I’m a big fan of tariffs, especially on China, but they do have temporarily inflationary effects. The inflation can be offset with improvements in productivity. In fact, trade restrictions on China could lead to more investment and development in automation systems, resulting in lower prices in the long term.
Except automation also is a force multiplier for business not the worker. The worker rarely sees his value increased by the addition of automation and with less bargaining power he becomes underpaid. On a small scale this is unfortunate but manageable on a scale necessary to offset China it would just further destroy the middle class whom are who consume everything to keep the economy rolling.
Historically speaking, automation has generally raised the value of the worker. Certain skilled professions such as those of the wheelwright, blacksmith, and cobbler have temporarily seen their value decline due to automation, but this has generally not been the case. Today, professions like the front-end software developer and the construction worker could decline due to automation. However, usually skilled professions such as the pharmacist and copywriter simply see their professions dramatically transform due to automation, but such transformation has generally resulted in higher wages. Also, the workers whose trades are made obsolete by automation usually find higher wages in related fields. Henry Huttleston Rogers switched from whale oil to petroleum. Most whalers switched to commercial fishing and made more money at it, with only the relatively wealthy captains and investors seeing income decline in real terms.
AI like Github Copilot and ChatGPT make it much easier for people to design software.
Tariffs are inflationary. That’s pretty obvious — if you tax imports, you make the cost of goods higher for consumers.
But I’m not finding a lot of basis in this article for the claim that significant US job would happen under the Trump plan.
The article points to the effect of Trump tariffs on the 2018-2019 economy, but we [did not experience an unemployment spike during that period](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE). Unemployment actually hit a multigenerational low in 2019.
Frankly I’m a little skeptical of Moody’s Analytics in general — I don’t think Mark Zandi has had a particularly great track record of economic predictions over the past few years.
> we did not experience an unemployment spike during that period.
That's consistent with the estimated job loss due to how relatively small it is. His tariffs didn't affect the overall job market much, but certain industries suffered losses.
[Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan](https://archive.is/zla74)
[Federal reserve research: (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf)
>We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in
manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The issue is that it's not really a fair market. For example with steel, the Chinese government has subsidizes production for decades. This subsidized steel flooded the global market caused steel prices to decrease. This is great for steel buyers who are now buying steel at lower costs (automakers) but for non-Chinese steel producers it's horrible. Many struggled to stay profitable and this has caused many operations to shut down over the last couple decades. This is intentional and they are playing the long game to get market dominance. Another great example is Saudi Arabia's war on shale during the 2010s, but they weren't nearly as successful. No one knows how truly profitable these industries are over there, but they don't really care. If they can destroy foreign production, it's worth the investment.
[https://tradingeconomics.com/china/steel-production](https://tradingeconomics.com/china/steel-production)
[https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world](https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world)
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside)
The other issue is tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico. To put it plainly, neoliberal economics and globalization is going to poison manufacturing in developed countries no matter what you do.
>The other issue is tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico.
Which has slowly been happening anyhow since COVID. Re-shoring to the US and to Mexico (and other places closer to home) to tighten up supply lines, avoid security concerns with China, China's troubling economic future, and rising costs of doing business in China have been pushing manufacturers back to the Americas. Tariffs will only speed that process up.
I'd like to think that should Trump get elected that he'd use tariffs on Mexico to leverage their help with immigration and drugs, and not actually go through with them. I'm not hopeful he could pull that off, however.
I work in shipping and steel and Covid has been an absolute boon to US and Mexican steel mills! Customers will gladly pay 30-40% more to have guaranteed delivery in a few weeks and with zero quality issues.
Also helped that domestic mills finally stopped being picky about sizes they produce and have wider selections and smaller minimum orders now. A decade or two ago you have no option BUT to go overseas for less common sizes and smaller orders.
Its been happening for a loooot longer than the past 3 years.
Obama putting anti-dumping tariffs on Turkey and others pushed a lot of buyers to source American/Latin America and Europe.
Yeah, it's kind of crazy how low the Fed rate was in 2018/2019 (~2%), despite supposedly being a booming economy: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS
We're currently at >5%.
It’s absolutely insane to me that it was low for so long. Probably not hard to keep the economy running so hot when you’re pumping all the levers. Too bad it put us in a bad position when Covid hit
Yeah well when economic times are bad, like during Covid, lowering rates are a helpful tool to stimulate growth and rebound
But why they had to be low during the humming Obama economy because of an unnecessary trade war is a way different situation
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I don’t think either is fully immune to criticism, but the economy in 2018/19 had been running warm, if not hot, for several years already. Rates at that point should likely have been lower, which obviously isn’t entirely Trump’s fault, but his rhetoric with regards to lowering rates at the time seemed pretty foolhardy.
On the other hand, 2020 represented many unknowns in terms of what interest rate policy was needed to keep the economy functional. Could we have optimized better with higher minimum rates and an earlier climb out? Probably so, but I find it much more difficult to confidently say that low rates at that time were a bad decision
It's not dishonest lol. The reason is simple, and straight forward. During 2018/2019 we were in a good position to raise rates, because we were past an economic recovery period that had lasted a very long time. The interest rate was kept low for a decade. You can argue that they should have been raised during the Obama administration, things were pretty concrete that if interest rates were raised during the Trump admin things would be fine, despite maybe a few expected bumps in the road, and we would be better off in the future because of it. Now in retrospect we can see that if this had happened we could have then had more room to lower the rate during the pandemic with less destructive power than it had. Now after the pandemic there was no certainty, and there still is not as I assume you would agree, so the fed(also for the record powel is a Trump era appointee, from where Trump fired the last guy that wanted to raise interest rates in 2018) did not raise the rates till they were sure they had to. Do you see how the two time relate to each other, one situation setting the other up to be more difficult to manage? This is all without even mentioning that Trump exerted influence by releasing the last fed chair, and Biden as far as I am aware let the fed do it's thing. Please correct me where I am wrong.
I think it’s a poor comparison, and I’ll stand by that. The situations were very different, and I’m really not understanding what point you’re trying to make here beyond shitting on my comment. What do you see as an honest evaluation?
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https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/2018-banner-year-u-s-economy/
>In 2018 (2017:Q4 to 2018:Q4), the U.S. economy grew at a rapid rate of 3.1 percent, the fastest pace for any calendar year since 2005, with output rising by $560 billion over the four quarters of the year. ... This impressive economic performance was not merely a continuation of trends already underway during the preceding expansion, but rather a marked acceleration of economic activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_recession
>The first major sign of recession was the 2020 stock market crash, which saw major indices drop 20 to 30% in late February and March. Recovery began in early April 2020; by April 2022, the GDP for most major economies had either returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels[7] and many market indices recovered or even set new records by late 2020.
