Bag said:

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aTmAg said:

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Bag said:

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aTmAg said:

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Bag said:

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Champ Bailey said:

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Can anyone explain to me what is bad about the wealth gap in this country? Why is it bad that we don't kneecap our most successful people? I understand there are people who live below the poverty line. But isn't it also important to consider that what we consider poverty in this country is drastically different than what practically every other country considers poverty?

My biggest issue with any proposed policy to address this is that when looking at history and at theory, the policies proposed in this country actually increase wealth disparity, not decrease it. My final comment would be that pretty much every socialist economy (not a socialist safety net, please recognize the distinction I am making) actually have the worst examples of wealth disparity in human history.

If you want a real, meaningful step to address wealth disparity, the only real answer IMO is to break up the monopolies we have in this country. But globalization policies have pretty much neutered us in enforcing this.

---

Wealth gaps are fine, no one argues that, the issue is that at present that gap is its biggest in history. The gap even out paces the era of the robber barons.

it is healthy to have wealth gaps, it is not healthy for a nation to have the massive gaps in wealth that we see right now, it generally leads to serious political unrest.

and with that, i will duck...

---

Wealth gaps when the poor are kept poor are bad (which is what we have now). We have government to blame for that. Many of our poor today stay poor for generations (even though it is possible for them to rise out if they worked hard).

Wealth gaps are good when the rich simply get richer because they are are providing a ton of goods and services to society (including the poor) and the poor are able to easily rise out of poverty. That is what we had during the "robber baron" period. Most of poor back then were a rotating group of immigrants. They would immigrate here with nothing but the shirts on their backs, would then earn a comfortable living for themselves, and then get replaced with a new crop of poor immigrants wanting to earn success for themselves.

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The only thing i will add is that, no matter the cause, the American dream is dead to a massive segment of the populace. Wage increases are non existent for the masses and we are quickly building what many call a "useless class" of people because automation will (if it has not already) will effectively make them useless. They have no skills, not guidance and no direction.

This generally leads to really bad things for the rest of us. This is the entire reason that UBI, imho, makes sense. UBI is effectively a tax on the robots to offset the political unrest that is sure to follow when large segments of the populace are made irrelevant.

Now, for UBI to work is has to be truly universal, meaning, no matter what, everyone gets the same check, no matter your current wealth, everyone gets the same amount. If we can pull it off I think it can save us from the coming war, but lets be honest, it will never work.

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Sorry, but UBI will not fix it either. UBI will always make expenses go up faster than UBI check amount. If the UBI amount is low, then it will have no apparent effect. If it were high, then it will make everything cost far more than the UBI checks provide.

If UBI checks were $1000 per month, then our expenses would increase by more than $1000/mo. If UBI checks were $10,000/mo then our expenses would increase by more than $1000/mo. If UBI checks were $1T/mo then our expenses would increase by more than $1T/mo.

No matter how much you make UBI, it will make the problems that they try to fix worse.



When people are poor and need stuff, the ONLY solution would be those that produces more stuff. No matter of money redistribution or printing would magically bring about more stuff. It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We simply need to enact policies that encourage people to produce more stuff. Any policy that encourages people to work less does the exact opposite. (Including UBI)

---

People that deal only in absolutes are a massive part of the problem, imo. The world is gray, these issues are massively complex.

UBI is not a silver bullet, nor is it the entire solution, but it is necessary as we go into / through this 4th industrial revolution.

Stating simpleton arguments as gospel like "the ONLY answer is we must all produce more" simply does not scale, there is a reason why the smartest people around support UBI. The robber barons of today make more than a million dollars a year per employee and that number is only going to grow. They are able to produce exponentially more each year, and with less and less human capital. Robots don't commit sexual misconduct, they dont come to work high, they work 24 hours a day and they dont get tired.

This useless class isn't just unskilled labor, soon it will be doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, hell at some point soon the computers will be writing the code themselves and in many cases already are.

Trying to blame this crisis on the "gubment" or simply telling people to get over it and "produce more" is only making the problem worse.

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Good post. I too have no clue why those dealing in simplistic absolutes think their philosophies are too complex to be understood.

