and what happens, specifically, with those products that we cannot produce in the united states? and where, specifically, are the workers supposed to come from if we've closed our borders to new immigrants?
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Most corporations and businesses compare product costs and choose the one that increases their profits. The US just cannot compete w/ all foreign companies. Ex: it costs US $22 to MAKE a box of coat hangers. China can SELL this same box of hangers for $20. They don't have the same overhead we have.
Oh, stop being so negative. Some things just can't be denied like: tax cuts - > something, something -> growth; or eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse -> balanced budget; or killing immigration -> good jobs; or more guns-> less crime. It's so much easier living in fantasy land.
Golden is arguing against comparative advantage, an economic theory that has been central to international trade for 200 years. I wish economics was a required course to serve in Congress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
heading off the knee-jerk reply, slavery takes *more* personnel and infrastructure, not less. you're feeding and housing those slaves and you need enough staff to keep them on-task and prevent rebellions and escape
Tariffs for the purposes of spurring domestic production is a dinosaur of a tool in a modern globalized age. There is no undoing globalization no matter how much we kick and scream wishing it not to be.
Even NYTimes Dealbook gets that Trump tariffs are just chaos transaction weapons: "How are these businesses supposed to make long-term plans while contending with the unrelenting and unpredictable prospect of tariffs almost anywhere?"
The answer to the last question, to the extent that any of the tech bro disruptors have thought about it, is slavery-in-all-but-name for all of the labour "replaced" by AI. But good luck forcing this arrangement on those people even at the barrel of a gun.
When you focus on this you can't competitively export those products. Comparative advantage is a real thing. So then you have a bunch of domestic production that is expensive by global standards and so you need tariffs to keep out exports, but the US itself will be unable to export goods. Suicide
Based on what NSF is doing to postdoctoral researchers and Vance's statements about professors, the plan is to staff our factories and farms with "intelligentsia". Worked out so well for Mao, after all...
Well what you're missing is the key point of there is no logic or planning for any of this. When all you have is a stupid, moronic hammer, everything looks like a nail. Trump knows he can't create a real economic plan, so he just wants to bash it with the one thing that's easy to deploy.
This dude specifically said, "Do we really need avocados?" in response to this question at one point, and I don't think he's prepared for how hard voters will say, "Yes, yes we do."
Yeah, like I can see the case for tariffs on a narrow scope of specific products that serve the national defense, but we haven't hollowed out our industrial capacity like these people claim, we simply just don't need as many people now to do it often.
Very few, mostly would want to make sure domestically we could support a quick expansion of capacity in like semiconductors, possibly certain rare earth minerals.
To be sure, there are only 3 places in the world that make adv. chips. And there are certainly US technologies we don’t want to see outside our purview.
But I’ll bet much of our defense budget suffers because of Buy American provisions
Actually Canada is the largest exporter of Lobster. The United States, the United Kingdom and the Philippines respectively ranked second, third and fourth. The largest consumers are India, Canada, Brazil and Germany.
The rest of the world will ALWAYS do fine without us.
The US is no longer the only consumer nation; others have middle classes big enough to afford consumer goods. If they don’t put up tariff barriers, they will have lower prices while ours go up.
These numbers are outdated and do not break down manufacturing by sector. I made an assertion that our primary manufacturing is weapons ie. the military industrial complex.
That captures a lot. Even still according to your linked article manufacturing accounted for just 11 percent of US GDP.
Does that graph include companies with a distribution footprint, but no actual manufacturing of parts or goods?
Because when I walk around my house--it's about 90% foreign made products, and I'm solidly middle class. That number rises as income goes down.
The Gulf of Maine is going to become too warm for cold-water lobsters in 30 years due to climate change (but still not warm enough for tropical ones like from the Philippines and Indonesia).
I mean they've only been saturating the media with memes about how millennials will apparently go broke and cripple entire industries just to get Avcoado toast so this is really a beast of their own making
I can’t find a more recent survey but migrant workers make up 18% of Maine’s workforce. Many of them on the farms in his district. Immigrants are filling key labor gaps in our state and have been a boon to Maine.
im not sure why we want to invest in capacity for low-margin industries & commodities.. doesn't seem like a winner when you could invest in higher margin mftg industries... when we tariff mexico and china we're going to increase the prices of commodities we need for high margin mftg... #footgun
Call me cynical, but I have my doubts about these jobs being good union jobs. They'll be pushing right-to-work laws with one hand and tariffs with the other.
I know economic technicalities are not really the point of all this but yeah. We are at full employment right now. Where are all the people to work in these new factories going to come from?
What happens to American workers and/or prices when there's a mismatch between wages and what folks are willing/able to pay for goods. Some people will come out ahead, but it won't be the American worker.
being that the fight for 15$/hr federal min wage is still raging (despite new CoL estimates a 25$/hr min), seems like we are gonna feel a lot more than growing pains
Like, he's taking a very limited argument about the value of infant industry protections, ignoring most of the details and tradeoffs, and declaring it a truth. It's so disingenuous as to be worthy of a deeper dive. Who is asking Golden to do this?
Also trump and his supporters seem to think these tariffs will replace income taxes. If they instead encourage domestic production, won’t tariffs revenue decline, and not be enough to fund the government? A sales tax can’t both fully substitute revenues, and encourage less consumption.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
What’s the 13th.
Prisons and kids
But I’ll bet much of our defense budget suffers because of Buy American provisions
He may just find out everyone will muddle on thru with fewer.
The rest of the world will ALWAYS do fine without us.
That captures a lot. Even still according to your linked article manufacturing accounted for just 11 percent of US GDP.
Because when I walk around my house--it's about 90% foreign made products, and I'm solidly middle class. That number rises as income goes down.
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