131–140 of 357 posts
I am not sure what stance to take on the tariffs, but I'm pretty sure manufacturing will feel the cost hike WAYYYY more than educators. Schools probably buy, at max, tens of thousands of dollars worth. Manufacturing buys millions of dollars. These are hyperbolic sentiments.
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I believe nobody should have tariffs. Understanding that is never going to happen, it should at least be a starting ppoint
That will work as soon as we have a single currency. The EU is a really good example here of how a single currency puts everyone on the same economic accounting basis and so eliminates the ability of a country to 'fudge' the numbers through either internal subsidies or currency manipulation. The reason you need a single currency is that if you're going to sell barrels of wheat from country X to country Y, and country…
In general, freely floating currencies fix all problems you mention.
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People buying products subject to tariffs (or products made with materials subject to tariffs) pay the majority of the tariff. So they do cost the public. In a functioning market, local suppliers are likely to raise prices in response to the tariffs, as they face less competition.
I don't know anything about economy, so this is a question not.. a counter, but: > In a functioning market, local suppliers are likely to raise prices in response to the tariffs, as they face less competition. Is that entirely bad? The whole "US Made!" tagline of old stopped becoming possible because we couldn't charge wages low enough to compete with foreign dollars or foreign slave wages. Raising the cost of X item…
Not exactly. For starters being able to buy products for cheap is generally good for consumers. They have more money left over to buy other things...
Secondly, the U.S. have actively fought to keep wages low in developing nations. For example: https://www.thenation.com/article/wikileaks-haiti-let-them-l... It's easy to cry about low wages though and how that "hurts" American manufacturers. So here's the thought experiment, all workers on the planet now make at least U.S. federal minimum wage. We can now compete with Haitians for underwear manufacturing. Underwear now costs a lot more than it used to. That's not a win for consumers. And all those minimum wage underwear manufacturing jobs aren't exactly a boon to the U.S. economy, go figure.
Thirdly, no nation is going to be able to produce every sort of product itself efficiently and cheaply. Trade is and always has been important. Other nations can do some things better and cheaper and it's not always labor costs that are the linchpin of being out-competed.
Fourth, people imagine peak manufacturing as some sort of ideal that we should be tripping over ourselves to get back to. It's a fools errand. No matter what a lot of manufacturing jobs are never coming back, ever. It's never going to be like it used to be, automation will have seen to that.
A lot of people don't understand the economy, but they have an idea how the economy should be. It's more terrifying than my mom offering to fix my computer, because moms know best.
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That will work as soon as we have a single currency. The EU is a really good example here of how a single currency puts everyone on the same economic accounting basis and so eliminates the ability of a country to 'fudge' the numbers through either internal subsidies or currency manipulation. The reason you need a single currency is that if you're going to sell barrels of wheat from country X to country Y, and country…
The inability to devalue currency is why greece cant recover. The Euro is idiotic.
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We're talking about food. You can't just put up a farm and start producing a few weeks later. Depending on the crop it can take years before a farm is productive. So no, new suppliers don't just 'spring up'. This sort of economic activity can lead to food shortages.
This is why the US subsidizes agriculture so heavily, so they can quickly spin up more farms
Out of all possible trade barriers, I think tariffs are generally the better option. The alternative is subsidies, quotas or "unofficial" barriers like product safety rules or other burry-you-in-bureaucracy setups. Tariffs bring in taxes (as opposed to costing the public) They're easier to understand. This one makes Chinese microwaves x% more expensive. It's clearer who is paying for it (consumers) and who benefits,…
People buying products subject to tariffs (or products made with materials subject to tariffs) pay the majority of the tariff. So they do cost the public. In a functioning market, local suppliers are likely to raise prices in response to the tariffs, as they face less competition.
What I'm arguing is that there are always winners and losers to trade barriers. Tariffs make it easy to understand and quantify this, because they are explicit and straightforward. They're flexible and leave less legacy or mess. It's always clear what they are trying to achieve, and how.
This is not an argument for trade barriers, it's an argument for how trade barriers should be implemented if they are implemented.
I really hate the new tariff. There is no need to be going into a trade war against not only traditionally our rivals but also our allies now too. The economy is recovering and I believe it may now be heading toward a recession. Here's the quick data on job created in raw number without the quality of the job to show that it is recovering since the 2008 recession: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2…
So why not free trade? I hate the idea of tariffs, but when your "allies" have had non reciprocal tariffs something needs to be done. I think all of this would go away if all tariffs against US products were removed
The only time the president mentioned lower tariffs was an offhand comment at the G7. All of his other positions imply he disagrees with you and thinks trade is bad.
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> There is no need to be going into a trade war against not only traditionally our rivals but also our allies now too. And yet other countries never seem to entertain the idea of both sides getting rid of all their tariffs, which is something Trump suggested at that G7 summit. Everyone goes nuts when the US suggests implementing tariffs against countries that already have tariffs against us. You gotta admit, the mess…
> Everyone goes nuts when the US suggests implementing tariffs against countries that already have tariffs against us. You gotta admit, the message seems to be that other countries are allowed to protect their domestic industry via tariffs and the US is just supposed to deal with it, don’t wanna start a trade war! You do know the US is already heavily protectionist and many tariffs are protections against the US's pr…
The USA became the world's largest evonomy with massive tariffs on basically all imports. Smoot Hawley Act anyone? Those were removed gradualy starting in the 1970's and lo and behold the trade deficit sky rocketted while the manufacturing economy plummeted.
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That will work as soon as we have a single currency. The EU is a really good example here of how a single currency puts everyone on the same economic accounting basis and so eliminates the ability of a country to 'fudge' the numbers through either internal subsidies or currency manipulation. The reason you need a single currency is that if you're going to sell barrels of wheat from country X to country Y, and country…
The inability to devalue currency is why greece cant recover. The Euro is idiotic.
A tariff is a way to adjust this economic cost externally which takes it out of the market's hands and put it into a political realm and one step removed from the actual economy that should be adjusting.