obviously horrible that when they applied for a half-billion dollars the analysts could predict, to the month, when Solyndra would go bankrupt - so they denied their federally-secured loan application.

      Then the company 'liberally' donated to President Obama's campaign, theirloan application was approved, and then, as if by magic, Solyndra went bankrupt EXACTLY when the previous administration's analysts predicted!

      Amazing!

      --
      Ken
    2. Re:Solyndra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibly. But a tariff on all cheap imports benefits all the US companies making solar panels instead of propping up a single failing company with a poor business plan. Generally the public prefers a sense of fairness instead of handpicked beneficiaries.

      We didn't decide to just save GM or Chrysler. The program was for the auto industry in general. Personally, not a huge fan of it but at least the government didn't pick a winner and save just one of the big three.

    3. Re:Solyndra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Solyndra was a part of a package, for want of a better term, of companies that the government invested in.

      The government's package, Solyndra included, outperformed Mitt Romney's former employer, who had the same basic investment plan.

      Solyndra has been used as a cherry picked to prove a point that doesn't really prove the desired point.

    4. Re: Solyndra by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Solyndra's gimmicky curved design was _less_ efficient but slightly less midday peaky. Proof that nobody in DC passed calculus or at least didn't care about details like a companies basic technology.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    5. Re: Solyndra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or... just maybe.... you don't know WTF you are talking about, but instead have focused on a couple of minor details that you kinda-sorta grasp despite being completely blind to the full picture and will now declare that an elephant is nothing more than a tail!

      Nah, everybody else are idiots and yer a genius in solar engineering and public policy and that's why you spend time posting smugly self-comforting narratives on slashdot!!!

    6. Re: Solyndra by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Minor details like power captured in the average day?

      You, in fact, clearly don't 'know' anything about it, but are a committed D. You should just shut up and let this whole sordid mess fade into history.

      Also study calc.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  48. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Domestic manufacturing of solar panels creates basically no jobs.

    However there is a certain level of know how necessary to run a plant, so keeping some plants running make of course sense.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  49. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, what the mods "really hate" is someone as hysterically stupid as you.

  50. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

    Plus he totally ignored Kevin when he was lost in the Trump Hotel in "Home Alone 2."

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
  51. If it's OK there, Why not here? by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just ask yourself a Question.

    Could you build a plant, and operate it here following the same environmental and safety regulations used in China?

    The answer is obviously no. Why? Because those working conditions and environmental practices would be condemned as immoral and an affront to the environment.

    So, why then do people seem to think it suddenly becomes moral and OK to have those conditions in a place 3,000 miles away? If it's Not OK here, then it's not OK there. Or, visa versa. If it's good enough for the Chinese, then it's good enough for Jersey.

    People may think it's good to have cheap solar cells, but unless you can make them cheap in a way that squares with the rhetoric of the labor and environmental movements, then cheap solar cells are not viable.

    Interestingly, saying that they should make these in those conditions in a foreign land seems to actually be racists.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by wyattstorch516 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Simple, if Trump says something is bad then people here will say it is good. Don't need any fancy reasoning skills for that.

    2. Re: If it's OK there, Why not here? by kenh · · Score: 1

      Can't even begin to imagine the working conditions and wages us manufacturers would have to employ to compete with slave labor and zero environmental concerns as in China... but hey, if Trump does it, it must be bad!

      --
      Ken
    3. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by grahamsz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sure, and a lot of us would have felt very differently if it were a tariff on imports from businesses who don't meet our standards for social or environmental responsibility.

      However that's not what this is. You can still run a textile plant in China and dump your dye-laded waste water directly into a river with no treatment; you can have people exposed to repetitive stress injury building phone parts; you can have people working in metal stamping facilities where a wrong move could cost them one of their limbs.

      This is a direct targeted attack on sustainable energy.

    4. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The exact same can be said for any outsourcing. It's cheaper to outsource because you have shifted the labour to a jurisdiction that exempts you from following the labour laws and conditions imposed.

    5. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      China puts a punishing tariff on American solar panels. Turnabout is fair play.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by amanaplanacanalpanam · · Score: 1

      People may think it's good to have cheap [anything], but unless you can make them cheap in a way that squares with the rhetoric of the labor and environmental movements, then cheap [anything] are not viable.

      I agree on principle, and I'd further add that if it's consistency we're after, oughtn't we tariff just about anything made anywhere under less than acceptable conditions? Which, I imagine, is a great many of the things we buy (all the things?).

      Practically speaking however...solar panels still have a relatively limited customer demographic so this will cause relatively few waves. However I expect consumers would feel a bit less altruistic should they be told they can now afford 30% less [anything] - and that's not even considering today's climate of leadership-fomented jingoism.

    7. Re: If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Subsidies by chinese government = bad
      Subsidies as corporate welfare for Trumps buddies = Aayyyyeeeee the Fonz!

      Kinda sucks to be in your position, huh?

    8. Re: If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Subsidies by chinese government = bad Subsidies as corporate welfare for Trumps buddies = Aayyyyeeeee the Fonz! Kinda sucks to be in your position, huh?

      Nope, because the actual position is subsidies on one side but not the other side is bad, however subsidies on both sides or no subsidies on both side are good.

    9. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Trump says the sky is blue, I'm going to look out a window and verify.

    10. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation, please?

      The Chinese don't need any such tariff, since they can get the locally-produced panels for 25% of the price of the American ones already.

    11. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by DogDude · · Score: 1

      You're right. Just about everything manufactured for the United States is manufactured this way now. What you're describing is a positive side effect from a "policy" designed to "stick it to the dems" and make coal miners cheer like trained monkeys at rallys. This is an evil, fucked up tariff that just so might happen to have the effect of having one particular item manufactured in a safer, less polluting way.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    12. Re: If it's OK there, Why not here? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2

      The irony is that a good number of cases comparative working conditions arenâ(TM)t really possible. This is because for a manufacturing process that provides work to apparently cheap labor in a China then it is often just done by robots in the US. Now we have the question of which is worse: mediocre working conditions or no job at all? - Neither are great options. If you want good working conditions and jobs it sometimes means driving the cost of the end product, though there are other cases where top management taking a cut would be better.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    13. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by OneAhead · · Score: 2

      So what the heck do you expect? The guy is a pathological liar; blindly contradicting any given statement of his gives you a better than than even chance of being right. "Don't need any fancy reasoning skills for that."

    14. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by kyncani · · Score: 1

      So, why then do people seem to think it suddenly becomes moral and OK to have those conditions in a place 3,000 miles away? If it's Not OK here, then it's not OK there.

      It's not just 3,000 miles away : it's also in another country and they still have the final say about what is ok or not in their own country.

    15. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shithole sun
      Won't you come
      And wash away the rain

    16. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by dcw3 · · Score: 1

      China puts a punishing tariff on American solar panels. Turnabout is fair play.

      Which would have about zero effect on the US solar panel industry. Thanks for playing.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    17. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No to mention the fact that half the time he'll contradict himself by saying the exact opposite thing 24 hours later.

    18. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

      I don't think there *is* a US solar panel industry anymore. I'd like to think that now there might be one. But there has been plenty of skepticism posted about whether this will actually help achieve that. I don't like the Donald at all but I have a tough time getting outraged about this one.

    19. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, basically you are saying that European companies should impose tariffs to US companies because they don't provide their employees with the same protection (ie. healthcare) or at least aren't required to do so by law ?

    20. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet you typed that on a Chinese made laptop or other electronic device. Why are you a racist?

    21. Re:If it's OK there, Why not here? by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      Could you build a plant, and operate it here following the same environmental and safety regulations used in China?

      The answer is obviously no. Why? Because those working conditions and environmental practices would be condemned as immoral and an affront to the environment.

      So, why then do people seem to think it suddenly becomes moral and OK to have those conditions in a place 3,000 miles away? If it's Not OK here, then it's not OK there.

      Because a lot of people's moral compass hinges on the question "does it affect me?" If it doesn't, then it's not amoral. And that's a sliding scale. The less it affects them, the less heinous the crime. You can comment on what OUGHT to drive people's moral compass..... but you're just whining or preaching or bible thumping.

      Sorry for the sad dose of realism, but while a lot of people believe in the labor and environmental movements, the amount they care diminishes with distance. The rich dick republicans who fight labor rights don't have family getting screwed by the bosses and chewed up by machinery. The anti-EPA libertarians don't breath smog daily.

      seems to actually be racists.

      Too far dude. It's not really racism, it's just "somebody-else"...ism. And until we're all yogi-floating everywhere in a zen state of empty-self and pure altruism... that shit ain't going anywhere. Seriously, stop making up shit about the opposition. Calling them racists is just too far, you damn dirty anti-vaxxer.

  52. Not as simple as it appears... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The US already imposed steep tariffs of up to 250% on Chinese solar panel imports back in 2012. Since then, most US solar panel imports have come from countries like South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc.

    The company that filed the original trade complaint for this new round of tariffs, Suniva, is the US based subsidiary of a Chinese solar panel maker. The only other company that joined the trade complaint is SolarWorld America, the American arm of the German company SolarWorld AG.

  53. What manufacturing capability do we even have? by Pezbian · · Score: 0

    Trump can't seriously think the proper equipment for growing silicon for the necessary wafers just appears out of thin air for free, can he?

    Or does the tariff only apply to completed panels, leaving the ready-to-integrate cell wafers untouched by this measure? "Made in the USA" and "Assembled in the USA" are different.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
    1. Re:What manufacturing capability do we even have? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trump can't seriously think the proper equipment for growing silicon for the necessary wafers just appears out of thin air for free, can he?

      Clearly not since there is now a tariff on imports

    2. Re:What manufacturing capability do we even have? by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      Trump can't seriously think

      Correct.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  54. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So how does that view fit in with the fact that the tariffs will reduce to elimination over the next 4 years?

    Because once corporate welfare is in place, it becomes politically impossible to remove it. The companies receiving the subsidies will have more money for lobbying, while the (far more numerous) companies hurt by the tariffs will have less to spend or will go out of business.

    Sounds to me that it's an opportunity for american manufacturing to get their feet before competition resumes, and nothing else.

    This is the classical justification for protectionism: That it is only "temporary" while we "learn to compete". But that never works because companies don't become stronger by being coddled.

  55. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is 15% elimination? Or a 15% handout to capitalists at the expense of consumers?
    The dollar just got 10% cheaper in 1 year already, how much more help do you need?

  56. True... by denzacar · · Score: 1

    Cost of a PV system was in the "balance of system" since 2012.
    And the price of a PV system will continue to drop at almost the same level as the tariff - 4.4% per year.
    So the tariff will be meaningless in half the time.

    Also... It's pretty much obvious from the graph on the link above that even with that 30% hike on Chinese solar panels - they will still be cheaper than the ones Made in USA.
    Aaaand... that India is making China look like USA with their prices - 65 cents per watt.

    On top of all that... If anything, this will push China to cut costs further and to export more to non-US customers.
    Or, to simply have the government of China "eat the difference" for a while. It's not like they can't do subsidies too.

    But hey... China doesn't have the benefit of being run by a "stable genius".

