Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Field Marshal Dr. Opti on 03 April 2025, 12:51:11
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This has well and truly f*ucked up any growth that Rachel from accounts was hoping for. ::)
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It just shows the complete and utter stupidity of burdening British businesses with excess taxation and regulation.
To be able to deal effectively with adverse global events that wash over us from time to time the country needs to be flexible, agile, and match fit.
In recent years despite Brexit, Whitehall seems to have enthusiastically taken up where the EU left off with the imposition of red and green tape, the Tories jacked up Corporation Tax by 30% just when many businesses were struggling to get off their knees after Covid, and in a couple months Labour destroyed what business and consumer confidence there was with their relentless doom and gloom narrative, then the massive tax hikes in Rach from Complaints dreadful budget, the increase in the minimum wage and the Ginger Growler's new employee rights regulations.
Far from match fit, Britain is an obese couch potato. ::)
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He's made a right mess of the markets. Oil price is a welcome drop, though
(https://i.ibb.co/jx2X0YQ/IMG-0758.png) (https://ibb.co/7T5mMDZ)
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Well we'll see how this all pans out, but it could be a boon for America Inc. in the long term as their goods become cheaper than imports, and once the initial hysteria subsides, I expect the markets in the US at least will recover.
There have been a few big companies like Taiwan Semiconductors, Eli Lilly and our very own Rolls Royce (Aviation) who have said that they will expand their US operations in response.
It will obviously be painful for the parts of GB Plc who sell their products to customers in the USA. :-\ Although they will be more competitive than their counterparts in the EU, and other countries with higher tariffs.
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https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/gm-increase-us-truck-production-following-trumps-tariffs-2025-04-03/
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JCB is 'supposedly' doubling the size of it's planned new factory in Texas.
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Not any new tariffs on Russia.
Nice to see Starmer has a counter list of products to tariff . Insects, Pineapples etc. Trump will be cowering.
Good news . The USA is going to stick with being in NATO but expects member countries to spend 5% of GDP. Good luck getting even Britain , let alone Italy, Spain and Belgium to do that. Where will Britain get it’s steel from to build hardware.
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Not any new tariffs on Russia.
Nice to see Starmer has a counter list of products to tariff . Insects, Pineapples etc. Trump will be cowering.
Good news . The USA is going to stick with being in NATO but expects member countries to spend 5% of GDP. Good luck getting even Britain , let alone Italy, Spain and Belgium to do that. Where will Britain get it’s steel from to build hardware.
Chinaaaa! ;D
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I see Farage is strangely silent on his best buddy shafting the UK ;)
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I see Farage is strangely silent on his best buddy shafting the UK ;)
We haven't been shafted. Well, only half as shafted as the EU, and only a quarter as shafted as some places.
I think it's that American consumer who's been properly shafted.
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I see Farage is strangely silent on his best buddy shafting the UK ;)
We haven't been shafted. Well, only half as shafted as the EU, and only a quarter as shafted as some places.
I think it's that American consumer who's been properly shafted.
No he hasnt. He spoke about it last night. ::)
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Interesting that US 10 year Treasury Bond yields have tumbled from 4.8% in January to 3.95% currently, which saves the US taxpayer hundreds of millions in interest payments on America's massive debt pile of around $36.5 trillion.
The biggest drop has happened in the last week from 4.4%, probably as investors have dumped stocks and moved into 'safe haven' bonds instead.
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Bonds are a fools errand. The fact they're falling points to growth elsewhere.
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Its interesting that the idiot has even applied Tariffs to the likes of the Falkland Islands at 42% and also some uninhabited islands
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Interestingly I saw on the news that as the stock market has dropped that Gold prices hit an all time high on Monday and then increased again on Tuesday.
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Interestingly I saw on the news that as the stock market has dropped that Gold prices hit an all time high on Monday and then increased again on Tuesday.
Another fools errand. It's like investing in barrels of whiskey...
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Interestingly I saw on the news that as the stock market has dropped that Gold prices hit an all time high on Monday and then increased again on Tuesday.
Another fools errand. It's like investing in barrels of whiskey...
Gold has gone from about $2000 an ounce at the beginning of 2024, to about $3100 today. ::)
Interesting fact about gold that I heard a while ago.
A hundred years ago, a nights B&B in a decent hotel in London, Paris or New York would have cost about one gold sovereign, and this remains much the case today. :)
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Bonds are a fools errand. The fact they're falling points to growth elsewhere.
As the price of bonds goes down, the yield goes up. Government bonds are not really for retail investors, more for large companies or even other governments. I CBA to look it up, but China holds a massive amount of US government debt.
