Oh, goody. Isn't it great the Democrats prioritized keeping "the groups" and their donors happy? You know, instead of actually reorganizing around countering the existential threat they complained so loudly about?
> By now it’s well known that Trump desperately wants to proof his professor wrong
By now it it's well known that globalization is for a fantasy world that doesn't exist, and people should stop listening so much to economics professors. Trade barriers need to go up to re-orient things. Unfortunately, Trump is unlikely to do it competently.
A 10% tariff on China won’t stop globalization. Even an 100% tariff wouldn’t. American goods aren’t 10% more expensive, a lot of them are 10x more expensive.
Look for American made kitchen knives. You will be lucky to spend less than $2k on a block of Made in USA knives. Meanwhile you can get a pretty good set made in China for under $200.
If you wanted American companies to compete, you would need a 10x tariff to make that $200 knife set cost $2000.
The US has spent the last 35 structuring its economy under neoliberalism. Some people (rust belt) are worse off. Some are much better off, especially since they didn’t have to compensate the people who whose jobs were sold overseas for pennies on the dollar.
> It isn't quite the same thing. There is a difference between trying to empower historically marginalized groups, and trying to re-subjugate historically marginalized groups.
Not really. It's all language games.
This is just the mirror image of the liberal conceit they can magically change reality by forcing people to use different words or over-elevating some story (old or new) for ideological reasons.
The lesson from this is that it's all stupid, not just my-side's version, and it should stop.
> Let’s turn it around. How does keeping the Jones Act ensure a competitive shipbuilding industry in the US? We could easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on. But blocking competition just keeps the market uncompetitive.
Because the US can't "easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on." It has an ideological dysfunction that prevents that. Even if you could manage to get a program like that passed, there's a large chance it'd get cut in 10 years by some libertarian to pay for yet another tax cut.
> We have no problem with subsidizing farmers and roads so why not shipbuilders if it keeps our navy competitive?
That's only because of how the Constitution apportions senators and the electoral college. Farmers are spread out in a way that gives them disproportionate political power.
>Because the US can't "easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on." It has an ideological dysfunction that prevents that. Even if you could manage to get a program like that passed, there's a large chance it'd get cut in 10 years by some libertarian to pay for yet another tax cut.
I need to weigh in on this, I think. I don't know of many libertarians that would refuse to make an exception for strategic industries... you can't buy your ammunition from the enemy, even if their price is half of the domestic cost. And you can't even really be sure who your enemies will be when you find yourself desperately needing it.
If there was ever any objection to these subsidies and programs, I suggest that we might look at the neocons and neoliberals instead of the libertarians.
>That's only because of how the Constitution apportions senators and the electoral college. Farmers are spread out in a way that gives them disproportionate political power.
Well, about that... I sort of think maybe our food supply is also one of those strategic industries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
> Well, about that... I sort of think maybe our food supply is also one of those strategic industries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
It is, but our political system isn't wise enough to care. It's pissed away a lot of other strategic industries for stupid reasons in the mean time. And with the nationalization of politics, I'm not sure farm state senators will continue to have the ability to focus on serving their constituents' interests in the future like they have.
But these days, isn't it similarly the case that security cameras, routers, phones, and similar products could have security-related concerns just like ammunition? I can't imagine cold-war-era US would have been happy buying their telephone networking equipment and fax machines from the USSR, even if they could have somehow offered a better price and performance.
>But these days, isn't it similarly the case that security cameras, routers, phones, and similar products could have security-related concerns just like ammunition? I
Possibly. If I were in Congress, I would try to do something about it, but I'm not and pretty impotent in this regard.
>I can't imagine cold-war-era US would have been happy buying their telephone networking equipment and fax machines from the USSR
But we have to pretend that China is our friend. We have to pretend that even if they have some internal problems, that they're on track to becoming this reasonable democracy. We have to pretend that the Han are a people who are willing to coexist as equals on this planet with non-Han, and that though they've always historically been concerned only with their traditionally held geography, that they won't have [cough]Tibet[cough] expansionist ambitions on that continent or others.
