Economics Thread

acesfull86 said:
If this was the first time this was ever tried, then maybe, but this idea has been around as long as there have been nations and markets to trade. Don’t buy into the thethe theory that any data observed before March 2020 is somehow invalidated because he wishes it to be so.
Click to expand...
We know that the move to free trade led to the death of the manufacturing industry and lots of IP theft by China. It’s not unreasonable to think reversing course would reverse results.

It will undoubtedly cost some service industry jobs, just as the move to free trade created service industry jobs. A trade of service industry jobs for manufacturing and industrial jobs is one I’m happy to make, from an economic and a national security point of view. China not owning the rights to produce shoddy clones of shoddy imitations of once great products is just icing on the cake.
 
Jaw said:
We know that the move to free trade led to the death of the manufacturing industry and lots of IP theft by China. It’s not unreasonable to think reversing course would reverse results.

It will undoubtedly cost some service industry jobs, just as the move to free trade created service industry jobs. A trade of service industry jobs for manufacturing and industrial jobs is one I’m happy to make, from an economic and a national security point of view. China not owning the rights to produce shoddy clones of shoddy imitations of once great products is just icing on the cake.
Click to expand...
I dunno man, the ripples upstream from killing swaths of the service industry feel brutal. How much more production must we have to replace the mid-level jobs in the retail industry? Even if we went job-for-job or dollar-for-dollar on GDP from Service to Manufacturing, there would be a massive gap in the middle as it doesn’t just take two people to handle twice the volume in many of these roles. Attrition will still happen gradually over time on those roles, but the government putting in a mechanism that forces it just leads to a shrinking of opportunity. The District Manager of your local Bed, Bath and Beyond is not going to be aided in any way by finding a factory floor job.
 
A lot of our economic discontents (and some of those discontents I don't share) are driven by multiple thangs: technological change, international trade and reduced competition through failure to enforce antitrust laws. The first two (technological change and international trade) bring substantial benefits in addition to the downside of losing some manufacturing jobs. As a rough proposition the benefits far exceed the downsides and we should not throw sand into those gears. Antitrust enforcement, however, brings benefits without downside. The politics are difficult, however, because big powerful corporations increasingly have their way in our political system, to the detriment of the average consumer.

It seems obvious which one we should be targeting to help the economy be more efficient.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mqt
Jaw said:
We know that the move to free trade led to the death of the manufacturing industry and lots of IP theft by China. It’s not unreasonable to think reversing course would reverse results.

It will undoubtedly cost some service industry jobs, just as the move to free trade created service industry jobs. A trade of service industry jobs for manufacturing and industrial jobs is one I’m happy to make, from an economic and a national security point of view. China not owning the rights to produce shoddy clones of shoddy imitations of once great products is just icing on the cake.
Click to expand...
I don’t agree with the premise that free trade lead to the “death” of manufacturing in America, but even if that were true, what’s the evidence that installing tariffs will lead to a simple shift of service industry jobs for industrial jobs? That ignores a host of other consequences that need to be in the calculation. And what’s the rationale for tariffing Costa Rican bananas (for example) if the goal is to bring back manufacturing and stop Chinese IP theft?
 
https://www.reuters.com/legal/gover...ers-that-received-chips-act-funds-2025-08-19/

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the country, two sources said.

Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel (INTC.O), in exchange for cash grants, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron (MU.O), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW), and Samsung (005930.KS). Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that Lutnick was working on a deal with Intel to take a 10% government stake. "The president wants to put America's needs first, both from a national security and economic perspective, and it's a creative idea that has never been done before," she told reporters.

—————

I hate tariffs, but I reallllyyy hate this
 
acesfull86 said:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/gover...ers-that-received-chips-act-funds-2025-08-19/

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the country, two sources said.

Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel (INTC.O), in exchange for cash grants, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron (MU.O), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW), and Samsung (005930.KS). Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that Lutnick was working on a deal with Intel to take a 10% government stake. "The president wants to put America's needs first, both from a national security and economic perspective, and it's a creative idea that has never been done before," she told reporters.

—————

I hate tariffs, but I reallllyyy hate this
Click to expand...
Setting the stage for president AOC to seize the means of production of other companies

Nobody could have moved the right to socialism faster than Trump has
 
acesfull86 said:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/gover...ers-that-received-chips-act-funds-2025-08-19/

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the country, two sources said.

Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel (INTC.O), in exchange for cash grants, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron (MU.O), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW), and Samsung (005930.KS). Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that Lutnick was working on a deal with Intel to take a 10% government stake. "The president wants to put America's needs first, both from a national security and economic perspective, and it's a creative idea that has never been done before," she told reporters.

—————

I hate tariffs, but I reallllyyy hate this
Click to expand...
I can squint and see reasons to enforce some sort of revenue sharing agreement with a firm if we’re bailing them out like we did with the auto industry (we simply shouldn’t bail companies out to begin with but alas) but if the idea is to drive growth and employment, this is a brain-dead decision before you even get into the fact that this is attaching it to previous legislation that’s already in effect.
 
sturg33 said:
Setting the stage for president AOC to seize the means of production of other companies

Nobody could have moved the right to socialism faster than Trump has
Click to expand...
I’m once again unsure why AOC even needs to be brought into the conversation here. The Trump Admin is just openly signaling their intent to do the exact things you’re warning of. This isn’t some broad suggestion that could be used by socialists, it’s just like explicitly the things you’d warn of socialists doing.
 
mqt said:
I’m once again unsure why AOC even needs to be brought into the conversation here. The Trump Admin is just openly signaling their intent to do the exact things you’re warning of. This isn’t some broad suggestion that could be used by socialists, it’s just like explicitly the things you’d warn of socialists doing.
Click to expand...
Correct. But the left will do it much more and much bigger
 
sturg33 said:
Correct. But the left will do it much more and much bigger
Click to expand...
And ideally it gets through to those Trump voters who can still be reached and haven’t just given in to the party’s leftward lurch on economic issues. The idea that Trump can make these sort of moves and it’s cheered on by so-called republicans is truly insane.
 
sturg33 said:
stupid Sony leaving all those profits on the table for years
Click to expand...
It was just like the iPhone, it was a way to get you to buy into their system.

Their games, their accessories etc.. the phones the cheap part. It’s all the other stuff that’s needed thats the margin maker
 
AI is in both a bubble and it’s the transformative technology of our lifetime. Investors pouring trillions into those assets is the intersection of both.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top