Tyranny is a process of acclimation.  Governments test the public to see what they will quietly tolerate; leaders then turn “temporary” restrictions into permanent laws as people are conditioned to accept the new normal.  Sometimes the public fights back and officials are forced to retreat.  However, the tests never end and the bureaucracy continues to press year after year until it gets what it wants.

Many commentators have noticed that the Canadian government has been expediting this authoritarian process in recent years to the point that the intentions of elitist politicians can no longer be misunderstood.  The mask is fully off and the country is becoming a draconian cesspool.  From censorship laws, to gun bans, to carbon taxes and even legislation that turns Christian worship into “hate speech”, Canada is almost every bit as cooked as their commonwealth cousins in Britain.  

Every few weeks it seems a new and oppressive mandate is enforced.  This month, the province of Nova Scotia has abruptly banned nearly all civilian activity in public forests.  It is illegal for Canadians to walk, hike, drive, camp (outside of official campgrounds) or fish in Nova Scotia’s woods and anyone caught without a heavily regulated permit is subject to extreme fines.  Smaller parks that have woods are also restricted.  The bans will continue until October 15th unless the provincial government decides to extend.

The offices for obtaining work permits have been swamped with requests and questions and citizens have been told to stop calling.  At least one citizen, Canadian veteran Jeff Evely, has challenged the law and has been fined over $28,000 simply for walking into the forest.

Nova Scotia just handed me a fine for $28,872.50 for walking into the woods. pic.twitter.com/sARyEzHAzR

— Jeff Evely (@JeffEvely) August 9, 2025

Nova Scotia leaders have set up “snitch lines” that people can call to report their neighbors.  According to Premier Tim Houston, the measures address the current climate with hot and extremely dry conditions increasing the risk of starting wildfires:  

“Most wildfires are caused by human activity, so to reduce the risk, we’re keeping people out of the woods until conditions improve. I’m asking everyone to do the right thing – don’t light that campfire, stay out of the woods and protect our people and communities…”

The average high temperature in Nova Scotia in July was a mere 73°F and little has changed in August.  The province also experienced heavy rains and flash flooding last month. 

Keep in mind, these are public forests that the Canadian public pays exorbitant taxes to the government to maintain.  The government also enforces restrictions on forest management that cause the very wildfires they say they are trying to stop.  This includes a number of regulations against logging to thin overgrown woods and preventing the collection of fallen trees. 

As in many parts of the US, this kind of “conservation” turns public lands into tinderboxes in times of drought.  It also suggests that preventing wildfires is not the true motive behind the bans.  Critics argue that the ban is practice run for a future rollout of laws related to climate controls. 

The restrictions are reminiscent of the bans on outdoor activities during the pandemic lockdowns; bans that were enforced beyond all reason, logic or viral science.  Numerous political leaders suggested at the time that pandemic lockdowns blocking personal travel and outdoor mobility could be extended to include “climate lockdowns”. 

The scenario is also similar to globalist efforts to “re-wild” western countries by removing public access from certain areas and allowing “nature to take over” without human influence.  This would, at bottom, force human beings into tighter and tighter bubbles of population that they are rarely allowed to leave. Such policies are often beta tested in smaller regions before they are expanded to include the entire nation.    

Legal challenges against the bans will be ample, but the overall intent behind the restrictions is suspicious and may be a warning sign of authoritarian laws to come in Canuckistan and across the western world.

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

A Texas judge has temporarily blocked Beto O’Rourke’s shady fundraising campaign to bankroll “runaway Democrats”—the group of state legislators who fled Texas to stall redistricting efforts.

On Friday, Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey issued a temporary injunction against O’Rourke and his group, Powered by People, barring them from raising funds or covering expenses for the Democrats while a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moves forward.

The order came just hours after Paxton sued O’Rourke and Powered by People, accusing them of misleading donors by falsely advertising the campaign as a political effort rather than a slush fund for personal expenses.

In her ruling, Fahey said the court found “imminent harm” that could cause the state to be irreparably injured, meeting the threshold for such an order.

“Because this conduct is unlawful and harms Texas consumers, restraining this conduct is in the public interest,” Fahey said.

Paxton celebrated the ruling in a statement, declaring:

“The Beto Bribe buyouts that were bankrolling the runaway Democrats have been officially stopped.”

He added, “People like Robert believe Texas can be bought. Today, I stopped his deceptive financial influence scheme that attempted to deceive donors and subvert our constitutional process. They told me to ‘come and take it,’ so I did.”