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  57. True but we live in a very, very different world by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    now. In the 1920s there was a much, much more even playing field between countries (albeit because just about everywhere was a shithole). Our trade in balance with China & Mexico is almost completely due to the fact that their respective governments and ruling class allow their people to be abused to an extent we no longer allow.

    Also, most historians agree the tariffs made things worse, but I've yet to meet one that thought the tariffs _caused_ the Depression. Generally it was wealth inequality that caused it. Speaking of which, we're at levels not seen since the 1920s...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  58. Re:I don't think the manufacturing is less efficie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What American job gives you access to single payer healthcare, apart from being a Vet?
    China along with Canada and most of the rest of the world should put tariffs on you until you at least join the 20th century.

  59. Education is not intelligence. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just look at all the complete morons passing exams, or even getting degrees.
    They are great at being walking USB drives, memorizing ALL the information.
    But they still can't put two and two together, or tie their own shoes without an instruction video that precisely matches their exact situation.

  60. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are thinking of yourself. The OP is one of the most intelligent posters on slashdot. So insightful are his posts that he has been gifted a +3 bonus over everyone else. Can you say the same?

  61. Us lefties didn't particularily like Obama either by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    and we especially hate Clinton (both of them) since they ran the country right of what even Regan did (seriously, go look at how much deregulation and funding cuts Bill did). This is not to say we oppose tariffs, BTW. The left is generally in favor of them, especially for countries like Mexico and China who abuse their people and their land. Go look up a youtube channel called 'Secular Talk' if you want a good idea of what the actual left supports.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  62. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you for the insight, PoopJuggler

  63. This is why China wins. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The whole country is pulling on one rope. It's over the top, of course, but they use the advantages of teamwork, aka being social. With a 1984 vibe.
    Meanwhile, the US has a lizard culture, where it's everyone for himself, and business basically is about who stabs others in the back and takes their things the best. Also with a 1984 vibe, but on the side.

    I'm no fan of either, but teamwork literally made humanity great (among other things like hands, big brains, etc), and superior to anti-social lifeforms. This is still just as true as it always was.

    1. Re:This is why China wins. by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      The whole country is pulling on one rope. It's over the top, of course, but they use the advantages of teamwork, aka being social. With a 1984 vibe.
      Meanwhile, the US has a lizard culture, where it's everyone for himself, and business basically is about who stabs others in the back and takes their things the best. Also with a 1984 vibe, but on the side.

      I'm no fan of either, but teamwork literally made humanity great (among other things like hands, big brains, etc), and superior to anti-social lifeforms. This is still just as true as it always was.

      So they're Grays, and we're Reptilians? Fascinating.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  64. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Interesting

    China has a habit of doing just that. Subsidizing their industries and dumping cheap products on the world at the expense of other economies. The have done this in the past with cheap steel. Make no mistake, the Chinese are purely looking after Chinese interest. I, personally can't find any fault with this logic.

    There is a difference between efficiently produced panels and cheap panels. Cheap panels will have a shorter lifespan than say more quality produced panels. So to replace a cheaper panels as they wear out will require the manufacturing of more panels. Solar panels are not with out a environmental cost, that is most evident in the manufacturing phase.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  65. One hopes so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... tariffs would last for four years ...

    It's not the usual "Everybody needs free trade, except us" bullshit that arises because imports hurt US "domestic manufacturing". This is a short-term punishment for bad behaviour. At least, one hopes so.

  66. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by deathguppie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Back in the day the British did this with the tea trade. Only British owned ships could transport to Britain. By the mid 1840's they were getting owned by cheaper, faster American shipping worldwide. In 1850 they were forced to open shipping up to other countries to force British shippers to get with the times and compete.

    If you expect protected American companies to be able to compete on the world stage you are delusional at best. American companies have risen to the competition in the past and were in the process of doing so before this happened. Now we have an artificially created short supply on panels. I don't see this helping anyone, especially America

    --
    once more into the breach
  67. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by kenh · · Score: 2

    The companies receiving the subsidies will have more money for lobbying, while the (far more numerous) companies hurt by the tariffs will have less to spend or will go out of business.

    Subsidies? Tarrifs aren't distributed to domestic manufacturers, they are taxes, added to the federal budget.

    You knew that, right? Seriously - you didn't think that the gov't collects tarrifs on imports and distributes the money to US manufacturers, did you?

    --
    Ken
  68. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's why trump reversed Obamas policy ... Shit, he just continued and extended it.

    No, jackass, even realized that the Chinese are dumping to deliberately destroy the competition in order to get a monopoly on post-Kyoto electricity generation.

  69. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by kenh · · Score: 1

    Note the phrase, "net exporter of refined petroleum products."

    Because it's illegal to export US crude oil.

    --
    Ken
  70. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So it's corporate welfare now but not when China indirectly subsidizes it's industries through a manipulated cheap currency and lax labor and environmental standards.

  71. Translation of "argued" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They "threw money at it" successfully.

  72. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does it really matter? You're missing the whole point, which is that it coddles the US manufacturers instead of spurning them into action. So go ahead and argue all day about whether it's a tariff or a subsidy. I'd assert that a tariff is an indirect subsidy onto the market. And that argument won't change a damn thing.

  73. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's the joke. Gold star for you!

  74. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by mikeiver1 · · Score: 2

    Only the Chinese have been starting to realize that the environmental toll that they are paying is costing them far more than it is benefiting them. They are starting to push hard on that front. As far as the tariffs are concerned, the real winners are the gas and oil companies. Now let me think, who in the government is tied in with the gas and oil companies??? Well it will come to me soon. Solar panels are made here with parts sourced abroad. This will simply move assembly here and provide a few jobs tending assembly machines on the line. No real bump for the workers in the USA. This is what one would call window dressing and subterfuge. Again, the American people will pay the price for this legislation. The Chinese will find ways around the tariffs and it will again be business as usual for them.

  75. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Note the phrase, "net exporter of refined petroleum products."

    Because it's illegal to export US crude oil.

    If true, I didn't know that, but why would you want to rather than refined products?

    [ Ignoring that I was modded "troll"... ]

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  76. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by kenh · · Score: 1

    is there some reason 'single payer' healthcare coverage is better than 'employer paid' healthcare coverage?

    --
    Ken
  77. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tell that to CNN/Newsweek/MSNBC. They're the ones who spent 2017 predicting no-bullshit apocalypses every time Trump farted.

  78. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jeez. Have you even looked it up? You are the one who is wrong. Thanks for wasting everyone's time. It was changed recently.

  79. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by sysrammer · · Score: 2

    A few years ago we tried boot-strapping solar panels in the US. It turned out to be a bust because we couldn't compete with China on costs.

    --
    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  80. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The Left: Outraged when companies have less regulation. Outraged when companies have more profits. Outraged when forced to compete on the open market. Outraged when protected from abusive foreign markets. Outraged literally all the fucking time, about literally everything, no matter what.

  81. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except North America is, by hundreds of orders of magnitude, the largest consumer of solar panels... And also produces the highest quality panels.

    Your analogy is fucking stupid, at best.

    That you want your renewable energy to come from slave labor and zero environmental regulation just to save a few pennies says volumes about what kind of shitbag you are.

  82. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > hundreds of orders of magnitude,

    Googols and googols then, eh? Dumbass

  83. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by rossz · · Score: 1

    No. It ensures Chinese solar panel manufacturers can't get away with being subsidized by the government so they can sell below cost and drive the competition out of business.

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
  84. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Notabadguy · · Score: 2

    This will simply move assembly here and provide a few jobs tending assembly machines on the line. No real bump for the workers in the USA.

    That's nothing new.

    In an effort to avoid counterfeit or inferior quality material, many American companies (especially in the energy sector) stipulate in their RFQs and POs that material can only be sourced from a specified list of countries.

    American suppliers circumvent this by sourcing the same material from the same chinese vendors that they (we) always have, then assembling them in the US, and stamping "Made in the US" on them. The actual law is intricate, but you can read a summary here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  85. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Funny

    i've search google for it and I've come up with nothing.

    Where is your proof that you searched google and came up with nothing? You have yet to show any evidence of your claim.

    When you have several peer-reviewed citations that you have searched google and come up with nothing, we may take you more seriously.

    Probably not, though.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  86. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    Plus he totally ignored Kevin when he was lost in the Trump Hotel in "Home Alone 2."

    They're shooting a remake of that scene, with Stormy Daniels playing the part of Macaulay Culkin.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  87. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by jwhyche · · Score: 1

    This will simply move assembly here and provide a few jobs tending assembly machines on the line

    You talk like this is a bad thing. Any jobs this bring home is a good thing in my option. It is also a good thing if they are made here instead of in China. At least for now the environmental and worker regulations are are better than they are in China.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  88. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    It is important that we develop our solar industry and not let it get crushed by Chinese dumping. It seems that the GP is putting "GDP growth" as not only #1 priority, but the only priority. This is false. We have other priorities. China is a hostile country and they will gladly make us hurt if they can destroy our solar industry. Employing the American people is also a very important goal, and it is worthwhile even if the GDP growth is not maximized.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  89. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by hey! · · Score: 1

    The legal justification for a tariff under our treaty obligations is that the foreign competition is unfairly subsidized. In that is *true* then American company innovation *might* also be retarded by making payback times too long to justify investments.

    The political argument is that this will be good for US workers, but that's an open question. If the solar installation industry collapses, that would be bad for workers doing that, and it might even be bad for US solar manufacturers who need those guys to stay in business.

    So really all the possible outcomes are on the table.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  90. Good for humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Chinese treat their laborers and the environment terribly, I'd be in favor of ceasing trade altogether.

  91. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by jwhyche · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well I would be more worried if you did take me seriously here. I think it's fairly obvious to every one but a few, and you, that I'm being sarcastic.

    So did you ever apologize for that homophobic comment you made?

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  92. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's cheaper and much more efficient.Administrators and similar people profiting of busywork and monopolies don't like it though, so Republicans basically.

  93. Re:Us lefties didn't particularily like Obama eith by Powercntrl · · Score: 1

    The left is generally in favor of them, especially for countries like Mexico and China who abuse their people and their land.

    Yeah, just like how red light cameras are for making intersections safer. Not for raising government revenue, no sireee.

    A factory in China could be paying their workers a decent living wage, and not screwing up the environment, yet their goods will still be subject to the tariff. Congratulations government asshats, you've just given them more incentive to cut corners to retain profitability!

    If you're really just trying to make sure your foreign competitors are playing fair, you simply require that they meet the same environmental and labor standards as domestically manufactured goods, lest they be seized at the border. But that just wouldn't fly, because it doesn't give American companies an artificial advantage.

    --

    ---
    DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
  94. China is better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's worse for the environment driving down to Walmart to pick them up than it is shipping them across the ocean. Plus you might be employing a redneck if you get one made in the US, and who knows what they will do with the money.

    Better for the environment overall if you go the Chinese route.

  95. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    North America is not even close to the largest consumer of solar panels, China used half the panels in the world in 2017.

  96. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Knock it off numb-nuts and put your thinking cap on.