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

Bag said:

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aTmAg said:

---

Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Bag said:

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Champ Bailey said:

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Can anyone explain to me what is bad about the wealth gap in this country? Why is it bad that we don't kneecap our most successful people? I understand there are people who live below the poverty line. But isn't it also important to consider that what we consider poverty in this country is drastically different than what practically every other country considers poverty?

My biggest issue with any proposed policy to address this is that when looking at history and at theory, the policies proposed in this country actually increase wealth disparity, not decrease it. My final comment would be that pretty much every socialist economy (not a socialist safety net, please recognize the distinction I am making) actually have the worst examples of wealth disparity in human history.

If you want a real, meaningful step to address wealth disparity, the only real answer IMO is to break up the monopolies we have in this country. But globalization policies have pretty much neutered us in enforcing this.

---

Wealth gaps are fine, no one argues that, the issue is that at present that gap is its biggest in history. The gap even out paces the era of the robber barons.

it is healthy to have wealth gaps, it is not healthy for a nation to have the massive gaps in wealth that we see right now, it generally leads to serious political unrest.

and with that, i will duck...

---

Wealth gaps when the poor are kept poor are bad (which is what we have now). We have government to blame for that. Many of our poor today stay poor for generations (even though it is possible for them to rise out if they worked hard).

Wealth gaps are good when the rich simply get richer because they are are providing a ton of goods and services to society (including the poor) and the poor are able to easily rise out of poverty. That is what we had during the "robber baron" period. Most of poor back then were a rotating group of immigrants. They would immigrate here with nothing but the shirts on their backs, would then earn a comfortable living for themselves, and then get replaced with a new crop of poor immigrants wanting to earn success for themselves.

---

The only thing i will add is that, no matter the cause, the American dream is dead to a massive segment of the populace. Wage increases are non existent for the masses and we are quickly building what many call a "useless class" of people because automation will (if it has not already) will effectively make them useless. They have no skills, not guidance and no direction.

This generally leads to really bad things for the rest of us. This is the entire reason that UBI, imho, makes sense. UBI is effectively a tax on the robots to offset the political unrest that is sure to follow when large segments of the populace are made irrelevant.

Now, for UBI to work is has to be truly universal, meaning, no matter what, everyone gets the same check, no matter your current wealth, everyone gets the same amount. If we can pull it off I think it can save us from the coming war, but lets be honest, it will never work.

---

Sorry, but UBI will not fix it either. UBI will always make expenses go up faster than UBI check amount. If the UBI amount is low, then it will have no apparent effect. If it were high, then it will make everything cost far more than the UBI checks provide.

If UBI checks were $1000 per month, then our expenses would increase by more than $1000/mo. If UBI checks were $10,000/mo then our expenses would increase by more than $1000/mo. If UBI checks were $1T/mo then our expenses would increase by more than $1T/mo.

No matter how much you make UBI, it will make the problems that they try to fix worse.



When people are poor and need stuff, the ONLY solution would be those that produces more stuff. No matter of money redistribution or printing would magically bring about more stuff. It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We simply need to enact policies that encourage people to produce more stuff. Any policy that encourages people to work less does the exact opposite. (Including UBI)

---

People that deal only in absolutes are a massive part of the problem, imo. The world is gray, these issues are massively complex.

UBI is not a silver bullet, nor is it the entire solution, but it is necessary as we go into / through this 4th industrial revolution.

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While many parts of the world are gray, this is not one of them. UBI should not be any part of the solution. A little UBI does a little bit of damage and a lot of UBI does a lot of damage. There is no part of the curve that is positive. It makes no sense to chose to do any damage so we should chose no UBI at all.

Quote:

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Stating simpleton arguments as gospel like "the ONLY answer is we must all produce more" simply does not scale, there is a reason why the smartest people around support UBI.

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It's not a simpleton argument. It's the only aspect that matters. If there is not enough food, then people are going to starve. Period. Printing money, sending out UBI checks, etc. wont magically produce more food. Only more farming, ranching, distribution, etc. can do that. UBI does NOTHING to fix the underlying problem. And smart people are wrong all the time. This would be one case. I wouldn't dare tell Elon Musk that he's wrong about rockets, but I'd have no problem telling him he's wrong on UBI. I bet if he were open minded about it, he'd be convinced too.