The next hearing is set for Aug. 19, 2025.

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The news blasted all over social media, confirming the sufferings of an entire generation of degree holders. Student loan delinquency rates have hit 10.2 percent in the second quarter. It’s a 21-year high, and worsens a $1.7 trillion debt crisis.

Posts on social media reveal graduating students with debts that are rising higher despite high monthly payment. This is due to dramatic changes in interest rates combined with stagnant real wages.

Depending on the type of loan, interest rates can run between 6 and 17 percent, which means that students are paying mostly interest for a few years. With big increases, they can be under water fast. This is normal for home loans. Borrowers know they will pay more than twice the sticker price over the course of a loan. They put up with it with the expectation of a rising asset valuation. The home is the asset in question.

What is the asset with a student loan? The degree. You can stop laughing now.

Welcome to the world of student debt, Class of 2020. What seemed like free money to fund a four-year vacation turns out to be the worst-possible beginning of a new career. Expenses eat up low salaries while interest and taxes take the rest. Meanwhile, graduates are greeted with a reality that they did not expect. Their degrees can get them in the door but guarantee nothing in terms of advancement. Nearly every profession requires certifications that are hard to obtain and impossible to game.

For that matter, I know plenty of 30-somethings who are still paying on debts from college they regret attending and which contributed nothing to their real-world careers.

Life is hard enough but many of these young professionals are also carrying six-figure debts that make it impossible to consider homes and drive down their credit rating. It feels like a sand trap that is never going away. Those with family money can crawl to mom and dad but those without are seeing another decade ahead or more in which they are barely scraping by.

It’s no way to begin a career. It’s easy enough to look at these weeping young people and say they should have planned better. But at the age of 18, when these loans begin, most high-school graduates (especially of that period) have no idea what money is, where it comes from, how it works, and no clue of the hard walls built by accounting realities. They would all try another path today if they could but what’s done is done.

Were they lied to? Yes, but by no one in particular. The period of zero interest rates and fake prosperity deluded an entire generation. Cheap credit and free money encouraged vast corporate expansion that focused mainly on beefing up the labor force, tagging anyone with a degree and sticking them in jobs with low expectations and high salaries. It was all too good to be true but it appeared to be the preferred career path.

The advent of high interest rates beginning three years ago was a silent marking of the end of an era. It was the dawn of the real world of financial constraints. Those are now hitting an entire generation very hard. The credit companies are leaning in hard, collecting all they can, while the bosses at work are demanding more and more productivity, even as job security is no longer what it was. People are being fired all the time with downsizing now a constant feature of professional life.

Debt limits options. Debt hobbles choice. Debt ties you down. Debt is slavery. At the very time when the world should be their oyster, millions of young people are faced with this yoke around their neck.

Ten years ago, young people were getting the message that these loans would never have to be paid. They believed it, and voted for politicians who said this. It was always a ruse. The last administration did their best to wipe out the liabilities for some people in exchange for votes but it came nowhere near affecting the whole. Now the realities of debt finance are eating up the standard of living even as the dollar has lost 25 percent of its value (at least) in the last five years. Prices are still rising.

The problem for these young people is even more fundamental than finances. It is about expectations. Their parents lived better than any generation in American history. Thanks to leverage and boom times, they had huge houses and high living standards with health care, vacations, and rising income. This was a highly unusual time and it was never justified by the fundamentals. The Fed policies of 2000 and then 2008 spread around credit like it was growing on trees, while inflation was kept at bay thanks to the dollar’s status as the international reserve currency.

Somehow an entire generation was led to believe that this is the life to which they would be entitled if only they finished college with a magic piece of paper in hand. There was no sense that they would be starting from scratch, that their parent’s lifestyles were not only a result of a lifetime of work and asset accumulation, but had also been subsidized by cheap credit.

The single most important insight for young people just starting out is this: They cannot and will not live like their parents for a very long time. They must cut back, eat at home, reduce belongings, stay out of debt, live in small apartments, buy used cars, seek out free entertainment, and cut it out with all the frivolous spending.

This is especially true for those who get married after college. There should be no hopes of immediately living the high life like their parents who had 20 to 30 years to get there. The young couple should and must prioritize paying off all debt, never accumulating more. Revolving credit cards are out of the question. The cheapest apartment rents are necessary. Everything you buy should be from thrift stores and eBay, never retail.