    China is trying to drive other solar panel makers out of business.

    Just because the word "Trump" is in the article title does not give you an excuse to post unthinking diarrhea.

  97. More people affected by washing machine tariff? by DutchUncle · · Score: 1

    I can't find statistics quickly enough, but I'll bet that more households go looking for a washing machine each year than go looking to buy solar panels. Let's see what happens when Joe Sixpack notices that the prices have jumped 30%.

    1. Re:More people affected by washing machine tariff? by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      I can't find statistics quickly enough, but I'll bet that more households go looking for a washing machine each year than go looking to buy solar panels. Let's see what happens when Joe Sixpack notices that the prices have jumped 30%.

      Joe Sixpack doesn't buy solar panels. Joe Sixpack also buys the cheapest economy top load washing machine possible around $400 USD. That means Joe Sixpack's washer may cost upwards of $530 USD in the future if the entire cost is passed on and it's manufactured in China. Considering that Joe Sixpack probably only replaces his washing machine every 10 years or so, it's probably going to take awhile for Joe Sixpack to even notice.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  98. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck that. It's a boon to the oil and coal industry. Solar panels just went up by 30%, slowing down our energy independence. We could have moved so much more energy production on-shore. Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers? Are we going to impose the same 30% tariff on imported coal-mining equipment?

    Fuck that.

    The US is highly energy independant now. With hydraulic fracturing, we now produce more oil than Saudi Arabia and so much natural gas that exporting it in cryogenic ships is back in style.

  99. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    when numTimes=1 begin
        anyListeners = true;
    end until;

  100. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You clearly haven't heard of Trump's new brainwave to solve the US's energy problems: coal panels. You put them in a ventilated place then set fire to them, thus warming the whole room. Top Republican scientists are even now working to make a version suitable for vehicles.

  101. So how will the Chinese react to this? by pjv936 · · Score: 1

    Will they let it stand or will they add 35% fees to American passenger jets or cars.

  102. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Subsidies? Tarrifs aren't distributed to domestic manufacturers, they are taxes, added to the federal budget.

    Wrong. These are protective tariffs. They are being put in place to make imports prohibitively expensive, so few if any will be imported. So no "tax" will be collected. This allows domestic manufacturers to raise prices beyond the market price.

    So the net effect is:
    1. People are required by law to pay more for solar panels.
    2. This extra money goes to corporations that did nothing to earn it.

    This is corporate welfare, pure and simple. Corporate welfare is stupid when it is used for something like ethanol subsidies, which at least in principle are an improvement over burning fossil fuels. But this is EVEN STUPIDER since it will DISCOURAGE solar installations, and result in more FFs being burned.

    I can't believe anyone with a brain thinks this is a good idea. In the short run we spend more on fossil fuels. In the long run, we make our solar industry even more uncompetitive.

  103. India rejects U.S. solar claim at WTO, explores ne by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) had in December initiated a Safeguard investigation on solar cells on a complaint filed by solar representative body Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA) on behalf of five producers - Mundra Solar PV, Jupiter Solar Power Limited, Indosolar Limited, Websol Energy Systems Limited and Helios Photo Voltaic Limited. Solar power tariff bids in India have collapsed significantly over the last few months in conjugation with the fall in global solar module prices.

    In a statement, India said that it had tweaked rules to comply with WTO rulings and that the United States demand for punitive action against India was not a valid request. On the other hand, domestic production stood at 246 mw in FY15 and is likely to increase to 1,164 mw in the current financial year.

    A safeguard duty is a temporary measure brought in for a specified period to avert any damage to the domestic industry from cheap imports, reports said.

    AISIA has countered that 60% of the country's currently-installed solar capacity are in SEZs. Further, of the 8,300-mw of solar module manufacturing facilities, 3,800-mw are in SEZs.

    Indian custom officials have reportedly held around 2,000 shipping containers filled with solar modules at four seaports and have demanded 7.5% customs duty on them. "The objective of duty should be to protect the domestic industry from dumping".

    "The goal of imposing Safeguard Duty should be to protect the domestic industry from goods which are being dumped at below market prices, but in case of domestic manufacturers situated in SEZs, the levy yields counterproductive results", Chaudhary added. It contends that India failed to adhere to a 2016 WTO ruling, which said New Delhi had broken trade rules by making it mandatory for solar power developers to use Indian-made cells and modules. The Indian statement added that Washington had skipped legal steps, failed to follow the correct WTO procedure, and omitted to mention any specific level of trade sanctions that it proposed to level on India, leaving India "severely prejudiced".

    The United States lodged a complained with the WTO in 2013 that USA solar exports to the country fell by 90 per cent.

    In any case, such allegations do not bode well for the solar power sector.

  104. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by onceuponatime · · Score: 1

    Happened in Europe in the past as well. Some fuckwit Belgian politican just showing how much bullshit caring for the environment is to the politicians.

  105. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by KeensMustard · · Score: 2
    Why doesn’t all powerful and Omniscient Market take care of that? Surely, if that were truly an issue, then US buyers would be buying from some other source (like Japan or Korea) rather than China?

    As it is, it’s not clear what difference this will make. Sure, buyers in the US May purchase less Chinese panels. Or they might just buy them because even with the tariff, they are still cheaper than US made options, and spend less on other goods. Or they might buy Japanese, or Vietnamese, or Taiwanese, or European, or Indian made solar panels. And their behaviour certainly won’t be a guide to the other 97% of people (i.e the 97% of the market that is not the US). How will the US actually compete on the open market unless their goods actually become competitive?

  106. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    Is that what tarriffs usually do? Or do they encourage local businesses to become less competive?

  107. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because once corporate welfare is in place, it becomes politically impossible to remove it.

    Has there ever been a corporate or citizen's welfare program that has not been dropped as soon as the political tides turn in the US, where there are no national workers unions to push a US wide, general strike against any policy that they or their symbiont political parties don't like?

  108. Sure, but why pick on Solar Panels? by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Practically everything is made in China these days. But the Trump regime is singling out solar panels. Gee, wonder why?

    --
    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
    1. Re:Sure, but why pick on Solar Panels? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the entire global economy is dependent on exporting to the United States. If he announced a 30% tariff on all imports tomorrow the resulting "great depression" would be biblical.

    2. Re:Sure, but why pick on Solar Panels? by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      Because if you're going to offer a tax incentive such as the renewable energy tax credit it makes sense to have it benefit your own industry and also recoup some of the expense in the form of tariffs from overseas producers.

      I hope we see more tariffs on chinese products all around. The only free trade we should have is with countries that share our environmental and labor laws.

  109. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does the tax collected "go to" the american corporations?

    I thought taxes go to the government.

    FYI, I live in the EU now, and without import taxes, the European economy becomes a race to the bottom.

  110. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has there ever been a corporate or citizen's welfare program that has not been dropped as soon as the political tides turn in the US

    Absolutely. Oil subsidies and tax breaks have persisted for decades through Democratic and Republican administrations. Same for tobacco subsidies, sugar subsidies, corn ethanol subsidies, etc. The mohair subsidy persisted for more than 70 years after it became completely pointless in 1945. The carried interest tax break for investment bankers famously just survived in Trump's big tax reform, despite his repeated promises during the campaign to eliminate it.

    I could go on, and on, and on.

    It is much harder to find the opposite: An example of corporate welfare that was actually ended.

  111. Unless the tariff on Chinese solar panels.. by cordovaCon83 · · Score: 1

    subsidizes the manufacturing of American solar panels then the tariff effectively inflates the cost of a new solar panel in America. Sounds like a bum deal to me and it does to these guys too - https://www.wired.com/story/wh... Also bear in mind that while producing power through solar panels in America is heavily subsidized, the manufacturing of the solar panels is not. Forbes notes that solar production is heavily subsidized by the American tax payer. I'm sure that hurts some people's feelings but honestly I think anything that creates a real incentive for Americans to invest in real green technology should be labeled A Good Thing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

  112. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economics by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    You can have lots of low cost products available, and yet no one can afford to purchase them because no one has the money to spare - employment is so low that no disposable cash drives the economy.

    I guess that's why unemployment in the USA is at 4% while in France it's 9%. Because the French are WAY more obsessed with eliminating workers to maximise profits. The USA is a socialist paradise in comparison.

  113. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by swillden · · Score: 2

    hundreds of orders of magnitude

    I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  114. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    USA 4.1% https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
    Sweden 5,8% https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/unemployment-rate
    Denmark https://tradingeconomics.com/denmark/unemployment-rate
    Norway 4.0% https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/unemployment-rate
    Germany 3.6% https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/unemployment-rate

  115. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    Tariffs only make sense if the Chinese government is subsidizing their solar panel manufacturing

    They are. By allowing the environment to be screwed up and treating their workers like replaceable tools they have an effective subsidy over USA manufacturers. You can use cute words like "efficient" to describe it as much as you want but the reality is that the USA holds itself to certain standards and by not imposing tariffs on goods not imported to those standards the government policies effectively drive production offshore.

    The only question is: Why are you limiting this to solar panels? Maybe if we got back to paying for things what they are worth if they were built in then the USA wouldn't be what it is now... a service industry.

  116. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economics by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    On the other hand Japan is very successful, the world's third largest economy. It's still normal to employ people out of school until retirement there, and they tend to employ what the west would consider an excess of staff but which they consider assets.

    In fact, companies that treat workers the way many western companies do, especially US companies in at-will states, are called "black companies" in Japan. They are regarded as basically scams, get-rich-quick schemes for their owners that you would avoid working for.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  117. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Given the way environmental and building regulations work, I wouldn't be surprised if a state (say, California) orders that only panels with the latest technology are installed. California alone would basically force the entire industry to upgrade.

  118. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem is the subsidy are their cheap workers (and ignoring environmental and probably safety regulations). Is it right to make a first-world worker compete with impoverished workers (Mexico's minimum wage is ~$5 a day)? A serf? A slave? Is it better to use one worker with a backhoe to dig a ditch or 50 third-worlders with shovels?

    Beyond that, there's the question of the trade balance. A negative balance is fundamentally unsustainable. Foreign countries would effectively be giving us goods for free. Moving factories overseas only worsens the problem.

  119. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since many of those subsidies have been in place in elsewhere as well, since various wars, I would dare to say that they have been necessary at one point. Nevertheless, I can see now why some people write about how the both parties are actually the same beast in the US. Any sufficiently old countries with stable legislations also seem to develop curious anachronisms. Lots of examples of that can be found in Europe and Asia as well and only something like a revolution or coup seems to be enough to purify the nonsense.

  120. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Totally a moot point, human life is already extinct due to the tax plan and net neutrality.

    Speaking of which, do you think the current problems with the budget can have anything to do with them wanting to raise the deficit after having cut taxes?
    Reducing taxes for the rich and then borrowing money to cover the difference doesn't seem conservative or responsible.
    Seems like the entire party are CINOs.

  121. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is nobody left to listen. Those who weren't culled during the net neutrality repeal were finished off by the tax cuts. The last few survivors finally died during the great shutdown.

