Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trade (and Tariffs)

xkcd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 274 posts

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#161

Post by jandrewrogers »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #121
kennywinker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s reasonable to want to bring back american manufacturing. But the random, temper-tantrum, market-manipulation tariffs are not going to do that. America isn’t going to all of a sudden produce tonnes and tonnes of xmas decorations every year just because of a 50% tariff on all chinese goods that may or may not be around in 6 months. All that’s going to happen is xmas decorations are going to be more expensive. An a…

An actual plan would look like the IIJA, IRA, CHIPS Act -- what Biden was doing, but act larger scale. The problem with globalization is not that free trade failed to create a surplus, it's that 150% of the surplus went to capital and -50% went to labor, which can and should be fixed with tax and spend. Instead, of course, we didn't tax capital and we spent the money on stupid wars. That said, good industrial policy…

An important point is that "capital" is essentially just another way of saying "investment". Investment is what creates opportunities and demand for labor. Strong demand for labor increases wages e.g. construction wages going through the roof because of data center investment.

If you disincentivize investment, economic surplus tends to shift toward rent-seeking behavior which creates relatively little labor demand. Many economies in Europe are poster children for this phenomenon. Ideally you want an economy that strongly incentives investment over rent-seeking.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#162

Post by sethammons »

fugigigjfn wrote: post #134
DoctorOetker wrote: post #115

this ignores evolution theory: the cells in the leg, arm, brain, etc. share the exact same genome variation, so selection pressure rewards coherent action in the interest of the individual organism. thats not true for different players in some level-or-not playing field

That’s true and entirely irrelevant to the actual dynamics of the metaphor. But I’m glad you had a chance to feel like a clever little boy

Second sentence unneeded.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#163

Post by kasey_junk »

edgyquant wrote: post #153
peezd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[...wanted to bring your dad's factory job back, he'd specifically target whatever industry he was working in AND ideally spend the tariff money boosting that industry.] Which was more or less the intent of the CHIPS and Science Act for the semiconductors industry.

The chips act used tax dollars and subsidies to incentivize companies to build here. This and tariffs on semis are not much different the only difference is with a tariff you only pay the tax when you buy imported goods

Tariffs are much more regressive than our normal tax policy. Which is probably the reason this administration prefers them.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#164

Post by kasey_junk »

edgyquant wrote: post #152
epolanski wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole trade deficit argument to be beyond stupid. 1. Sending machinery, food, equipment in exchange of pieces of paper with national heroes printed on them should make you think who's benefitting really from the deficit 2. This is the 21st century, you can't ignore services. How many Office and Adobe licenses, credit card transactions, Netflix subscriptions, Hollywood movies and shows, advertisement space…

Services can’t fight a war or feed you. A nation that wishes to be a real power must be able to guarantee it can feed and protect its people.

America can feed every person in the country easily, we import luxury goods cause we like coffee and out of season vegetables not because we’ve lost the production capability. If anything we are over subsidizing calories.

We also have enough nukes to glass the surface of the planet, enough firearms for every man woman and child to dual would them and 7x the rest of the worlds military.

The US’s people don’t need protection from other nations we need protection from each other.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#165

Post by cma256 »

This is hilarious and I agree.

I think an under-appreciated aspect of all this is the complete schadenfreude from everyone. The story goes tariffs only hurt yourself but then we see retaliatory tariffs in response. "Oh yeah I'm going to cut off my leg to show you whose boss!" Very funny.

And then you have people predisposed to higher-taxes who are contorting themselves over the economic cost of this tax while supporting significantly more economically destructive tax policies. Very funny.

And, of course, the opposite. Republicans in my state are campaigning on lowering taxes and inflation while also defending tariffs! Very funny.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#166

Post by tim333 »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #135
dvh wrote: post #112

Alt text: "You legs may have a comparative advantage at running, but we arms have a competitive advantage at swinging hammers, so unless you accept that we're the dominant limbs and stop hogging the oxygen, that running advantage won't be around for long."

Ricardo's comparative advantage result is contingent on the assumption that capital is not mobile across borders. This was a good assumption in 1817. Is it a good assumption today? Furthermore, he's very up front about this in On the Principles , and from this information you can calculate the exact number of people who read the damn thing between the person repeating the talking point and the person originating the…

I don't know it makes much difference. People could walk from country to country in Europe back then and still can, likewise you could move money and equipment and still can.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#167

Post by triceratops »

epolanski wrote: post #147
smallmancontrov wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, bringing the price of 50" 4k TVs down to $300 does not make up for lost jobs. That's an easy choice, which is why it was never presented to the American worker but rather foisted upon us by shareholders in pursuit of profit and a government content to look the other way.

1. For the n-th time: manufacturing jobs are being lost to automation. Globally, not just in America. This is true in Asia as well. Manufacturing is facing the same fate of agriculture: machines and robots will keep displacing people. Nothing is going to stop it. 2. There is no such world where we'll choose to do things less efficiently to artificially save few jobs. And it's not about your TV being 100$ more expensi…

Everything you said is objectively true, except for one thing.

> a company's duty is towards shareholders first, workers second.

This is just like, an opinion, man. There's no reason a company has to be like that.

It just benefits company management to act like it's an objective truth because their pay is stock-based.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#168

Post by anjel »

epolanski wrote: post #147
smallmancontrov wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, bringing the price of 50" 4k TVs down to $300 does not make up for lost jobs. That's an easy choice, which is why it was never presented to the American worker but rather foisted upon us by shareholders in pursuit of profit and a government content to look the other way.

1. For the n-th time: manufacturing jobs are being lost to automation. Globally, not just in America. This is true in Asia as well. Manufacturing is facing the same fate of agriculture: machines and robots will keep displacing people. Nothing is going to stop it. 2. There is no such world where we'll choose to do things less efficiently to artificially save few jobs. And it's not about your TV being 100$ more expensi…

Good thing the birth rate is depressed then

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#169

Post by tim333 »

Hammershaft wrote: post #137
catigula wrote: post #103

Expert economists working in both the Biden and Trump administration support tariffs. The difference is the dumb way Trump is doing them and a smarter way of doing them. Obviously, this comic completely misses that nuance and promotes a pseudoscientific idea that tariffs are somehow bad.

Economists universally think tariffs are dumb policy. https://kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/steel-and-aluminum-tarif... Literally 100% of the 50 expert economists polled by the Kent Clark Center think tariffs overall make Americans worse off. Nobody in politics can say this simple truth because the rust belt states are critical swing states.

It depends on the details though. That survey was just on a one sentence "new US tariffs on steel and aluminum will improve Americans’ welfare" question. They can have a place if say you want to maintain manufacturing for military strategic reasons.

Re: Trade (and Tariffs)

#170

Post by bsimpson »

kemayo wrote: post #25

The context here is that president Trump has an interesting view of trade deficits / surpluses. Specifically, he frequently cites cases where the US has a trade deficit with another country -- where the US is spending more in that country than that country is in the US -- as if that country is "taking money" from the US. This is a bit peculiar, because it ignores the whole "the money we are spending is being exchange…

Economically, it's a problem long-term. Dollars only have value if you can buy things with them. Japan, China, Saudi Arabia - countries we've had trade deficits with - have been buying our business, infrastructure, and real estate.

Not defending tariffs, but there's a reason people care about trade deficits.

Post reply on HN