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Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

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Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#41

Post by vannevar »

rayiner wrote: post #18
throw0101d wrote: post #15

That's from 2003. In a more recent interview in March 2025: > Asked about how tariffs will affect the economy, Buffett stated, "Tariffs are actually, we've had a lot of experience with them. They're an act of war, to some degree." > I asked, "How do you think tariffs will impact inflation?" > "Over time, they are a tax on goods. I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn't pay 'em!" he laughed. "And then what? You always have to…

> That's from 2003. Would you argue that the period between 2003 and 2025 have strengthened or weakened the case for free trade?

Worth noting that the deficit bottomed out around 2006, then improved throughout the Obama administration before leveling out. It declined again post-pandemic.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...

So something reversed the trend Buffett was seeing in 2003.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#42

Post by matthewdgreen »

margalabargala wrote: post #13
ein0p wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buffett's suggestion, while elegant, would require that Congress passes legislation on this, which there's zero percent chance that it would, in its present state.

The current state of the government is that Congress has tacitly ceded their power to the President. They are allowing him to do things that generally would not be permitted with out Congressional approval, because the majority is aligned with him anyway. An intelligent or competent leader who had the power currently enjoyed by the President would be able to implement the system suggested by Buffet, and it would like…

An intelligent or competent leader probably wouldn’t be in power in a situation like this. This is a situation that arises when the partisans have chosen blind allegiance to a cult of personality over the kind of messy politics you get when you have to try to win the allegiance of a party by proposing policy that a majority can get behind.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#43

Post by matthewdgreen »

leereeves wrote: post #12
ein0p wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buffett's suggestion, while elegant, would require that Congress passes legislation on this, which there's zero percent chance that it would, in its present state.

I fear that Congress will be unable to pass anything that isn't a budget resolution for the foreseeable future. The filibuster rule requires bipartisan agreement to implement any proposed policy, and neither party wants to give an administration from the other party any kind of win. Perversely, the better the idea, the less likely it is to pass Congress. Better idea -> it will be successful -> it will be popular -> t…

I see the current situation as essentially the best ad for “Congress” (however slow or ineffectual) that one could write.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#44

Post by hayst4ck »

throw0101d wrote: post #15

That's from 2003. In a more recent interview in March 2025: > Asked about how tariffs will affect the economy, Buffett stated, "Tariffs are actually, we've had a lot of experience with them. They're an act of war, to some degree." > I asked, "How do you think tariffs will impact inflation?" > "Over time, they are a tax on goods. I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn't pay 'em!" he laughed. "And then what? You always have to…

Blockades are an act of war.

How expensive does a tariff have to be before it is a de facto blockade?

I think that comparison is much more apt than it first appears.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#45

Post by fbn79 »

Any form of protectionism in the long run affects the efficiency of companies and the quality of products. Even Reagan understood this. The response of nations to US tariffs should be to try to eliminate even more tariffs towards other nations and create new free trade zones.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#46

Post by matthewdgreen »

api wrote: post #37

I don't agree with how it's being done -- it makes Biden's Afghanistan exit look well planned and executed -- but the trade stuff is one of the few areas where I have some overlap with MAGA. My preferred approach would be more careful, gradual, selective, and, well, well-executed, but it's very clear that blanket free trade with no standards and no reciprocity has hollowed out the country. I mean... if we are going t…

The Biden administration spent a lot of time and money trying to bring back manufacturing to US shores, including loads of funding in the IRA for industries like renewable energy and batteries and the CHIPS act for semiconductors. They also used tariffs to protect a number of US industries, but they did it intelligently and in a targeted manner.

Being “in favor of some trade restrictions and reindustrialization” does not mean you’re taking a MAGA position. It means you just haven’t been paying much attention to policy, and so you’re basing your ideas of the political options on superficial crap. The result of uninformed citizenry is stuff like what’s happening right now, with the markets going into free fall.

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#47

Post by rayiner »

twoodfin wrote: post #26
rayiner wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's from 2003. Would you argue that the period between 2003 and 2025 have strengthened or weakened the case for free trade?

Strengthened. In the US this has happened: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 Meanwhile across the entire world this has happened: https://ourworldindata.org/history-of-poverty-data-appendix You can argue the growth of globalization & lowering of trade barriers were unrelated to this up-and-to-the-right, but it’s hard to argue they’re making things worse unless…

But the political climate during that time period—starting on the left and now going to the right—has been that the middle class is being hollowed out. Is your argument that the Bush/Obama regime (recall that the Bush administration developed the bank bailout plan that Obama implemented) was basically correct? All the economy required was a little more regulation via Dodd Frank and the CFPB?

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#48

Post by Calwestjobs »

What buffet said is exactly what USA did to United Kingdom with brexit.

Which companies "enabled it". Which companies got fined for brexit? Facebook AND Cambridge Analytica did and did.

Look what for example Cargill UK "assets" were before brexit and what they are now.

Yes sounds like conspiracy theory, but point is most other comments here do not seem to understand that economic war is constant, permanent, global. and wars do need more then one party to be war. in economic war all participants are either attacking or they stop to exist. And USA IS attacker, because it still exists.

globalism means you plunder from longitude 0-10 then you plunder from longitude 10-20... until you are biting your own ass. or russia will stop you at longitude 28, because russia enslaved / robbed their own people so much that there is nothing to extract.

so do you want for USA to rob its own citizens or do you want USA to rob other parts of the world.

or we can globally change economic model and start being sustainable?

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#49

Post by kevinsync »

graemep wrote: post #36
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cambodians are, and they were just hit by a 49% tariff, one of the highest applied to anybody.

Yes, that is stupid. Why not apply that to the big economies that the GP comment said was 90% of the deficit. Exempt small low income countries - save a lot of people a lot of paid at little cost. On the other hand this is a bargaining tactic. I do not think these tariffs will last. > Instead, recall that President Trump views tariffs as generating negotiating leverage for making deals. It is easier to imagine that a…

My grasp of economics is tenuous at best, but wouldn't that just encourage small, low-income countries to become middlemen who import from the US due to the low tariff and immediately export to any country looking to reduce their local US tariff rate? And then after a short while I'd imagine the US would probably either slap a 90% tariff or just ban exports entirely to that middleman country?

Re: Buffett: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling the Nation Out from Under Us [pdf] (2003)

#50

Post by nabla9 »

hayst4ck wrote: post #44
throw0101d wrote: post #15

That's from 2003. In a more recent interview in March 2025: > Asked about how tariffs will affect the economy, Buffett stated, "Tariffs are actually, we've had a lot of experience with them. They're an act of war, to some degree." > I asked, "How do you think tariffs will impact inflation?" > "Over time, they are a tax on goods. I mean, the Tooth Fairy doesn't pay 'em!" he laughed. "And then what? You always have to…

Blockades are an act of war. How expensive does a tariff have to be before it is a de facto blockade? I think that comparison is much more apt than it first appears.

No amount of tariff turns into de facto blockade.

blockade, embargo, sanction, tariff. Each are different and have different meaning.

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