  122. Re:I don't think the manufacturing is less efficie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've tried and can't get a real job. I hate my life :(

  123. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by scottrocket · · Score: 1
    So not only is the draining relative, but so is the swamp..

    I do see a potential mixed bag:

    a) The tariffs aren't in play, and Americans/others see this as a challenge to create a cheaper pv technology, likely by creating a better way to more cheaply produce existing pv technology.

    b) The tariffs are in play, and the resulting higher prices in the marketplace provide an economic incentive to us to develop a significantly different, better pv technology.

  124. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers?

    Only anyone who's studied history.

  125. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Chinese panels are cheaper because the poor working and living conditions of their people.

    And because of currency manipulation.

  126. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The guy drinks 12 cans of diet coke a day. His farts should kill anyone within a few yards.

    Captcha: tasted

  127. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by triffid_98 · · Score: 1

    Not anymore, it's been legal to export crude since 2016.

  128. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does the tax collected "go to" the american corporations?

    In the form of a huge regressive tax cut.

  129. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by PoopJuggler · · Score: 1

    Low skill manufacturing jobs are worthless. Bringing those back helps nobody except the wealthy factory owners and keeps the workers permanently enslaved with zero chance of upward mobility.

  130. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by John.Banister · · Score: 0

    No investors or CEOs siphoning money off the top?

  131. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes. Efficiency. Have you see how much paperwork you, your employer, your doctor(s), the hospital and your insurance companies have to do? The overhead of all of this is just astonishing. I am pretty sure that more human labor goes into the paperwork than the treatment.

  132. Maybe there should be some sort of treaty... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that sets minimum ecological standards and minimum worker conditions.

    Nah, that's crazy talk.

    (/sarcasm Google TPP).

  133. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by houghi · · Score: 2

    So does that mean that Europeans should not buy anything from the US, because the US workers rights are lacking compared to the EU?
    Do you only buy products from the EU as the US workers standard is not up to par to the best? Or are you just conveniently say that the standards where you are a good enough?

    Just a question, what device do you type this on and how much did you pay for it?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  134. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by mjwx · · Score: 1

    What about American solar panel manufacturers?

    What American solar manufacturers?

    Protectionism has never saved an industry, let alone created one. Ever. If you make things more expensive to import it just means they'll be less of them bought.

    It doesn't punish the Chinese in any meaningful way as there are plenty of customers. A photo voltaic panel will earn X yuan in profit no matter what. The only thing a tariff will do is make you pay a little more for it, so the only ones being punished by this tariff are the American people who now have to pay an additional tax on a product.

    Aren't the Republicans the ones meant to be getting out of the way of commerce?

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  135. The ironic of this from a right wing administratio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    About seven years ago, when US solar companies were getting hacked left and right, the government did fuck-all to stop it.

    After China started putting solar panels out for cheaper than the rare earth metals needed to make them, the government did nothing.

    After the US solar companies shuttered their doors, Congress did nothing.

    Europe started adding a 50% tariff on all imported panels. Yet, the government did nothing.

    Now after all the damage is done, a tariff is enacted? This isn't to protect anything, but to slow down adoption of solar, pure and simple.

  136. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Shielded, no. Put on a competitive field with subsidized Chinese products would be more accurate. It's not a competitive marketplace when one side has it's thumb on the scale.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  137. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 1, Troll

    "1. People are required by law to pay more for solar panels."
    "2. This extra money goes to corporations that did nothing to earn it."

    That's a complete misrepresentation. Yes, the prices will likely increase to where the competitive market should have been in the first place, and prevents China from dominating the market unfairly.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  138. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Depends on the tariff. Was the tariff put in place on a level playing field, or one in which a nation was subsidizing their industry in order to dominate it?

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  139. I thought REGULATION WAS A BAD THING?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about American solar panel manufacturers? God forbid the Chinese have the same worker and environmental protections as the US to increase their costs of production. But it's easy to claim moral superiority on the climate when you export your pollution to cheap Chinese labor and unregulated industry.

    But, but, but, . . . I thought REGULATION WAS A BAD THING?!?!?

  140. Why isn't the headline... by zifn4b · · Score: 2

    "Trump Administration Approves Tariffs of 30 Percent On Imported Washing Machines"

    And where is the information about the already existing 150 tariffs that these two are going to be added to? Ah... it would spin quite as well that way now would it when we're looking at the actual facts. If we admitted there are already 150 existing tariffs and it hasn't completely flipped trade upside down, we couldn't as easily make it appear as though two additional tariffs would completely destabilize free trade with FUD.

    --
    We'll make great pets
  141. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nonono. You spelled "Frothing lefty ideologues" wrong.

    But please. Expound on the feelings you have nobody gives a flying fuck about.

  142. Nope Nope Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Their plan was so obviously horrible that when they applied for a half-billion dollars the analysts could predict, to the month, when Solyndra would go bankrupt - so they denied their federally-secured loan application.

    Nope. And you don't do your position any good by making up lies in hindsight to justify it. In fact, the whole problem with Solyndra was that traditional investors could not predict what would happen.

    The entire point of the Energy Loan Program was to lose money. That's because it was specifically intended to make high-risk investments that risk-adverse lenders would not take on in order to kickstart the industry in general. Return on investment was not intended to be dollars, but innovative technology that will filter out to the entire industry, much like the way the US space program was a huge money loser but produced all kinds of technology spin-offs that were ultimately a massive positive for american business.

    The reason lenders would not make loans to companies like Solyndra is that green-tech was an extremely new industry with little track-record for investors to refer to when calculating risk/reward. Essentially the Energy Loan Program was modeled on high-risk venture capital in silicon valley where they bet on 20 companies, fully expecting 19 to be money losers but that 20th one to hit it out of the park.

    And guess, what? It worked better than anyone expected. Despite expecting to lose money, the Energy Loan Program has been turning a profit.

    1. Re:Nope Nope Nope by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

      Grants. We call those grants. If it was sold to the US people as a "loan program" when it didn't expect to get the money back, that.... could be fraud. The government trying to get into the "venture capitalist" business where they give out tax money to risky ventures would be so ripe for corruption it's an obviously bad idea. You can't trust people to make bets with other people's money.

      I'd fully support R&D grants to help solar technology and engineering. Like this guy. He looks cool. I'm down for that.

    2. Re:Nope Nope Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh grow up. Your retarded insistence on bullshit semantics is just a cop-out. The US government has a long, long history of using loan guarantee programs to achieve policy goals - like the VA home loan guarantee program. Your ignorance of the levers of public policy is not proof of conspiracy or malfeasance. Its just proof of your ignorance.

    3. Re:Nope Nope Nope by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      The US also has a long, long history of using loan guarantees to hide graft and bribery - like Solyndra.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    4. Re:Nope Nope Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The US also has a long, long history of using loan guarantees to hide graft and bribery - like Solyndra.

      Yay! Yer so smart. You used some of the words I used to pretend to say something meaningful. You so owned me!
      MUUUGUHHHH!!!!!

    5. Re: Nope Nope Nope by kenh · · Score: 1

      The entire point of the Energy Loan Program was to lose money.

      Quite simply, that is not "the entire purpose" of the loan guarantee program.

      Sure, some loans are going to fail, costing taxpayers money, but that isn't the point of the program.

      Solyndra built it's factory in Silicon Valley - why? There's a reason there are no other manufacturing plants there.

      Solyndra loan application was turned down by Bush Administration, simple fact.

      The very same Solyndra loan application was approved under Obama administration. Ask Joe Biden, he oversaw approval process.

      Bush analysts predicted not only the year but the date of Solyndra's bankruptcy - again, simple fact.

      They tried to create a 'premium' solar panel when the world wanted (and the Chinese produced) ever-cheaper 'good enough' solar panels.

      Not sure what elements of my post you consider lies - I'd love for you to point them out.

      --
      Ken
  143. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So how does that view fit in with the fact that the tariffs will reduce to elimination over the next 4 years?

    Its about cancelling out the 30% federal solar tax credit, also known as the investment tax credit (ITC), which was extended in 2017 with gradual decreases each year until phase out in 4 years (100% phase-out for residential, 90% phase-out for commercial).

    Funny how all that lines up.

  144. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Luthair · · Score: 1

    It reduces to 15% not 0

  145. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

    is there some reason 'single payer' healthcare coverage is better than 'employer paid' healthcare coverage?

    If you believe in government having a hand in the most intimate facets of your life, telling you what you will and won't be paid for based on political whims, higher taxes, rationed services, being subject to idiotic things like government shutdowns, and customer service on par with your average DMV experience then single payer is a fantastic idea.

    --
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  146. Re:Remember the 59% Chinese tariff already in effe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the US Constitution:

    The Export Clause (Art. I, part 9, clause 5) prohibits the federal government from imposing any "tax or duty...on articles exported from any state."

    I call bunk. Polysilicon (or anything else being exported from the US) can not be taxed unless it is being done as a trade from a non-US country, or is coming directly out of a non-state federal land. I don't think DC, or the island territories of the US export that much Polysilicon...

  147. Who cares? Installation... by yodleboy · · Score: 1

    When pricing solar, it's been my experience that installation costs stayed static as panel prices have gone down. The overall cost of an install that covers all my electrical needs has hardly varied. If panel prices go up, expect installation to go up to protect the margins installers have gotten used to.

  148. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 1, Informative

    Has there ever been a corporate or citizen's welfare program that has not been dropped as soon as the political tides turn in the US

    Many.

    Why can't you buy a compact pickup truck in the USA?

    Because of the "Chicken Tax" instituted in 1963:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  149. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

    China subsidizes everything they make in the form of lax environmental regulation and enforcement.

  150. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Might be a politician or lawyer, I heard they speek in some languages that might resemble normal language but has different menings.

  151. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

    Who cares where manufacturing happens except the manufacturers?

    People who work in manufacturing. People who invest in manufacturers. People who care about trade deficits.

    Are we going to impose the same 30% tariff on imported coal-mining equipment?

    That might be a good thing for the American heavy equipment manufacturers. It would encourage Caterpillar to make more equipment to be sold in the American market, in America.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  152. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by coofercat · · Score: 1

    So even though you're exporting your filth to China, you're still the largest polluter in the Western world? Hmm...

    [source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/3...

  153. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by PatrickNarkinsky · · Score: 1

    The right... outraged whenever some kid in Macedonia wants a new bike.

  154. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can only gays put their dicks in his mouth? Can straight men do it too?

  155. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by kurkosdr · · Score: 1

    Unemployed US citizens. That's who cares where manufacturing happens. And no, US citizens don't have to compete with Chinese workers on who will work the most for less money.

  156. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Chinese gov is subsidizing these companies and purposely dumping on Europe and America. Why? Because they want all manufacturing there. Just like they have massive tariffs on imported cars, esp EVs, while heavily subsidizing and dumping cars on foreign markets.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  157. Good, but too short by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Seriously, O should have done more to stop what China is doing to manufacturing in.the west. And he should have done before China killed off 2/3 of our companies.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Good, but too short by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 1

      Obama's presidency was a shit show of incompetence, rank partisanship and globalism. Hopefully the Dims stay out of power for a good 20 years while we regrow our economy and manufacturing base.