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Figures vary slightly, but it appears to be around $850 billion, less than I thought. Japan owns over $1 trillion, while the UK is not far behind China.
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Interesting that US 10 year Treasury Bond yields have tumbled from 4.8% in January to 3.95% currently, which saves the US taxpayer hundreds of millions in interest payments on America's massive debt pile of around $36.5 trillion.
The biggest drop has happened in the last week from 4.4%, probably as investors have dumped stocks and moved into 'safe haven' bonds instead.
That's not how bonds work. A 10y bond is sold by the govt with the promise it will pay a fixed amount of interest for 10 years. The amount of interest it pays on a bond is fixed - it does not go up or down with the markets, so it won't "save the US taxpayer hundreds of millions in interest payments on America's massive debt pile of around $36.5 trillion". Bonds already issued have to be paid at the issue rate.
As the owner of such a bond, you can sell it on for whatever they want. Say you paid $1 for the bond, and the govt promise to pay 10cents per year interest - effectively a 10% interest rate. If you sell it to a new owner, then the 10cents interest will be paid to the new owner. At the end of the 10 years the govt will pay the current owner their $1 back. It will therefore have cost the US treasury $2 to borrow $1 for 10 years.
If during the bond period you sell it to someone else for less than you paid (say 90 cents), the new owner will still receive the promised 10 cents interest, so the new owner effectively sees 11.1% interest, but the govt is still only paying out 10 cents. Similarly if you sell it for more than you paid (say $1.1) the new owner still receives the 10 cents interest, so the new owner effectively sees 9.09% interest, but the govt is still only paying out 10 cents.
The only time the govt is really bothered about the bond rate is if/when they are trying to sell NEW bonds. If you crash your economy then buyers of new bonds are going to want more interest before agreeing to give the govt any more money. The bond rate can therefore be seen as a measure of investor confidence in the countries economy.
The fact China holds huge amounts of US bonds is a problem for China, not the US, providing the US can continue to pay the initially agreed interest (which it always can by just printing money if required).
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Indeed. However Governments are selling and redeeming bonds all the time, so bonds sold today are costing less in interest than bonds sold a few weeks ago.
Incidentally, UK 10 year Gilt yields are down slightly as well, but that will be for the 'safe haven' reason rather than any renewed confidence in Rach from Complaints! :P
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I dislike Trump, however without getting into specific rights or wrongs, he is doing pretty much what he said he would do before his election. Unlike some country leaders I could mention. Ahem . . .
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I dislike Trump, however without getting into specific rights or wrongs, he is doing pretty much what he said he would do before his election. Unlike some country leaders I could mention. Ahem . . .
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He's a business man through & through unlike our bunch of educated idiots who simply offer positions to chums they went to university with & are completely incapable of doing what is required we really are the laughing stock of the world now. It was embarrassing to watch Starmer virtually licking Donald's arsehole to secure " a deal "
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He's a business man through & through unlike our bunch of educated idiots who simply offer positions to chums they went to university with & are completely incapable of doing what is required
He is a businessman but one that has bankrupted 6 businesses, is a convicted criminal, and during COVID told the world to drink bleach.
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USA GDP is about 25% of world total and is clearly going to take a hit short term.
The EU is about 22%. The next twelve months will be defining. Buy Europe campaign? Spaniards a very loyal customers. We have friends who will never set foot in the Chinese “ pound shops” ( every town has at least one). There will be some tough defence spending decisions. Home produced rather than buy from US. There will be a lot of poring over paperwork going on behind the scenes.
Presumably China and other countries will look to sell their stuff to Europe if the Americans buy less.
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USA GDP is about 25% of world total and is clearly going to take a hit short term.
The EU is about 22%. The next twelve months will be defining. Buy Europe campaign? Spaniards a very loyal customers. We have friends who will never set foot in the Chinese “ pound shops” ( every town has at least one). There will be some tough defence spending decisions. Home produced rather than buy from US. There will be a lot of poring over paperwork going on behind the scenes.
Presumably China and other countries will look to sell their stuff to Europe if the Americans buy less.
It's a lot less than that. According to the EU themselves, EU GDP is 14.7% of global GDP.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/wdn-20250326-1#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20with,2022%20world's%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%3F
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He's a business man through & through unlike our bunch of educated idiots who simply offer positions to chums they went to university with & are completely incapable of doing what is required
He is a businessman but one that has bankrupted 6 businesses, is a convicted criminal, and during COVID told the world to drink bleach.
Very few businesses get to be successful without the experience of failure along the way. The same is true of individuals.
His criminal convictions are akin to being offered a speed awareness course.
His default starting position is extreme and the only reason the current situation exists is because rather than negotiating, the establishment have decided to act like toddlers and try to spit their dummies further just because it's Trump.
