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Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

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Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#101

Post by wraaath »

DarknessFalls wrote: post #50
tombert wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how open they've been about their clear conflicts of interest (Trump launching a cryptocurrency on day 1 of his presidency, being in charge of a publicly traded company that he's made no effort to remove himself from, and the Diablo cheater being in charge of a department that gets to determine "efficiency" while also bidding on government contracts), I think we should really consider the possibility that…

Plan for the tariffs to reverse course once enough political pressure mounts. Calls for say, three months out.

calls for 3 months out only make sense once the stock price is decimated, and there's no certainty that prices will recover given the bumbling antics of this administration.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#102

Post by Auracle »

jmyeet wrote: post #71
paradox242 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of military and economic power wielded by the US compared to our nearest competitor, we are one of the most benign great powers in history, which is saying a lot about considering the harm that we have caused. Calling the US "the real evil empire" is puzzling when we have still have the regimes in Russia, China and North Korea still at large.

Benign? Native American genocide, the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, segregation, Japanese interment, suplying drug cartels with weapons and money, the havoc that's caused in virtually every Central and South American country, the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons against a foe (twice, and against civilian population centers no less), Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, all the CIA-backed coups and re…

Native American genocide - the same thing happened everywhere, for all of history, except we at least gave them reservations instead of killing literally everyone. The transatlantic slave trade - one country among many involved. Chattel slavery - also the country that fought itself to end it.

I could easily go on.

You're looking at the world with very..uh, anti red white and blue glasses.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#103

Post by hello_computer »

paradox242 wrote: post #45
jmyeet wrote: post #21

There are two silver linings to all this: 1. The evisceration of American soft power will really diminish the direct and indirect harm the US intentionally and unintentionally causes. Just look at China, South Korea and Japan deciding to respond to tariffs together [1]. That is an absolutely astonishing event given fairly recent history. Future retellings of history will correct portray the US as the actual Evil Empi…

Given the amount of military and economic power wielded by the US compared to our nearest competitor, we are one of the most benign great powers in history, which is saying a lot about considering the harm that we have caused. Calling the US "the real evil empire" is puzzling when we have still have the regimes in Russia, China and North Korea still at large.

[flagged]

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#104

Post by unsnap_biceps »

lostlogin wrote: post #78
adamredwoods wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's r/QuiverQuantitative. follows trades and puts by members of congress. MJ Greene bought stock in Dollar General.

I’m not in the US, what could this mean?

Dollar stores are the stores that sell the absolute cheapest versions of products. Usually low to very low quality, but when you're tight on money, it's where you go. If we enter a recession or depression, those type of cheap stores are going to get a lot more shoppers as folks try to tighten their belts.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#105

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

foxglacier wrote: post #80

Can anyone explain the reversal of positions on free trade between left and right since the 2000s? Back then, the biggest bogeyman of leftists was globalization and they would protest against free trade agreements and wanted to boycott imports from poor countries because it was exploiting workers there and taking jobs from poor people in rich countries. At the same time rightists loved free trade because it was good…

I don't think the positions have reversed as much as you're thinking. Trump began this round of trade wars with a series of indefensible attacks on free trade with Canada, which is clearly good for American workers and has never been unpopular in the US. If Trump had done everything else he's doing here, but used a sensible formula and avoided pointlessly antagonizing Canada, you would see significant crossover support from the left.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#106

Post by anal_reactor »

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #61

Could it be that Trump's main goal is to stay in power? I mean not only for the next 3 years. But beyond. If we look at his actions from this angle, could they make sense?

Step 1: manufacture a crisis

Step 2: become an emergency dictator "for the duration of the crisis"

Step 3: make sure the crisis never goes away, but it's not so bad that people would revolt

It's basically dictatorship 101. In this case the US happens to be the center of global economy, so a crisis in the US also causes a crisis elsewhere, but that's an irrelevant side effect. The only question is whether Americans will realize what's going on before it's too late.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#107

Post by kowabungalow »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #77
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #61

Could it be that Trump's main goal is to stay in power? I mean not only for the next 3 years. But beyond. If we look at his actions from this angle, could they make sense?

No? The tariffs aren't popular with anyone, have already produced multiple defections from his own party in Congress, and severely undercut the rationale business and financial leaders had for supporting him in 2024. His co-consul Musk, who normally spares no effort to hype up Trump's decisions, has spent the past few days carefully avoiding even indirect acknowledgement of the tariffs. It's really hard to see how th…

A bad leader and a dictator are kind of the same. They want things to get so bad that their personal relationship with their tiny number of remaining allies and still profitable ventures look so essential in the short term that they don't have to suppress talk of jumping the J-curve with anything but rational fear of starving.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#109

Post by tzs »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #77
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #61

Could it be that Trump's main goal is to stay in power? I mean not only for the next 3 years. But beyond. If we look at his actions from this angle, could they make sense?

No? The tariffs aren't popular with anyone, have already produced multiple defections from his own party in Congress, and severely undercut the rationale business and financial leaders had for supporting him in 2024. His co-consul Musk, who normally spares no effort to hype up Trump's decisions, has spent the past few days carefully avoiding even indirect acknowledgement of the tariffs. It's really hard to see how th…

Even Ted Cruz criticized them. When I read that I had to check to make sure it wasn't April 1 and that I wasn't reading The Onion.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#110

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

abraxas wrote: post #94
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? The tariffs aren't popular with anyone, have already produced multiple defections from his own party in Congress, and severely undercut the rationale business and financial leaders had for supporting him in 2024. His co-consul Musk, who normally spares no effort to hype up Trump's decisions, has spent the past few days carefully avoiding even indirect acknowledgement of the tariffs. It's really hard to see how th…

At this point he gives no fucks about what anyone thinks because the plan is to consolidate the oligarchic power to its maximum, russia style. Winning the hearts and minds is not and never was a part of his plan. And the sad thing is that they will probably succeed. I have no idea why you Americans are so naive about someone who staged a putsch to give up power voluntarily now that he's got it. You will be a russia s…

I'm just not sure what people mean when they talk about "consolidating power" as something distinct from convincing people that you should have lots of power. "Russia style" consolidation of power under Putin involved quite a lot of winning hearts and minds. Rather than inducing a recession, for example, Putin doubled the Russian GDP over his first 4 years.

I'm not naive about the fact that Trump would like to stay in office after 2028 (he doesn't exactly keep it a secret), but the desire doesn't make him any good at it.

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