Quote:

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The robber barons of today make more than a million dollars a year per employee and that number is only going to grow. They are able to produce exponentially more each year, and with less and less human capital. Robots don't commit sexual misconduct, they dont come to work high, they work 24 hours a day and they dont get tired.

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Let's pretend this were true. How would UBI solve it? It wouldn't. Just take it to an extreme to see how. What if UBI checks were $1M per year? Now a ton of people would quit their job. Why work 40 hours to have an income of $1,055,000 when they could stay home and make $1,000,000? 5.5% of extra salary is not worth working 40 hours a week. Now whatever job they were doing is no longer being done. You may say "well the employer would just replace them with a robot." But if they preferred to do that, they already would have. It's better to have that robot AND the employee both producing stuff. So no matter how you cut it, the amount of production will go down. Now imagine that happening across all industries. Overall production would be a fraction of what it was. And that produced stuff would still need to be dispersed cross the same number of people. So however bad it was prior, it can only be worse now. UBI didn't solve crap. It made things worse. Now if instead of $1M checks it were $500K, then it would be half as bad, but that is still bad. $250K is half as bad as that. All the way down to $.01 is bad, just not as bad.

Besides you are wrong. The reason the "robber barons" are making so much money is because of government policy. By printing money and handing out welfare checks they increase demand but lower supply. That makes prices go way up. And who gets those profits? The people who are producing (like the "robber barrons"). And BTW, the wealth of these people is greatly overstated. Do you think Tesla is really worth $1T dollars? They gained more value than Ford and Chevy combined as a whole combined all because of a single $100M dollar rental order? Hell no. That is phantom wealth. That's either going to come crashing down nominally or in real terms due to inflation.

Quote:

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This useless class isn't just unskilled labor, soon it will be doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, hell at some point soon the computers will be writing the code themselves and in many cases already are.

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We need to get government out if it then. That would reduce prices and salaries and make people worth more than robots again.

Quote:

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Trying to blame this crisis on the "gubment" or simply telling people to get over it and "produce more" is only making the problem worse.

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Misdiagnosing the problem is making it worse. We have cancer and you think we have a head cold. Government IS that cancer. We don't need cold pills like UBI, we need surgery and chemo.

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

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Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

Quote:

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It's not a simpleton argument. It's the only aspect that matters. If there is not enough food, then people are going to starve. Period. Printing money, sending out UBI checks, etc. wont magically produce more food. Only more farming, ranching, distribution,

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we are not printing money, we are taxing automation processes to make up for the loss of payroll taxes, this has literally nothing to do with printing money

Quote:

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Let's pretend this were true.

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Um, this is true, no need to pretend, hth.

https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html

Bag said:

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Quote:

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It's not a simpleton argument. It's the only aspect that matters. If there is not enough food, then people are going to starve. Period. Printing money, sending out UBI checks, etc. wont magically produce more food. Only more farming, ranching, distribution,

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we are not printing money, we are taxing automation processes to make up for the loss of payroll taxes, this has literally nothing to do with printing money

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Uh.. we are printing $120B per month and have been doing so for a while.

aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

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Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

aTmAg said:

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Bag said:

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Quote:

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It's not a simpleton argument. It's the only aspect that matters. If there is not enough food, then people are going to starve. Period. Printing money, sending out UBI checks, etc. wont magically produce more food. Only more farming, ranching, distribution,

---

we are not printing money, we are taxing automation processes to make up for the loss of payroll taxes, this has literally nothing to do with printing money

---

Uh.. we are printing $120B per month and have been doing so for a while.

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really?? for UBI? care to send a link?

if you cant tell me the difference between an actual UBI top down program vs stimulus checks then we have no business having this discussion

Bag said:

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aTmAg said:

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Bag said:

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Quote:

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It's not a simpleton argument. It's the only aspect that matters. If there is not enough food, then people are going to starve. Period. Printing money, sending out UBI checks, etc. wont magically produce more food. Only more farming, ranching, distribution,

---

we are not printing money, we are taxing automation processes to make up for the loss of payroll taxes, this has literally nothing to do with printing money

---

Uh.. we are printing $120B per month and have been doing so for a while.