A young couple who takes on this way of life will not only build a strong and lasting relationship, they will also build a financial future together. The seeming deprivation becomes a bond that is forged between a young couple. They should entirely ignore their friends who are climbing up the socio-economic ladder too quickly with fancy cars and club memberships, and dismiss Instagram postings of vacations in far-flung places. This is all nonsense.

If one or the other partner in a relationship does not understand this, and seeks to inhabit the same lifestyle from whence they came from their parents, the relationship will be doomed. Living even slightly above one’s means over a long period can lead to financial and personal disaster and a broken home. Living frugally means developing the habit of foregoing consumption and doing without, in exchange for which you build a marriage and home.

This is all-the-more true if a young couple is planning on having children. It’s simply not possible to maintain two full incomes, as moms quickly discover their primary obligation as caretakers and the career path faces massive disruption. Child care is unaffordable if it is even available, and so the best financial decision could be to move to one income. If debt is a factor, this decision is even more difficult.

It has always been true for most that every new generation must build a life for themselves. The notion that the children would enter adulthood with the same standard of living they left is the delusion of very recent origin. It is ending now, quite rudely too. The sooner young people can develop the spending and saving habits of their great-grandparents, the better off they will be over the long term.

As for student loans, those too are rather new developments. Fifty years ago, it was common for students to work their way through school, paying for tuition, housing, books, and food. If they were unable to do this, they did something else.

Today, working your way through college and paying all bills is inconceivable. Paradoxically, the expansion of student loans only ended up driving up tuition costs that made the loans necessary.

It is already too late for those with six-figure debts but a new generation can learn by watching the sufferings of those to whom the system lied. They can make smarter choices about finances, education, and the need for sound personal finance.

Canadian steelmakers may need to overhaul their operations as steep U.S. tariffs threaten to block access to their largest export market, says Algoma Steel Inc. chief executive Michael Garcia. He made the comments to Financial Post last week. 

“We’ll have little to no business in the U.S. if the 50 per cent tariff continues,” Garcia told the Financial Post’s Larysa Harapyn. “Once the full effect of (the tariffs) plays out, it will effectively lock out Algoma and frankly other Canadian steel producers from the U.S. market.”

Algoma, based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., is Canada’s only plate steel producer. While it still has contractual obligations in the United States, Garcia said those will wind down within the year if the tariff remains. “There really are no practical foreign markets for Canadian steel other than the U.S. market,” he said.

The company has asked Ottawa for a $500-million enterprise tariff loan facility, not due to immediate liquidity concerns, but to safeguard operations as it adjusts to the loss of U.S. sales and navigates an uncertain Canadian market.

Financial Post writes that if U.S. access remains blocked, Garcia said producers will have to pivot to the domestic market, which in recent years has been supplied about two-thirds by foreign steel. “Much of that steel is unfairly traded and dumped into the Canadian market,” he said. “That’s accelerated now that the U.S. has 50 per cent tariffs on all foreign steel coming into the U.S.”

Algoma sees potential in infrastructure and defence projects under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s nation-building agenda, but Garcia noted that significant demand from those projects has yet to materialize. “Our challenge is to bridge the company into the future,” he said. “Make sure we’re making the right type of products, that are demanded by Canadian customers, and be there when that demand appears.”

Meeting domestic needs would require investment and time, Garcia said, with steelmakers shifting away from coil production and toward products such as plates for shipbuilding, energy, and defence. “There has to be an environment where Canadian steelmakers are making the … type of steel that is consumed in Canada and have a free-trade environment to win that business.”

Algoma has already signed agreements with shipbuilders, including B.C.-based Seaspan, and is positioning itself to supply marine plates if domestic shipbuilding expands. Garcia said the company has a history in the sector and is ready to rejoin the supply chain if projects are awarded and dormant shipyards return to activity.

Federal agencies must eliminate records related to whether employees received a COVID-19 vaccine, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said on Friday.

“All information related to an employee’s COVID-19 vaccine status, noncompliance with prior vaccine mandates, or exemption requests must be expunged from any employee’s Official Personnel Folder,” the office’s director, Scott Kupor, told department heads in a memorandum.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, the office said that effective immediately, agencies “may not use an individual’s COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or requests for exemptions from such mandates in any employment-related decisions, including, but not limited to, hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination.”

The directive came in response to a recent settlement in a case brought by a group of federal employees.

Kupor credited President Donald Trump with the development.

“Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision,” he said in a statement.

“That should never have happened. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we’re making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.”