I don't know what could be done about all of this. If, for instance, there were another president who wanted to do something about it, and tried to spur redevelopment of our industry and economy, even ignoring all the political bullshit he'd have to navigate... what happens when the secret talks somehow leak to the Chinese intelligence servies (as they inevitably would), and they start interfering before he could even start? Not that I like the idea of a president taking such power, but the idea that 535 Congressmen should instead do it openly (or could do it secretly) when the Chinese would sabotage such efforts is sort of absurd. Painted into a corner, and the people who painted us here are all senile or dead of old age.
> If you are protected from facing competition, then you don’t need to actually compete. Therefore, you don’t develop the competitive advantages. You remain at a competitive disadvantage, but it doesn’t matter since you don’t actually have to face the competition… until someday when the protection is removed and you are left to face the more advantaged competition.
However, it's not uncommon for a company or industry to fail to develop a competitive advantage, and then go bankrupt and disappear.
Without the Jones Act, it's quite possible that the US shipbuilding industry may have ended up even more moribund than it is now, decades ago.
It is already moribund to the point of uselessness, yet it is still imposing enormous economic costs on the entire country. If it's goal was to maintain the ability of the US to build and staff ships, then it has utterly and completely failed, and yet it's costs remain. I have never heard a compelling argument why we should keep it.
Without it, we probably wouldn't have a thriving US shipbuilding industry, but we would have significantly (probably orders of magnitude more) intra-state shipping, which would require more ships that would most likely come from close allies which would boost _their_ shipping industry.
For strategic purposes, obviously having our own shipping industry would be better, but that's apparently not on the table. I'll take, as a close second best option, an improved shipbuilding industry of our allies, with a heaping side helping of massive economic benefit.
At the very list ships built in Italy, (NATO partner), Japan, South Korea (close allies with a ship building industry) should be allowed. Probably we should allow countries like Kenya, Vietnam, Chile (random non-nato countries that don't have ship building but could and seem like places that we want to encourage to become closer to us).
The argument I provided in the message starting this subthread that you answered, was to repeal the Jones Act COMBINED with enacting other subsidies and investment to revitalize US domestic shipbuilding and the maritime sector. Merely repealing the Jones Act without any of the other measures would indeed lead to a quick collapse of what little is left of the US civilian maritime sector.
(Nuclear option: US Navy ensures Freedom of the Seas only for US flagged vessels. Your Liberia-flagged ship gets attacked by pirates, or even some state actor? Ask the Liberian navy to come to your help. And no, this isn't really a serious suggestion that would be in the US interest.)
Ok. I agree with that. And your original comments.
Guess this thread overall had devolved into 'just repeal' and let the 'free market' toughen up the Americans that have gotten weak. Free market will sort it out.
Subsidies and Investments are correct, but deemed 'bad' by the people wanting to cut government.
Oh definitely. They often don't have the experience to question what they're told or see the holes and deceptions in it. For instance: they'd be more easily fooled by a fake deadline. Or in this case, they may trust and follow their leader like a little zealot, even when he's wrong and doing bad things.
> The truth is (as I’m sure you all know) these are fees that we pay to the federal government separately when we import goods from these countries. Other countries don’t pay a dime.
The mistake you're making is only considering first order effects (gov collecting tariff taxes), and ignoring second and greater order effects (how people respond to those taxes).
> A good place to start disentangling things is the argument ad nauseam over who pays for tariffs — the consumer or the foreign producer? Contrary to what both sides sometimes assert, the question has no simple answer. “Despite over a century of theoretical debate on the incidence of tariffs, sound empirical evidence on who bears the burden of trade tariffs is sparse,” according to a 2015 article in the University of Chicago’s Chicago Policy Review.
> ...It’s true that up front, a U.S. tariff is levied on Americans, not foreign producers. But what really matters is who bears the ultimate cost. If the foreign producer continues to charge the same amount at the border, then the final price goes up by the amount of the tariff, and the American bears the full cost. But if the foreign producer cuts its price at the border by the amount of the tariff so that the final price paid by the American is unchanged, then the foreign producer bears the full cost of the tariff.