      --
      If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  158. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    What are u talking about? Nearly all innovation in solar and wind has happened in America. China steals the innovation, or buys the company here and shuts them down. Even now, top efficiency in solar remains in America.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  159. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Baloney. Protectionism saves industries when done right. Normally, you have to do it early before nations like China own it. However, China's huge economics growth over the 30 years is because other nations opened their borders, namely America, while China has one of the most closed borders.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  160. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoosh.

  161. Why 'Trump Administration'? by Tomsk70 · · Score: 1

    ....why not 'U.S. Government'?

    1. Re:Why 'Trump Administration'? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Because we like to connect Presidents with their actions and decisions. A little over a year ago, we had the "Obama Administration".

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    2. Re:Why 'Trump Administration'? by Tomsk70 · · Score: 1

      Sounds odd to me, but then I'm UK - we tend to remember who's in power.

      Kidding (obv), but it keeps catching me out as over here that style of address is usually employed but someone that didn't vote for the winner.

  162. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Give me a break. America is not exporting our jobs. China is stealing them. What you claim is like blaming a woman that is raped for wearing a knee-high dress, and saying it her fault. China dumps their pollution rather than clean up, while also dumping on the west. They have damaged European solar manufacturing badly, and America's worse. And if Chinese gov is not dumping on us, then why is Chinese gov mad about this?

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  163. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Chinese gov has been subsidizing and dumping for ages.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  164. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *****by 5% per year to settle at 15%. Read the article you n00b

  165. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Hey, how much foreign solar was allowed to be sold in China? NOT a single panel has ever been sold in China. Why not? Because China has a tariff that doubles the cost of the phone, even though Western panels have been.better.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  166. For those you claiming this is bad by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    How come Tesla will not be selling their roof in China, but will sell in most other nations? Because China blocks foreign-made solar from being sold there.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:For those you claiming this is bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How come Tesla will not be selling their roof in China, but will sell in most other nations? Because China blocks foreign-made solar from being sold there.

      where the hell did you get your information from? or did you just decide to make it up? I mean seriously it would have taken you all of 30 seconds to verify that Tesla does indeed sell into china.

    2. Re:For those you claiming this is bad by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 1

      Windbourne's anti-China idiocy knows no bounds.
      https://www.tesla.cn/solarroof

  167. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Protectionism has never saved an industry, let alone created one. Ever.

    Only a paid shill would glibly fire off such a giant crock of shit.

  168. Cool, let's try that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's start with this one:
    When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people

    Negated:
    When Mexico sends its people, they're sending their best. ... They're not sending people that have lots of problems and they're not bringing those problems with us. They're not bringing drugs. They're not bringing crime. They're not rapists. And some, I assume, are not good people.

    Sounds reasonable, to a moron.

    1. Re:Cool, let's try that by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      What part of "better than even chance" did you not understand?

    2. Re:Cool, let's try that by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      OK, my bad, let's dumb it down a bit for you. If I say "there's a better than even chance that an ordinary 6-sided die will throw a 3 or higher", then you can't disprove that by throwing a 2.

      Also, "better than even" may have involved a bit of hyperbole. But you have to admit that he does have serious issues distinguishing truth and fantasy, at the very least.

    3. Re:Cool, let's try that by OneAhead · · Score: 2

      Also, I can play your silly hypocritical game of words too. Here it goes: you cherry-picked 6 sentences, out of which the first 2 are wrong not because the inverse is true but because Mexico simply does not "send" people; people decide to flee from Mexico. As for the remaining 4 sentences, I'm pretty sure a huge majority of Mexican immigrants are not drug traffickers and the proportion of rapists will not even be that much higher than the general population because the economical immigrants outnumber the criminals fleeing the police by a large factor. And yes, *some* are definitely not good people; that's what his awful generalization is based on to start with.

      All in all, I'm counting him as plain wrong on 3 accounts (2x "mexico sends" + the "rapists" thing) and as "misleading" on another one ("bringing drugs"; there surely is a problem with drugs coming from Mexico but the issue is largely separate from economical migration, and this is a blatant attempt to conflate the two).

      TL;DR: for a cherry-picked statement purported to demonstrate Trump's truthfulness, this is a rather abysmal showing.

  169. Anti-China windy is at it again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are China also subsidizing Indian and Korean panels too? Why are they also cheaper, India is even cheaper by the way...

    You're anti-China agenda is showing again. (lies)

  170. How to respond like a Trumpkin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. This is the best thing ever
    2. It isn't Trump that is doing this but the deep state, democrat's or someone else
    3. Fake news!! (Post link to unrelated article or actual fake news blog)
    4. Obama did it first

  171. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by jwhyche · · Score: 2

    You really think that? That is absolutely, stunning. If low skilled manufacturing jobs are useless, then why is China have so many? No job is useless or worthless, and low skilled manufacturing jobs are all some people are qualified for.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  172. Build a big wall around the US and keep it all out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You only had those companies because of hiding out on the other side of the world in WW2.

    Don't worry, your warmongers are stoking the fires for the next big one.

  173. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by jwhyche · · Score: 2

    You are one sad little man aren't you. I'm not sure what has gotten you so fixated on stalking me around Slashdot with your homophobic rants but that is fine. Whatever floats your boat.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  174. Foaming at the mouth u must have Anti-China rabies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the fuck are you talking about idiot? Why have this then?

  175. 2018 election question by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

    Who was the free market candidate in the 2018 general election for US president?

    It's not clear to me and I think America is the one who is really paying for tariffs.

    Look at the island of San Salvador. Which side has tariffs? The one Trump would describe as a dump hole: Haiti. Which one is more free market? The Dominican Republic.

    Need I say more?

  176. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And Korea, and India, and all the other countries that are cheaper than the US.
    Couldn't possibly be American incompetence could it.
    You just can't compete anymore, you tried yourself to subsidize solar city and it went bankrupt anyway, LOL

  177. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Why doesn’t all powerful and Omniscient Market take care of that?

    That's like the difference between a trust fund kid and one who had to put himself through school. When one nation subsidizes their industry, it's not a market, it's unfair advantage, and needs to be dealt with.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  178. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    "What American solar manufacturers?"

    Solyndra. Oh, never mind.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  179. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

    You are one sad little man

    What is your evidence? Where are your peer-reviewed citations?

    You set the game, jwhyche. Whenever you see anything you don't agree with, you demand "evidence", believing that such a demand is a substitute for a cogent argument. When evidence is presented, you invent a reason to find it unacceptable.

    And you still haven't taken responsibility for assassinating Gianni Versace. Good day, sir.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  180. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not to mention, like Chinese steel, that once the US industry is dead, then people here would have no alternative. That is the true purpose of these tariffs, as well as China's. They don't want our products because they want our industry to die. I can appreciate the motivation, but their approach is downright evil: they provide low quality, often times poisonous products that are largely stolen designs from foreign competition, while taxing the equivalent imports for their own nation and feigning shock when it is reciprocated.

  181. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

    ...well, if your employer happens to provide 'employer paid' coverage, you might feel comfortable making that argument. Even so, there are multiple forms of single payer insurance - and some provide a simpler, cheaper alternative to today's 'employer paid' policies - with their premiums, copayments, and limited provider networks.

    --
    Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  182. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a joker you are. Care to show even the flimsiest evidence for this. Even the US companies that produce panels in China surely took over a couple samples to show the Chinese how they worked. Clearly not better if no one is buying them. Any tariff China may or may not have is still not an outright ban or quota like the US imposes on many foreign products, especially foods.

  183. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Logic and rational thought do not work on Republicans.

    And the left doesn't stereotype....right?

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  184. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by ahodgson · · Score: 1

    Also, you import like 7-8 million barrels per day. It seems dumb to ship it back out again.

  185. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Hell, you didnt even read the summary. It is phased out over time. They will still be under pressure and the chinese will still be shipping solar panels to the US despite the tarrif.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  186. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by ahodgson · · Score: 1

    Well, it covers everyone. And you can leave your job without having to worry about your health insurance going away.

  187. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by ahodgson · · Score: 1

    Well in most countries the government is also a lot more rational. My country has never had a "government shutdown", for instance. The thought of filibustering a budget just to protect illegal migrants would be so insane it would never happen. Or running a trillion dollar deficit (even scaled to population).

    But hey, enjoy your craziness. If y'all didn't have nukes it'd be a lot more fun to watch from the sidelines, though.

  188. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by jwhyche · · Score: 1

    What is your evidence? Where are your peer-reviewed citations?

    Why you have been providing my evidence and every demeaning remark you have made is subject to per-reviewed here. You are posting in a open forum for everyone to read. Every homophobic, every racist and demeaning remark you have made is here for everyone to read.

    Your very remarks are my peer reviewed evidence that you are, indeed, a sad little man.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  189. You have so many lies for such a short post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you completely insane? You really don't understand why every other country in the world is unhappy about America subsidizing it's solar industry by slapping a tariff on panels?

    What you are saying is like the US raping China and then claiming that China being mad about it makes it China's fault.

    China is cleaning up. Trump is weakening environmental protections while China is going in the other direction.

    American companies are setting up factories in China! how is that not America exporting jobs. Did China force you to do it? Just like China forces you to outsource all your IT to India. China forces America to hire illegals to work in the US too right.
    Exporting jobs is America's favouite pastime.

    You are clearly delusional.

  190. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Totally not what quantitative easing 1 to 4 was about right?

  191. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Unskilled labor has better economic opportunities when they are unemployed." -PoopJuggler, 2018.

  192. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Trump is not a republican. Besides, politicians have other competing priorities over ensuring that society actually functions optimally. Remember, we are operating under a form of government invented by ancient goat herders.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  193. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Republicans have been the party of fiscal irresponsibility since Reagan. They continually cut taxes and increase spending usually on the military leaving the next Democrat President to try and balance the budget. Of course the Democrat gets all the blame like Bill Clinton did closing all those army bases before leaving office with a balanced budget surplus which Bush Jr then turned back into a huge deficit causing Obama to try and clean up the mess and here we are again.

    Of course Republicans do intend to balance the budget after tax cuts by eliminating government services like CHIP, and privatizing social security which already pays for itself if they wouldn't continually borrow from it, and a whole host of other social programs they believe the federal government shouldn't provide. Of course rather than having an honest debate about it they just cut taxes and then complain we don't have money for universal healthcare and welfare queens are draining the funds despite that old chestnut being repeatedly proven wrong.

    Course it may sound like I'm beating up on Republicans, both sides are guilty of gerrymandering which manipulates the will of the people. Most of the issue with Democrats is that they are like herding cats, you can't ever get them to agree on anything. Not much has changed as they gave up on the government shutdown so we all went through the pain for nothing. Especially since Mitch McConnell has no intention of moving forward on DACA or any of the issues that Democrats would like put through. He is but a mouthpiece though for the party as whole. It amazes me when talking about DACA you have the whitehouse release a video talking about illegal immigrants are kill people which by definition aren't DACA people as you can't commit any crime and hold your status.

  194. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by dwater · · Score: 1

    Well, he might have done.