The case was brought by Feds for Freedom in federal court in 2021. It challenged President Joe Biden’s imposition of a COVID-19 mandate for federal workers.

A judge blocked the mandate with a preliminary injunction, but the injunction was lifted by an appeals court and was ultimately vacated by the Supreme Court.

The case had been proceeding since then.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was overseeing the case, on Friday ordered the dismissal with prejudice.

Government attorneys and lawyers for the plaintiffs said in an Aug. 7 joint stipulation that they had agreed to the dismissal.

“Our victory is a long-overdue confirmation of what we have asserted all along: COVID mandates were unconstitutional, immoral, and un-American,” Marcus Thornton, president and co-founder of Feds for Freedom, said in a statement.

Trent McCotter of Boyden Gray PLLC, one of the lawyers representing the group, added that “nothing can fully compensate employees for the harms suffered, but today’s settlement provides critical prospective relief and shows the Trump Administration is on our side and willing to help right those wrongs.”

The settlement, which has not been made public, includes reimbursement of a portion of Feds for Freedom’s legal fees, the lawyers said.

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Aug. 10 suggested removing homeless people from Washington to make the nation’s capital “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”

In a Sunday post on Truth Social, Trump shared several photos showing tents and garbage on the streets in areas around the capital, saying that “the Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY.”

“The Criminals, you don’t have to move out,” Trump added.

“We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border.”

The president warned to “be prepared,” adding:

“There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY.’”

As of publication, the White House has not responded to a request for clarification on what legal mechanism Trump would use to evict homeless people from Washington, and where they would be sent afterward.

Trump will be hosting a press conference Monday morning from the White House on stopping “violent crime in Washington, D.C.,” but has not said if further details on his eviction plan will be announced there.

On any given night, there are 3,782 single persons experiencing homelessness in the nation’s capital, a city of roughly 700,000 people, according to the Community Partnership, an organization working to combat homelessness there.

The organization says that while most of the homeless people are in transitional housing or emergency shelters, roughly 800 are without shelter.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the crime level in Washington, recently pointing to the violent attack on a young former staffer of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last week during a carjacking attempt. He threatened to federalize the city if it didn’t “get its act together.”

“Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.”

On Sunday, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, said the capital was “not experiencing a crime spike.”

“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023,” Bowser said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend.”

“We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.”

Violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 dropped by 26 percent compared to 2024, and overall crime in Washington was down by roughly 7 percent, according to the city’s police department reports.

After meeting with the president several weeks ago in the Oval Office, Bowser said Trump is “very aware” of the city’s efforts with federal law enforcement.

Since establishing the district in 1790 with land from both Virginia and Maryland, Congress has controlled Washington’s budget, but residents vote to elect a city council and mayor.

Congress would likely need to pass a bill rescinding the law that created Washington’s local elected leadership for Trump to federalize the city. The president would then have to sign the bill into law.

However, Bowser noted on Sunday that Trump could call in the National Guard if he desired, similar to its recent deployment in Los Angeles following protests against federal immigration enforcement operations that turned into violent riots.

Just when you thought the tariff-tornado had passed close (but missed) the AI economy, President Trump squeezes just a little bit more…

The Financial Times reported earlier this evening that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have agreed to pay 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China to the US government as part of a deal with the Trump administration to secure export licenses. 

According to people familiar with the situation, including a US official, Nvidia would share 15% of the revenue from sales of its H20 chip in China and AMD will deliver the same share from MI308 revenues.

The FT further points out that the quid pro quo arrangement is unprecedented.

According to export control experts, no US company has ever agreed to pay a portion of their revenues to obtain export licenses.

But the deal fits a pattern in the Trump administration where the president urges companies to take measures, such as domestic investments, for example, to prevent the imposition of tariffs in an effort to bring in jobs and revenue to America.

In April, the Trump administration said it would ban H20 exports to China.

However, Trump reversed course in June after meeting Huang at the White House.

Over the following weeks, Nvidia become concerned because the Bureau of Industry and Security [BIS], the arm of the commerce department that runs export controls, had not issued any licenses.

Huang raised the issue with Trump on Wednesday, according to people familiar with the exchange, and BIS started issuing licenses on Friday.

The H20 revenue deal comes as Nvidia and the Trump administration face criticism over the decision to sell the chip to China.

US security experts say the H20 will help the Chinese military and undermine US strength in artificial intelligence.

Some BIS officials have also expressed concern about the reversal, according to people familiar with the situation.