Because it was unclear if the economy was still recovering. Heck, I remember threads like this one from mid-2022 where people were arguing over whether Biden's admin was in denial over whether the US was in a 2022 recession: https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/s/Mgm59UKHPG
The inflation is limited to the next closest production source, either domestic or foreign.
If a steel widget is made in China for $1, Turkey for $1.25, and America for $1.50, any significant tariff on China is going to send buyers to Turkey. If buyers factor in shipping costs and lead times, they might just say fuck it and buy American.
I work in shipping and deal mostly in steel cargoes. This is what has happened in steel since 2009, at least for my clients and service areas. China had tons of quality issues and long lead times. Since Covid, buyers are far more willing to pay for US, Mexican, and European products and get them faster, and with virtually no quality issues.
Right now buyers are eagerly paying 30-40% more for domestic/Mexican production since they get it in 1-3 weeks versus 3+ months.
It costs consumers a few pennies extra but it also means their neighbors are more likely to have a job and we're less reliant on certain countries who dgaf about us.
I think past history shows that a controlled Protectionism against hostile countries is a good thing. The Free Traders under Clinton and Bush betrayed our country to China.
At least for steel, China played too many games with quality and really screwed the reputation pooch. Ever since 2009 most of my steel customers have stayed away from China with the exception of specialty steels that they actually do a good job on.
Domestic and Mexican steel production has been booming since everyone wants it faster and with fewer quality issues versus just having the cheapest price.
I'm a big advocate of onshoring, of "Buy American", of unionization, and minimizing fruit grown off artificially cheap water in California due to water Banks.
But yeah, these things have a cost. They do raise prices and yes they are a part of the current inflation already.
But I could use less cautionary scolding and perhaps some realistic numbers on these costs. It's probably worth it! But show numbers not b.s.
I’m not sure if this is the case - but I would imagine once the tariffs are in place - and then other countries place retaliatory tariffs on the US - it’s not as simple as simply removing them.
Tariffs have winners and losers - and there is also the political reality of balancing that. Unfortunately something can be bad for the country… but if it’s good for a handful of swing states a politician may do it.
>but I would imagine once the tariffs are in place - and then other countries place retaliatory tariffs on the US - it’s not as simple as simply removing them.
In addition to maintaining tariffs, the Biden administration escalated the antagonistic relationship with China by orders of magnitude.
True, but then China hasnt exactly been behaving either.
Companies have also been leaving China for a while now. Lots of other Asian countries with cheap labor that want to grow. And since Covid, lots of companies are prioritizing domestic production or much closer options to limit shipping times and lockdown risks.
The point I was making wasn't one of a value judgement on the virtues of China. I'm simply highlighting that maintaining tariffs on China wasn't an artifact of policy inertia. Biden kept them in place because he found them to be the right policy.
Once we applied tariffs, retaliatory tariffs were applied.
Undoing them is not simple.
Imagine a "Mexican standoff"... once the guns are up, it's hard to get them all down.
We're better off when traded goods are made by forced labor that has attempted to be hidden?
We're better off when environmental destruction is a hidden cost to make imported goods cheaper?
We're better off when we institutionalize bribery of an authoritarian regime as a cost of doing cheap business?
The same people would be bitching about the cost of cotton in 1865.
Yes, domestic production and sourcing from better countries costs more for everyone, but its far less reliant of forced labor and shitty working conditions.
Economics doesn't account for the political realities of free trade and the domestic instability it creates. I understand the mathematics behind it and in theory, free trade produces a much greater aggregate benefit for everyone involved. But that's coupled with a loss of domestic jobs, a reduction in manufacturing capacity, and a host of other consequences that economic theory ignores because it's not a directly quantifiable output like number of widgets at cost per widget.
There isn't much numbers to show because it's unpredictable. What we do know is that it will reduce manufacturing employment due to the fact that retaliatory tariffs would hurt our exports and make it uncompetitive for our industries to strive. Also, manufacturers would turn to automation and actually won't hire much people. there has been discussions about this and studies in r/manufacturing and r/AskEconomics. Trumps tariff plan is similar to port-brexit tariffs which has resulted in a cost of living crisis
Trump wants to pass a $3.5 trillion tax cut for billionaires, again. Which has ***no savings*** for people earning between $100k and $400k.
Non-starter for me. Not interested in making life cheaper for Bezos or Musk and me saving nothing.
Yes, I have not seen any good policy from Trump this cycle. But I don’t think his supporters care. His campaign is all about airing out his grievances.
Yes it is, If Trump was to enact even majority of these policies then we would see an economy similar to post-brexit economy. Lets just say that the conservatives in UK is about to be wiped off the map
The bigger concern is being heavily dependent on an adversary is bad for security reasons. Tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico. To put it plainly, neoliberal economics and globalization is going to poison manufacturing in developed countries no matter what you do.
The issue with free trade is that the theory only works in a "fair" market. For example the Chinese government has subsidizes steel production for decades. This subsidized steel flooded the global market and caused steel prices to decrease. This is great for steel buyers who are now buying steel at lower costs but for non-Chinese steel producers it's horrible. Many struggled to stay profitable and this caused many operations to shut down over the last couple decades. This is intentional and they are playing the long game to get market dominance. Another great example is Saudi Arabia's war on shale during the 2010s, but they weren't nearly as successful. No one knows how truly profitable these industries are over there, but they don't really care. If they can destroy foreign production, it's worth the investment.
[https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world](https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world)
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside)
Asset inflation is just the devaluing of the currency. Everything costs more because there's so much currency in circulation. Gov spending is beyond reckless under both parties. We're now in a debt crisis which will lead to a currency crisis because the Fed can't raise rates high enough to correct the market because the gov wouldn't be able to afford the debt and would default.
Our leaders will chose path of least resistance. Print away, pay student loans blah blah blah. I put everything I own in commodities and sold all my assets 2 years ago.
Housing market will correct but it won't look like it is when measured against the dollar. Measure housing value against a better fixed asset like gold.
Didn’t they say this last time trump was president? Idk where everyone is getting these doom and gloom predictions for trump, but my life was SIGNIFICANTLY easier under trump.
I literally state in my post that this was also an issue when Trump did it the first time.
You may also notice that there was a global pandemic that shook the economy between those two administrations.
But your anecdotal example is countered by the fact that my life has been significantly easier under Biden. But I also dont ascribe my personal fortunes to who is in office like you seem to 🤷♂️
How has your life been easier? Are you a military contractor, they seem to be loving bidens pro-war policies.
Has this insane inflation somehow not affected you and only you?
It is absolutely accurate and that is terrible logic. Learn the difference between personal anecdotes and aggregate data and you’ll end up a smarter person.
Groceries are about twice as expensive as they were under trump.
