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.
Tariffs benefit nobody.
People understand that tariffs = a tax on Americans right? Jfc
Who benefited?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.
It used to be that quality and value would always win. My Sony Walkman still sounds better than a G1 iPod, and unlike my G1 iPod, my Walkman still works.
Who benefited?
The rich received tax cuts so that instead of being forced to re-invest in their own equipment and human resources if they wanted to keep the profits, could pocket the money instead. Then "free trade" allowed them to mothball their factories, laying off US workers and cutting human resources costs, along with having to comply with environmental regulations. Just move the factory to Mexico, China, Thailand, wherever. Those countries allow slave labor and don't care if the water, air and soil are poisoned. Then the rich gave their money to Wall St. criminals to inflate bubbles, for a nice ROI. And if/when the market crashes, they then buy up valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, and either load those assets with debt before cashing out, or sell the assets for scrap.
People understand that tariffs = a tax on Americans right? Jfc
Who benefited?
The rich received tax cuts so that instead of being forced to re-invest in their own equipment and human resources if they wanted to keep the profits, could pocket the money instead. Then "free trade" allowed them to mothball their factories, laying off US workers and cutting human resources costs, along with having to comply with environmental regulations. Just move the factory to Mexico, China, Thailand, wherever. Those countries allow slave labor and don't care if the water, air and soil are poisoned. Then the rich gave their money to Wall St. criminals to inflate bubbles, for a nice ROI. And if/when the market crashes, they then buy up valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, and either load those assets with debt before cashing out, or sell the assets for scrap.
Rinse, repeat. For the past 40 years. Both here, and in the UK. Thatcher first, then St. Ronald of Reagan.
The same class of people who benefit by being wealthy and using their wealth to maintain/increase their power have benefited. Time and time again.
This is voodoo economics, without the voodoo of rising tides lifting all boats. The rich get richer. The middle class struggles to stay where they are without borrowing against the future. And the poor, well, they stay poor, because that's what poor people are for. And then the people who voted for these policies get pissed that poor people have a smart phone, which is both cheap because the rich want them to be cheap, and necessary in our 1st world service-based economy (because manufacturing was scrapped...by the rich, who can earn much more if they use foreign slave labor).
Tariffs are essentially closing the barn door after the horses were purposefully sold to China to be turned to horse meat, and resold to the serfs working the farm...paid for with company scrip.
Voodoo economics was designed to create the very economy we have today. Full stop.
Everything is a feature, and not a bug. Oligarchs want serfs working on their estate. And slowly but surely they're getting it.
Well, shit.All correct but whats the smartest way to fix it? Tax cuts for the rich and tariffs?
What happens when China asks us to start repaying our dept? Dumb moves like this don't help.
That is what I love about this board, so many smart people making cogent arguments. Well done sir.
China has struck back with a paltry $3 billion in counter tariffs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/trade-war-china-retaliates-with-only-3-billion-in-tariffs.html
I don’t disagree. Who signed NAFTA and opened China to trade? Reagan may have set voodoo economics in motion, but I haven’t seen any President since do much to reverse that trend, and if anything, they have collectively made it worse.Rinse, repeat. For the past 40 years. Both here, and in the UK. Thatcher first, then St. Ronald of Reagan.
The same class of people who benefit by being wealthy and using their wealth to maintain/increase their power have benefited. Time and time again.
Oligarchs want serfs working on their estate.
What happens when China asks us to start repaying our dept? Dumb moves like this don't help.
China has struck back with a paltry $3 billion in counter tariffs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/trade-war-china-retaliates-with-only-3-billion-in-tariffs.html
All the cheap shit that I buy that's made in China would beg to differ.
There is a fundamental definition difficulty here. We aren't even defining the actual problem that we can all agree upon.Dude we have a $357 BILLION trade gap with them. They are strangling us in our bed.
There is a fundamental definition difficulty here. We aren't even defining the actual problem that we can all agree upon.
Suppose I go to your home, take every single thing you have, and in exchange I leave a $10 bill. So, you have a $10 trade surplus, and I have a $10 trade deficit. Now, who was the one who was strangled in their bed? You were, and you were the one with the trade surplus in this example.
Trade deficits, when taken alone, are great. I'd love to have the US print a bunch of money, send that worthless money to China, and have China give us all their stuff. Lets keep doing that forever and I'd be thrilled. The trade deficit is great as long as it lasts. The problem is when does that end? When will China stop accepting printed US dollars in exchange for their physical goods? When will they demand something in return? Are we prepared for that occurrence? Those are the problems that we need to address.
Putting a feel-good tax on a few items does not address those real questions and real problems.
But there’s good reason to think that China will overcome at least some of these obstacles. Economists Randall Morck and Bernard Yeung have a new paper comparing the histories of Japan and South Korea -- both of which climbed out of poverty to achieve rich-country status -- with the recent rise of China. They find that China’s institutions are, broadly speaking, developing along the same path followed by its successful neighbors.
In other words, not only is China already the world’s largest economy, the gap between it and the U.S. can be expected to grow even wider. This continues to be borne out in the growth statistics -- though China has slowed in recent years, its economy continues to expand at a rate of more than 6 percent, while the U.S. is at just over 2 percent. If that disparity persists, China’s economy will be double that of the U.S. in less than two decades.
I do agree that it is too late to do anything about China via tariffs. They have surpassed America in most metrics and are pulling away at a breathtaking rate. People do not realize how much more powerful China is gong to be than America. In twenty years their economy could easily be twice the size of Americas. Their people have more faith in their government, are more motivated, are more intelligent and their government's actions are all about improving China The kind of power that China will eventually wield will surpass America at it's zenith.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-18/who-has-the-world-s-no-1-economy-not-the-u-s
That article is very misleading. They claim market rate size is misleading but for international economic power comparisons it’s the one that matters. China’s economy is not close to ours in size.
PPP is good for comparing relative standards of living. For example, a hair cut in China costs a fraction of what it does in the US for the same thing. In that case PPP does a good job of correcting for those disparities. If you’re competing for goods or services on the world market though that doesn’t matter because someone selling you a BMW doesn’t give a shit what your haircuts cost. They want to know who will give them the most money. That’s the US by a long shot.
That being said, China will eventually surpass the US in market power as well but that’s hardly surprising. They have three times our population. I do agree that currently the US is facing a governance crisis though and I think this will badly harm us going forward.
I am curious as to your views of Chinese foreign policy. I view Chinese actions on the world stage as far less pernicious than Americas and believe they would be a better world leader than America. However I recognize that I have strong and perhaps irrational hatred of American foreign policy. You lack my bias and thus your perspective would be interesting to me.