Trump signs tariffs

[mrhorseplayer]

Originally Posted by elysiantraveller

At the cost of American jobs. Both in the manufacturing sector and... ironically... in the steel sector.

Now what good did that accomplish?

Because those Auto manufacturers form other countries gone, would think the American Auto that are manufactured in these other countries would get some kind of retaliation from the country they reside that would cause them to come back to America creating even more jobs for America and the American worker.

[davew]

Originally Posted by elysiantraveller

Hilarious... especially your last paragraph.

8 of the top 15 auto plants in this country are foreign companies. Link

Now it costs more for them to import steel here... from the countries they are headquartered out of. Great place to do business with a model like that huh?



Silly capitalism and the global economy strike again to torpedo your point.

8 of your top 15 are Ford and General Motors. I am not sure if you are bad at math or just use dim hyperbole.

It must cost more to ship a finished car than to make it close to the market.

[reckless]

Originally Posted by elysiantraveller

They would be purchasing it at a higher price so the dilemma remains. Consumers would pay more for goods.

The above video demonstrates this.

So tell us, what would you prefer to have happen ...

consumers pay $3 a pair for socks at Wal-Mart and have half the neighborhood under- and un- employed --which seems to have been the case since NAFTA and GATT-- or ... have millions more people working yet pay $4 for those same crappy socks ??

That's a 33 per cent increase in the price of socks to the consumer, btw. The US citizen will take that deal every single day and not bat an eye even if you protest.

This country will not grow or prosper if we do not have a viable and growing manufacturing industry. Re-negotiating (mostly) GOP-led trade pacts is just the beginning and imposing the tariffs is Trump's first salvo. The transfer of billions monthly to China, et al, has put this country is no growth and recession for 10 years running. And citizens buying $1 happy meals at McDonalds did not get this country humming under Bush and Obama, I promise you. You may believe that consumers drive the economy but you a dead wrong, as usual.

Also comparing the Great Again! USA of Trump to economic shit holes such as the EU countries and elsewhere is also a joke. And, I'll bet you right now, the EU blinks long before we do, when Trump talks trade and tariffs.

Oh yeah, once again, a $100 increase thanks the steel tariff on a $30,000 car is peanuts. And the 500 union jobs the guy at US Steel says he will open is pretty good also.

Forty plus years of unfair trade deals and onerous deficits is OK with you, but let Trump impose tariffs just this month and you say the US economy will crater and Trump is a clueless.

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by reckless

This country will not grow or prosper if we do not have a viable and growing manufacturing industry.

We have a viable and growing manufacturing industry. It just doesn't require more and more labor as it grows. Welcome to reality.

[elysiantraveller]

Originally Posted by reckless

So tell us, what would you prefer to have happen ...

consumers pay $3 a pair for socks at Wal-Mart and have half the neighborhood under- and un- employed --which seems to have been the case since NAFTA and GATT-- or ... have millions more people working yet pay $4 for those same crappy socks ??

That's a 33 per cent increase in the price of socks to the consumer, btw. The US citizen will take that deal every single day and not bat an eye even if you protest.

I would prefer to have as many options as possible. When presented with the option of being able to purchase $3 socks made abroad or $4 socks made here I may very well choose to purchase the $4 socks. I'll spend the extra dollar for that warm fuzzy feeling I get knowing I'm buying domestic. Fact is though the laws of economics and capitalism don't give a crap about my warm fuzzy feeling. Ultimately my financial security and well-being is the responsibility of me, myself, and I.

It is nice though you brought up the textile industry and its the perfect post-industrialization industry to narrate how capitalism and the market always wins eventually.

During the 17th and 18th century the British Empire dominated the textile industry. Its far flung empire gave it access to silk in India, cotton in the America's, and dyes throughout the known world. They absolutely dominated the global space.

After the American war of Independence and especially during and after reconstruction we emerged as the worlds largest producer of textiles. We had cotton in the south with a large population and massive industrial and shipping capacity in the north. The United States was the leading textile producer for much of the 19th and early 20th century.

Since then newer markets have stepped into the void. Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines during the latter half of the 20th Century. China after being opened up by the Nixon Administration and now finally Vietnam, Lao, Thailand, India taking the lead.

The point of all of this is that ultimately we don't have much control over what industries stay and which one's go. You and followers of this tariff notion completely ignore the fact we are manufacturing at the highest level we ever have. We are also losing workers to automation and the ones that remain are due to our ability to produce highly refined products that demand a very skilled workforce.

Eventually we will lose those jobs too though as other countries develop the ability to produce finer products and their laborers become more skilled. That's completely fine though we will explore new industries and get good at them and workers will go there instead. Take for instance shale oil production in this country... it didn't really exist until the last 20 years and now we are the worlds #3 producer of the stuff with massive reserves.

The Trumpnomics people have this obsession with people working in Auto Plants, Steel Mills, Factories etc... They completely ignore the economic realities that those industries aren't going to be viable to Americans forever just like textiles weren't. Propping them up dumps workers into a sector we no longer have or are beginning to lose our competitive edge in instead of letting them go places we have it. Places like Shale oil or services industries. At the same time you harm the American consumer... you all admit this at least.

The standard trope then is "Trade deals bad blah blah" or my favorite "globalism/capitalism bad blah blah...."

Globalism/Capitalism isn't good or bad... its the way the world, and particularly the global economy, works.

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by reckless

So tell us, what would you prefer to have happen ...

consumers pay $3 a pair for socks at Wal-Mart and have half the neighborhood under- and un- employed --which seems to have been the case since NAFTA and GATT-- or ... have millions more people working yet pay $4 for those same crappy socks ??

That's a 33 per cent increase in the price of socks to the consumer, btw. The US citizen will take that deal every single day and not bat an eye even if you protest.

