Executing My Trump Tariff Plan

As I griped about two months ago, we're in the waning days of the Biden Presidency, and I am convinced I'm ready for the never-ending Trump regime and his perpetual idiotic decisions.

I still predict that imported goods are gonna basically double shortly after the (poorly attended) inauguration. No more cheap technology from China, food and supplies from Mexico, or lumber and maple syrup from Canada. The suggestion that there will only be a 10%-60% increase in costs is Bullshit! Mark My Words: the American oligarchs will see this opportunity to quietly double the retail price, simultaneously increasing profits while pointing the blame at Trump's policies.

You cannot not force American business to make the goods when we no longer have the smarts or skills to produce it (as evidenced by the election of Trump by a nation of retards...) We are a nation of truck drivers because we are better at buying than making.

Finding Spare Change to enact Change

To pay for my required spending spree, right after I posted my plan, I booted up my ancient eBay account and started listing dozens of items that had been languishing in my 'To Sell' box for years. Most of my items sold for about 90% of what I paid for it. Some sold for pennies, or not at all. However, one item sold for 10x what I paid for it, and that sale helped jump start this spend. Encouraged by this, I've made eBaying a habit again, and appreciate removing crap from my life's inventory. Now back to going through the list of consumer-level imported goods that I'd predicted to go up in price, along with my stop-gap solutions:

Apparel & Footwear

1. I bought a few pairs of my uniform black pants ($60 each) and a replacement pair of steel-tipped slip-on Boots ($45); the Boots stayed in the box and the Pants stayed in the plastic bags. Now I'm ready to pull them out as another piece retires. As someone who never cared for cutting-edge fashion, and am burned from many fashion mistakes of my past, I'm (literally) covered.

Aluminum

1. Turns out, I do need Aluminum, in the form of Batteries. I bought and installed a separate solar system to power my Office directly, and reduce my energy needs to (hopefully) all Solar and Batteries. This project was two-fold; partly to 'pre-buy' electricity with a hand-assembled solar system, and partly to learn about power needs and solar design. (Does this sound like I'm preparing for an eventual long-term power failure in major cities like Philadelphia? Perhaps.) Outside of the math of electricity/wattage required (V x A = W), or calculating the gauge of wire required to handle DC voltage, there's a ton of details that define later choices. I will write a full blog post about my solar system. Later...

Electronics

1. I upgraded my main desktop computer and bought the Apple M4 Mini ($599), sure to give me a decades worth of service. I used a friends legit Apple Educational Discount along with a trade of some Dog Sitting to whittle my out of pocket cost to $350. Great savings, and truly a workhorse when it comes to running bleeding edge operating systems, browsers, and AI models - something I've missed out for a while due to my reliance on second-hand older Intel processors. Unintended added cost: Having to Buy New Software! Most of my favs are web-based, but a few required paid upgrades - an additional $120 spent so far - so much for savings!

1. I did buy a HDMI Dummy plug ($3) so I can run all my legacy desktop computers headless and access them via VNC over the network from my new M4 Mini. I did the same with some laptops, using Dummy Mini HD (DisplayPort) plugs ($4) to make them work with the lids closed, and now access all my legacy machines over the hardwired ethernet network via VNC windows on my main desktop! My huge 34" 4K display handles all of the new windows and leaves plenty of space for browsers and more. Now I can still access and use any old software that didn't make the jump.

1. I love my new electric bike and have found most of my car-replacement trips average around 7 miles round trip. The bike came with back rack, front & rear lights, and tube and chain guards for a mud-free commute. My only upgrade was getting a short, straight handlebar which was nearly 10" shorter than the default handlebars; they made it difficult going in and out of doors as they're nearly as wide as the door frames (see inset), and the bent up style handbars made it catch on low-hanging spots. Total cost: $560, included a second backup 17Ah replacement battery which won't be used until the supplied 10Ah battery starts to show it's age.
2. My Plex home media server easily handles all the streaming traffic currently without a burp, so buying a new system seemed extraneous in hindsight. To prevent a single hard-drive failure crippling my ever-expanding media library, I shifted to reusing older hard drives in second-hand NAS drive cases - in this case Synology 4-bay NAS cases (~$100 used). From my years of collecting hard drives, I have stacks of 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB drives that are deemed slightly too small to be useful. Racked as a set of four in a RAID array? Now we're talking! Now the NAS drives hold less-needed content (Personal Photo Backups, Discontinued Television Shows, Movies prior to 2020) and only sip power while keeping terabytes of media online. If a single drive fails, it won't destroy all the data, and I have backup disks at the ready. Frugal and smart!

I'll stop with the prognostications, and allow Trump and his Oligarch Cabinet to run this country into a flaming dumpster fire. As I no longer watch the News, I will neither care nor change any of my daily activity due to it, living a better, happier life! Join me by subscribing to my RSS feed and be alerted to new stories blathering diatribes from me as they publish.