Because I am not sure, by the tenor of your sub, are you in favor of being tariffed heavily by other nations, such as China, and not supporting tariffs on them, in the hope there can be some negotiation, which there is, and just continue to be run over by these other nations, just accept it, with no consequences to them?
I offered my remedy. If China tariffs us, the government should work to liberalize trade with and access to other nations' markets.
But, keep in mind that, just as us imposing tariffs on China hurts Americans more than it hurts China, China imposing tariffs on us hurts them more than it hurts us.
China is certainly engaging in "cold economic warfare," but it's the sort of warfare that tit-for-tat doesn't combat. And, frankly, if they want to underwrite their exports, that's a wealth transfer from China to the US.
Another way to look at tariffs, is that they threaten the other guy by pointing a gun at your own head.
So if other nations want to impose tariffs against yours, let them - it is they who will suffer the most. Continue to allow you own citizens to benefit from the best prices offered by that country instead of punishing them with higher prices or less choice.
You’re assuming that citizens are benefitting from lower prices? With reduced tariffs, wouldn’t they be benefitting even more by furthering a reduction in prices? That is circular logic.
As I noted in the article, tariffs hurt both sides. Taxes in general are a drain on productivity and destroy wealth, and tariffs are no exception. But, they don't hurt both sides equally. Tariff imposers do more damage to themselves than to their counterparts. If China imposes heavy tariffs on American goods, fewer American goods will be sold in China, but the Chinese people will bear the brunt of that. Those goods, absent tariffs, would be the best or cheapest or most cost-effective if they are to be purchased by the Chinese, so anything that changes that will necessarily increase what those consumers pay or otherwise deprive them of the best product on the market.
I'm not sure where you see circularity. You can only control what is imposed in your own country, not others. When I say let others impose tariffs if they want, I am not suggesting they *should*, I'm saying that imposing counter-tariffs in retaliation is the wrong answer and only punishes your own citizens.
If only a threat manages to scare another nation into lowering/removing their tariffs, so be it. But, in reality, such a threat is an even greater threat against your own citizens and that by itself affects your economy - businesses have to take the threat seriously and prepare for higher prices or lower supply which can result in disruptions.
But the claim that such threats actually work is spotty at best. Maybe on occasion. Often they are ignored or, in some cases have motivated the other country to double down.
If you then carry through on your threat and impose that tariff, you again are actually hurting your own citizens far more than the other nation.
Just a quick alert, tried sharing this article on FB and it was immediately removed for "violating community standards". So apparently articles on tariffs or the economy are now considered "offensive". I've requested a review but rarely do I see success in that.
That’s what people would have us believe. Tariffs, as used properly, bring other nations that tariff us heavily into line by reducing their tariffs. It takes some time, but eventually works in our favor. The markets are manipulating public opinion. And how the market goes is not a direct relationship to our economy and our bottom line. The markets and the big players always make more money, regardless of it being up or down. It’s a false comparison to everyday spending on main st. I have seen this unfold for many years. Tying the markets to the pocket of John Q. Public is folly, but it’s what we are supposed to believe, so many do. I however have seen the results of tariffs used correctly by Trump and although prices were affected in the short term, it eventually ironed itself out. If we’re all paying attention.
The global capitalist system is far from "free market". That doesn't mean we shouldn't try for that via policy, taxation, etc. - but, as of right now, nobody is a free market economy. Due to this, I view tariffs as a way to prevent a "hot war". It's literally the last thing before a hot war. If you view tariffs as military strategy - vs. purely economic with cause and effects - there is ample justification for them.
The entire world is a proxy war. We've been provoked and we have provoked. The CCP - along with our deep state and neocons - are the most dangerous elements out there. Let's provoke the roots vs. the off-shoots. In which case, I don't mind the CCP provocation. They've stolen absolutely everything and want to destroy The West. They are pretty far along....