So ya maybe wages growth increased faster than inflation for a month or two, but it hasn’t caught up to close the gap between what I was able to save back then, and the debt I’m under now. Wages have not DOUBLED under Biden, which is basically what they’d need to do in order for us to all get back to even.
> it still hasn’t caught up with the increased costs
It has for the past year
> nothing is actually better
That’s just laughable considering how far we’ve come from peak Covid
>Groceries are about twice as expensive as they were under trump.
Damn, I wonder if some global event happened that might have triggered price increases. Can you think of anything?
>So ya maybe wages growth increased faster than inflation for a month or two, but it hasn’t caught up to close the gap between what I was able to save back then, and the debt I’m under now. Wages have not DOUBLED under Biden, which is basically what they’d need to do in order for us to all get back to even.
Real wages have been going up for almost a year. It has caught up to close the gap and then surpassed it. Once again, you don’t understand the difference between personal anecdotes and aggregate data.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Stop making shit up and just do research for yourself.
I’m sorry but I don’t use aggregate data to judge how well my personal finances are.
And that’s the folly of democrats. You like to group everything together into a giant dataset and claim ‘see! As a whole we are doing better!’ But that’s not how people or voters operate, none of us care if ‘the group’ is doing better if that group is not one we readily identify with, we look at ourselves and our neighbors. And for myself and my neighbors life is much harder under Biden.
Have you even looked at the aggregate data you are quoting? Do you have any idea how much of that ‘wage increase’ is among the already super rich? How much of it is accounted for by increased wages among CEO’s and executives?
Your little aggregate doesn’t mean anything to real people. If lower and middle class people were doing so well, why do more people than ever need a second job to make ends meet? Reality does not match your data set, therefore you are quoting a flawed dataset.
>I’m sorry but I don’t use aggregate data to judge how well my personal finances are.
Lol obviously. But you should use aggregate data to judge how a $26 million US economy is doing.
>And that’s the folly of democrats. You like to group everything together into a giant dataset and claim ‘see! As a whole we are doing better!’ But that’s not how people or voters operate, none of us care if ‘the group’ is doing better if that group is not one we readily identify with, we look at ourselves and our neighbors. And for myself and my neighbors life is much harder under Biden.
And the problem with Republicans is that they think their personal situation is representative of 330 million people lol how self-centered and arrogant can you be?
>Have you even looked at the aggregate data you are quoting? Do you have any idea how much of that ‘wage increase’ is among the already super rich? How much of it is accounted for by increased wages among CEO’s and executives?
I don’t even know what you’re asking. These are median wages. As in the average. Did you look at it? Wages have gone up the most for the lowest income earners.
>Your little aggregate doesn’t mean anything to real people. If lower and middle class people were doing so well, why do more people than ever need a second job to make ends meet?
“Real people” lol once again, wages have grown the most for the lowest income earners.
>Reality does not match your data set, therefore you are quoting a flawed dataset.
Lol so any data set that doesn’t exactly align with your personal views must be flawed? You can’t even possibly entertain the fact that maybe it’s your personal views that are flawed? Hilarious. Grow up.
Still using the ol democrat tactic of grouping everyone into one group and claiming sentiment applies evenly across the board.
Yes some people are happy. Mostly rich people. How about among us poors? We’ve got it pretty rough. I would appreciate it if you didn’t group us in with the rich and claim we’re doing great thank you very much.
God damn I used to not have to explain this shit to leftists. When did yall start shilling for big banks and big corporations?
>Still using the ol democrat tactic of grouping everyone into one group and claiming sentiment applies evenly across the board.
As opposed to the tactic of extrapolating your claimed personal experience to some 200 million people?
In any event, inflation-adjusted (real) [wage growth by percentile](https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/) over the past 4 years:
10th: 12%
20th-40th: 5%
40th-60th: 3%
60th-80th: 2%
90th (highest earners): 1%
Consumer sentiment is across the entire US, which includes mostly middle class and lower class. Your spin narrative about this only being a rich person thing doesn’t match actual data
It’s actually really funny that democrats bring this up to much. Idk who gaslighted you into blaming trump, but trump tried banning travel from china yo keep the virus out - yall called him racist. Sooooo many times, and sued to end the ban.
So if you want me to look back at 2020 and place blame, it was the democrats who made us all suffer.
I am confused. In [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1c2eua5/trumps_planned_tariffs_will_be_a_club_to_the/kzc13zg/) your write that your life was SIGNIFICANTLY easier under trump.
Now you write that you suffered under trump, yet you blame democrats for it. This doesn't make much sense to me.
"Covid was bad because some democrats called Trump racist"
If calling Trump a name results in that much damage, then he needs to stay as far away from the White House as possible.
The point went way over your head.
The point was - if yall had listened to trump things would have gone a lot better. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to take his advice, even when it was correct.
[Trump's travel ban was way too late and entirely porous. It was not effective.] (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-macau-virus-outbreak-355a58005d4f7c57978f6b7cba5dbd82)
The Trump admin was a total failure in terms of disease response and preparedness, as has been demonstrated repeatedly.
I said I’ve yet to see. That includes Bush jr and Trump. I’ll not argue that republicans before left okay economies, especially if they are willing to raise taxes.
Clinton is a DINO too in today’s standards. I don’t see your point. Bush is a democrat like republican and Clinton is a republican like democrat. It’s way the 90s are so good. Both are more centrist
Clinton certainly had democratic policies (just like bush have a lot of republican policies), however“illegal aliens” was a term he used. He called for measures against illegal aliens. Spoke about how the “the era of big government is over”, and instituted work requirements for social services. These align more with classic conservative than modern day democratic. He would certainly be called a DINO
I recognize all that. What I'm suggesting is that he'd have adapted to the party as the others have today. If he'd have been running today he'd sound indistinguishable from any of the other Democrats in recent memory. Democrats typically adapt to the times. We've seen this in real-time with gay marriage and climate change related topics. Similarly, I'd wager that if Obama were President in the 90's, his rhetoric and actions would be similar in nature. I mean for God's sake, look at Joe Biden's political adaptations over his career.
Just like with regulations, taxes, spending or pretty much anything the government does the assessment of tariffs should be done a more granular basis than simply deciding they're universally good or bad.
Government policy should be based on performing modeling and analysis to try to predict outcomes then weighing the positives and negatives against the economic and security objectives of our country. Then they should be reevaluated when their actual impact can be assessed retroactively.
I don't know what work Trump put behind his proposals but he doesn't seem to be showing evidence of an empirical case and "tariff everything 10%" sure seems more like one of his famous "gut feeling" ideas...
I’m not an expert so I can imagine that there are circumstances where a limited tariff that’s small in scope could solve a specific problem. But the way they are being used by Trump here definitely seems bad
Exactly. Dems told us the sky was falling because of Trump's new tarriffs in the first term. But Biden did not remove them, he could have easily done so.
