If you read your Noam Chomsky, you’ll learn that everything good that happens in a Republican administration is a time-deferred effect of brilliant Democrat policy and everything good that happens during a Democrat administration is a result of their brilliant policy.
It obviously follows that this must be brilliant Biden energy policy…
Or is it possibly part of Trump’s plan to increase carbon emissions to destroy us all?
Where’s an expert to explain this all to me?
Credit goes to Harris for losing, lol lol lol
I understand your point.
My point is that it seems most people who study economics (not trying to make an appeal to authority here), see tariffs as a tax on the people of the country imposing them, as well as something that almost always increases prices (inflation). I think that those are reasonable assumptions, and we should assume those things to be true until proven otherwise. Perhaps there is something within the a system that hasn’t been tried yet that can eliminate those downsides to tariffs, but the time to believe that is when there is proof.
You are correct that we don’t know for sure. Never has this exact set of variables been tried before. I’d say it would be smarter to go with the default assumptions on tariffs, compared to the alternative which has no support.
My stocks are up about $15K since Tuesday, so not all is bad economically.
It is easy to say that when hardly anything is made in the US anymore. Do the actions actually match the what they say? By that I mean do they buy the imported jeans that are $25 or do they stick to principles and buy $150 dollar US made jeans.
I like US made stuff too. For musical instruments, if it is made in the US I assume it is high quality. Most of my drumset is US or Canadian made (drums made by Drum Workshop from the US, Zildjian cymbals made in the US, Sabian cymbals made in Canada, I do have a very fine Turkish cymbal too, only a few pieces of hardware are not US made). However, I have bought all but a few cymbal stands used, and I’ve spent $2500 on my kit. It would be around $7000 to buy new. I can understand where people would drop their preference to buy US made when it comes time to open the wallet and US made means it costs 3X more.
What doesn’t get discussed is the uplift to domestic productivity, employment numbers and wages, however.
The argument in a vacuum would be like saying weight training is detrimental for health and specifically muscles because it causes damage, inflammation and acute, negative hormonal effects.
100% true.
But as we know, the bigger picture is that it potentiates growth and greater health, as long as necessary supporting variables are in line, or “dialed in” so to speak.
Tariffs are not dissimilar in the broader context of protectionist policy. What can be detrimental is hamstringing the “recovery” portion of the equation, and then attacking the stimulus itself becomes a bit dishonest.
I agree with the concept being true. It’s inefficient is the downside.
It makes sense to trade with people that are good at what they do, and do what we do well and trade goods with them. Doing things we are less efficient at when there is more efficient work we could be doing doesn’t make sense if we want to maximize available resources and efficiency.
When we become less efficient we have less resources to go around.
Why waste our time making textiles, when another country can do it for a quarter the cost? If we have nothing better to do, then sure, but I don’t buy that.
I just saw there’s a red area in Maine which flipped from what it was in 2020 and also 2016; also looks like a part of that area borders the ocean. Maybe a move intra-state?
The thing is our trade, specifically with China, is also our own manufacturing directive.
We don’t exist in an academic bubble. In reality the Chinese labor market is cheap labor that our corporations outsource to, and the Chinese Government taxes us for doing it, then our corporations sell their products back to us. Or Europe, or wherever.
Trump is proposing to penalize both the Chinese government as the middleman in the equation and labor exportation. This is what Trump tariffs attack. Not production itself.
It’s not a 1:1 issue but a very complex scenario of underlying economics propagating international trade theory and geopolitical forces. People sharing Economics 101 essays and talk points are missing the mark completely.
That was posted by the huuuge Trump said this, Trump said that poster above. LOL. (oops, your avatar looks just like the MN poster, sorry)
Likely a county with few migrant non-citizens, fewer people cashing out to leave the state and fewer Covid transplants fleeing Boston and New York.
I don’t think there’s any hope for this state without voter ID. They just always seem to come up with the votes, but we’ll see how this new development plays out.
Maine is shaping up for a potentially very contentious congressional race that may come down to ranked choice voting technicalities. It will be playing out for the next couple of weeks, probably.
It is my opinion that non-citizen migrants likely kept it from being a clean Theriault victory, but there are no shortage of Golden supporters here in Maine. I wouldn’t be surprised if the non-citizens in Lewiston alone were well above 2,000 votes.
As an aside, our local newspaper is covering “racist activity” at the Armory when someone objected to what appeared to be the translator actually filling out someone’s ballot. One person I know saw this with her own eyes.
