Economics Thread
- Thread starter sturg33
- Start date
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
The problem isn’t the tariffs, it’s that the mouthpiece for the tariffs doesn’t understand them and the free trade groupies aren’t honest about them.
Of course they increase prices. That’s the whole point. Ideally they increase prices enough that someone begins domestic production of the same or a competing product. Then the wages go from US workers to US workers instead of vacuuming US wealth straight into Asia.
Why should a transcontinental nation blessed with as many natural resources as any place on Earth and home to 350 million people have to pay another country to make anything while there are unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid people here?
The cries of “tariffs are bad” alongside “welfare is bad” are too ironic.
Of course they increase prices. That’s the whole point. Ideally they increase prices enough that someone begins domestic production of the same or a competing product. Then the wages go from US workers to US workers instead of vacuuming US wealth straight into Asia.
Why should a transcontinental nation blessed with as many natural resources as any place on Earth and home to 350 million people have to pay another country to make anything while there are unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid people here?
The cries of “tariffs are bad” alongside “welfare is bad” are too ironic.
acesfull86
Well-known member
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
A country like ours is one of the few that CAN practice autarky. No one has argued otherwise. The question is the wisdom of such a policy. It probably would not merely involve the use of the "unemployed, underemployed and underpaid." We have a low unemployment rate. There is no army of the "underemployed, unemployed, underpaid" to be used to make toasters, sneakers and other such thangs. To make more such thangs we have to transfer workers and resources that are currently fully employed.
msstate7
Well-known member
I'm a little confused - I thought we wanted less government
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Since 1970 (that would be a 55 year period) the unemployment rate has been below 3.5% for a grand total of one month. We may wish that an army of unemployed can be put to work making toasters. But there are structural reasons why the economy can't operate with an unemployment rate below 3.5% on a sustainable basis. Changing the rules of trade won't change that reality. In fact, insulating large parts of the economy from international competition might push up that structural lower bound on the unemployment rate.
It is worth remembering that when an industry becomes more monopolistic (whether due to reduction of international competition or other reasons) it produces less and charges more. There is a welfare loss and a loss of economic activity. Competition is a very good thang for this and other reasons.
It is worth remembering that when an industry becomes more monopolistic (whether due to reduction of international competition or other reasons) it produces less and charges more. There is a welfare loss and a loss of economic activity. Competition is a very good thang for this and other reasons.
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chop2chip
Well-known member
acesfull86
Well-known member
Shocked I tell ya
chop2chip
Well-known member
When we get a glowing CPI report next month because Trump scared all the monkeys behind the keyboards that they’ll lose their jobs if they make him look bad, ill remember this one.
chop2chip
Well-known member
The words this guy uses are the classic reasons why protectionism fails as a universal policy. He doesn’t want Trump to stop tariffing his competitors (finished good knife manufacturers). He wants Trump to stop tariffing machinery.
Problem is the finished goods machinery guys also don’t want Trump to stop tariffing their competitors. They just want Trump to stop tariffing raw material imports.
US steel workers don’t want Trump to stop tariffing their competitors. They want those tariffs to be higher so their union has more leverage to negotiate for higher wages.
Bottom line - there’s no magic bean that will grow a magical economy that has onshored all manufacturing with no inflation (and lets us collect hundreds of billions in tariffs). Maybe the Trump team should go back to the “your kids don’t need all those toys” messaging. At least it’s grounded in reality.
sturg33
I
If apple can make a call to the white house to get exceptions, why can't the Montana knife company?
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The U.S. economy, the strongest and most resilient in the world, ground to a halt within six months of Trump taking office. This development is not surprising at all to anyone paying attention to the economic policies he campaigned on. His own financial history is one of wealth destruction not creation. He had run companies into the ground. He was broke. Then he caught two big breaks. He was cast as the lead in a wildly successful reality tv show. And his creditors came to the conclusion he was too big to fail and gave him a degree of forbearance that very other people would be entitled to. His finances are still shaky. Of course he is greedy too. But sometimes there are multiple explanations for a certain kind of behavior.
It baffles me that anyone looking at his history and economic views would think he would be anything but a disaster for the economy and the country's finances.
It baffles me that anyone looking at his history and economic views would think he would be anything but a disaster for the economy and the country's finances.