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Notes -
Trump tariffs McDonald's:
BBC article for a more detailed overview.
Highlights or lowlights include:
I'm not an economist, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw out tariffs with such clear absence of rigor. The only saving grace is that Trump is fickle, so if enough people yell at him from his in-group, he might pivot in a week. If not, bloody hell.
You know, we were just talking a few posts downthread about how the "experts" are willing to blatantly lie in order to advance their ideological agenda.
We have been told repeatedly for years by the experts that making any sort of adjustment, pushing any buttons on the control panel at all, to the global trade system would lead to complete economic collapse, the rise of fascist dictators, the end of civilization, and in general all manner of untold horrors.
But why should we believe the experts? We know they're ideologically motivated liars. So, fuck it. Let's just start pushing buttons. Smash away and let's see what happens. If for no other reason to prove that you can do something different, alternatives are possible, even if you may indeed get burned.
If we see a crash on par with the great depression, the 30% of people that normally tune out politics are going to vote. Last time that happened, we got FDR and then leftist politics for 2 generations. This time it will be worse, since social media, if captured, allows for much tighter control over the narrative. Is that really worth the risk?
Note that for Europe, the outcome of the great depression was even worse by many metrics.
There is a reason why some worship the economy as a malevolent Outer Deity. When angered, its destructiveness can be on par with Adonai.
I am vaguely in favor of carefully testing the limits of what is offending the economy when there are good humanitarian reasons for it (e.g. in healthcare), but the US -- which historically was the biggest proponent of free trade -- becoming protectionist feels more like directly defiling the its altars and expecting it will continue to grant its blessings.
Agreed. On economics I'm quite conservative in the traditional, Chesterton's fence sense of the word. Re-routing the irrigation ditches with a nuclear explosion and still expecting the crops to get watered is a very risky bet.
What’s traditional about offshoring a nation’s manufacturing base to a foreign (and potentially hostile, like China) country? The EU couldn’t produce a fraction of munitions needed to keep pace with Russia during the beginnings of the Ukraine war. Visit American post-industrial hovels like Youngstown or Detroit and compare those images to the protectionist bogeymen of 100 years ago. And ask yourself why nations dependent on free trade have significantly low fertility levels.
Chesterton’s fence was demolished decades ago, and the rich beneficiaries of free trade policy are finally forced to notice thanks to Trump.
The collapse of Detroit proper is a story of conventional urban decay and long precedes the decline of "Detroit" the auto-industry cluster. The factories were in the suburbs (Dearborn for Ford, much more widely distributed for GM because so much of the early growth was by acquisition). Some of the auto suburbs are post-industrial wasteland (e.g. Flint) but most of them aren't - notably including Dearborn.
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