Anyway, here are some ranked choice voting shenanigans that are bringing back memories of hanging chads.
The Final Maine-CD2 Results May Reveal a Potentially Unnecessary RCV Count - The Maine Wire
As I’ve said above, I don’t have enough faith in any gov’t longer term, and I believe in a divided Congress to check the President’s power.
Once sane immigration policy laws are passed, and Voter ID as well, and hopefully world tensions calm down because we don’t have weak, dumb, clown show leadership at the top, I am perfectly fine with 'da Dems re-taking one of the arms of gov’t.
@marine77 This David Pakman dude is a much slicker and a much more effective propagandist than Destiny. So here’s some good news for you, and hopefully it’s the beginning of a trend.
Packman is probably up there with the best opinion pundits on the left today, which doesn’t say much other than he can present the ideas while not seeming like a complete lunatic.
I’m not too surprised that he is actually able to begin grasping reality, even if he still lacks the self-awareness to understand the failures of his ideas and the rhetoric. I keep hearing these leftists complaining that they weren’t able to censor their opponents, who they believe are successfully lying to gullible Trump voters.
I think it’s funny that he mentioned Ring of Fire on his list of shows losing subscribers. I had no idea that show was still on. RFK Jr. was one of the founding contributors to Air America, which was a complete failure, and they still can’t figure it out.
And now he’s begging people to give him money after being wrong about nearly everything. It will take some effort to not find enjoyment in this kind of suffering.
Not really. The reason why US companies are using Chinese labor is because it’s cheaper, which from their perspective is more efficient. It’s cheaper even after the Chinese government taxes the output. It’s exactly what I said, and it’s one of the reasons US companies have continued to do well compared to most countries.
That simple economic principle has exploded with how connected the the world is today. We are leveraging cheap labor because it’s more efficient. We aren’t doing it because it’s less efficient. That wouldn’t make any sense
You’re a bigger man than I. No pun intended…lol.
Right, in part. Lifting damages muscle.
But bringing it all home lifts employment, wages and ultimately our economic strength on the producer side of the equation. And then we circle back to net gain conversations, which are largely ignored by surface level tariff drawback topics.
In theory I can agree. I don’t think it will play it that way. US companies that are already outsourcing to China, will likely do one of two things and in rare circumstances a third thing.
The first is decide that even with a tariff it’s still cheaper to keep manufacturing in China. That is probably true in most cases even with a 60% tariff.
The second is move to a different country that offers them manufacturing which is more efficient than the US. This will happen if we put 60% tariffs China.
The third is move production to the US. But I really don’t think this will happen if they are currently operating in China. They will move to Mexico because if they face a 10% tariff there its still way cheaper than operating in the US.
One thing the tariffs will likely do is secure the current manufacturing we already do. We may see current operations expand.
The policy reminds me of the Ludites. It sounds good to people, but companies care about the bottom line the most. They will move manufacturing back to the US when they can make more profit that way. And they won’t do it until that happens.
Remember, that despite the tariffs, US manufacturing went down under Trump. It’s really tough to make companies do things that cost them more.
Word is that this boys can pretend to be girls and it’s everyone’s duty and obligation to encourage this BS will be eradicated, squashed, STAT.
Sure, and then the tariff revenue begins to help offset our tax burden (recovery, in the weight training analogy) to a net benefit for all of us.
Sure. I mentioned India in passing in an earlier post, and momentum is already starting here. There’s a lot of opportunity cost involved, but the returns can be good too. Having competitive cheap labor markets taps supply and demand ultimately, in our favor. As one example. And this would be leverage, as discussed inline in an earlier post.
Tariffs are proposed for other countries too, just not at the same 60%. Same net benefit in theory if not in percentage. This also weakens Chinas economic position while potentially strengthening an ally (and making them more dependent on us too), and ties back in to the geopolitical environment mentioned earlier.
Manufacturing was climbing, and investments were made with production lagging, another economic principle to apply. Then Covid came and temporarily fucked everything everybody thought they knew.
Yeah. Trucks, machinery, raw materials, large batch steel & aluminum. Stuff like that.
As a general aside to the thread, I highly recommend reading ‘Confessions Of An Economic Hitman” by John Perkins. It’s an interesting display of how various economic policies can be manipulated for outcomes, but does not speak directly to Trumps tariff proposals.