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really?? for UBI? care to send a link?

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Oh you somehow think that even though we spend far more than we can tax now that somehow we will magically be able to tax enough for UBI?

Joe Boudain said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

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Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

aTmAg said:

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Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I don't care. There are some cases when a sector needs to be protected more than other sectors do. You're looking at them from a purely economic point of view, which is facile. There are national interests which go beyond that of the economy.

Malibu2 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

---

It is absolutely correct. Mathematically.

Quote:

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We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

We should also grow gills and live under the sea

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I don't care. There are some cases when a sector needs to be protected more than other sectors do. You're looking at them from a purely economic point of view, which is facile. There are national interests which go beyond that of the economy.

---

This kind of thinking is why we have screwed ourselves and made us a shadow of our former selves. Our national interests have been crushed due to economic ignorance that has turned our economy into a basketcase.

aTmAg said:

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Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

---

It is absolutely correct. Mathematically.

---

I suspect there are a LOT of factors that go into that calculation. For example, the people working in that protected industry go from consuming welfare to possibly paying net positive federal taxes. That benefit should be considered when determining the net value of tariffs.

Even if it isn't a net economic benefit, the benefit of having chips for cars or medicines, for example, don't fit easily into a financial benefit calculation but are benefits nonetheless.

WHOOP!'91 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

---

It is absolutely correct. Mathematically.

---

I suspect there are a LOT of factors that go into that calculation. For example, the people working in that protected industry go from consuming welfare to possibly paying net positive federal taxes. That benefit should be considered when determining the net value of tariffs.

Even if it isn't a net economic benefit, the benefit of having chips for cars or medicines, for example, don't fit easily into a financial benefit calculation but are benefits nonetheless.

---

Correct. Neoliberals promised cheaper goods and better jobs. They were right on the former and wrong on the latter. It turns out Walmart cashier is a terrible substitute from metal fabricator. It leads to higher welfare and other negative externalities like the opioid crisis.

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I don't care. There are some cases when a sector needs to be protected more than other sectors do. You're looking at them from a purely economic point of view, which is facile. There are national interests which go beyond that of the economy.

---

This kind of thinking is why we have screwed ourselves and made us a shadow of our former selves. Our national interests have been crushed due to economic ignorance that has turned our economy into a basketcase.

---

The fact that you don't understand certain sectors of the economy are more critical to national security than other sectors shows you're not equipped to have a conversation at this level.

Again, you're repeating first month Econ 101 talking points and acting as if you're the only one with the Rosetta stone who can decode the mysteries of economics. This is a hallmark of most libertarians, they refuse to believe that people have actually digested what they're saying, weight it, measured it, and found it bull**** and prefer to believe no one understands elementary level economics.

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.

Now I'm not saying we could reduce costs to be HALF that of China, I'm just making a point. But there is no reason why we couldn't do equal or less than China. China has a bunch of stupid policies that hamper their economy. It's a low bar. Which makes the fact that we are even more stupid right now is a travesty.

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

This kind of argument is a hallmark of libertarian argumentation because it's the only thing that makes sense given their framework. They say the same thing about immigration. El Salvador magically becomes as attractive a place to live as the US if the US gets rid of handouts. Magically people stop getting murdered in Juarez or bodies hung from the overpasses when the gravy train in the US cuts off.

Wrong. It's opportunity costs. The poorest American has better opportunity costs than subsistence farming.

WHOOP!'91 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

---

It is absolutely correct. Mathematically.

---

I suspect there are a LOT of factors that go into that calculation. For example, the people working in that protected industry go from consuming welfare to possibly paying net positive federal taxes. That benefit should be considered when determining the net value of tariffs.

Even if it isn't a net economic benefit, the benefit of having chips for cars or medicines, for example, don't fit easily into a financial benefit calculation but are benefits nonetheless.

---

But then other people who were not on welfare now got to go on welfare. There is no way to create wealth magically by stopping people from making decisions that is best for themselves.