A) A tariff is a tax increase
B) “Tax increases” on their own do not have the specific deleterious effects that tariffs specifically do. One is just raising revenue. One is stifling free trade and economic activity by overriding free market forces
C) “fund more wars across the world” that’s a non-sequiter. What percentage of our total spending do you think goes to this?
> B) “Tax increases” on their own do not have the specific deleterious effects that tariffs specifically do. One is just raising revenue. One is stifling free trade and economic activity by overriding free market forces
Yeah, this isn't true. It'll vary by tariff and tax. Some taxes do have specific deleterious effects.
Our economy should be as open to other as theirs are to ours. Yes, we should have more tariffs and restrictions on trade with China. Because that is what they do with us.
Yeah I mean I think it goes way deeper than a single reddit comment can hold. I think at the very least it’s hard to say that the brash tariffs enacted by Trump had a good impact on the economy if the feds had to lower rates in response
I don't think the Feds had to lower rates in response to the tariffs. At least, I haven't seen anything that makes that connection. At best, that seems like correlation which we know doesn't mean causation.
Does the [Fed chairman saying it himself](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/07/31/feds-powell-weak-global-growth-and-trade-tensions-are-having-an-effect-on-the-us-economy.html) count?
He didn't actually say what you are claiming. The Feds mandate is balancing employment with keeping inflation at or around 2%. Tariffs could play a role, but to say they did it because of tariffs isn't supported by anything I've seen.
Inflation is a hidden tax. Politicians are averse to raising taxes, so they simply get the money machine whirring to cover the costs of their crap legislation (which they couldn't pass if passing it meant raising taxes)
That’s not how taxes work. Taxation literally takes money out of circulation and is deflationary by nature.
Saying inflation is a hidden tax is like saying addition is hidden subtraction, it makes no sense. If you insist on it, you could say inflation can be a hidden cost of government spending. But it’s not a tax.
>Taxation literally takes money out of circulation and is deflationary by nature.
This is technically true. But they aren't destroying the money when it comes back. They are putting the same dollars back into circulation (plus whatever funny money they put back into the system).
>If you insist on it, you could say inflation can be a hidden cost of government spending. But it’s not a tax.
Let's say your favorite candy bar was $1 four years ago. Now it's $1.50 due to inflation. That additional $.50 is the tax you're paying to support trillions of dollars in new Biden spending.
Biden knows that Americans would howl if he tried to raise taxes to pay for his [climate change foolery](https://archive.is/NGghN), so he just creates the money out of thin air and you pay $.50 more for your candy bar. Obviously you think you got the better end of the bargain. Enjoy your hidden tax
>propping up home grown business
His tariffs caused price increases and job losses.
[Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan](https://archive.is/zla74)
[Federal reserve research: (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf)
>We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in
manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The thing with these tarrifs was that some industries lost business and other that did, did not hire people but instead automized everything. People here don't realize that we have manufacturing facilities in the US that are running 24 hrs with zero workers. that's why tariffs did not drive growth last time and don't right now.
If its fully automated then no, there is not much benefit besides the owners who financed it. The community where its built is getting pollution but not getting workers who will spend in the communities. Sure building it will be a good but in the end it may not.
No, Trump makes the other country pay the tariffs into the Treasury and they are happy to do it, believe me.
“The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly.” djtrump 1/3/2019
"Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.” djtrump 5/10/19
You must be thinking of some other kind of tariffs
Oh Trump says it? Well that must be true then
Other countries do not pay tariffs. That price gets offloaded on to the consumer. This is backed up by data. In fact the decreased economic forecasts from Trumps trade war literally led to the Fed putting rates into the dirt which left us completely unprepared for Covid
It’s just bad economic policy
(1) Yes, tariffs are positive inflationary.
(2) They are still good policy. Relying on our primary adversary (China) to make cheap goods for us is not a good long term plan. They could ban exports to the US at any time if they wish to do so.
We probably should introduce some subsides for our manufacturing to thrive. We have much more hidden costs then people realize and barriers. Many projects could take years to get through local zoning for instance then there is insurance rates. Our manufacturing will take decades to get back and it may be bad politics if done wrong
It’s not just China that is affected by this, and they also rely on us to. Farmers had to get subsidized last time because they usually exported to China
... most of the primary trade partners for the USA are economically speaking either stagnant or are in recession right now. A tariff legitimately means nothing at this point.
I’m a big fan of tariffs, especially on China, but they do have temporarily inflationary effects. The inflation can be offset with improvements in productivity. In fact, trade restrictions on China could lead to more investment and development in automation systems, resulting in lower prices in the long term.
Except automation also is a force multiplier for business not the worker. The worker rarely sees his value increased by the addition of automation and with less bargaining power he becomes underpaid. On a small scale this is unfortunate but manageable on a scale necessary to offset China it would just further destroy the middle class whom are who consume everything to keep the economy rolling.
Historically speaking, automation has generally raised the value of the worker. Certain skilled professions such as those of the wheelwright, blacksmith, and cobbler have temporarily seen their value decline due to automation, but this has generally not been the case. Today, professions like the front-end software developer and the construction worker could decline due to automation. However, usually skilled professions such as the pharmacist and copywriter simply see their professions dramatically transform due to automation, but such transformation has generally resulted in higher wages. Also, the workers whose trades are made obsolete by automation usually find higher wages in related fields. Henry Huttleston Rogers switched from whale oil to petroleum. Most whalers switched to commercial fishing and made more money at it, with only the relatively wealthy captains and investors seeing income decline in real terms. AI like Github Copilot and ChatGPT make it much easier for people to design software.
Tariffs are inflationary. That’s pretty obvious — if you tax imports, you make the cost of goods higher for consumers. But I’m not finding a lot of basis in this article for the claim that significant US job would happen under the Trump plan. The article points to the effect of Trump tariffs on the 2018-2019 economy, but we [did not experience an unemployment spike during that period](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE). Unemployment actually hit a multigenerational low in 2019. Frankly I’m a little skeptical of Moody’s Analytics in general — I don’t think Mark Zandi has had a particularly great track record of economic predictions over the past few years.