    For example, he could have left the planet taking 'us fools' with him (without the fools' knowledge?), extinguishing all life while not on it, and returned, again with the 'fools'....or some combination. It seems possible, literally.

    That's one way I can see that 'literally' would be accurate. I would imagine there could be others.
    Yes, it is very unlikely, but that's probability for you - if it isn't '0' or '1', it is possible.

    --
    Max.
  195. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    your employer wants to transfer to you the minimum possible resources
    - do you want that mindset in charge of your health

  196. Good start, more to come by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 1

    So now the consumer can chose from solar panels made in the US (or Europe) with proper environmental controls, or no name solar panels made in China that dump a shit ton of real, nasty pollution into the water stream (and eventually the ocean) for essentially the same price.
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/gree...

    The only idiots who are bitching about this are the same fools who said nothing about Obama's tarrifs, and this is nothing more than a brainless Trump=bad, Obama=good stupidity, rather than looking objectively at the actual issue.

    This is just the beginning. It is in our best interest to onshore and automate our manufacturing needs. We have turned China from a third world nation into the fastest growing economy with all the trade we gave them, and they turn around and cheat us with currency manipulation and are a bad actor looking to rule the world. They have stolen and copied virtually every piece of IP that was ever sent to China for manufacture, lets see how they do when we pull most of that back to the US and automate it and pocket the money in the US, leaving them with no IP to steal and nowhere to sell their cheap products.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  197. Corruption, plain and simple. by bussdriver · · Score: 0

    PERFECT EVIL PLAN: claim to be saving US jobs while acting on the BRIBES from fossil fuel industry! Everybody saw this coming. What is odd is that it is not the maximum, didn't happen in December, and they phase it out rather quickly. This looks more like the typical industry shakedown -- they want lobbyist "donations" from this growing sector-- this is a warning shot for money.

    American solar manufacturing is DEAD and has been-- the two US companies behind this are foreign owned. The time period given is not enough to start up and compete with Chinese solar (plus 1 of the two "US" companies is Chinese.)

    China can be the "Saudi Arabia" of solar but anybody can startup their own PV industry if China becomes a problem. The ONLY lock-in are the patents. We need to focus on research patents or buy and kill off solar patents. Solar is NOT a geologically bound resource!!! It replaces them but is nothing like them.

    If you really want to help US solar you'll get rid of the 30% overhead costs in the USA that Germany does not have for the same tech. In my area alone there is a ton of BS and 15% tax (aka "permit fees") for solar plus grid tie games and fees that do not exist in Germany. The system is geared AGAINST solar and all we have is a weak tax write off that only helps people who pay significant taxes and want to do the paperwork. (Goal: make it harder for the median income.)

  198. Re:I don't think the manufacturing is less efficie by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    What you're talking about is "fair trade". It has its benefits and it has its detractors. Being me, I'm quick to point out the flaws in a system, and suggest improvement rather than abandonment.

    Fair trade basically says the workers must be paid so much for their work, and the cost of a product must be so high. Coffee is often used as an example of why fair trade should be dumped for free trade: coffee growers mix shit-quality beans into decent beans because buyers are legally-required to pay a minimum rate, so there's no arbitration by selling high-quality beans and low-quality beans (the minimum rate is higher than the normal high-quality rate). I think we can do something to create the incentive of separation; I don't know what, but I'm willing to work on that problem before deciding.

    I prefer free trade, and I see fair trade as a way to bridge. It's okay to protect your workers from a market collapse by sudden shifts in trade: lose those jobs slowly so people get carried by welfare, shifted around to jobs that use their skill, and obsoleted as folks retire and new workers decide to do anything else but that obsolete job. It's also okay to not profit quite as much from a poor but effective producer of a good so that you can help build a strong economy on their end. We should work toward removing the potential difference in the system so as to avoid risks of sudden shifts and economic shock.

    Most fair-trade advocates--even unions--avoid suggesting fair trade as a way to blockade progress, because they don't believe in protectionism, and because they'd need to differentiate from protectionism anyway when making the fair trade argument. The above is kind of a wordy explanation of the natural conclusion of such a stance.

  199. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    The thought of filibustering a budget just to protect illegal migrants would be so insane it would never happen.

    Yeah, it's kind of an artifact of the evolution of morality. Basically, people have become more-sensitive to moral issues such as breaking up families and uprooting lives, or sending people off to a place in which they'll likely face poverty, destitution, suffering, and death. Because most unauthorized immigrants are generally-harmless, well-integrated into our economy, and at extreme risk of humanitarian crisis if deported, people who have evolved higher morals tend to demand humane approaches to the situation instead of adherence to traditional values and nationalist xenophobia.

    It's basically the same thing as accepting gay marriage, or rejecting arranged (forced) marriage as a valid social construct.

  200. Obama is NOT even close to the same. by bussdriver · · Score: 0

    Ignorant. There was serious debate about global warming being more important and realism about how it is not a big deal outside of patents. They invested in NEW tech in as much as allowed (by the GOP;) with some failures (less failure than most investment banks-- but all we heard about was Solyndra over and over from Fox. Never mentioning Tesla or other government investment successes.)

    Solar boomed with Obama's help despite it being hampered.. Obama couldn't subsidize the US solar industry like China was doing. The GOP was against doing ANYTHING except helping their lobbyists for fossil fuels. (no big government etc. except for those who bribe them.) Nobody could compete without doing similar investments which is why almost the whole planet moved Silicon Cell manufacturing over to China... Yes, there are other nations who are also similar in that they have heavy government supports.
    Panel assembly is what happens outside China; many other panels still have Chinese cells in them (see Canadian solar.)

    The resale market is just a middleman market which is already at risk in all sectors. Installers can go online and buy in bulk from China too. Dropping prices made inventory a nightmare and many US companies were dying from such things. The US had new tech companies trying to compete with old tech -- doomed... it takes a lot of time and luck to refine manufacturing for a new tech as quickly as old tech. Old silicon tech was what China bet on manufacturing as cheap as possible and they revised it down to where nothing comes close. The US was aiming for the next big thing as if we had time to burn before the plant burned... (and because our government is so dysfunctional we can't legislate any practicality or common sense.) Solyndra had great ideas but it could be decades or maybe impossible to get that tech to 0.50 per watt... which is a high price today... except in the USA, where now that is cheap.

  201. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So now Republicans favor tariffs? And a newer energy industry operates with constraints on it while older energy industries do not have those constraints. Which leads to slower introduction and adoption of renewables. Also, consumers lose.

    Making America Stupid Again (MASA)!!

  202. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Basically, people have become more-sensitive to moral issues such as breaking up families and uprooting lives, or sending people off to a place in which they'll likely face poverty, destitution, suffering, and death. Because most unauthorized immigrants are generally-harmless, well-integrated into our economy, and at extreme risk of humanitarian crisis if deported, people who have evolved higher morals tend to demand humane approaches to the situation

    This is well and good and I think most (all?) polls show that the US support DACA. There are a few issues though. The first is that, as your post even alluded to, there is a demonization for any disagreement. "Traditional values and nationalist xenophobia". Traditional values are not bad. Nationalism is not bad. Wanting strong border protections is not xenophobia.

    What happens in 30 years if we don't solve the border issue? We will be right back to where we are today with DACA because it's xenophobic to want to secure the border. The deal that should be made is about resolving DACA now and in the future. Granting amnesty does nothing but incentivize more illegal immigration. Because we have a welfare state, that is not acceptable. Because we have poor inner city families that are struggling that compete with new immigrants, that is not acceptable.

    The things Trump is asking for: End of lottery system, end of chain migration, secure the border, and accept immigrants based on merit. Those are not controversial things that most of the industrial world has. Nothing about those things are xenophobic. It is sensible to limit immigration based on merit with a secure border without loopholes for immigrants that want to be American. Liking the US and US history is not bad and should be encouraged for immigrants.

    as accepting gay marriage

    Maybe you missed the part during the GOP convention where Trump received a standing ovation when he said he would protect the rights of the LGBT. Maybe you missed continued applause for the likes of Dave Rubin for espousing his views in conservative avenues about being gay and married. There are still elements that are not happy with it but the majority of the GOP has moved on. You should too.

    The issue I have with gay marriage is how it was done. I don't like how the left has relied on the courts to push their agenda. There is no reason why the federal government should define marriage at all.

  203. mod parent up by bussdriver · · Score: 1

    Nailed it exactly. Government Investment Loans are supposed to create industries where no investor is crazy enough or rich enough to take the risk -- on something with potentially HUGE benefits. NASA produced many industries and none of them alone would be worth the cost of NASA - it's size, risk and broad benefits were outside even the richest most crazy venture capitalist.

    The USA politically couldn't invest in better manufacturing of OLD silicon solar tech (which was invented here...and NASA gets some credit for it's involvement.) The USA approach was to find something better. If you can't make good paying US jobs from it, then it may as well go to China. We'd not be so excited with all robot made silicon cells at Chinese prices-- at the same price but no significant local benefits; may as well let them do it. There is NO WAY Obama could have sold "lets make old solar dirt cheap by replacing human labor with robots." That would have produced the robot revolution sooner; which would have bigger impact than anything in history and been incredibly unpopular for generations.

  204. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by scatbomb · · Score: 2
    Interesting argument considering the deficit increased more under Pres. Obama than Bush (or any prior president). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/n...

    What will happen during Trump's presidency remains to be seen. In the first year we've seen economic growth, is anyone disputing that? Anyway, I think it's interesting to keep note of the headlines as times goes on.

    Back in February 2017: "Trump is upset the media is not reporting a meaningless statistic about the national debt" https://www.washingtonpost.com...

    In January 2018: "December US budget deficit shrinks to $23.2 billion" https://wtop.com/national/2018...

    I don't claim to know the future, but looking at the past it seems like people's concerns re: this president have been pretty overblown. I will watch impartially as the story unfolds.

  205. Solar fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Solar in overpriced CA breaks even in about 7-10 years. With a 30% tariff, that's more like 10-13 years now. Solar made little sense before (unless you have cash flow issues) and even less sense now. So not only is Trump double taxing me now, he's raising taxes on solar panels too. I used to vote GOP because they kinda understood economics a little. Now I get to vote Dem without worrying that I am screwing myself economically. I can't wait to vote in November!

  206. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The tariffs expire just as the tax credits for solar installs expire as well, it's going to be a wash. Nothing is going to come of the tariffs except massive job losses in the solar PV installation industry. The company that installed my panels in November was booming, but as of today, more than half of their pending projects just got cancelled or put on hold, and they had to lay off three workers. I guess MAGA includes going back to a time before we had a solar PV industry in the US.

  207. Ah yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah yes, the "F-you I've got mine" mentality of the Boomers and Gen-X
    Success is isn't defined by everyone doing well, just that others are worse off than yourself.

    Whine whine, my prices are going up. Where's my senior discount coffee?

  208. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many times does Trump have to literally extinguish all life on planet earth before you fools listen?

    You literally have no idea what the word 'literally' means, do you?

    Assuming you still live on planet earth, I don't think he has even once 'literally' extinguished all life on the planet...