This situation is collectively one of our leaders own making. It's easy to blame Trump because he's the odd one out, but I had hoped that having been democratically elected a second time with some considerable margin, that he might have been more respected for it.
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Trump is the same person he always was, a gobshite and a fool. Hopefully, this will be the end of him.
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USA GDP is about 25% of world total and is clearly going to take a hit short term.
The EU is about 22%. The next twelve months will be defining. Buy Europe campaign? Spaniards a very loyal customers. We have friends who will never set foot in the Chinese “ pound shops” ( every town has at least one). There will be some tough defence spending decisions. Home produced rather than buy from US. There will be a lot of poring over paperwork going on behind the scenes.
Presumably China and other countries will look to sell their stuff to Europe if the Americans buy less.
It's a lot less than that. According to the EU themselves, EU GDP is 14.7% of global GDP.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/wdn-20250326-1#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20with,2022%20world's%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%3F
I got the 22% from a Sky News article, gulp. 340 million population of USA , 449 million for EU.
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You might need to clarify if that figure was EU or Europe. As they are both very different things that the stupid and uneducated* can't seem to grasp
*like our lazy media.
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You might need to clarify if that figure was EU or Europe. As they are both very different things that the stupid and uneducated* can't seem to grasp
*like our lazy media.
It could also be an outright lie from leftist pro EU Sky News. ::)
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Indeed. They along with the BBC ITN etc. often portray the EU and Europe as one and the same thing.
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The EU has today offered the USA a zero tariff deal on industrial goods, and other countries including Taiwan, Israel, Vietnam have offered their own versions of a zero tariff deal to the US.
Meanwhile, Trumpy, in response to China slapping a reciprocal 34% tariff on US imports, has said if they don't withdraw their tariff, America will charge an extra 50% on Chinese imports from tomorrow! Over to you Mr Xi! ::)
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The EU has today offered the USA a zero tariff deal on industrial goods, and other countries including Taiwan, Israel, Vietnam have offered their own versions of a zero tariff deal to the US.
Meanwhile, Trumpy, in response to China slapping a reciprocal 34% tariff on US imports, has said if they don't withdraw their tariff, America will charge an extra 50% on Chinese imports from tomorrow! Over to you Mr Xi! ::)
China has decided to halt exports of its rare earth products.
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Figures vary slightly, but it appears to be around $850 billion, less than I thought. Japan owns over $1 trillion, while the UK is not far behind China.
This is an interesting read, stick with it:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/89cc63609bab9c16
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Figures vary slightly, but it appears to be around $850 billion, less than I thought. Japan owns over $1 trillion, while the UK is not far behind China.
This is an interesting read, stick with it:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/89cc63609bab9c16
Yes I read that and the summary is:-
The nuclear option China could take..... but they won't because it would affect them just as badly.... Oh and America's response would kill them! ;D
A nonsense article. :-X
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https://youtu.be/1E9T6Ze0GL4?si=Tvl1wQ2gPjR6GVzP
This might be an interesting insight into what's happening.
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And something to consider...
https://www.instagram.com/p/DIJ5iFGRcua/?img_index=1&igsh=MWx6amppN3M0ZW84aA==
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Well the EU have jumped on the bandwagon and will apply tariffs 0f between 10 - 25% on certain goods imported from America. ::)
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I think this is going to bring Trump down. Its probably just a matter of time.
If he wants to stop China from becoming completely dominant as a global power, he might have been better to unite the free / western world behind him to bring them down a peg or two, rather than using a blunderbus approach to attack everyone and anyone at the same time.
Making the Western countries play fair could have come later if its needed.
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With mid terms two years after the election, US presidents never seem to have a lot of time to get things in place.
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Well Trumpy has just announced a 90 day pause to "reciprocal and 10% tariffs" on " non retaliating countries." Effective immediately. S&P500 up 5.68%, Dow up 5.72% and Nasdaq up 7.67%
In other news Trumpy, raised tariffs on China to 125%, effective immediately! ::)
Trumps statement on Truth Social.
"Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately.
At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.
"Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
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I think this is going to bring Trump down. Its probably just a matter of time.
If he wants to stop China from becoming completely dominant as a global power, he might have been better to unite the free / western world behind him to bring them down a peg or two, rather than using a blunderbus approach to attack everyone and anyone at the same time.
Making the Western countries play fair could have come later if its needed.
Looks like he read my post. ;D
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It'll probably turn out that his family have been buying and selling stocks just before his announcements ;D
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It'll probably turn out that his family & friends have been buying and selling stocks just before his announcements ;D
Fixed that. Tesla is up 18%! :)
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Tariffs are having a really bad effect on China. I haven't had a Chinese meal for ages, but I drove back from Kirkbymoorside this afternoon and, after unpacking, CBA to cook, so went to the local takeaway. £7.90 for chicken fried rice. Kinnell!