Two people familiar with the arrangement said the Trump administration had not yet determined how to use the money.

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

Bill Maher continues to carve out a unique position as a leftist who openly challenges the woke left from within his own party. As I’ve pointed out before, Bill Maher may be a leftist, but he’s spoken out repeatedly against the woke left, and that’s a good thing that I hope helps move the party away from crazy. It’s not working yet, but dare to dream. His critiques have been sharp and unrelenting, exposing the destructive elements that have taken hold in portions of the Democratic Party. 

Yet Maher’s disdain for the woke left is not just comic disdain; it’s rooted in a deep frustration with how the progressive wing is unraveling the party and the nation. Whether it’s calling out the ridiculous outrage over the Sydney Sweeney ads or admitting that President Donald Trump was right about tariffs, Maher has shown an ability to be honest about the issues without blindly following the party line.

Yes, Maher may be a leftist who hates Trump, but he recognizes that woke activists are destroying his party. 

Maher is not just mocking woke excess; he’s demanding a serious reckoning. His most recent monologue challenged Democrats to confront a fundamental question: Do they support the values of Western civilization? 

“The world is a complicated place, and it’s not just about oppressor and oppressed,” Maher said recently.

“They have a thought in their head that white people did some very bad things — and white people did some very bad things — but so did everybody else in the world. But they don’t know that. They just see the world through this one prism. And until they do, I don’t think you’re gonna get them off this issue, and I don’t think the Democratic Party is gonna be able to go forward until they make a decision. Whose side are you on here? Are you on the side of Western civilization and Western values, or are you on the side of the terrorists?”

Maher zeroed in on intersectionality as the first wave of the woke “infection,” an idea that repackages historical grievances into racial hierarchy dogma that unfairly demonizes white people alone. 

Maher’s challenge to Democrats is radical in its clarity: it’s time to decide if you stand with the values that built the West or if you side with terrorists. He warned chillingly that many Democrats are only a step away from aligning with Hamas, with some already there.

That is the stark reality Maher is laying bare. In his words, “Are you with those kids because, you know, Mandami, he’s the perfect candidate for them?”

The warning here is not subtle.

If Democrats continue to embrace the woke core that sympathizes with radical ideologies over patriotism and Western values, their collapse is assured.

NEW: Bill Maher says the Democrat Party won’t survive unless it chooses—stand with Western civilization, or COLLAPSE trying to appease the radical fringe.

With Democrat approval ratings crashing below 33%, Maher just NUKED the party’s identity crisis on national TV.

“The world… pic.twitter.com/gcfBHnbz04

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 2, 2025

Bill Maher cuts through the absurdity of the woke left’s claims. Whether you agree with his broader politics or not, Maher is signaling that the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party and America is no longer a game. It’s a choice between sanity and self-immolation. And so far, Bill Maher is shouting for sanity to prevail.

Bill Maher slices right through the woke left’s nonsense with the kind of blunt honesty that’s becoming rare in his party. Whether you agree with his broader politics or not, he couldn’t be clearer: the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party and the future of the country are no longer a sideshow. We’ve reached a crossroads between common sense and political self-destruction. And right now, Maher is one of the loudest voices urging his side to choose sanity before it’s too late, warning that the alternative is a permanent descent into madness.

The woke left’s madness is tearing America apart—and even Bill Maher is sounding the alarm from inside the left. 

Earnings season has ended for large-cap biopharma stocks, with steep selloffs across many names as the healthcare sector’s weighting in the S&P 500 falls to a multi-decade low. Pessimism is elevated across the sector amid the Trump administration’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing proposal for Medicaid and the prospect of pharmaceutical tariffs.

A Goldman Sachs team led by Asad Haider told clients Friday that healthcare stocks face weak sector performance and mounting pessimism, as earnings season wrapped up last week. 

Here are some of the highlights of the note titled “Global Healthcare: Pharmaceuticals: Friday Fodder: Slimmer Positioning Into The August Lull”: 

• Earnings season ended with large selloffs in two key growth names: Vertex Pharmaceuticals (-20.6% on Aug. 4, pain program setback) and Eli Lilly And Co crshed the most since the DotCom era after underwhelming oral GLP-1 pill data. 

• This followed earlier 10% to 20% post-earnings drops in other large-cap healthcare “quality” names (Novo Nordisk, McKesson Corp, UnitedHealth Group, Intuitive Surgical).

