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New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

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Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#351

Post by [deleted] »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #305
elihu wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that bothers me about the whole free trade versus protectionism debate is that in any other context it's generally accepted that taxes harm the economy but that harm is offset by the services that government provides, and the argument is mostly over whether those government services are important enough to be worth the economic harm and whether there is a less harmful way to raise that revenue. However, we…

> Trade policies are considered good if they're good for the economy and bad if they're bad for the economy. are you talking about increasing GDP or some other meaning of "good for the economy"? what i see is people talking about tariffs as good for a certain sector's workers or bad for consumers or safeguarding US military capabilities or something like that.

[deleted]

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#352

Post by elihu »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #305
elihu wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that bothers me about the whole free trade versus protectionism debate is that in any other context it's generally accepted that taxes harm the economy but that harm is offset by the services that government provides, and the argument is mostly over whether those government services are important enough to be worth the economic harm and whether there is a less harmful way to raise that revenue. However, we…

> Trade policies are considered good if they're good for the economy and bad if they're bad for the economy. are you talking about increasing GDP or some other meaning of "good for the economy"? what i see is people talking about tariffs as good for a certain sector's workers or bad for consumers or safeguarding US military capabilities or something like that.

I don't mean anything specific by "good for the economy", I just mean good for general prosperity, on average. (I realize that trade policies are often have winners and losers, and reasonable people will disagree on what's "good for the economy" depending on what part of the economy they care most about.)

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#353

Post by echotango »

throwawayjava wrote: post #297
echotango wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>investing in your country >foreign direct investment >sheiks owning the sports teams and chineese businessman owning all the prime housing We're saying the same thing

> We're saying the same thing That's because you still haven't answered the original question: >>> Is a trade deficit important to not have? E.g., consider your examples: >sheiks owning the sports teams and chineese businessman owning all the prime housing Given that I'm not the type of person who buys sports teams and prime housing (of the sort purchased by Chinese businessmen), why should I care about that style of…

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Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#354

Post by king_phil »

Symbiote wrote: post #330
mikk14 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, frankly I don't think it's a disadvantage. It's difficult to move out from the equilibrium of countries mistrusting each other, but I think what you describe is actually an utopia. If we manage to destroy all tariffs and make countries lose parts of their production abilities, we'd make war unthinkable, which is a net good. The US would never start an all-out war because it would starve, and whomever specialize…

The European Union is an attempt at this utopia. There are no tariffs on food, steel or similar between the member states. All states subsidise food production, but not steel.

You did not mention that since the founding of the EU, there has not been a single war between member states. Compare that to european history and you see the most important thing about the EU. I can live with all the things there are rightfully to be criticized about the EU, in exchange for peace in continental europe.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#355

Post by king_phil »

echotango wrote: post #128
ChuckMcM wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And at the same time, the Euro is fantastic. It is just a question of your viewpoint.

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#356

Post by king_phil »

sumeonenew wrote: post #144
digitalzombie wrote: post #25

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…

Counterpoints to the article: > Some of the most compelling jobs to bring back to the US are the so-called “last screw” system integration operations. Somewhat. The system integration operations are tedious and human-labor intensive. Those operations could still move to other cheaper labored countries such as Vietnam, India, etc. And if the operations can be automated, these operations will be reshored. The point of…

I don't see how there is going to be a market built (we are talking about a five or ten year timespan here to build a semiconductor factory) around a trade barrier created by a tariff where nobody knows how long it will be in effect. Would you bet dozens of millions of dollars to create a production of already existing, cheaper produced products to supply a market created by tariffs? How easy would it for the next administration (or the current) to drop these tariffs? What about your investment then?

Which sane person would make such an investment?

Re: New US Tariffs are Anti-Maker and Will Encourage Offshoring

#357

Post by king_phil »

selectodude wrote: post #204
echotango wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trade deficit means that, on net, your trade partners end up with your currency and no goods to buy with it. So they start buying up assets in your country. Factories, companies, land, housing, bonds, etc. so by maintaining a trade deficit for so long, we have legally sold a large fraction of the assets in our country to foreign investors. (Foreign direct investment) How do you think Trump made his billions? Having…

A trade deficit means that, on net, you've sent a bunch of pieces of paper to a country and they have given you actual stuff in return. So then they give that money back to you by investing in your country. >Having Saudi Oil Sheiks own all the Soccer teams in England is the result of the UK trade deficit. More English soccer teams are owned by Americans than all the russians oligarchs and arab sheiks combined.

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