Economics Thread

As an aside this is what happened to net exports over Trump's first term:

2016 negative $503 billion
2017 negative $543 billion
2018 negative $593 billion
2019 negative $577 billion
2020 negative $626 billion

the laws of economics are stubborn mother****ers

blow a hole in the federal budget and almost surely the trade deficit gets bigger
 
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thethe said:
Low savings rate because crap jobs with depressed wages because we import everything including low skilled labor.
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Wont need to import when American robots take those low skills jobs :) Sam Altman is quite clear that’s the mission statement of Open AI and Project Stargate was personally endorsed by our President.

FWIW, I think it’s great our country is supporting private ventures to build American infrastructure. It will create a lot of high skill jobs. But I’m under no illusion of what the trajectory of where the labor market is headed.
 
chop2chip said:
Wont need to import when American robots take those low skills jobs :) Sam Altman is quite clear that’s the mission statement of Open AI and Project Stargate was personally endorsed by our President.

FWIW, I think it’s great our country is supporting private ventures to build American infrastructure. It will create a lot of high skill jobs. But I’m under no illusion of what the trajectory of where the labor market is headed.
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All I’m hearing is that we need to deport a lot of people.

Otherwise, I agree with everything you are saying.
 
chop2chip said:
Wont need to import when American robots take those low skills jobs :) Sam Altman is quite clear that’s the mission statement of Open AI and Project Stargate was personally endorsed by our President.

FWIW, I think it’s great our country is supporting private ventures to build American infrastructure. It will create a lot of high skill jobs. But I’m under no illusion of what the trajectory of where the labor market is headed.
Click to expand...

wonder if those robots will ever be good enough to change the diapers of our babies and seniors
 
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-deep-state-loves-tariffs-trump?r=6yn7y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The heart of the U.S. tariff system is the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. This tariff Talmud contains thousands of pages of scholastic distinctions on every product imaginable, such as in Chapter 46, on “manufactures of straw, of esparto or of other plaiting materials; basketware and wickerwork.” (Esparto is apparently a type of coarse grass.) Then there is Chapter 66, on “umbrellas, sun umbrellas, walking-sticks, seat-sticks, whips, riding-crops, and parts thereof.” The chapter does say it excludes “firearm sticks, sword-sticks, loaded walking sticks or the like.” Each item in these chapters, and many variations thereon, has its own tariff rate.

Since tariffs can be a life-or-death matter for many companies, lobbying around them takes on a life-or-death quality. Companies impacted by tariffs can lobby for “exclusions” that allow them to import at reduced cost. The Commerce Department keeps a handy list of over 425,000 company requests just for steel and aluminum tariff exclusions in the last five years. More than 200,000 such exclusions have been granted.

It is not surprising that political favoritism can creep into tariff exclusions. One study found that donations to the president’s party made a company significantly more likely to get an exclusion. Those donations paid off because companies that won exclusions together gained billions of dollars in market value.

Companies also lobby to impose tariffs on their competitors. One of the most successful lobbies in the last round of tariff hikes was the washing machine industry, which wanted to exclude foreign competition. You know who benefited from these tariffs? Whirlpool. You know who took a hit? The consumer.

Here’s how: Whirlpool’s lobbying expenditures jumped by a third to over $1.3 million in 2017—after which the government imposed tariffs on foreign imports of washers. A study found that the price of washers for Americans increased by about 12 percent. Dryer prices rose by the same amount—probably because washers and dryers are sold in pairs. Americans had to pay more than $150 extra for a new set.

In the tradition of reaping what one sows, however, washing machine companies were hit hard by the steel and aluminum tariffs that the Trump administration imposed soon after the washer tariffs. After a bad quarterly earnings report in 2018 caused Whirlpool to suffer its worst stock drop in more than 30 years, CEO Marc Bitzer complained that “we are impacted by the tariffs” that were driving up his costs.

Even foreign washing machine companies can petition the U.S. government for exclusions. Samsung received tariff exclusions so it could import steel to its South Carolina washer plant (specifically, on “hot dipped galvanized cold-rolled steel sheet that is coated with a high polymer type paint”). LG also got an exclusion for aluminum used to make its washers. One of the ironies of the washer tariffs is that Samsung and LG washers were cheaper for consumers than American washers. Which is another thing about the tariff system: It’s full of unintended consequences.

All that lobbying can take a toll. In 2018, after Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on many Chinese imports, one company, Arrowhead Engineered Products of Blaine, Minnesota, which makes auto repair parts, filed for a staggering 10,000 exclusions. “We basically put everything else on the back burner” to apply for tariff exclusions, the company’s chief operating officer, John Mosunic, told The Wall Street Journal. The company even hired a group of temporary workers to submit the requests and involved the office of their powerful local congressman, Tom Emmer, to facilitate them. “For an administration that claims to be ‘draining the swamp,’ it’s certainly been a bonanza for trade lawyers and lobbyists,” Clark Packard at the R Street Institute, a right-leaning think tank, told the Journal.



—————

MAGA?

