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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
You can get a car by making a car in Detroit, or by drilling for oil in North Dakota and trading the oil for a Japanese car. Tariffs is to favour the former process over the latter - to first order the increase in cars made in Detroit is exactly offset by the reduction in oil drilled in North Dakota (foreigners who can no longer sell cars to the US can't get the dollars to buy the oil, so they don't).
It is true that an autarchic America would do more manufacturing and less of other things (and would be poorer as a result, because Americans suck at manufacturing and excel at things like software engineering and oil drilling), so if by "produce things" you mean specifically manufacturing then tariffs will lead to America "producing" more "things". But Trump definitely doesn't want to kneecap American natural resource exports, and probably doesn't want to kneecap American tech exports.
There is also a second order effect, which is that chaotically imposed tariffs generate moron risk premium, which reduces foreigners' (and Americans') desire to invest in America, so foreigners with dollars are more likely to spend them on American goods and services than invest them. If this isn't neutralised by monetary or fiscal policy, it increases demand for American goods and services, which would lead to increased production in the short term in a Great Depression, or inflation under normal economic conditions. In either case, in the long term the decrease in investment will lead to a decrease in production. For these tariffs at this time, the fall in USD indicates that financial markets think the second order effect will be bigger than the first order effect.
You’re missing the point here imo. This is economics 101 level analysis. America isn’t drilling for oil and then trading oil for Japanese cars. That’s what a persistent and high trade deficit means.
America is creating dollars ex-nihilo and then trading these dollars for real overseas goods. This is how having the reserve currency is a huge blessing, since we can trade unbacked paper money for real cars, computers, microwaves, etc!
But this blessing turns into a curse. This benefits individuals and orgs which can create dollars out of nothing, who are people with assets who can create money through debt. The government debt being at $37T is an exact symptom of this too, all these paper bonds have been exported overseas and we’ve received real items in return. The issue is that poorer people don’t benefit much from this “print money for overseas goods system” and it increases wealth inequality over time. Also, it hollows out your manufacturing base, for an increasingly financialized economy (dominated by the coastal regions in the US)
Tarriffs attempt to undo this curse, as being the reserve currency is starting to cause major issues at home (wealth inequality, ballooning government debt, no manufacturing is a national security issue). There’s going to be major pain. But it’s better now, than later, when the USG goes ~bankrupt and needs to default on the entire financial system. That’s gonna be some pain…
This is the bullshit allegation though.
Working class Americans have higher material quality of life than their peers in every other rich country, barring a handful of microstates like Luxembourg, or small countries blessed by geography, resources and good government like Norway and Switzerland.
The problems America has - with crime, drugs, homelessness - are political choices. American plumbers aren’t being financially screwed over.
Of course, since we can export “nothing” (ie: fiat money) for something (like real imports). So our material wealth is greater than most other counties (who don’t have this power up).
Things are not all rosy though. Chronic disease is higher here than any western nation, life expectancy is down, and severely lags behind our peers, deaths of despair are up… material wealth is not the only type of wealth. And at what cost?
None of that will be solved by tariffs.
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