It’s surreal how we seem to be entering into a worldwide trade war of sorts literally because the president of the US doesn’t know how international trade works.
Not a difference of opinion, not a rational policy that I happen to disagree with, he literally doesn’t know how it works.
Sorry but no. Automation has hurt the American middle class not cheap goods from China. Automation was a forgone conclusion as its something American companies have been doing since the industrial revolution and would have happened if we went to a completely isolationist policy. Cheap goods raised our standard of living and moved us from a physical to a service based economy.
How can you make that assertion? That is $350 billion worth of goods that used to be made in America by American workers at middle class compensation. American companies shuttered factories, moved the factories over there, used Chinese labor to make the exact same product and shipped the goods back over here. Not only was that horrible for the American people, it was an atrocity against the environment.
"Then again, anti-TPP dumbness was not exclusive to Trump.
The way to hold China accountable was to get other countries to collectively work to restrain China. That might have been easier had we not declared a trade war on the rest of the world too.
Again though, it seems obvious that Trump doesn't understand how trade works so it's hard to figure out what he's trying to do here.
No one seems interested in the topic that interests me most here: Trump claims our products have been subject to tariffs in these other countries, but we charge no tariffs on theirs. If true, F@@k that! That should have never been allowed in the first place. We've been putting our people out of work in order to get Chinese made crap a little bit cheaper.
If it is true then I say we match their tariffs on our stuff. And we can then end any 'trade war' very easily: You drop your tariffs on our products and we'll drop our tariffs on yours.
Fern
How you gonna spin this? LOL
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/a-protectionist-moment/
"But it’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict. I hope, by the way, that I haven’t done any of that; I think I’ve always been clear that the gains from globalization aren’t all that (here’s a back-of-the-envelope on the gains from hyperglobalization — only part of which can be attributed to policy — that is less than 5 percent of world GDP over a generation); and I think I’ve never assumed away the income distribution effects.
Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman sagely observes, the conventional case for trade liberalization relies on the assertion that the government could redistribute income to ensure that everyone wins — but we now have an ideology utterly opposed to such redistribution in full control of one party, and with blocking power against anything but a minor move in that direction by the other.
So the elite case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam, which voters probably sense even if they don’t know exactly what form it’s taking.
[...]
But it is fair to say that the case for more trade agreements — including TPP, which hasn’t happened yet — is very, very weak. And if a progressive makes it to the White House, she should devote no political capital whatsoever to such things."
Yet again, why would I need to defend a position that’s not mine?
TPP was not even really a free trade agreement as I’ve said many times before. It was a political agreement designed to contain China.
so how much wealth was erased in the stock market today?
can you imagine a real problem like a major recession on this guys watch?
If I remember correctly, the US trade deficits are generally a bs-way to argue stuff about trade and "winning" since the US dollar is basically the world's reserve currency, actions totally outside of our control (e.g., other countries just trading with one-another) affects the value of the USD and alters our so-called trade imbalances.Dude we have a $357 BILLION trade gap with them. They are strangling us in our bed. That is not their fault, they are acting in their own self interest. This has not been mutually beneficial relationship. It is relationship that has benefited China and the American investor class at the expense of the American middle/working classes and America's long term viability/stability.
can you imagine a real problem like a major recession on this guys watch?
It was the wrong move to exploit Chinese labor and export our pollution just so we could fill big box stores with crap so the American middle class could enjoy the facade of affluence while Wall Street bent us all over.
It was the wrong move to exploit Chinese labor and export our pollution just so we could fill big box stores with crap so the American middle class could enjoy the facade of affluence while Wall Street bent us all over.
Don't know, but I suspect there's more loss to come.
Trump spent the last year pointing to the Stock Market as his doing when it at most may have been anticipating Tax Cuts. Since the Tax Cuts have been passed though, Trump keeps doing things to tank the Market. Who knows how far will it go.
Who benefitted? The rapid devaluation of labor by outsourcing to a country with a complete disregard for human rights just so we can fill landfills with plastic crap.We all benefited. Cheaper electronics, clothing, toys, etc. All made in China.
Americans love to talk buy American, but when it comes down to saving money the cheaper product will always win.