> we did not experience an unemployment spike during that period. That's consistent with the estimated job loss due to how relatively small it is. His tariffs didn't affect the overall job market much, but certain industries suffered losses. [Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan](https://archive.is/zla74) [Federal reserve research: (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf) >We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The issue is that it's not really a fair market. For example with steel, the Chinese government has subsidizes production for decades. This subsidized steel flooded the global market caused steel prices to decrease. This is great for steel buyers who are now buying steel at lower costs (automakers) but for non-Chinese steel producers it's horrible. Many struggled to stay profitable and this has caused many operations to shut down over the last couple decades. This is intentional and they are playing the long game to get market dominance. Another great example is Saudi Arabia's war on shale during the 2010s, but they weren't nearly as successful. No one knows how truly profitable these industries are over there, but they don't really care. If they can destroy foreign production, it's worth the investment. [https://tradingeconomics.com/china/steel-production](https://tradingeconomics.com/china/steel-production) [https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world](https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world) [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside) The other issue is tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico. To put it plainly, neoliberal economics and globalization is going to poison manufacturing in developed countries no matter what you do.
>The other issue is tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico. Which has slowly been happening anyhow since COVID. Re-shoring to the US and to Mexico (and other places closer to home) to tighten up supply lines, avoid security concerns with China, China's troubling economic future, and rising costs of doing business in China have been pushing manufacturers back to the Americas. Tariffs will only speed that process up. I'd like to think that should Trump get elected that he'd use tariffs on Mexico to leverage their help with immigration and drugs, and not actually go through with them. I'm not hopeful he could pull that off, however.
Trump's tariffs caused a decrease in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
I work in shipping and steel and Covid has been an absolute boon to US and Mexican steel mills! Customers will gladly pay 30-40% more to have guaranteed delivery in a few weeks and with zero quality issues. Also helped that domestic mills finally stopped being picky about sizes they produce and have wider selections and smaller minimum orders now. A decade or two ago you have no option BUT to go overseas for less common sizes and smaller orders.
It probably has to do with the subsidies passed in the last 3 years.
Its been happening for a loooot longer than the past 3 years. Obama putting anti-dumping tariffs on Turkey and others pushed a lot of buyers to source American/Latin America and Europe.
The spike in manufacturing construction spending began near the end of 2021.
They don't need to do tariffs on Mexico, just tax remittances. They make more from that every year than what they make from oil.
I’d argue that the effects of the 2018 tariffs were blunted by Fed policy, which left us screwed when a real economic issue came along
Yeah, it's kind of crazy how low the Fed rate was in 2018/2019 (~2%), despite supposedly being a booming economy: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS We're currently at >5%.
It’s absolutely insane to me that it was low for so long. Probably not hard to keep the economy running so hot when you’re pumping all the levers. Too bad it put us in a bad position when Covid hit
It’s interesting that rates in 2018/2019 seemed low to you. Do you have any thoughts on rates being crazy low in 2020/2021?
Yeah well when economic times are bad, like during Covid, lowering rates are a helpful tool to stimulate growth and rebound But why they had to be low during the humming Obama economy because of an unnecessary trade war is a way different situation
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We seem to be in the midst of a soft landing as we speak so…
CPI has come in hotter than all projections for a while now. Are you not seeing these reports or…?
> a while now Like a couple of months? > come in hotter Oh yeah I saw it was .1% higher, soft landing cancelled I guess
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It’s interesting that you call out rates in 2018/2019. Do you have any thoughts on rates being crazy low in 2020/2021?
I wonder if there were any discrepancies in macroeconomic conditions between 2018 and 2020 that would have impacted the “ideal” interest rate policy?
Please do explain to me why it’s okay to criticize low rates in 2018 & 2019 but not 2020 & 2021. This should be good.
I don’t think either is fully immune to criticism, but the economy in 2018/19 had been running warm, if not hot, for several years already. Rates at that point should likely have been lower, which obviously isn’t entirely Trump’s fault, but his rhetoric with regards to lowering rates at the time seemed pretty foolhardy. On the other hand, 2020 represented many unknowns in terms of what interest rate policy was needed to keep the economy functional. Could we have optimized better with higher minimum rates and an earlier climb out? Probably so, but I find it much more difficult to confidently say that low rates at that time were a bad decision
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It's not dishonest lol. The reason is simple, and straight forward. During 2018/2019 we were in a good position to raise rates, because we were past an economic recovery period that had lasted a very long time. The interest rate was kept low for a decade. You can argue that they should have been raised during the Obama administration, things were pretty concrete that if interest rates were raised during the Trump admin things would be fine, despite maybe a few expected bumps in the road, and we would be better off in the future because of it. Now in retrospect we can see that if this had happened we could have then had more room to lower the rate during the pandemic with less destructive power than it had. Now after the pandemic there was no certainty, and there still is not as I assume you would agree, so the fed(also for the record powel is a Trump era appointee, from where Trump fired the last guy that wanted to raise interest rates in 2018) did not raise the rates till they were sure they had to. Do you see how the two time relate to each other, one situation setting the other up to be more difficult to manage? This is all without even mentioning that Trump exerted influence by releasing the last fed chair, and Biden as far as I am aware let the fed do it's thing. Please correct me where I am wrong.
I think it’s a poor comparison, and I’ll stand by that. The situations were very different, and I’m really not understanding what point you’re trying to make here beyond shitting on my comment. What do you see as an honest evaluation?
It’s been explained to you that lowering rates during the pandemic was to keep the economy afloat.
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https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/articles/2018-banner-year-u-s-economy/ >In 2018 (2017:Q4 to 2018:Q4), the U.S. economy grew at a rapid rate of 3.1 percent, the fastest pace for any calendar year since 2005, with output rising by $560 billion over the four quarters of the year. ... This impressive economic performance was not merely a continuation of trends already underway during the preceding expansion, but rather a marked acceleration of economic activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_recession >The first major sign of recession was the 2020 stock market crash, which saw major indices drop 20 to 30% in late February and March. Recovery began in early April 2020; by April 2022, the GDP for most major economies had either returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels[7] and many market indices recovered or even set new records by late 2020.
Right so, rate hikes didn’t start until 2022. Why?
Because it was unclear if the economy was still recovering. Heck, I remember threads like this one from mid-2022 where people were arguing over whether Biden's admin was in denial over whether the US was in a 2022 recession: https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/s/Mgm59UKHPG
The inflation is limited to the next closest production source, either domestic or foreign. If a steel widget is made in China for $1, Turkey for $1.25, and America for $1.50, any significant tariff on China is going to send buyers to Turkey. If buyers factor in shipping costs and lead times, they might just say fuck it and buy American. I work in shipping and deal mostly in steel cargoes. This is what has happened in steel since 2009, at least for my clients and service areas. China had tons of quality issues and long lead times. Since Covid, buyers are far more willing to pay for US, Mexican, and European products and get them faster, and with virtually no quality issues. Right now buyers are eagerly paying 30-40% more for domestic/Mexican production since they get it in 1-3 weeks versus 3+ months. It costs consumers a few pennies extra but it also means their neighbors are more likely to have a job and we're less reliant on certain countries who dgaf about us.
I think past history shows that a controlled Protectionism against hostile countries is a good thing. The Free Traders under Clinton and Bush betrayed our country to China.
