Understanding the US - Again

[Tanaji]

Trump is a person with a massive fragile ego. The very suggestion that he is being taken advantage of causes him to lash out. And this is exactly the emotion a lot of his advisers and foreign dignitaries use: the Cheeni and Paki will definitely point out how the Indians are not paying obeisance to him by not signing a trade deal…

I wonder how long these “signed” deals will last, how long until he will go back on the deal he himself signed…

[A_Gupta]

The Indian Express points out:
https://indianexpress.com/article/opini ... -10156634/

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently warned India, along with China, Brazil and others with 100 per cent secondary sanctions if they continue doing business with Russia, including buying Russian oil. Simultaneously, US Senator Lindsey Graham is pushing for the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, a bipartisan legislative proposal. The bill, backed by Trump and 170 other lawmakers, threatens an unprecedented 500 per cent tariff on all goods exported to the US by countries that buy Russian oil, gas, petrochemicals or uranium. This is part of an overall strategy to choke the Kremlin’s war bank and economic lifelines. Trump has warned that if Russia does not stop its military offensive within 50 days, nations trading with Russia will receive trade penalties.
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India will have to assess the probability of Trump keeping his word on the secondary tariffs. The oil spot markets called his bluff, as the price for Brent crude barely moved from $69 per barrel. If the secondary sanctions stick and Russian oil (which accounts for 10 per cent of the total global oil supply) is shut out of the global markets, the price could shoot up to $120 per barrel. This would derail Trump’s domestic low-energy prices agenda. Moreover, if secondary tariffs on Chinese (mainly) and Indian goods stick, it would result in a significant increase in prices of imported goods and cause runaway inflation in the US. Will the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) be validated again?

[drnayar]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/bus ... 998698.cms


Donald Trump announced India will face a 25% tariff starting August 1st, along
with penalties for energy and arms purchases from Russia. Trump cited high
Indian tariffs and trade barriers, as well as continued reliance on Russian
resources, as justification. The reciprocal tariffs for other countries will be
effective August 1, 2025, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

[Jay]

Dems are welcome to consider this sort of background "economically underprivileged". In fact, I hope they do-- nothing will cement their future electoral failures more conclusively than their own delusions about what 'working class' actually means in America.

ok...what does working class in america mean?

[S_Madhukar]

I don't think India is averse to it at all. It is the very essence of Kautilya's "daam".

But it has to be used wisely with maximum return on investment. With Trump's Cheeni-maal model the return is poor, and payers get roped into a subscription racket.

Cheeni model look at NoKo, Bakis and our neighbours… all money down the drain… the next Pres will be a Demo clone of Drumpf and will ask for a similar subscription

[Vayutuvan]

ok...what does working class in america mean?

NRI ITvity and professor/scienstist/researcher class are most definitely not "Working Class".

[Vayutuvan]

Let me narrow it a little bit. None of us on BRF are of working class. None of us would be able to define nor understand who a "working class" american is.

If you press me to quantify (following numbers picked out of my hat, euphemistically speaking )

anybody who is able to service a 15 year 250K+ mortgage, maintain two vehicles - late model high end CR-V, RAV4, Tesla, Lexus, Merc, Volvo, Beamer, Audi, VW, or more expensive, drop their kids off to school even their district is serviced by school buses, put their kids in afterschool programs, piano/violin/tennis classes, eat out every weekend in sit-down restaurants, sip single malts/wines/cheese/checuetery, avoid travel by Greyhound, talk about stock market/gold at desi parties, spend $1000 on a ticket to NATA, ATA, TATA like shindies ... are not "working class".

[Jay]

Let me narrow it a little bit. None of us on BRF are of working class.

Yup...

[A_Gupta]

Why Trump's tough stance on Russia could derail the biggest win in his trade war

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-t ... eal-2025-7

The US and China first reached a framework trade agreement in May, after both sides said they would significantly lower the tariff rate on goods from the other country for a 90-day period while talks continue.

That 90-day period is set to end on August 12, a date that follows Trump's August 7 deadline for slapping more sanctions or tariffs on Russia unless it agrees to a ceasefire.

"Hence from August 7, Trump could hit the world with a new and different tariff shock," Gertken wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. "Turkey, India, Brazil, and China would
suffer the largest shock," he added, pointing to each country's extensive trade with Russia.
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[Rudradev]

ok...what does working class in america mean?

If you're interested in a serious answer, this article is a good place to start. https://archive.ph/SGIOI

It is a fairly comprehensive (but quite accessible) outline of the modern American class structure. Using its framework, the "working class" would be that section of the bottom 90% who have jobs, but most likely lack a college degree, and who almost certainly will never acquire enough net worth for their families to make it into the upper 10% —however much they try. The reasons for this are explained in the article.

