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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.
Well sure, many of the "experts" are ideologically motivated liars, but Trump and many of his people are also ideologically motivated liars. And I think that the tariffs are nonsensical not just from some complex ideological "expert" perspective... to me, they also seem nonsensical just from a common-sense perspective. I understand hating the "experts" and wanting to just push buttons, but that doesn't mean that we should abandon all sense of what buttons might be good or bad to push. I understand being frustrated with mainstream economists' consensus, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Trump's alternatives will be any better.
Why exactly are they non sensical? The first order effect is that tarriffs make it more profitable to produce things in America vs offshore, so there will be more jobs and industry created here. It’s only the secondary and tertiary effects where it starts to get ugly
This is the simple explanation:
Tariffs are a tax on goods entering the country.
Taxing things gives you less of them.
Thus we will have less goods entering the country, and the ones coming in will be at higher prices.
Fewer and more expensive goods and services means we are all poorer.
Yes, and that American/domestic producers will compete to gobble up these new margins on the newly more expensive goods.
It seems to me that is the secondary effect and prices rising is the primary effect.
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