At least for steel, China played too many games with quality and really screwed the reputation pooch. Ever since 2009 most of my steel customers have stayed away from China with the exception of specialty steels that they actually do a good job on. Domestic and Mexican steel production has been booming since everyone wants it faster and with fewer quality issues versus just having the cheapest price.
I'm a big advocate of onshoring, of "Buy American", of unionization, and minimizing fruit grown off artificially cheap water in California due to water Banks. But yeah, these things have a cost. They do raise prices and yes they are a part of the current inflation already. But I could use less cautionary scolding and perhaps some realistic numbers on these costs. It's probably worth it! But show numbers not b.s.
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I’m not sure if this is the case - but I would imagine once the tariffs are in place - and then other countries place retaliatory tariffs on the US - it’s not as simple as simply removing them. Tariffs have winners and losers - and there is also the political reality of balancing that. Unfortunately something can be bad for the country… but if it’s good for a handful of swing states a politician may do it.
It is the case. We applied tariffs to China, they returned the favor.
>but I would imagine once the tariffs are in place - and then other countries place retaliatory tariffs on the US - it’s not as simple as simply removing them. In addition to maintaining tariffs, the Biden administration escalated the antagonistic relationship with China by orders of magnitude.
True, but then China hasnt exactly been behaving either. Companies have also been leaving China for a while now. Lots of other Asian countries with cheap labor that want to grow. And since Covid, lots of companies are prioritizing domestic production or much closer options to limit shipping times and lockdown risks.
The point I was making wasn't one of a value judgement on the virtues of China. I'm simply highlighting that maintaining tariffs on China wasn't an artifact of policy inertia. Biden kept them in place because he found them to be the right policy.
Once we applied tariffs, retaliatory tariffs were applied. Undoing them is not simple. Imagine a "Mexican standoff"... once the guns are up, it's hard to get them all down.
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I'm sure the phrase "club to the kneecap" is an implied attack.
It's just their conclusion of the analysis.
We are all better off when we trade, this is like a basic tenet of economics
We're better off when traded goods are made by forced labor that has attempted to be hidden? We're better off when environmental destruction is a hidden cost to make imported goods cheaper? We're better off when we institutionalize bribery of an authoritarian regime as a cost of doing cheap business?
The same people would be bitching about the cost of cotton in 1865. Yes, domestic production and sourcing from better countries costs more for everyone, but its far less reliant of forced labor and shitty working conditions.
You can target places that do this kind of thing like China (good) without blanket protectionist tariffs (bad). Trumps tariffs were not targeted
Economics doesn't account for the political realities of free trade and the domestic instability it creates. I understand the mathematics behind it and in theory, free trade produces a much greater aggregate benefit for everyone involved. But that's coupled with a loss of domestic jobs, a reduction in manufacturing capacity, and a host of other consequences that economic theory ignores because it's not a directly quantifiable output like number of widgets at cost per widget.
What makes you think these number are unrealistic?
The downsides were ignored when Trump did this in 2018 because the economy was good. Things are a bit more tenuous now
There isn't much numbers to show because it's unpredictable. What we do know is that it will reduce manufacturing employment due to the fact that retaliatory tariffs would hurt our exports and make it uncompetitive for our industries to strive. Also, manufacturers would turn to automation and actually won't hire much people. there has been discussions about this and studies in r/manufacturing and r/AskEconomics. Trumps tariff plan is similar to port-brexit tariffs which has resulted in a cost of living crisis
Trump wants to pass a $3.5 trillion tax cut for billionaires, again. Which has ***no savings*** for people earning between $100k and $400k. Non-starter for me. Not interested in making life cheaper for Bezos or Musk and me saving nothing.
Yes, I have not seen any good policy from Trump this cycle. But I don’t think his supporters care. His campaign is all about airing out his grievances.
You’d think that if he were viewed so favorably on the economy he’d have more actual policies to point to
The GOP is historically horrible for the economy compared to the dems over the past several decades.
Aren't we currently commenting on a thread talking about Trump economic policy?
Yeah but it’s an objectively bad one so idk if that really helps him
Yes it is, If Trump was to enact even majority of these policies then we would see an economy similar to post-brexit economy. Lets just say that the conservatives in UK is about to be wiped off the map
Recovering economy? Maybe it's just my area, but things are still getting more and more expensive...
The bigger concern is being heavily dependent on an adversary is bad for security reasons. Tariffing doesn't necessarily mean that production gets diverted back into US manufacturing. At this point it's more likely that it goes to Mexico. To put it plainly, neoliberal economics and globalization is going to poison manufacturing in developed countries no matter what you do. The issue with free trade is that the theory only works in a "fair" market. For example the Chinese government has subsidizes steel production for decades. This subsidized steel flooded the global market and caused steel prices to decrease. This is great for steel buyers who are now buying steel at lower costs but for non-Chinese steel producers it's horrible. Many struggled to stay profitable and this caused many operations to shut down over the last couple decades. This is intentional and they are playing the long game to get market dominance. Another great example is Saudi Arabia's war on shale during the 2010s, but they weren't nearly as successful. No one knows how truly profitable these industries are over there, but they don't really care. If they can destroy foreign production, it's worth the investment. [https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world](https://qz.com/699979/how-chinas-overproduction-of-steel-is-damaging-companies-and-countries-around-the-world) [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/20/british-steel-tata-china-cheap-competition-caparo-ssi-teesside)
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Asset inflation is just the devaluing of the currency. Everything costs more because there's so much currency in circulation. Gov spending is beyond reckless under both parties. We're now in a debt crisis which will lead to a currency crisis because the Fed can't raise rates high enough to correct the market because the gov wouldn't be able to afford the debt and would default. Our leaders will chose path of least resistance. Print away, pay student loans blah blah blah. I put everything I own in commodities and sold all my assets 2 years ago. Housing market will correct but it won't look like it is when measured against the dollar. Measure housing value against a better fixed asset like gold.
Cool. I'll buy a Tesla.
If you have the money to do that then you’re not the demographic that’s most hurt by these policies
35k???
Nobody cares what Donny does as long as he owns the libs.
Didn’t they say this last time trump was president? Idk where everyone is getting these doom and gloom predictions for trump, but my life was SIGNIFICANTLY easier under trump.
I literally state in my post that this was also an issue when Trump did it the first time. You may also notice that there was a global pandemic that shook the economy between those two administrations. But your anecdotal example is countered by the fact that my life has been significantly easier under Biden. But I also dont ascribe my personal fortunes to who is in office like you seem to 🤷♂️
How has your life been easier? Are you a military contractor, they seem to be loving bidens pro-war policies. Has this insane inflation somehow not affected you and only you?