> Typically, the cost will be split. Americans won’t have to bear much of the cost of the tariff if the foreign producer is willing to accept a smaller profit to hang on to its share of the U.S. market. That calculation will vary product by product.
I don't want to insult you, but I do want to insult the NYT quotes you posted. Frankly, they are about the dumbest effing comments I've read in a while.
I will just pose a simple question- how many industries that trade in real goods have margins in excess of 25%?
How many industries do you know of that would keep going in the face of a 50% haircut to their profit?
Those quotes say nothing and are pure conjecture.
I will tell you exactly who will pay the increase (and then some, because there's always juice on top of juice): we will; you and I, and every person and family we know. That's who.
It’s not like fentanyl goes through customs (legally) now. Not sure how tariffs will help.
Also not sure why we’re being punished because our government can’t or won’t stop fentanyl smuggling across the southern border. I don’t see how that’s my fault. Or yours for that matter.
Are we going to slap tariffs on Colombia too for all the coke that also doesn’t clear customs?
> When Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first term in the White House, some studies found that part of the cost was passed on to American consumers. Suppliers in China also cut their prices in many cases to offset part of the cost of the tariffs. [emphasis mine]
> I will tell you exactly who will pay the increase (and then some, because there's always juice on top of juice): we will; you and I, and every person and family we know. That's who.
It's worth noting that you're basically quoting a line of political attack. From the same article I linked above:
> Democrats spent the weekend hammering the message that Mr. Trump was responsible for making life in America more expensive.
> “In one reckless move,” said Representative Gabe Vasquez, Democrat of New Mexico, “the president just raised the price you pay for gas, the truck you drive to work, a computer for your small business and everything at the grocery store, from avocados to tequila.”
Underneath all that noise, I'm sure things are far less simple than any side's attacks claim. Unfortunately, all almost anyone hears on any issue are political attacks, which are blasted from the rooftops.
With computing equipment from China, there wasn't enough margin for them to lower prices (or they just refused).
So we paid for all of it.
Read their wording carefully: some studies found...many cases to offset part of the cost...
This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.
You can't just strong arm people into giving you a better deal. Logic would dictate that any company who is competetive in the market is already giving you their best price.
These tariffs are punitive and not even protectionist (which I could at least respect), because we don't, can't and/or won't manufacture the vast majority of the items we import from these countries.
P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack. You have no idea what my political persuasion is, and frankly, just because I have a strong distaste for DJT doesn't mean I'm a Democrat. Some people know what a spade looks like, no matter who they pretend to be.
P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.
But your experience with IT equipment does not generalize to all trade between the US and China, which includes more than just IT equipment.
> This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.
I don't think it's weaselly, rather it's one of those areas that's not black and white and there is a lot of variation, which does not lend itself to a crisp, succinct summary. One of the cases in the original article I linked was the supplier gives a little on margin, and the importer overall pays more due to the tariff, but not the full amount, and that's what the second article seemed to be describing.
> P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack.
That kind of thing can totally can be part of an attack: the most effective attacks usually start with easily observable facts (and then omit others to fit the desired narrative), because that gives them more credibility. And I didn't mean to imply that you were making an attack, I was just noting that rhetoric is in the air due to the frequent political attacks, which often leads to it getting repeated.
> P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.
> He's always liked tariffs, and this is him doing what he believes.
This maybe so, but he still doesn't understand who pays them or why his cronies like them so much. Tariffs transfer wealth from consumers to the government while simultaneously raising inflation. DOGE and friends want to privatize as much government as possible to extract money from it as a grift. Tariffs also hurt SMB sellers who cannot strategically front-load inventory like megacorps can. Furthermore, inflationary policies help out the 0.001% who can financialize weakening currencies while simultaneously making everything more expensive for ordinary people, effectively reducing average and unlivable wages to be even more unequal compared to the soon-to-be trillionaires. It's an ostensible nationalist/protectionist move that's cynically all about $$$$. The average American should anticipate paying $2000 more per year by the time 2026 rolls around for all of their expenditures... for absolutely nothing of value while not receiving a raise to account for it.