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Ah you are back in god’s own country!
Have you been to Rosedale , down the chimney and had refreshments in the village before visiting Hutton le hole? I am almost home sick!
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Ah you are back in god’s own country!
Have you been to Rosedale , down the chimney and had refreshments in the village before visiting Hutton le hole? I am almost home sick!
Did all that :y But, as always, our favourite spot is Dalby Forest, we walk for miles with the dog.
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I love the little church in Rosedale Abbey, always put a few bob in the box.
The only chippy in Kirkbymoorside, the Lemon Tree, has closed :(
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Tariffs are having a really bad effect on China. I haven't had a Chinese meal for ages, but I drove back from Kirkbymoorside this afternoon and, after unpacking, CBA to cook, so went to the local takeaway. £7.90 for chicken fried rice. Kinnell!
It might have been pigeon fried rice. :)
A Chinese Restaurant in Madrid has been busted passing off pigeon as duck. Apparently they were catching the pigeons in the street and killing them in the kitchen. ::)
I suppose Peking Pigeon doesn't sound quite the same. ;D
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/09/chinese-restaurant-shut-down-roast-duck-street-pigeon/
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
Speaking of rats the the size of cats in Birmingham.....
We found a whopper dead in the barn. So big I actually measured it. Eleven inches of body and nine inches of tail when pulled straight.
20 inches in total. :y
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
Speaking of rats the the size of cats in Birmingham.....
We found a whopper dead in the barn. So big I actually measured it. Eleven inches of body and nine inches of tail when pulled straight.
20 inches in total. :y
Did you put it on the BBQ? ;D
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It'll probably turn out that his family have been buying and selling stocks just before his announcements ;D
Not quite his family...... ;D
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d4f8720d79aad58d
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It'll probably turn out that his family have been buying and selling stocks just before his announcements ;D
Not quite his family...... ;D
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/d4f8720d79aad58d
So Trumpy posts "This is a great time to buy!!! DJT" yesterday after the market closed on a 10% rally, and he's getting accusations of insider trading from unhinged Democrats? ;D
Incidentally, the S&P is down 2.69%, the Dow is down 2.13% and the Nasdaq is down 3.14%. So yes it was a great time to buy! ::) ;D
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
Speaking of rats the the size of cats in Birmingham.....
We found a whopper dead in the barn. So big I actually measured it. Eleven inches of body and nine inches of tail when pulled straight.
20 inches in total. :y
Did you put it on the BBQ? ;D
No, that would be cruel.
I chased Mrs Opti around the garden with it instead. Such fun. >:D
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
Speaking of rats the the size of cats in Birmingham.....
We found a whopper dead in the barn. So big I actually measured it. Eleven inches of body and nine inches of tail when pulled straight.
20 inches in total. :y
Did you put it on the BBQ? ;D
No, that would be cruel.
I chased Mrs Opti around the garden with it instead. Such fun. >:D
She's such a lucky girl! :y Does she realise this M'Lud? ??? :-\ ;D
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Dread to think whats being served up in restaurants in Birmingham at the minute.
Rat Risotto anyone ? ;D
Speaking of rats the the size of cats in Birmingham.....
We found a whopper dead in the barn. So big I actually measured it. Eleven inches of body and nine inches of tail when pulled straight.
20 inches in total. :y
Did you put it on the BBQ? ;D
No, that would be cruel.
I chased Mrs Opti around the garden with it instead. Such fun. >:D
She's such a lucky girl! :y Does she realise this M'Lud? ??? :-\ ;D
As far as the smaller female brain allows her to. Don't expect miracles. 8)
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In Trump Tower there is a souvenir shop, selling teddy bears with MAGA hats, etc. Be prepared to pay 125% more for them, they are all made in China :)
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In Trump Tower there is a souvenir shop, selling teddy bears with MAGA hats, etc. Be prepared to pay 125% more for them, they are all made in China :)
Pronounced Chyynaaa of course. ;D
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In Trump Tower there is a souvenir shop, selling teddy bears with MAGA hats, etc. Be prepared to pay 125% more for them, they are all made in China :)
I think it's 145% now.
Pooh bear and the orange man will fall out if this goes on. >:D
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In Trump Tower there is a souvenir shop, selling teddy bears with MAGA hats, etc. Be prepared to pay 125% more for them, they are all made in China :)
I think it's 145% now.
Pooh bear and the orange man will fall out if this goes on. >:D
I think Xi prefers to be called Winnie :)