And the other three, coming in at #9, #4, and #1? But you can guess, can't you?
So the President's 25% tariffs on cars, due April 3, will enrich foreign car companies and Elon Musk - an immigrant. Am I missing something here?
Friday, March 28, 2025
The "American" Tariff
Newsweek provides us with a list of the car models least likely to incur the President's 25% tariffs, those which are most "American.". Of the twenty models on the list, fifteen are Hondas, Toyotas, and a Volkswagen. Two are what we would consider "American:" the Dodge Ram 1500 and the Jeep Gladiator - although these brands are owned by Stellantis N.V., a consortium of two French car companies, including Fiat.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
The TRI (Tesla Rescue Initiative)
I've needed a new car for a long time, and Abbey has been insisting that we do it sooner rather than later, because of the furious baby who's taking a baseball bat to the economy. Tariffs were a big part of her concern. We ended up buying a Hyundai EV last weekend. Just in time.
Yesterday, Our President has announced a 25% tariff on "imported passenger vehicles (sedans, SUVs, crossovers, minivans, cargo vans) and light trucks, as well as key automobile parts (engines, transmissions, powertrain parts, and electrical components), with processes to expand tariffs on additional parts if necessary." There's some mumbo jumbo about imports from Canada and Mexico - with whom we have a free trade agreement - and this is all supposed to start on April 2.
Trump made the announcement about the tariffs on imported passenger vehicles tariffs while standing next to Elon "Nazi salute" Musk, who makes cars in the United States.
I'm old enough to remember when American cars were American cars. Then parts production began being outsourced to Mexico (remember NAFTA?) and slowly the sweet urgings of the market resulted in pieces of every car being made in many different countries, and often being assembled in a country nowhere near the corporate base. I remember first learning that Pontiacs were assembled in Korea, and then that Hondas were assembled in the United States. In the oh teens, our niece worked at a VW factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
But now it's anybody's guess. Here's a list of "American" cars that have their final assembly overseas, and have to be imported for Americans to buy them:
Buick
Cadillac
| Model | Location of Final Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lyriq | China, U.S. | Research | Shop |
| XT5 | China, U.S. | Research | Shop |
| XT6 | China, U.S. | Research | Shop |
Chevrolet
| Model | Location of Final Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Blazer | Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Blazer EV | Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Equinox | China, Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Equinox EV | China, Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Silverado 1500 | Mexico, U.S. | Research | Shop |
| Trailblazer | South Korea | Research | Shop |
| Traverse | Mexico, U.S. | Research | Shop |
| Trax | South Korea | Research | Shop |
Chrysler
| Model | Location of Final Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Pacifica | Canada | Research | Shop |
| Pacifica Hybrid | Canada | Research | Shop |
| Voyager | Canada | Research | Shop |
Dodge
| Model | Location of Final Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Hornet | Italy | Research | Shop |
Ford
| Model | Location of Final Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronco Sport | Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Edge | Canada | Research | Shop |
| Maverick | Mexico | Research | Shop |
| Mustang Mach-E | Mexico | Research | Shop |
GMC
Jeep
Lincoln
Ram
Do you find it ironic that MAGAmobiles like the Ram 3500, the Ford Bronco and Mustang, and the Chevy Blazer are all made in Mexico? And that at least three models of Cadillac are made in China?
Anyway - a tariff on all your houses!
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
A New Game
Abbey alerted me to a news organization called "Ground News," a site* that measures the political bias of the news outlets reporting on a given story.
The home page looks a lot like any news site: an array of headlines and summaries with links to the stories. Some pictures here and there. A top story in the upper middle, and "Top Stories" to the left. Further down, stories grouped by topic. Standard stuff.
But here's the difference: there's a segmented horizontal bar chart under each story, divided into blue on the left, white in the center, and red on the right. This chart shows the percentage of news outlets with biases toward the left and right, and the unbiased outlets in white in the center, that reported on the story. Elsewhere in the site, Ground News explains how they assign bias scores to each outlet. It looks comprehensive and makes sense to me.
Here's a "Top Story:"
Mike Waltz admits 'mistake' in 'embarrassing' sharing of Yemen strike plans with journalist
43% Left coverage: 88 sources
Almost half of the outlets reporting this story were left-leaning. Relatively few right-leaning outlets reported it.
Which brings up the possibility of a wonderful game. Which side of the political spectrum is not hearing about which stories?
New body camera video shows moments before police fatally shoot armed Black man
50% Center coverage: 10 sources
Practically no right-leaning outlets reported this story.
China poses biggest military, cyber threat to US, intel chiefs say
48% Right coverage: 48 sources
Very few left-leaning outlets reported this story. Actually, it's hard to find events or issues which are reported predominantly by right-leaning sources, except clearly fake news, like "White House dismisses 'hoax' Atlantic magazine report; denies leak of war plans." This is obviously a verifiable lie, sent out by the White House to mislead the uninformed. The right/left proportion is 82/18, with no centrist outlets reporting at all.
Anyway, this is an infusion of data that actually tells us something interesting, and maybe important. More to come.
* - Note - you only get a few free articles a day, but a subscription is pretty cheap. And we got 40% off by going to "ground.news/randy," since Abbey was sent there by YouTuber Randy Rainbow, one of her favorite political gadflies.
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