I will grant that Trump’s tariffs will lead to job creation in the lobbyist space.
 
acesfull86 said:
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-deep-state-loves-tariffs-trump?r=6yn7y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The heart of the U.S. tariff system is the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. This tariff Talmud contains thousands of pages of scholastic distinctions on every product imaginable, such as in Chapter 46, on “manufactures of straw, of esparto or of other plaiting materials; basketware and wickerwork.” (Esparto is apparently a type of coarse grass.) Then there is Chapter 66, on “umbrellas, sun umbrellas, walking-sticks, seat-sticks, whips, riding-crops, and parts thereof.” The chapter does say it excludes “firearm sticks, sword-sticks, loaded walking sticks or the like.” Each item in these chapters, and many variations thereon, has its own tariff rate.

Since tariffs can be a life-or-death matter for many companies, lobbying around them takes on a life-or-death quality. Companies impacted by tariffs can lobby for “exclusions” that allow them to import at reduced cost. The Commerce Department keeps a handy list of over 425,000 company requests just for steel and aluminum tariff exclusions in the last five years. More than 200,000 such exclusions have been granted.

It is not surprising that political favoritism can creep into tariff exclusions. One study found that donations to the president’s party made a company significantly more likely to get an exclusion. Those donations paid off because companies that won exclusions together gained billions of dollars in market value.

Companies also lobby to impose tariffs on their competitors. One of the most successful lobbies in the last round of tariff hikes was the washing machine industry, which wanted to exclude foreign competition. You know who benefited from these tariffs? Whirlpool. You know who took a hit? The consumer.

Here’s how: Whirlpool’s lobbying expenditures jumped by a third to over $1.3 million in 2017—after which the government imposed tariffs on foreign imports of washers. A study found that the price of washers for Americans increased by about 12 percent. Dryer prices rose by the same amount—probably because washers and dryers are sold in pairs. Americans had to pay more than $150 extra for a new set.

In the tradition of reaping what one sows, however, washing machine companies were hit hard by the steel and aluminum tariffs that the Trump administration imposed soon after the washer tariffs. After a bad quarterly earnings report in 2018 caused Whirlpool to suffer its worst stock drop in more than 30 years, CEO Marc Bitzer complained that “we are impacted by the tariffs” that were driving up his costs.

Even foreign washing machine companies can petition the U.S. government for exclusions. Samsung received tariff exclusions so it could import steel to its South Carolina washer plant (specifically, on “hot dipped galvanized cold-rolled steel sheet that is coated with a high polymer type paint”). LG also got an exclusion for aluminum used to make its washers. One of the ironies of the washer tariffs is that Samsung and LG washers were cheaper for consumers than American washers. Which is another thing about the tariff system: It’s full of unintended consequences.

All that lobbying can take a toll. In 2018, after Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on many Chinese imports, one company, Arrowhead Engineered Products of Blaine, Minnesota, which makes auto repair parts, filed for a staggering 10,000 exclusions. “We basically put everything else on the back burner” to apply for tariff exclusions, the company’s chief operating officer, John Mosunic, told The Wall Street Journal. The company even hired a group of temporary workers to submit the requests and involved the office of their powerful local congressman, Tom Emmer, to facilitate them. “For an administration that claims to be ‘draining the swamp,’ it’s certainly been a bonanza for trade lawyers and lobbyists,” Clark Packard at the R Street Institute, a right-leaning think tank, told the Journal.



—————

MAGA?

I will grant that Trump’s tariffs will lead to job creation in the lobbyist space.
Click to expand...

I had a bad addiction to soda. I can tell you first hand that aluminum tarrifs have skyrocketed the cost of my daily vice.
 
sturg33 said:
I had a bad addiction to soda. I can tell you first hand that aluminum tarrifs have skyrocketed the cost of my daily vice.
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I'm glad you said 'had' at least.

Soda is poison.

I'll enjoy a little once or twice a month with a kick ass pasta dish though. I was a chubby little boy in elementary school/junior high. Once I switched to exclusively water I thinned out fast.
 
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I yo yo between coffee and diet soda though as I’ve gotten older it skus more towards coffee.

Every now and again, I’ll have a regular coke on ice. Nothing hits quite as well as that:
 
chop2chip said:
I yo yo between coffee and diet soda though as I’ve gotten older it skus more towards coffee.

Every now and again, I’ll have a regular coke on ice. Nothing hits quite as well as that:
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Penne alla vodka with grilled chicken and glass bottle coke is the tits.
 
msstate7 said:
Let me tell you what goes with that pizza better than a soda - beer. Cold draft beer, pizza, and watching my teams blow it over-and-over is the absolute best.
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Indeed. Don’t drink many anymore but if someone throws out mellow mushroom and a blue moon I’m down
 
msstate7 said:
Let me tell you what goes with that pizza better than a soda - beer. Cold draft beer, pizza, and watching my teams blow it over-and-over is the absolute best.
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I mostly agree nothing hits like a crisp pilsner and beer. Especially if you're grabbing a more artisinal slice.

But there's something special with Orange Soda and beer. I don't know what it is, must be nostalgia but pepperoni pizza and Orange Soda is ****ing slamming.
 
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