Whether beneficial or not, tarifs were implied in the original wording of Article I, Section 8, clause 1 of the Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises..." Back then, there was no income tax. Somehow, government managed to function just fine without income tax prior to the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. Since then, Americans have continued to pay an ever-rising tax burden, and Congress (and the federal government in general) has spent more and more as a result. While tariffs certainly can be harmful if improperly applied, the income tax is certainly not helping anyone. How does it benefit us to pay less for a product, when the tax we are paying on our income is so much higher (not to mention being double-taxed by virtue of the fact that you paid tax on the income, then you pay tax when you spend the remaining income on those "cheaper" products)?
I don't think the real issue for Americans is taxation - it's government bloat and government spending. Eliminate the bureaucracy; make the federal government smaller than state governments (as it was intended - read the Federalist No. 45), and limit the federal government's role to solely those powers listed in the Constitution (defending borders, negotiating foreign trade and treaties, delivering mail and maintaining post roads, and ensuring no state disenfranchises another through unfair trade practices - the real purpose of the "interstate commerce clause"). That will make everything less expensive for Americans.
Indeed, our Federal government was a lot smaller back then. Good luck putting that genie back in the bottle. But, none of that has anything to do with whether tariffs are a good idea.
By making products more expensive, you take away useful capital from people. If an imported T-shirt costs you five bucks and a domestic one ten, what good does it do you to raise the imported shirt's cost to twelve bucks? It's no different than increasing the minimum wage. Some will benefit, but only at the greater expense to the whole.
Perhaps. However, if we do things right and *lower* taxes on domestic companies at the same time that tariffs are raised on foreign imports, it can help level the playing field by allowing domestic firms to lower prices for consumers (if they choose to do so - there's the rub). It doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or proposition.
The playing field foreign vs domestic will never be level, and there's nothing wrong with that. A couple dollars an hour here is virtually slave wages, but can be the best wage available to a low skill worker in a foreign land. Win-win.
Barring some exceptions re national defense critical technologies, there's nothing "better" about domestic jobs.
I guess that depends on how you are defining "better." I would think domestic jobs are better for American workers (more employment, which also *should* equate to more money going into the domestic economy as it gets spent) and, presumably in the long run, and increase in the GDP. I'm just speaking off the cuff though. I admit to not being any sort of an expert in economics, especially at a national or global scale.
Remember - every extra dollar spent on an "American" job is a dollar that can't be used for other goods and services. It's like the minimum wage. Some benefit, others get harmed, and the aggregate is worse.
Economies are not jars, where removing stuff from one to add to another lessens what's in the first jar. Economic activity is not zero-sum.
A healthy economy will provide jobs for whoever wants them, and that includes economies that engage in robust international trade. Tariffs punish the other side some, but they punish our side more, and that's before the other side retaliates. After the retaliations, everyone is worse off, except for a handful of favored people and companies.
Someone made a point regarding computer chips. Would you rather be the company making a a handful of super-high-end processors, with high margins, high-skill workers, etc, or the company that's churning out zillions of memory chips at super-low margins with low-skill, low wage workers? The former is better for the economy, no matter that there is a "trade deficit" created by importing the latter.
I realize that the economy is not a zero-sum system. I also realize that there are certain things that just can't be made or sourced in America, and that even among those things that can be, there are other places that can do it cheaper and/or better. I have no issue with having foreign trade. My issue is when politicians disadvantage or disincentivize domestic production. Tariffs can, when applied properly, help level that playing field. Will it ever be perfect? No. I just don't agree that tariffs in and of themselves are necessarily bad.
Tariffs are bad, just like immigration controls are bad, in a perfect free-market world. In the real world, there are always trade-offs. I don't support open borders (i.e. free movement of peoples across the countries) for the same reason - there is a trade-off and the cost/benefit analysis will show open borders are not helpful to the US.
Similarly, there are a lot of dependencies on this aspect for it to be evaluated in isolation. That is what Cato or any Libertarian argument is doing.
True, Trump (or the Dems) may demonize foreign imports, but they are not making it up. The factory closures, job losses are real. Unemployed people succumbing to drugs, the death and destruction are all real. We may save a few bucks by buying cheap Chinese goods, but as a society and also from Govt perspective, we are paying a high cost overall. In magic thinking, these displaced workers will learn new things and become more productive while Chinese workers take up the low skilled jobs, but in real world the displaced workers - a portion of them - have become our Govt problem. Libertarian ideology doesn't care about it, since in theory, that's not my/our/Govt problem.