    You literally have no clue about the figurative use of the word "literally", do you?
    Of course, he has extinguished all life, it just has have will have happened in the time stream.

  209. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by eaglesrule · · Score: 2

    Tesla makes their solar roof products in Buffalo, NY.

  210. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economics by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On the other hand Japan is very successful, the world's third largest economy. It's still normal to employ people out of school until retirement there, and they tend to employ what the west would consider an excess of staff but which they consider assets.

    In fact, companies that treat workers the way many western companies do, especially US companies in at-will states, are called "black companies" in Japan. They are regarded as basically scams, get-rich-quick schemes for their owners that you would avoid working for.

    That all works for the Japanese because they are Japanese with a Japanese culture and society which are radically different than most other Western nations. It's the same sort of disconnect when comparing socialist Norwegian nation's economies, healthcare systems, etc, to the US. Totally different societies and cultures. Apples & oranges.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  211. MAGA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah this is how you do it. lol.

    #freedumbs
    #thirdworldshitholeproblems

  212. Ain't trolling fun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Right: Outraged when companies have any regulation. Outraged when companies can't profit from racism. Outraged when forced to compete on the open market. Outraged when foreign markets use the free market against them. Outraged when a black man is chosen for a job over over a less qualified white man. Outraged literally all the fucking time, about literally everything, no matter what.

    1. Re: Ain't trolling fun? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...says the sheep. Moo goes the cow.

      When a tool has not even bothered to read a single line or heading of the previous 50 posts under the master troll thread. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

      Besides, who doesn't love farm analogies?

  213. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They ARE at war with America and Russia for control of the planet. Maybe i's about time you woke up...

  214. Re:Us lefties didn't particularily like Obama eith by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    I'm not a fan of Hillary because she doesn't take personal responsibility.

    I don't like Bill's TANF program. Besides general administrative flaws, it's a program built to end welfare by putting people to work. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of economics and welfare. We need our burger flippers, our grocery baggers, and the tens of millions of other low-paid, low-skilled workers--and we'll still need them after the dust settles from the upcoming new technology wave we're naming "automation". They're going to be poor, struggling, and otherwise facing economic difficulty; and minimum wage won't fix that. We need stronger policies to carry people.

    Even that ignores the economic reality of unemployment due to demand-side markets.

    Welfare, in part, protects people from these problems. It helps people who are just in a situation where yes, you're going to be poorer. It changes the situation so that no, you're not going to be deep in the bowels of poverty; you're going to be okay, you're going to get by easy enough, but that guy who got a slightly-nicer job and is "middle class" by the barest definition has way more luxury than you.

    Systems I want to build help to produce both welfare and equity, making it easier to move up into the middle-class while also creating that strong basis of support. That's the point. Mine also reduce taxes, which is ... interesting... okay I'm a giant fiscal nerd.

    Beyond all that, however, I'm generally more of a Bill Clinton or Tony Blair type--even on these very issues--yet more-progressive than the OurRevolution and Fight For $15 folks. I'm operating on a different political dimension here--or at least with future tech. Who is fighting for a growth-based minimum wage or a universal dividend today? Hell, who is trying to rewrite 29 USC 164(b) to prohibit right-to-work laws? Someone finally decided to suggest that last one (I'm late to the party), but the rest is more keeping the poor as poor as ever, avoiding strong welfare, and complaining about the economy.

  215. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by KeensMustard · · Score: 2

    Depends on the tariff.

    How?

    Was the tariff put in place on a level playing field, or one in which a nation was subsidizing their industry in order to dominate it?

    The field is never level. China is better at manufacturing panels than the US, in part at least, because they were quicker to realise that Climate change wasn't a time travelling zombie conspiracy. And in part because because they are better at manufacturing in general. You can bemoan the reasons why, or you can try to be competitive, or you can find industries where you are better than the Chinese, and encourage those.

    As for subsidies, that's kinda the point. Had the US subsidised the manufacturing of panels 15 years ago when the market was little, then perhaps they would have enough IP and a solid base that allowed them to compete. But no, they chose to consider the opportunity a risk, and continued to subsidise the burning of coal. Panels bad/burning coal good and so on. So the result is exactly what we would expect to happen.

  216. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

    Which one is he trust fund kid in this case? The US coal industry?

  217. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because it's illegal to export US crude oil.

    You might want to watch the news on occasion.

    "Crude oil producers lobbied for an end to the export ban, and in late 2015 they got their wish when President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. "

    "In 2016, the U.S. exported crude oil to nearly 30 countries. In 2017, monthly exports have exceeded one million barrels per day (BPD) on multiple occasions. But the U.S. still imports about eight million BPD of crude oil. "

    It was fun watching the GOP on one hand screaming about how Obama was bad for selling our oil to foreigners, and on the other hand, talking about they managed to force him to do it as it was creating jobs and bringing money into the US.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/09/30/why-the-u-s-exports-oil/#e477d0b3b071

  218. Elon's Solar Tiles & SunPower? by ClarkMills · · Score: 1

    Questions:

    Where are Elon's Solar Tiles manufactured?
    Where is SunPower (one of the most efficient [when I last looked] cell makers) based?

    I suspect both in the USA. If so then possibly levelling the playfield might be in order.

    Don't get me wrong, I hate Trump more than most but even a broken clock...

    1. Re:Elon's Solar Tiles & SunPower? by Squirmy+McPhee · · Score: 1

      Questions:

      Where are Elon's Solar Tiles manufactured? Where is SunPower (one of the most efficient [when I last looked] cell makers) based?

      I suspect both in the USA. If so then possibly levelling the playfield might be in order.

      Don't get me wrong, I hate Trump more than most but even a broken clock...

      Tesla does its manufacturing in Buffalo, New York, though the first panels just started rolling off the production line and it is not yet clear how good or viable a product they are. SunPower is based in San Jose, California, but its manufacturing is done in the Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico, France, and (soon) China (though Chinese production will be for a lower-efficiency product than its flagship). Tesla is not affected by the new tariff, though it did oppose it, but SunPower is.

  219. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That you're attempting to be a sarcastic troll about this shows your lack of knowledge on the topic.

  220. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by koomba · · Score: 1

    Yup, it's like when Apple puts "Designed in California" on all their super expensive, shiny iThings. They can't actually claim made in America, so they use weasel words to try to imply something like it without technically lying or engaging in false advertising claims.

    Or like I've seen with some other companies, they'll claim assembled in America or some other meaningless bullshit. Sure, all the parts were created in China for 10% of American labor costs, but when it's shipped too the American warehouse, there's 1 piece that isn't assembled yet. So they can claim assembled in America!

  221. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

    But hey, enjoy your craziness. If y'all didn't have nukes it'd be a lot more fun to watch from the sidelines, though.

    Yes, because Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are such rational, non-crazy countries with benevolent, freedom-loving governments who also have nukes. Face it: the USA's nukes are the least threatening to the world. We've had them since 1945 and we had them first. If we wanted to use them in anger after Hiroshima/Nagasaki we would have by now.

    --
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  222. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

    Basically, people have become more-sensitive to moral issues

    Some people are still sensitive about this thing called the "rule of law." You know, where laws are made and people are expected to follow them? And don't hand me the "but it's a bad law" argument. It may very well be "bad law" but the proper recourse is to change the law not legalize the defiance of it.

    The practice of the government turning a blind eye to which laws it will or won't enforce is an extremely slippery slope. The whole "it's illegal but go ahead and do it because we don't want to enforce the law" engenders disrespect for law and law enforcement. It also opens the possibility -- as we're now seeing -- of the government deciding to enforce the law.

    We have a method to easily change law in this country. It's called a "ballot box." If you want the law to be different, convince enough people to elect representatives that will change it. If you are unable to do so, the new law isn't acceptable. It's that simple.

    --
    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  223. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

    I care where the manufacturing happens. The Chinese are very far behind on their environmental regulations, not mention worker rights.

    Good thing then that Trump is working hard to get them ahead in both regards, eh?

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  224. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    I mean, you're both right. No it's not a subsidy. Yes, the extra cost of solar panels (for those people who still buy from china) will go to the federal government. Yes, it means more people will buy American. Yes, they'll be paying more. Yes, it's corporate welfare. Yes it discourages switching to solar. Yes, it promotes US solar panel production.

    They didn't really earn it... other than by "being American" and adhering to OSHA and EPA regulation. ...and pay US taxes? (Ha, that's silly US corporations don't pay taxes!). As for ethanol, heeey, it did it's job. We manage to make an alternative to oil. Woooo! But it turns out during the big squeeze leading up to (or causing) the financial crash, everyone invested into all sorts of alternatives and fracking gave us cheap gas again. While we suck out the last drops out of dry wells. So ethanol isn't really needed. At the moment.

    All this said, I don't think 4 years is really enough time for any US manufacturer to wade into the market. So it's really just a sweetheart kiss to the existing manufacturers. Or life support. I dunno the state of the industry. But in general tariffs and barriers to free trade is just slitting your own throat.

  225. Re:Remember the 59% Chinese tariff already in effe by Squirmy+McPhee · · Score: 1

    It applies to US produced polysilicon shipped over there.

    The Chinese want a monopoly on PV panels and the entire supply chain, and to that end anything goes. Daqo gets free electricity for one example.

    China's tariff on American polysilicon was imposed in retaliation for American tariffs on Chinese solar cells and modules. Prior to 2013, the US actually had a trade surplus of quite a few billion dollars with China on the basis of the massive amount of polysilicon shipped to Chinese customers; since the US imposed tariffs on Chinese solar products and China retaliated, China has gotten the upper hand on the trade deficit (and found the motivation to learn how to make pretty good polysilicon pretty cheap).

    Any evidence for Daqo getting free electricity? I'm familiar with them in a way that few people are and I've seen no evidence of such.

  226. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not very bright are you?
    If they are made in China, they are not foreign.
    Idiot.

  227. Re: Remember the 59% Chinese tariff already in eff by Mspangler · · Score: 1

    Common knowledge, the Chinese want that NW corner of the country more settled, so they built a hydroelectric station and offered free power to any company that set up a plant there. GCL is moving a plant there too. There is no way you can make poly with a Seimens reactor for $8 a kg without free electricity.

    You might also consider the amount of the tariffs. The ones you allude too were much less than 59% they put on polysilicon. You might also compare this to the way they took over the rare earth market. Same plan, simple, and it works, provided you can absorb the losses where driving the competition out of business. See also, Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and any number of railroad barons from the 19th century.

  228. And we're all going to pay for it by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    Who pays for tariffs? Yeah, it's you and me, the people who buy refrigerators and solar panels. It's our prices that are going to go up. Whirlpool and other US manufacturers will profit, because they will get to raise their prices thanks to the tariffs. You and I, not so much.

  229. Re:TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    That's difficult because we've all been living in a simulation since the day Trump did it for the first time. Someone has to get out to check the actual records for that.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  230. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    Nearly all innovation in solar and wind has happened in America.

    Hahahahaha...are you on drugs? :-p

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  231. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The deficit decreased under Obama. It's debt that increased, but mostly as a result of bailouts, some already planned by Bush, some by Obama, which avoided a depression.