The US citizen has the option to "take that deal" now.

I don't know who all those people I see at Wal-Mart are, but they look like US citizens to me. It seems clear which side of that deal they prefer.

What some of us "protest" against is the government taking away that choice.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by elysiantraveller

I'll ignore the rest since I asked for evidence and its just the standard Trump/Protectionism trope.

And I'll repeat:

- $18 Trillion GDP
- Cheap Goods
- Full Employment
- Highest Manufacturing Production in History
- Highest Levels of Consumption (Globally)
- High standard of living
- Relatively Low Cost of Living (Lower than Germany, France, UK, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Australia, South Korea, you know all those countries this targets)

Getting out "clocks cleaned" doesn't seem so bad.

Grab your Friedman... we're rich... rich people spend more money... spending more money means trade deficits...

This is misuse of statistics, data and economic theory.

Looking at a snapshot of data does not tell what that data would have been with the conditions changed. Basically, whatever the data is, it might have been worse of better without free trade.

But again, when you are running a huge trade deficit, that means on a net basis wealth is leaving your country. You are slowly selling off the family farm to consume more than the farm produces.

I find it comical that when a company leaves California because of the higher taxes, tougher regulations, higher salaries, higher employee benefits etc.. everyone realizes that CA is losing jobs, incomes, and wealth to other states, but no one can figure out that wealth is pouring out of the US when we run trade deficits. It's literally comical how brainwashed people have become.

[Clocker]

This is getting really serious. The last American company making steel beer kegs says that the Trump tariffs could put them out of business.

http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/12/ki...iffs-kill-jobs

[mrhorseplayer]

Originally Posted by Clocker

This is getting really serious. The last American company making steel beer kegs says that the Trump tariffs could put them out of business.

http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/12/ki...iffs-kill-jobs

Why cause they wont have any steel?

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mrhorseplayer

Why cause they wont have any steel?

Because they are facing a large increase in the cost of the steel they use to make kegs. Their competition is foreign-made kegs. Foreign makers don't have the big tax increase on the steel they use, and finished steel products like kegs don't have tariffs applied when they are imported into this country. As the only producer faced with these cost increases, they may not be able to compete.

Other American producers of products that use a lot of steel will be facing the same problem. They will have to compete against foreign companies that pay a lot less for their steel.

These tariffs are good for the 140,000 people who work in the US steel industry. They are harmful for the 5 million Americans who work in industries that use steel as an input.

[reckless]

Originally Posted by Clocker

This is getting really serious. The last American company making steel beer kegs says that the Trump tariffs could put them out of business.

http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/12/ki...iffs-kill-jobs

Pa. Sen. Pat Toomey, former head of the globalist Club for Growth, said today on radio here that this company bought its steel from domestic manufacturers, not from foreign producers.

Sorry, but this transfer of wealth has to end, and it must end now. If someone's daddy in Ohio now prospers because of bad and corrupt trade deals such as NAFTA, GATT and TPP with the results that we lost 60,000 factories being closed, I have little sympathy.

Same with this Pottstown, Pa. beer keg company. Someone is lying here about this story, I have a feeling.

[davew]

Originally Posted by reckless

Pa. Sen. Pat Toomey, former head of the globalist Club for Growth, said today on radio here that this company bought its steel from domestic manufacturers, not from foreign producers.

Sorry, but this transfer of wealth has to end, and it must end now. If someone's daddy in Ohio now prospers because of bad and corrupt trade deals such as NAFTA, GATT and TPP with the results that we lost 60,000 factories being closed, I have little sympathy.

Same with this Pottstown, Pa. beer keg company. Someone is lying here about this story, I have a feeling.

Maybe they figure that domestic manufacturers will increase their prices?

[elysiantraveller]

Originally Posted by reckless

Pa. Sen. Pat Toomey, former head of the globalist Club for Growth, said today on radio here that this company bought its steel from domestic manufacturers, not from foreign producers.

Sorry, but this transfer of wealth has to end, and it must end now. If someone's daddy in Ohio now prospers because of bad and corrupt trade deals such as NAFTA, GATT and TPP with the results that we lost 60,000 factories being closed, I have little sympathy.

Same with this Pottstown, Pa. beer keg company. Someone is lying here about this story, I have a feeling.

Couldn't possibly be the politician...

Must be the guy paying his bills making steel kegs... triple eyeroll

[mrhorseplayer]

Originally Posted by Clocker

Because they are facing a large increase in the cost of the steel they use to make kegs. Their competition is foreign-made kegs. Foreign makers don't have the big tax increase on the steel they use, and finished steel products like kegs don't have tariffs applied when they are imported into this country. As the only producer faced with these cost increases, they may not be able to compete.

Other American producers of products that use a lot of steel will be facing the same problem. They will have to compete against foreign companies that pay a lot less for their steel.

These tariffs are good for the 140,000 people who work in the US steel industry. They are harmful for the 5 million Americans who work in industries that use steel as an input.

purchase American steel at the same cost? bet that would also create more American employment. What about the tariffs on importing these beer kegs into the USA?

[elysiantraveller]

Originally Posted by mrhorseplayer

purchase American steel at the same cost? bet that would also create more American employment. What about the tariffs on importing these beer kegs into the USA?

TARIFFS ON ALCOHOL?!?!?!

To steal FanDan's recent and awesome video post...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmzuRXLzqKk

But in all seriousness the reason why the United States doesn't currently produce all the steel that it uses domestically is because it can't given the current price of steel globally, the cost to manufacture, required up front investment, surplus elsewhere, etc...

Its not a profitable proposition that's why isn't done already. By artificially inflating the cost of steel you create a false domestic demand and raise the price.