One other issue is, what does China do with the income earned by selling us cheap stuff. They spend a part of it on military and cause problems wherever they want, and we end up spending a lot more than whatever we saved through the cheaper goods on our defense spend. Again, Libertarian thinking is, it's not our problem, but the real world is different.
Tariffs are bad no matter what. It's self harm born of a mistaken "zero sum" belief in trade, and the same misapprehension that trade deficits matter.
Unemployment is not being driven by offshore jobs or international trade. Jobs are not a finite quantity. The biggest barriers to domestic employment are high minimum wages and other mandates, not foreign competition. Besides, the biggest problem we have today is voluntary unemployment - i.e. able men of working age dropping out of the work force and living off Other People's Money.
Want to improve domestic employment? Cut welfare, cut minimum wages, cut taxes. This isn't about "libertarian ideology not caring." We actually care a lot, because we don't believe in coercing others to pay for things.
Moreso, by forcing people to pay more for products either by taxing imports or by forcing their production to our much more expensive labor market, you sap wealth out of the economy, which in turn kills other jobs.
It's easy and fun to cast blanket condemnations at libertarianism, but everything else that is being done is making things worse, not better.
Because I am not sure, by the tenor of your sub, are you in favor of being tariffed heavily by other nations, such as China, and not supporting tariffs on them, in the hope there can be some negotiation, which there is, and just continue to be run over by these other nations, just accept it, with no consequences to them?
I offered my remedy. If China tariffs us, the government should work to liberalize trade with and access to other nations' markets.
But, keep in mind that, just as us imposing tariffs on China hurts Americans more than it hurts China, China imposing tariffs on us hurts them more than it hurts us.
China is certainly engaging in "cold economic warfare," but it's the sort of warfare that tit-for-tat doesn't combat. And, frankly, if they want to underwrite their exports, that's a wealth transfer from China to the US.
Another way to look at tariffs, is that they threaten the other guy by pointing a gun at your own head.
So if other nations want to impose tariffs against yours, let them - it is they who will suffer the most. Continue to allow you own citizens to benefit from the best prices offered by that country instead of punishing them with higher prices or less choice.
You’re assuming that citizens are benefitting from lower prices? With reduced tariffs, wouldn’t they be benefitting even more by furthering a reduction in prices? That is circular logic.
As I noted in the article, tariffs hurt both sides. Taxes in general are a drain on productivity and destroy wealth, and tariffs are no exception. But, they don't hurt both sides equally. Tariff imposers do more damage to themselves than to their counterparts. If China imposes heavy tariffs on American goods, fewer American goods will be sold in China, but the Chinese people will bear the brunt of that. Those goods, absent tariffs, would be the best or cheapest or most cost-effective if they are to be purchased by the Chinese, so anything that changes that will necessarily increase what those consumers pay or otherwise deprive them of the best product on the market.
I think we fundamentally disagree on the effectiveness or lack, thereof, on tariffs. But Thank you for your candor.
This is why I blog, and I do urge you to dig into the matter some more.
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-biden-tariffs/
https://www.cato.org/blog/who-will-report-tariffs-unseen-costs
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/03/larger-lesson-about-tariffs-in-a-move-that-helped-trump-but-not-the-country/
Pete, come on now, these all are very skewed anti Trump organizations.
I'm not sure where you see circularity. You can only control what is imposed in your own country, not others. When I say let others impose tariffs if they want, I am not suggesting they *should*, I'm saying that imposing counter-tariffs in retaliation is the wrong answer and only punishes your own citizens.
And that’s where we have a difference of opinion. Just the threat of higher counter tariffs has proven to be effective. But I guess we just disagree.
If only a threat manages to scare another nation into lowering/removing their tariffs, so be it. But, in reality, such a threat is an even greater threat against your own citizens and that by itself affects your economy - businesses have to take the threat seriously and prepare for higher prices or lower supply which can result in disruptions.
But the claim that such threats actually work is spotty at best. Maybe on occasion. Often they are ignored or, in some cases have motivated the other country to double down.