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.
.

---

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting: we can lower costs by making more things?

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.

Now I'm not saying we could reduce costs to be HALF that of China, I'm just making a point. But there is no reason why we couldn't do equal or less than China. China has a bunch of stupid policies that hamper their economy. It's a low bar. Which makes the fact that we are even more stupid right now is a travesty.

---

This is the kind of econ 101 outlook that I'm talking about and the fact that you can't see it is evident. China is more than willing to have their citizens work in unsafe working conditions burning dirty coal and paying them peanuts for it, citizens who are not accustomed to 3rd world conditions will not work under those circumstances, nor should they.

This isn't Galt Gulch and the fact that you think the US is just a few strokes of a pen away from being the world's low cost manufacturer shows you know nothing about manufacturing, nor of the ways in which China stacks the deck to ensure it maintains its edge

Malibu2 said:

---

Wrong. It's opportunity costs. The poorest American has better opportunity costs than subsistence farming.

---

Because of policies like welfare. People here can literally have NO job at all and still eat. Why would anybody chose subsistence farming over that? But as I've already said, that merely postpones the problem. It pushes the costs of stuff higher and higher until it eventually implodes. Then they starve.


Without any welfare at all, you would suddenly have a bunch of people who have zero skills in life and no prospects for any job above something like subsistence farming. They would need to work in order to eat. You think THEY wouldn't chose subsistence farming over starving to death? Of course not. But at least in that condition they could eat off a subsistence farming salary which they couldn't do now. And they would have opportunities to grow and pull themselves out of poverty. Just like the extremely poor did during our industrial revolution.

We've done this before. And we were the most prosperous nation the world had ever seen. It's not like I'm talking fantasy right now.

aTmAg said:

---

WHOOP!'91 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Bag said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

Tarrliffs are phenomenal for what they do, which is prop up a sector of the economy for extra economical reasons. Which is why they've been a part of our economy literally since the founding of our country, and even the freest economy in the world has them.

---

They are phenomenal for helping one sector and screwing over other sectors even more. They are always a net negative. Always. Zero exceptions. None. Nada. Zip.

Anybody who tells you otherwise should be ignored and mocked.

---

I will take absolutes for 200, Alex.

---

It is absolutely correct. Mathematically.

---

I suspect there are a LOT of factors that go into that calculation. For example, the people working in that protected industry go from consuming welfare to possibly paying net positive federal taxes. That benefit should be considered when determining the net value of tariffs.

Even if it isn't a net economic benefit, the benefit of having chips for cars or medicines, for example, don't fit easily into a financial benefit calculation but are benefits nonetheless.

---

But then other people who were not on welfare now got to go on welfare. There is no way to create wealth magically by stopping people from making decisions that is best for themselves.

---

Those people are in China. A pharmaceutical plant in China closes and re-opens in the US. I am talking about taking back manufacturing jobs because we've protected an important industry. Yes, the cost of their product will not be as cheap, but yes that many more Americans have jobs. Next time China releases a bio-weapon, they can't blackmail us with pharmaceutical supply.

I think we'd have to accept poor and unsafe working conditions and big environmental impacts to get close to Chinese peasant labor costs.

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

How do you do incentivize businesses to do that with where state policies are heading right now. Let's just start with a minimum wage issue.

So tariffs have a place, which is when you have non-free market forces manipulating an industry - China and metals, for example. When you have a government subsidizing an industry with the sole intention of driving competition out it is in the long term best interests of those competing countries to levy tariffs. In the short term, yes, it costs your citizens more. However, long term, once there are no more steel competitors, the cost to your citizens with be far more.

fixer said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.
.

---

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting: we can lower costs by making more things?

---

Supply and demand ring a bell? If you increase the supply and keep demand the same the price goes down.

aTmAg said:

---

fixer said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

---

Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.
.

---

Correct me if I'm misinterpreting: we can lower costs by making more things?

---

Supply and demand ring a bell? If you increase the supply and keep demand the same the price goes down.

---

Is this a joke? Your solution for lowering prices is to purposefully make more items than the market demands?

