The crash in 2020 was twice as deep as it should have been. The markets were spooked by a president repeating conspiracy theories instead of reassuring people while health organizations were scrambling and panicking.

Those numbers on his poster are made up and don’t reflect actual tariffs that exist and can be cut.

And lots of things meant to run on 240 are dual labeled 208/240. If it’s a motor it will end up running a little hotter, if it’s a heater it will end up a little colder.

I imagine this is more or less what it felt like to be in the room at the time. A whole group of people discussing electrical theory and optimal soldering techniques and meanwhile the one guy standing there holding the actual device notices the power cord is a little loose and pushed it in another 1/8" without mentioning it because everyone is so involved in their nerdy conversation.

Yeah plus there’s actions like this https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/pausing-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement-to-further-american-economic-and-national-security/

I think it’s good to have some 3rd party organization, as in besides the manufacturer and consumer, imposing some restrictions that weed out companies that cut too many corners on engineering a product or are just low skilled at engineering things.

Like cars for example. The average mpg of cars has pretty much doubled in the last 15 or 20 years, which is insane for such a mature industry. They were forced to adapt and get creative by lawmakers making emissions requirements more strict. It shows that automakers could have been doing more in decades past.

Now someone explain the right and left columns of buttons