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As most are aware, Trump has announced 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 10% tariffs on China. It seems to me that it presents a number of opportunities.
Being a Rationalist-descended forum, many here believe in listening to experts, following the data, and trusting science to guide our policies. On the other hand, many others here have observed numerous cases where expertise and data collapse when confronted with unexpected real-world events, and have grown far more skeptical of expertise. I have stated previously that I have little faith in Economics as a discipline; I've seen a lot of failed mainstream predictions and what at least have appeared to be failed policies. These new tariffs are the largest and most consequential policy departure from consensus economics in living memory, and as such they present a profoundly valuable natural experiment. For my entire lifetime, the consensus of economists has been that tariffs are a rotten economic policy, that they stunt economic growth and induce stagnation. These tariffs are very large, are aimed directly at our three largest trading partners, and arrived with very little warning; while Trump had stated his intentions clearly, Trump says a lot of things and no one actually expected this to happen. As such, it seems to me that we have an unusually-good natural experiment here, and we should be exploiting it for maximum value.
Simply put, what happens next?
The proof of a theoretical model is the ability to make accurate predictions. Predictions of large-magnitude changes are more valuable than predictions of small changes. Naïvely, it seems obvious to me that large policy changes should have large effects, and this is very clearly a large policy change. If consensus economics is valid, it seems to me that they should be able to predict with reasonable accuracy the consequences of these new policies, and that those consequences should be unequivocally negative. What negative outcomes should we expect, specifically? There was some discussion last week about whether or not our last attempt at tariffs caused the Great Depression; is that the expected outcome here?
One of the old Rationalist traditions is betting, and it's been a somewhat contentious topic as our community has drifted further from the mother country of Scott's comment section. Some people, myself among them, really don't like betting. Happily, this experiment comes with its own betting baked in: what should we expect the stock market to do as the consequences of this policy change roll out? If the economic consensus is valid, what better bear signal could there be than an unexpected, dramatic departure from sound economic policy by the world's dominant superpower? A quick googling tells me that the markets are down generally this morning; should we expect this trend to continue? How do people here intend to manage their investments, given these events?
For reference, previous discussion of the tariffs from last week.
Man, these next few years are going to finally be a referendum on Keynesian versus Austrian economics. Or maybe referendum is the wrong word, but a test. On the one hand, you have the notion that deficits can pile up forever, inflation is required to prevent a deflationary great depression, government spending doesn't cause inflation, etc. On the other hand, you have the ideas that if we balance the federal budget, pay down our debt, reduce regulations, and tax foreign goods, we can keep wage growth above inflation and everyone will be better off. If this plan gets bungled, or is executed perfectly and just plain doesn't work, that's it, Keynesian economics until the end of time.
Personally, I'm rooting for the later case. Trumps first term saw corporate taxes slashed, regulations slashed, minimal inflation, historic wage growth (though that was a low bar), and that included the beginnings of waging a trade war with China. And this was despite "all the economist" saying it would ruin the US economy. So on the face of it, I'm not terrified of what happens with more of a trade war, especially given the aggressive spending cuts Trump's admin has been performing, and the regulation cuts, and hopefully even tax cuts I'm anticipating. I'd say if Trump 45 was a preview of things to come, there is a decent chance Trump 47 will be even better.
Your first paragraph is an egregious strawman of mainstream (Keynesian) economics. It's also not a particularly accurate view of Austrian economics either. Are you saying Austrians would be in favor of tariffs? It's not really clear from what you wrote, but that would be a very strange Austrian indeed.
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