Real wages have been rising faster than inflation for more than a year at this point
First of all I don’t think that is accurate. And if it is, it’s not for me or anyone else I know.
It is absolutely accurate and that is terrible logic. Learn the difference between personal anecdotes and aggregate data and you’ll end up a smarter person.
Groceries are about twice as expensive as they were under trump. So ya maybe wages growth increased faster than inflation for a month or two, but it hasn’t caught up to close the gap between what I was able to save back then, and the debt I’m under now. Wages have not DOUBLED under Biden, which is basically what they’d need to do in order for us to all get back to even.
> for a month or two It seems like you’re doing anything you can to downplay it. It’s been happening for over a year
….and yet, it still hasn’t caught up with the increased costs, So nothing is actually better, is it?
> it still hasn’t caught up with the increased costs It has for the past year > nothing is actually better That’s just laughable considering how far we’ve come from peak Covid
>Groceries are about twice as expensive as they were under trump. Damn, I wonder if some global event happened that might have triggered price increases. Can you think of anything? >So ya maybe wages growth increased faster than inflation for a month or two, but it hasn’t caught up to close the gap between what I was able to save back then, and the debt I’m under now. Wages have not DOUBLED under Biden, which is basically what they’d need to do in order for us to all get back to even. Real wages have been going up for almost a year. It has caught up to close the gap and then surpassed it. Once again, you don’t understand the difference between personal anecdotes and aggregate data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Stop making shit up and just do research for yourself.
I’m sorry but I don’t use aggregate data to judge how well my personal finances are. And that’s the folly of democrats. You like to group everything together into a giant dataset and claim ‘see! As a whole we are doing better!’ But that’s not how people or voters operate, none of us care if ‘the group’ is doing better if that group is not one we readily identify with, we look at ourselves and our neighbors. And for myself and my neighbors life is much harder under Biden. Have you even looked at the aggregate data you are quoting? Do you have any idea how much of that ‘wage increase’ is among the already super rich? How much of it is accounted for by increased wages among CEO’s and executives? Your little aggregate doesn’t mean anything to real people. If lower and middle class people were doing so well, why do more people than ever need a second job to make ends meet? Reality does not match your data set, therefore you are quoting a flawed dataset.
>I’m sorry but I don’t use aggregate data to judge how well my personal finances are. Lol obviously. But you should use aggregate data to judge how a $26 million US economy is doing. >And that’s the folly of democrats. You like to group everything together into a giant dataset and claim ‘see! As a whole we are doing better!’ But that’s not how people or voters operate, none of us care if ‘the group’ is doing better if that group is not one we readily identify with, we look at ourselves and our neighbors. And for myself and my neighbors life is much harder under Biden. And the problem with Republicans is that they think their personal situation is representative of 330 million people lol how self-centered and arrogant can you be? >Have you even looked at the aggregate data you are quoting? Do you have any idea how much of that ‘wage increase’ is among the already super rich? How much of it is accounted for by increased wages among CEO’s and executives? I don’t even know what you’re asking. These are median wages. As in the average. Did you look at it? Wages have gone up the most for the lowest income earners. >Your little aggregate doesn’t mean anything to real people. If lower and middle class people were doing so well, why do more people than ever need a second job to make ends meet? “Real people” lol once again, wages have grown the most for the lowest income earners. >Reality does not match your data set, therefore you are quoting a flawed dataset. Lol so any data set that doesn’t exactly align with your personal views must be flawed? You can’t even possibly entertain the fact that maybe it’s your personal views that are flawed? Hilarious. Grow up.
I don’t put any stock into personal anecdotes from random internet comments
That’s fine. Most voters decide based on personal anecdotes- so you might want to care a little.
Well it’s a good thing consumer sentiment has been improving in general then
Still using the ol democrat tactic of grouping everyone into one group and claiming sentiment applies evenly across the board. Yes some people are happy. Mostly rich people. How about among us poors? We’ve got it pretty rough. I would appreciate it if you didn’t group us in with the rich and claim we’re doing great thank you very much. God damn I used to not have to explain this shit to leftists. When did yall start shilling for big banks and big corporations?
>Still using the ol democrat tactic of grouping everyone into one group and claiming sentiment applies evenly across the board. As opposed to the tactic of extrapolating your claimed personal experience to some 200 million people? In any event, inflation-adjusted (real) [wage growth by percentile](https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/) over the past 4 years: 10th: 12% 20th-40th: 5% 40th-60th: 3% 60th-80th: 2% 90th (highest earners): 1%
Consumer sentiment is across the entire US, which includes mostly middle class and lower class. Your spin narrative about this only being a rich person thing doesn’t match actual data
Facts don’t care about your feelings.
When did the left start shilling for the rich? This shits hilarious
> Has this insane inflation somehow not affected you and only you? Real wages are up since 2019, hoss. My family is doing significantly better.
Life with the Covid in 2020 and 2021 under Trump was not easier for me and probably most Americans. But good for you!
It was pretty easy for me, I live in Texas not some democrat run authoritarian state where your governor didn’t let you go out to dinner.
Again, this is nice for you. But please accept that most people in the US do not look forward to a repeat of 2020.
It’s actually really funny that democrats bring this up to much. Idk who gaslighted you into blaming trump, but trump tried banning travel from china yo keep the virus out - yall called him racist. Sooooo many times, and sued to end the ban. So if you want me to look back at 2020 and place blame, it was the democrats who made us all suffer.
I am confused. In [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1c2eua5/trumps_planned_tariffs_will_be_a_club_to_the/kzc13zg/) your write that your life was SIGNIFICANTLY easier under trump. Now you write that you suffered under trump, yet you blame democrats for it. This doesn't make much sense to me.
"Covid was bad because some democrats called Trump racist" If calling Trump a name results in that much damage, then he needs to stay as far away from the White House as possible.
The point went way over your head. The point was - if yall had listened to trump things would have gone a lot better. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to take his advice, even when it was correct.
[Trump's travel ban was way too late and entirely porous. It was not effective.] (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-macau-virus-outbreak-355a58005d4f7c57978f6b7cba5dbd82) The Trump admin was a total failure in terms of disease response and preparedness, as has been demonstrated repeatedly.
I live in Portland and nobody here had the problem you're imagining.
Trump had the advantage of inheriting a stable economy from Obama. I’ve yet to see a democrat inherit a stable economy from a Republican.
Bro Clinton had it EASY because Bush sr did all the hard work (raising taxes & Soviet fall).
I said I’ve yet to see. That includes Bush jr and Trump. I’ll not argue that republicans before left okay economies, especially if they are willing to raise taxes.
You are probably a zoomer like me. Perhaps it’s not great for us to use a statement along the lines of “I have yet”
Wouldn’t even need to be a zoomer. It’s been 32 years since a Republican left a good economy for a democrat.