  232. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whilst government might draw up lists of approved or not approved treatments (not really much different from insurance-based systems), they don't bother with looking at individual patient records as a government.

  233. Admissible evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Future generations will use Trump's actions as admissible evidence to have his bloodline sterilized.

    Oh, you're laughing now.....

  234. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    First off, hanwha's work has been just in the last year. They had very little prior.
    And you are going to claim that a report on Echolon FROM 2001 lead to America's dominance in a field that WE CREATED, and have spent the most money EACH YEAR? Seriously?
    You really are 1 fucked up individual if you think that Echolon is what lead to Americans dominance in this?
    We no longer dominate in manufacturing of solar, but that was because of CHina's cheating at this. Subsidizing, dumping, manipulating their money, etc. BUT, R&D in it still remains dominantly in America.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  235. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    BTW, this is what you SHOULD be reading, not such other BS from 20 years ago
    It explains how CHina grabbed manufacturing FROM THE WEST, and how to get it back

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  236. All hail windy wack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Manipulating their money 10% higher than yours. You clueless idiot.

  237. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HAHAHA, so your complaining than China saw the future and invested in Solar and the US instead invested in fossil fuels. If only you weren't so incompetent :)

  238. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes all the big words must have been too hard for you to read. Try again slower this time, maybe you will understand.
    Probably not though. Hint, took over means not made in China. And you would have to be completely retarded to claim no panel had ever been sold in China. Just like windywack windbourne aka the Anti-China coal troll.

  239. Re: I don't think the manufacturing is less effici by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

    Some people are still sensitive about this thing called the "rule of law." You know, where laws are made and people are expected to follow them?

    Congress has no enforcement power over immigration; it has authority over that, but isn't the executive.

    Congress has authorized the executive limited enforcement powers over immigration. This authorization does not prohibit enforcement in certain situations; it also does not require the executive to carry out enforcement in any specific time frame.

    That means there isn't a law saying the executive must remove illegal immigrant ASAP; there is a law authorizing the executive to remove illegal immigrants. There's actually a law authorizing the President to deport hostile and dangerous immigrants, and laws restricting legal immigrant residency.

    It's interesting, because the Attorney General has the authorization and duty(!) to protect the borders by many means (prevent illegal entry), particularly if he believes a mass influx is imminent; little is actually said about removal. What's actually hilarious, though, is that an illegal alien who has been deported and shows up illegally again can be... fined or imprisoned. Yes, that's right: fined or imprisoned, if they were thrown out and came back.

    We have a giant chapter in title 8 about preventing, managing, and enforcing immigration, and it's filled with three things: border protection authority; matters of issuing authorization for immigrants; and fines and imprisonment mainly for people who transport, harbor, or employ unauthorized immigrants. There's a line somewhere else in the code that says the President can have them thrown out of the country if he wants.

    We have a method to easily change law in this country. It's called a "ballot box."

    You need a representative who will change the law accordingly, though; and you need a majority of representatives (not just Americans) who will go along with it. It's the "will" part that's hard.

    The "will" part has been going on for DACA since GW Bush. Congress never got around to it, and the President had largely let ICE be somewhat lax (by way of focusing on border control); then Obama gave instruction to essentially implement the DREAM Act on which Congress couldn't agree on the fiddly bits, and everybody forgot about it for a while. Civil disobedience is actually sometimes part of the legislative process, although that's not exactly the case this time--that's more a thing with sanctuary cities.

    Speaking of sanctuary cities, I intend to push legislation allowing local sanctuary governments to keep their immigrants if they properly detain them (same as anyone else: if you routinely let rowdy kids back out after they cool off, fine; but don't dump immigrants on the street just for being immigrants) and they house them in the new form of restorative prisons designed to humanely rehabilitate prisoners.

    This will help push criminal justice reform, as well as improve relationships between ICE, Homeland Security, and these local governments. I expect they will prefer to house "suspected terrorists" under investigation themselves when detained (because of a fear of human rights violations by DHS), and that's okay, as long as they keep them detained; and with this new type of prison, they should end up deradicalizing them if they're more at-risk than actively radicalized.

    My constituency happens to support sanctuary cities and DACA--well, most of them. The concerns of the detractors are valid, of course; these proposals address that, albeit not to their liking. It will have the secondary effect of cutting back crime in our state (and America as a whole), however, which is immense--and everybody agrees on that one. I look forward to this election so I can actually stand up and drive the change America needs, instead of sitting on the sidelines talking about it as our current representative.

  240. U.S. higher manufacturing costs... by MercTech · · Score: 1

    One of the largest expenses in manufacture of solar panels in the U.S. is the safe handling and disposal of the toxic chemicals produced during manufacture of solar panels. Yep, we would have 30% cheaper panels if we didn't give a hoot what was done with the toxins left over from manufacture.

    --
    NRRPT/RCT
  241. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    First off, hanwha's work has been just in the last year. They had very little prior.

    Except that Q.Cells, the German innovator that Hanwha bought, was established in 1999. And that's hardly the only non-American company involved in the staggering progress of the last two decades. Just the one geographically closest to me that I'm aware of.

    in a field that WE CREATED

    Really?

    and have spent the most money EACH YEAR?

    That claim likewise appears very dubious. Germany having twice the US capacity in 2006 means that at some time, US must have spent less. That's simple calculus. (Either that, or you spent indeed the most but with weak results, which wouldn't be exactly a step up from the former.)

    BUT, R&D in it still remains dominantly in America.

    That sounds more like wishful thinking than reality. If that were true, I'd still expect US-based manufacturers to be more competitive on the global market. After all, the very purpose of R&D is to improve your products' chances on the market, by improving performance and lowering costs. Yet in practice, American creations such as SunPower are DOA on foreign markets. Around here, you'd have to be bribed to buy them. Even the 100% German stuff is way cheaper.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  242. Re:Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by torkus · · Score: 1

    Except over the last 5-ish years US OIL production has GREATLY increased. To the point the US is the largest hydrocarbon producing country in the world. I don't think solar panels exactly were killing them even with discounts.

    Our oil production vs consumption gap has nearly closed recently as well. Wind and solar combined has hit about 10% of the total US energy production..so the overall impact of making US producers competitive with government sponsored manufacturers with lax regulation factors out to about a 3% delta, which is actually creating jobs and income for Americans.

    --
    You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  243. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The appropriate comparison are the ILO rates, as methodologies used by governments vary. I don't know what the USA and French rates are on that basis, though.

  244. Re: Success as cost of goods is not good economic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On ILO figures, USA rate is 4.9%, France 9.6%. Cambodia 0.3%!

  245. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Only an idiot sees that as investment.
    And no, America did NOT invest into fossil fuels. As the article said, it was Americas research that China was grabbing. IOW, it was OUR investment.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  246. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    LOL.
    First off, the discission is about Solar Panels, not wind. BUT, since you brought it up. Germany has contributed very little R&D to SOlar OR Wind Turbines.
    US and Denmark are the 2 main developers of wind turbines all the way up until 2000
    And here we see that America developed not only first solar cell, but also into the production of it starting in 1953 forward.
    And even more we see that Germany contributed little to nothing in this realm
    Now, I realize that eveybody wants to be proud of their nation, but to claim that Germany had much to do with either wind turbines or solar cells is a joke.
    And as an American with real relatives still in Scotland AND Germany, I am happy to see Europe do good things.
    BUT, facts are facts. Unlike an idiot over here, I do not believe in Alternative facts.
    In terms of money, America has WAY outspent Germany and even Europe on R&D dealing with AE.
    Your pointing to wind turbines that have gone up has NOTHING to do with R&D, which is EXACTLY what I spoke of.

    And the reason why America lost our manufacturing was due to the SA link that I produced. Basically, China targeted BOTH Germany and America, since they are still in a cold war with the west.

    The one good news is that Musk is making America strong again in all of these things.
    America is now the #1 developer of EVs, and shortly the #1 manufacturer of EVs.
    Likewise, with this tariff, I think that Solar City/Tesla will jump way ahead of Chinese manufacturing, though in Germany, you appear to be giving up the ghost.
    And as to an earlier statement about Tesla sending solar panels to China, just because they show a china pix, does not mean that it will happen. China continues to block any and all foreign makers of solar from entering into THEIR nation, though they dump on all others, including Germany and America.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  247. fuck off cheerleader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a conservative. You don't get to play the environment and humane worker treatment card. You don't believe one word of what you typed and are simply using this as an excuse to cheerlead trump. Fuck off.

  248. Re: TRUMP'S GONNA KILL US ALL!! AGAIN! by scatbomb · · Score: 1
    Care to refute the cbs article with anything or is it enough to just make assertions now?

    The bailouts to wealthy wall-street bankers who celebrated with an orgy of bonuses and spending and *postponed* a depression.

    FTFY

  249. You truly are a complete fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like the idiots who wrote the article you just linked :)
    Did you even read it?

    Oh look it was Germany and not America that China got the technology from

    The timeline of China’s rise began in the late 1990s when Germany, overwhelmed by the domestic response to a government incentive program to promote rooftop solar panels, provided the capital, technology and experts to lure China into making solar panels to meet the German demand.

    America didn't invest in fossil fuels? Really? LOL.
    Care to show us why you think this, because it's got to be some kind of joke isn't it?

  250. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahaha, so you did notice Trumps subsidy to tesla after all

    Likewise, with this tariff, I think that Solar City/Tesla will jump way ahead of Chinese manufacturing,

    If you are still basing your production on 50's technology, it's no wonder other countries invested more in producing cheap panels and took all your market. Capitalism bitch :)

  251. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Only an idiot thinks that this is a subsidy to Tesla.
    Chinese gov will simply increase their subsidies to solar companies and drop their panels to 30% below Solar City's.
    Now, Solar Cities is actually one of the cheapest on the planet. With a second plant, they should be even cheaper.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  252. your foolishness is funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ahh so China will pay the money and not be affected at all, and it only harms the other countries. Wow the genius of the plan, did you or Trump think of it first?

  253. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Opponents have pointed out that only 10 percent of solar imports currently come directly from China. The majority of imports today come from factories in Korea and countries in Southeast Asia.

    Why would China bother, US is a small market for them.
    It's not against China, it's just a subsidy to prop up inefficient Americans, and slow the adoption of solar to keep the coal barons relevant for a little bit longer.

  254. Re: Hail trump!!!! USA USA USA!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More wind coming out of your ass. Care to show the slightest evidence.

    Didn't think so.

  255. are we really this unintelligent just like Donald? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Firstly we've got a man who thinks tar Sands are a great idea he's going to pollute the entire aquifer in Ohio and God knows where else there's going to be multiple spills in the price of oil is actually drop so much that pipeline does not make sense once we file our water it's over, ask the natives we live here on our mother she sustains us but like any family if we treat her like garbage she might throw us out of the house, then what will you republicrats do run to a corporation and ask for shelter on Mars great idea guys,...... Anonymous

  256. Who knows by kzwork · · Score: 1

    Maybe he is preparing to enter in solar business. He won't be a president for ever. Hotel business already sucks.