Joe Boudain said:

---

aTmAg said:

---

Malibu2 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

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Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

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Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

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When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

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People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

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The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

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What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.

Now I'm not saying we could reduce costs to be HALF that of China, I'm just making a point. But there is no reason why we couldn't do equal or less than China. China has a bunch of stupid policies that hamper their economy. It's a low bar. Which makes the fact that we are even more stupid right now is a travesty.

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This is the kind of econ 101 outlook that I'm talking about and the fact that you can't see it is evident. China is more than willing to have their citizens work in unsafe working conditions burning dirty coal and paying them peanuts for it, citizens who are not accustomed to 3rd world conditions will not work under those circumstances, nor should they.

This isn't Galt Gulch and the fact that you think the US is just a few strokes of a pen away from being the world's low cost manufacturer shows you know nothing about manufacturing, nor of the ways in which China stacks the deck to ensure it maintains its edge

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LOL. As if having a bunch of kids working in coal mines by hand is still lower cost than the machines we have made since. The reason people worked in those conditions in our past is because we hadn't build the more efficient machines that we replaced them with. If they tried to undercut us that way they would be MORE expensive not less.

aTmAg said:

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fixer said:

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aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Malibu2 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tom Kazansky 2012 said:

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Tariffs used as a tool to match foreign tariffs on a global scale and used as a deterrent of outrageous foreign tariffs (as a superpower country others rely on)= effective

Tariffs purely to restrict foreign production/imports and encourage nationalistic production policies (china) = idiotic

Tariffs from other countries without us responding in kind also hurts our wealth/value creation/intrinsic value as a country. Equally waging those is effective as a practice. Trump did it correctly and there are countless other examples.

People who blindly say tariffs bad without the context are brain dead.

---

Like Walter Williams used to say. Tariffs are like shooting a hole in your side of the boat to get back at another person who shot a hole in their side of the boat.

The only people that tariffs help are politicians who get additional support by morons who think it's good.

---

When Trump introduced tariffs to China my last job immediately shifted from margin optimization and throughput at retail and wholesale partners to elasticity of demand and supply chain optimization. Long story short, we raised prices, demand dipped a bit and then went back to normal, we added production in Malaysia for all US goods, and stopped paying tariffs but prices didn't drop.

I think the key point though is exiting China. Trading with a partner that steals from you, dumps stolen goods back at you into your market, and uses your money to underwrite a totalitarian and genocidal regime is bad policy. I've shifted to thinking tariffs in specifically China should be 500% with no exceptions.

Like life, business, uh, finds a way.

---

People who pay higher prices are denied the ability to spend the extra on other stuff. No matter how you cut it, it's detrimental as a whole.


We (and everybody else) should exit China by undercutting them and producing more at home. The US cannot do that unless we go back to free market principles that made us by far the largest producer the world had ever seen.

---

The last time we had this argument you refused to concede that a Chinese peasant would accept less money for the same fungible job as the poorest American. Which is why jobs are shipped overseas.

---

What you fail to recognize is WHY the Americans cannot accept that level of money, and that is because we would starve to death. The reason we would starve to death is because everything here costs a lot more than they do there. If things here costed half the price as they did there, then we not only could match the Chinese peasants we could undercut them.

How do we make things here cost half as much as they do in China? By producing twice as much stuff per capita here as they do there. How do we do that? By reducing costs to the point where we can manufacture that much.
.

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Correct me if I'm misinterpreting: we can lower costs by making more things?

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Supply and demand ring a bell? If you increase the supply and keep demand the same the price goes down.

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If it were only that easy.

Supply just can't magically go up. The market forces seek to balance supply and demand. Prices reflect this.

Producers seek to maximize profit while consumers seek to reduce costs.

A producer is incentivized to make more by higher profits. One aspect is a higher selling cost. Another is lower cost input materials and resources.

Producers will make a certain amount of product for a certain price. Consumers buy a certain amount of a product at a certain price.

If supply goes above this equilibrium the prices tend to come down because it is an incentive for consumers.

The equilibrium aspect in supply and demand is missing in your assumption that a simple increase in supply ( apparently of all or most goods) will lower costs.