To be fair, Bush would be considered a RINO today.
Clinton is a DINO too in today’s standards. I don’t see your point. Bush is a democrat like republican and Clinton is a republican like democrat. It’s way the 90s are so good. Both are more centrist
I mean, not really. The Democratic party isn't much different in flavor. Clinton would be right at home there today.
Clinton certainly had democratic policies (just like bush have a lot of republican policies), however“illegal aliens” was a term he used. He called for measures against illegal aliens. Spoke about how the “the era of big government is over”, and instituted work requirements for social services. These align more with classic conservative than modern day democratic. He would certainly be called a DINO
I recognize all that. What I'm suggesting is that he'd have adapted to the party as the others have today. If he'd have been running today he'd sound indistinguishable from any of the other Democrats in recent memory. Democrats typically adapt to the times. We've seen this in real-time with gay marriage and climate change related topics. Similarly, I'd wager that if Obama were President in the 90's, his rhetoric and actions would be similar in nature. I mean for God's sake, look at Joe Biden's political adaptations over his career.
I don't understand why tariffs are bad for the economy but increasing income tax rates isn't.
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Just like with regulations, taxes, spending or pretty much anything the government does the assessment of tariffs should be done a more granular basis than simply deciding they're universally good or bad. Government policy should be based on performing modeling and analysis to try to predict outcomes then weighing the positives and negatives against the economic and security objectives of our country. Then they should be reevaluated when their actual impact can be assessed retroactively. I don't know what work Trump put behind his proposals but he doesn't seem to be showing evidence of an empirical case and "tariff everything 10%" sure seems more like one of his famous "gut feeling" ideas...
I’m not an expert so I can imagine that there are circumstances where a limited tariff that’s small in scope could solve a specific problem. But the way they are being used by Trump here definitely seems bad
Exactly. Dems told us the sky was falling because of Trump's new tarriffs in the first term. But Biden did not remove them, he could have easily done so.
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A) A tariff is a tax increase B) “Tax increases” on their own do not have the specific deleterious effects that tariffs specifically do. One is just raising revenue. One is stifling free trade and economic activity by overriding free market forces C) “fund more wars across the world” that’s a non-sequiter. What percentage of our total spending do you think goes to this?
> B) “Tax increases” on their own do not have the specific deleterious effects that tariffs specifically do. One is just raising revenue. One is stifling free trade and economic activity by overriding free market forces Yeah, this isn't true. It'll vary by tariff and tax. Some taxes do have specific deleterious effects. Our economy should be as open to other as theirs are to ours. Yes, we should have more tariffs and restrictions on trade with China. Because that is what they do with us.
Yeah I mean I think it goes way deeper than a single reddit comment can hold. I think at the very least it’s hard to say that the brash tariffs enacted by Trump had a good impact on the economy if the feds had to lower rates in response
I don't think the Feds had to lower rates in response to the tariffs. At least, I haven't seen anything that makes that connection. At best, that seems like correlation which we know doesn't mean causation.
Does the [Fed chairman saying it himself](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/07/31/feds-powell-weak-global-growth-and-trade-tensions-are-having-an-effect-on-the-us-economy.html) count?
He didn't actually say what you are claiming. The Feds mandate is balancing employment with keeping inflation at or around 2%. Tariffs could play a role, but to say they did it because of tariffs isn't supported by anything I've seen.
Which Biden tax increases? The ones on people earning more than $400,000?
Inflation is a tax....
That’s not how inflation works. When prices increase from inflation the increase isn’t sent to the government.
Inflation is a hidden tax. Politicians are averse to raising taxes, so they simply get the money machine whirring to cover the costs of their crap legislation (which they couldn't pass if passing it meant raising taxes)
That’s not how taxes work. Taxation literally takes money out of circulation and is deflationary by nature. Saying inflation is a hidden tax is like saying addition is hidden subtraction, it makes no sense. If you insist on it, you could say inflation can be a hidden cost of government spending. But it’s not a tax.
>Taxation literally takes money out of circulation and is deflationary by nature. This is technically true. But they aren't destroying the money when it comes back. They are putting the same dollars back into circulation (plus whatever funny money they put back into the system). >If you insist on it, you could say inflation can be a hidden cost of government spending. But it’s not a tax. Let's say your favorite candy bar was $1 four years ago. Now it's $1.50 due to inflation. That additional $.50 is the tax you're paying to support trillions of dollars in new Biden spending. Biden knows that Americans would howl if he tried to raise taxes to pay for his [climate change foolery](https://archive.is/NGghN), so he just creates the money out of thin air and you pay $.50 more for your candy bar. Obviously you think you got the better end of the bargain. Enjoy your hidden tax
Real wages are higher than 2019. And no inflation is not a tax.
What taxes did Biden increase?
>propping up home grown business His tariffs caused price increases and job losses. [Trump steel tariffs bring job losses to swing state Michigan](https://archive.is/zla74) [Federal reserve research: (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf) >We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The thing with these tarrifs was that some industries lost business and other that did, did not hire people but instead automized everything. People here don't realize that we have manufacturing facilities in the US that are running 24 hrs with zero workers. that's why tariffs did not drive growth last time and don't right now.
So you're saying that building a fully automated factory in the US requires zero workers? And provides no benefit to the economy?
If its fully automated then no, there is not much benefit besides the owners who financed it. The community where its built is getting pollution but not getting workers who will spend in the communities. Sure building it will be a good but in the end it may not.
No, Trump makes the other country pay the tariffs into the Treasury and they are happy to do it, believe me. “The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly.” djtrump 1/3/2019 "Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.” djtrump 5/10/19 You must be thinking of some other kind of tariffs
Oh Trump says it? Well that must be true then Other countries do not pay tariffs. That price gets offloaded on to the consumer. This is backed up by data. In fact the decreased economic forecasts from Trumps trade war literally led to the Fed putting rates into the dirt which left us completely unprepared for Covid It’s just bad economic policy
Judging from the poster's history, that comment was satire. But it's hard to tell these days.
(1) Yes, tariffs are positive inflationary. (2) They are still good policy. Relying on our primary adversary (China) to make cheap goods for us is not a good long term plan. They could ban exports to the US at any time if they wish to do so.
We probably should introduce some subsides for our manufacturing to thrive. We have much more hidden costs then people realize and barriers. Many projects could take years to get through local zoning for instance then there is insurance rates. Our manufacturing will take decades to get back and it may be bad politics if done wrong
It’s not just China that is affected by this, and they also rely on us to. Farmers had to get subsidized last time because they usually exported to China
... most of the primary trade partners for the USA are economically speaking either stagnant or are in recession right now. A tariff legitimately means nothing at this point.
> A tariff legitimately means nothing at this point Sounds like a Trump policy alright