What @Vayutuvan ji describes are the "9.9%"... the class between the bottom 90% and the super rich 0.1%. Most Indian Americans belong to this 9.9%. Understanding the role this 9.9% plays in reinforcing the American class structure explains a lot of things, including why Indian Americans are broadly resented and increasingly hated.

[Jay]

ok...what does working class in america mean?

If you're interested in a serious answer, this article is a good place to start. https://archive.ph/SGIOI

It is a fairly comprehensive (but quite accessible) outline of the modern American class structure. Using its framework, the "working class" would be that section of the bottom 90% who have jobs, but most likely lack a college degree, and who almost certainly will never acquire enough net worth for their families to make it into the upper 10% —however much they try. The reasons for this are explained in the article.

What @Vayutuvan ji describes are the "9.9%"... the class between the bottom 90% and the super rich 0.1%. Most Indian Americans belong to this 9.9%. Understanding the role this 9.9% plays in reinforcing the American class structure explains a lot of things, including why Indian Americans are broadly resented and increasingly hated.

Rudradev ji, thanks for the explanation, but I do have a good idea what working class mean in the US context and I 100% never even broached the subject of that term in relation to Indian Americans. You and I were having a back and forth on does AOC come from 'working class' or from 'previleged class'. My assertion is that she's closer to the former rather than the latter. You are free to form your opinion based on the facts and your biases, and I'll agree to disagree with you on your categorization that she comes from a privileged background.

[A_Gupta]

Deep research by Google Gemini says that while her father was alive, AOC's family was upper middle class rather than on the edge of the working class.

I hope this link works:
https://gemini.google.com/app/734acc7385b305ca

or this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dJp ... sp=sharing

[g.sarkar]

https://www.rediff.com/news/report/howd ... 250730.htm
'Howdy Modi meant nothing': Oppn mocks PM after Trump's 25% tariff
Senjo M R, July 30, 2025
Opposition parties slammed the government on Wednesday after Donald Trump imposed a 25-per percent tariff and penalties on Indian imports, and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's friendship with the US president meant little.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Modi should take inspiration from former prime minister Indira Gandhi and stand up to the president of the United States.
"President Trump has slapped a tariff of 25 percent plus penalty on imports from India. All that 'taarif' between him and 'Howdy Modi' has meant little," Ramesh said in a post on X.
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Gautam
When Canada and the UK are not exempt from tariff, no one is.

[Rudradev]

If you're interested in a serious answer, this article is a good place to start. https://archive.ph/SGIOI

Rudradev ji, thanks for the explanation, but I do have a good idea what working class mean in the US context and I 100% never even broached the subject of that term in relation to Indian Americans. You and I were having a back and forth on does AOC come from 'working class' or from 'previleged class'. My assertion is that she's closer to the former rather than the latter. You are free to form your opinion based on the facts and your biases, and I'll agree to disagree with you on your categorization that she comes from a privileged background.

Sir jee, I'm afraid it isn't a matter of opinion or biases. If one subscribes to the class breakdown given by the writer of that article, Matthew Stewart (who is the author of several books on US economic history and very much a liberal scholar himself)-- then the definitions are clear.

AOC has a college degree. Her father had a college degree (practicing as an architect requires one). Her father owned a house in a neighborhood that the bottom 90% of the country would call expensive and likely consider beyond reach (no matter our subjective opinion as Indian Americans).

By any objective measure, theirs is a family with the capacity to accumulate and pass on intergenerational wealth for at least two generations. It is demonstrably not part of the bottom 90%, but firmly within the 9.9% "new aristocracy"-- meaning, they are privileged. Not working class.

[bala]

All kinds of numbers are being touted by US El Presidente DJT, don't know if they are truly correct/accurate. One thing DJT mentioned is that medical records will become digital and portable. Patients can also access their own records digitally. Many in the US know how archaic medical records are and cannot switch medical doctors by transfer of previous patient history.

Making Health Technology Great: DJT Celebrates Q2 GDP, Inflation and new Medical Tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwUnFiKkPJ0

[A_Gupta]

Unfortunately the character of POTUS is an issue for India’s relations with the US.

Take congressional stock trading. Republican influencers have long shaken their fists (and not without reason) at lawmakers’ penchant for remarkably canny stock trades. So when Josh Hawley drew up a bill banning the practice, he surely thought he was hitting on both a policy and PR win. He even named it the PELOSI Act as a red-meat coup de grâce!

What he certainly didn’t expect was the Truth Social response he got from Donald Trump. Apparently outraged that Hawley’s bill would also ban future presidents from trading stocks beginning in 2029, the president decried Hawley as a “second-tier senator” who was “playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats.”

“I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED,” Trump wrote.