• Healthcare stocks have moved an average of ±6% on earnings this season … some of the highest volatility on record.

• S&P 500 healthcare weighting now at multi-decade lows.

What’s causing some of the gloom and doom across healthcare stocks?

Well, it’s policy overhangs:

• Investor focus remains on the Trump administration’s MFN pricing proposal for Medicaid and possible pharmaceutical tariffs from ongoing Section 232 investigations (potentially mid-August).

• Administration’s 100% tariff on chips exempts U.S.-based manufacturing, relevant as pharma companies boost domestic production.

• Pfizer first to embed MFN scenarios into guidance; LLY open to gradual U.S. and EU price rebalancing, starting with new products.

Earnings Themes & Stock-Level Notes Winners

Winners

• Johnson & Johnson: strongest post-earnings follow-through in U.S. pharma; remains top YTD performer.

• Gilead Sciences: +6% WTD, +30% YTD; robust HIV franchise momentum and Yeztugo launch.

Losers

• Obesity trade: Novo’s profit warning and LLY’s weak oral obesity pill data drove $100B market cap loss for LLY, partial rebound for Novo; Wall Street analysts trimmed obesity forecasts and PTs.

Top charts 

Chart we’re watching…

Here’s Goldman analyst Salveen Ritcher’s big picture view on healthcare:

Big Picture: Although the biotechnology sector has recovered with the broader market since April lows (XBI/NBI/S&P 500 are up ~1/3/2% over the last month), we see the potential for further volatility in 2H+ as policy dynamics (e.g., tariffs/tax policy, drug pricing/Medicaid cuts, FDA/HHS, etc.) evolve. We continue to monitor the administration’s proposal to incorporate MFN pricing into Medicaid, and await a likely announcement regarding pharmaceutical tariffs upon the conclusion of the ongoing Section 232 investigations (potentially by mid-August, per our U.S. economists, although delays are possible), noting pharmaceuticals were excluded from the recently announced US-EU trade deal (establishing a 15% baseline tariff rate for most EU imports) pending Section 232 investigation conclusion.

Pro Subs can read the full note in the usual place. 

Japanese automakers are losing an estimated 3 billion yen ($20.3 million) in combined profits every day the U.S. delays lowering auto tariffs, according to company data, according to Nikkei Asia.

The full-year hit from the duties is projected at 2.7 trillion yen ($18.3 billion), dragging aggregate operating profit down 36% for six major producers, excluding Nissan, which has not given a forecast.

The U.S. raised tariffs on Japanese vehicles to 27.5% from 2.5% in April but agreed last month to cut the rate to 15%. Goldman Sachs Japan estimates the reduction will lessen the damage by 1.6 trillion yen, but each month of delay adds roughly 100 billion yen to automakers’ burden, Nikkei reports.

Mazda, which gets about one-third of its sales from the U.S., expected an 82% drop in net profit to 20 billion yen this fiscal year, assuming the lower rate would start Aug. 1. With tariffs estimated to cost 233.3 billion yen, it aims to offset the blow with 80 billion yen in cost cuts, but further delays could push it into the red. Subaru, with 70% of its sales in the U.S., forecasts a 210 billion yen hit and a 51% drop in operating profit to 200 billion yen.

Nikkei Asia writes that Toyota projects the biggest loss—1.4 trillion yen—due to high U.S. sales and supplier costs. Its forecast also assumed an Aug. 1 start date. In July, Toyota raised U.S. prices by an average $270, citing “the improved performance of the vehicles rather than the tariffs.” Takanori Azuma, chief officer of Toyota’s accounting group, said there could be further hikes “if there is an appropriate time when customers can accept them.” Toyota now expects pricing changes to lift earnings by 370 billion yen, up from 250 billion, but far below the tariff impact.

Price hikes carry risks. A rush of pre-hike buying may slow sales later, and higher prices could weaken competitiveness. “We continue to consider [price hikes] cautiously,” Honda CFO Eiji Fujimura said. Mitsubishi Motors, which raised prices in June, still posted a 3 billion yen operating loss in North America last quarter, with a 14.4 billion yen tariff drag.

If prices can’t fully offset the duties, automakers must cut costs. Toyota expects savings, higher sales volume, and a better model mix to add 899.5 billion yen to operating profit.

Japan’s lead trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, said he expects the U.S. to lower the tariff rate when Washington corrects its “reciprocal” tariff order. Asked when, he said the two sides “tacitly share an understanding that it’d be best to do it quickly.”