Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of those "bad for everyone" decisions.
Care to explain your reason for thinking that?
White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
261–270 of 390 posts
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#262It's punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP, illegally subsidizing businesses to steal market share, and general national security by not outsourcing knowledge and infrastructure critical to national security to save a few bucks. It's easy to let someone push you back inch by inch instead of fighting back, but eventually you're on the edge of a cliff and have nowhere else to go. I'd take short…
This appears to be done for political reasons: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-was-angry...
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#263I guess my earlier comment was too long, so let me provide a shorter version: this action actively harms anyone attempting to design, prototype, and manufacture electronic devices in the US. There isn't a single component in the projects I'm currently working on which isn't impacted by this. My cost of goods just went up by 25% across the board today in an effort to help "protect" American businesses. I don't feel li…
More generally, as I understand it, the reason economic orthodoxy is against tariffs is because of "comparative advantage", and the idea that different countries could produce different goods or services more efficiently than others, not just more cheaply, due to subsidization or other distortionary interventions like that.
You could make an argument along those lines here, and that would be valid, but the superficial observation that your prices went up isn't really enough to say either way.
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha, would it be any worse than the congress we have now? I mean a round-robin lottery would probably have a better approval than the dismal 15% congress has now.
Remember, that's the approval rating of Congress as a whole, including members who are of the opposite party. Individual Congresspersons enjoy a much higher and more reasonable approval rating, especially among their constituents.
Logistically, I think the USA is just a mismanaged nightmare, the government is dysfunctional because it's too big and it could use a modernized Constitution a lot has changed since 1700s
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#265It's punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP, illegally subsidizing businesses to steal market share, and general national security by not outsourcing knowledge and infrastructure critical to national security to save a few bucks. It's easy to let someone push you back inch by inch instead of fighting back, but eventually you're on the edge of a cliff and have nowhere else to go. I'd take short…
> punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP I feel like its more the other way round...the American IP system is overly expensive and outdated, and should be reformed instead. The repercussions of this are felt most heavily on domestic industries too.
It's like when someone loses their wallet, and their first instinct is to completely discount the possibility they just misplaced it, and jump straight to the conclusion that someone stole it.
Start at your only acceptable conclusion, and work backwards to construct a plausible scenario that you can parade around as the obvious culprit.
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whereas the US has always played fair in the global market and never used its dollar position, tarriffs, sanction, invasions etc for market advantage?
You're comparing apples and oranges. When has the US government stolen trade secrets from foreign companies and then bootstrapped new domestic companies to compete against them? China has surely done all the things you're accusing the US of, but they aren't being punished for that.
Britain took steps as extensive as banning skilled people from travelling to the USA.
All this is just historic and doesn't necessarily feed into what should be done in the present situation, but it is useful to note that this is a common path that developed countries have followed in the past:
- ignore/steal IP
- protect and subsidise domestic equivalents
- upon domestic industry being competitive, reciprocally lower tariffs
- once fully developed, lobby for free trade and strong IP protection
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#267Of course we don't have to make those two assumptions, but they're built into common arguments for protectionism.
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to explain your reason for thinking that?
It is actually quite self-explanatory: if an action that is intended to protect one party (US electronics manufacturers) at the expense of another party ends up instead harming the former, then by definition said action is good for no one.
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#269A family member who's been an electrical engineer for many decades made an interesting observation: the United States industrialized China. When labor got too expensive in the US, manufacturing moved overseas. Capital became available in China to build and build and build because they knew that American business wouldn't be able to resist the competitive pricing. I still remember overhearing my engineer family member…
That's how the U.S. supercharged China'a manufacturing while simultaneously destroying the USA's manufacturing. Also the U.S. companies never got the access to the Chinese market they sold their souls to get.
Re: White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods
#270I guess my earlier comment was too long, so let me provide a shorter version: this action actively harms anyone attempting to design, prototype, and manufacture electronic devices in the US. There isn't a single component in the projects I'm currently working on which isn't impacted by this. My cost of goods just went up by 25% across the board today in an effort to help "protect" American businesses. I don't feel li…
No decision is good for everyone. Unfortunately for you, this one isn’t