Protectionism

Hawk said:
I'm not interested in reducing the deficit.

I am interested in the health of individual, poor-performing (traditionally job rich) private industrial sectors.
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I'll give you a little example I have some familiarity with. In the 1980s Reagan slapped tariffs on motorcycles. In some sense this was successful. Harley Davidson survived. It probably would not have survived without the tariffs.

The cost per job saved (and I know this because I did the study) was several hundred thousand per job. Who paid for it. Buyers of motorcycles. Now I think the folks who work at Harley Davidson are fine patriotic Americans. But so are the folks who ride motorcycles.

Just as the folks who make steel and aluminum in this country are fine patriotic Americans. And I'm confident when the numbers are crunched, the fine patriotic Americans who buy cars, soda cans, etc etc will pay quite a high price for those steel and aluminum jobs.
 
Hawk said:
Look at how they've aggressively and expressly manipulated them from ~2012-present.
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Anyhow. I should check the data more often. Japan's savings rate is quite a bit lower than it used to be. Aging population and all that.
 
nsacpi said:
I'll give you a little example I have some familiarity with. In the 1980s Reagan slapped tariffs on motorcycles. In some sense this was successful. Harley Davidson survived. It probably would not have survived without the tariffs.

The cost per job saved (and I know this because I did the study) was several hundred thousand per job. Who paid for it. Buyers of motorcycles. Now I think the folks who work at Harley Davidson are fine patriotic Americans. But so are the folks who ride motorcycles.

Just as the folks who make steel and aluminum in this country are fine patriotic Americans. And I'm confident when the numbers are crunched, the fine patriotic Americans who buy cars, soda cans, etc etc will pay quite a high price for those steel and aluminum jobs.
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Yes, the tariff 'saved' Harley, although it's worth mentioning that the company probably deserved to die because it didn't innovate and it didn't offer a product that remotely compared with what the Japanese were offering. This particular case (steel) is circumstantially different, given the lengths the Chinese have gone to game the market.

That being said, the "C" component of your upthread GDP macro shouldn't be neglected here. Increased C has an intrinsic link to healthy GDP growth.

Maybe it's a price worth paying all the way around.
 
“We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson, on bourbon and on blue jeans — Levis,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German television.

Bring it Juncker.

I'll be waiting on that French bourbon or German-made Harley.

Funny how the Japanese make excellent motorcycles, excellent bourbon, and the best denim in the world.
 
This would be a swell time to make good on that "special relationship" with T-May and shut Germania up (if we're being honest about what the EU actually is).
 
Hawk said:
This would be a swell time to make good on that "special relationship" with T-May and shut Germania up (if we're being honest about what the EU actually is).
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Neither here nor there, but I remember you recently pooh-poohing Perfidious Albion as a trade partner and ally. Yesterday's news, they were, along with said relationship.
 
Julio3000 said:
Neither here nor there, but I remember you recently pooh-poohing Perfidious Albion as a trade partner and ally. Yesterday's news, they were, along with said relationship.
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That wouldn't have been me. I'm an anglophile through and through.

I've groused about May's politics (especially her compulsion to go out of her way to shaft DJT) but I think that's everybody.
 
But yes, do think the special relationship is on major ice right now.

Which is a shame, because both leaders could use a reach around (May is fending off Tony Blair ffs) the variety of which only the other can offer.
 
nsacpi said:
There is a paradox related to competition. Each of us would like to live a comfortable life working in a niche free of competition. If an economy was structured that way there would be maybe less stress. But almost surely it would be less wealthy than one where we each had to be continually on our toes because of competition.
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Less wealthy, but couldn't it also move some workers from the service industry to the better paying manufacturing industry? I am talking about full on protectionism, not the targeted tariffs we are likely to see.
 
Hawk said:
Yes, the tariff 'saved' Harley, although it's worth mentioning that the company probably deserved to die because it didn't innovate and it didn't offer a product that remotely compared with what the Japanese were offering. This particular case (steel) is circumstantially different, given the lengths the Chinese have gone to game the market.

That being said, the "C" component of your upthread GDP macro shouldn't be neglected here. Increased C has an intrinsic link to healthy GDP growth.

Maybe it's a price worth paying all the way around.
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Couldn't the innovation sword cut both ways though? We obviously won't create much innovation in any sector that is completely eliminated by foreign competition, so a short term reduction in wealth could prove beneficial in the long run by salvaging an industry that becomes successful down the road.
 
Jaw said:
Couldn't the innovation sword cut both ways though? We obviously won't create much innovation in any sector that is completely eliminated by foreign competition, so a short term reduction in wealth could prove beneficial in the long run by salvaging an industry that becomes successful down the road.
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in theory it could cut both ways...in reality countries that practice a heavy dose of protectionisism grow more slowly
 
I feel like we’re post-post macroeconomics when it comes to the domestic economy as it relates to the international economy.
 
Jaw said:
Couldn't the innovation sword cut both ways though? We obviously won't create much innovation in any sector that is completely eliminated by foreign competition, so a short term reduction in wealth could prove beneficial in the long run by salvaging an industry that becomes successful down the road.
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I guess the question becomes: would it be more useful to reapportion that wealth to another sector (or sub-sector) instead of prospecting? When do you cut bait?

I don’t know that there is a hard rule. The motorcycle tariff had little to do with motorcycles and everything to do with cars. We won a small battle with the crotch rockets, but man did we lose the war.
 
Hawk said:
I feel like we’re post-post macroeconomics when it comes to the domestic economy as it relates to the international economy.
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we are ignoring the macroenomics at our own peril...it will come back to bite us...you can't wish away the basic laws of economis
 
What are we supposed to do as a nation when other nations impose tariffs on our goods?
 
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