If you then carry through on your threat and impose that tariff, you again are actually hurting your own citizens far more than the other nation.
At first, immediately, yes. And that’s the ONLY thing the detractors of tariffs state.
https://www.nber.org/digest/202204/how-us-china-trade-war-affected-rest-world
Just a quick alert, tried sharing this article on FB and it was immediately removed for "violating community standards". So apparently articles on tariffs or the economy are now considered "offensive". I've requested a review but rarely do I see success in that.
That’s what people would have us believe. Tariffs, as used properly, bring other nations that tariff us heavily into line by reducing their tariffs. It takes some time, but eventually works in our favor. The markets are manipulating public opinion. And how the market goes is not a direct relationship to our economy and our bottom line. The markets and the big players always make more money, regardless of it being up or down. It’s a false comparison to everyday spending on main st. I have seen this unfold for many years. Tying the markets to the pocket of John Q. Public is folly, but it’s what we are supposed to believe, so many do. I however have seen the results of tariffs used correctly by Trump and although prices were affected in the short term, it eventually ironed itself out. If we’re all paying attention.
You make me proud to be a libertarian! Let the Invisible Hand slap those CHICOMS - they’ll never see it coming! 😁
The global capitalist system is far from "free market". That doesn't mean we shouldn't try for that via policy, taxation, etc. - but, as of right now, nobody is a free market economy. Due to this, I view tariffs as a way to prevent a "hot war". It's literally the last thing before a hot war. If you view tariffs as military strategy - vs. purely economic with cause and effects - there is ample justification for them.
I think there are far better alternatives to something that's both provocative and likely to create a retaliatory feedback loop.
Then there's the bit about tariffs hurting your own side more than the other side.
I'm comparing them to a few hundred thousand dead...or more. No an expensive inconvenience.
Yea, I get that, but I still think that tariffs are a provocation rather than a safer alternative.
The entire world is a proxy war. We've been provoked and we have provoked. The CCP - along with our deep state and neocons - are the most dangerous elements out there. Let's provoke the roots vs. the off-shoots. In which case, I don't mind the CCP provocation. They've stolen absolutely everything and want to destroy The West. They are pretty far along....
Still doesn't justify tariffs. Beating yourself with a stick because the other guy gets some splash damage doesn't make much sense to me.
Whether beneficial or not, tarifs were implied in the original wording of Article I, Section 8, clause 1 of the Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises..." Back then, there was no income tax. Somehow, government managed to function just fine without income tax prior to the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. Since then, Americans have continued to pay an ever-rising tax burden, and Congress (and the federal government in general) has spent more and more as a result. While tariffs certainly can be harmful if improperly applied, the income tax is certainly not helping anyone. How does it benefit us to pay less for a product, when the tax we are paying on our income is so much higher (not to mention being double-taxed by virtue of the fact that you paid tax on the income, then you pay tax when you spend the remaining income on those "cheaper" products)?
I don't think the real issue for Americans is taxation - it's government bloat and government spending. Eliminate the bureaucracy; make the federal government smaller than state governments (as it was intended - read the Federalist No. 45), and limit the federal government's role to solely those powers listed in the Constitution (defending borders, negotiating foreign trade and treaties, delivering mail and maintaining post roads, and ensuring no state disenfranchises another through unfair trade practices - the real purpose of the "interstate commerce clause"). That will make everything less expensive for Americans.
Indeed, our Federal government was a lot smaller back then. Good luck putting that genie back in the bottle. But, none of that has anything to do with whether tariffs are a good idea.
By making products more expensive, you take away useful capital from people. If an imported T-shirt costs you five bucks and a domestic one ten, what good does it do you to raise the imported shirt's cost to twelve bucks? It's no different than increasing the minimum wage. Some will benefit, but only at the greater expense to the whole.
Perhaps. However, if we do things right and *lower* taxes on domestic companies at the same time that tariffs are raised on foreign imports, it can help level the playing field by allowing domestic firms to lower prices for consumers (if they choose to do so - there's the rub). It doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or proposition.
The playing field foreign vs domestic will never be level, and there's nothing wrong with that. A couple dollars an hour here is virtually slave wages, but can be the best wage available to a low skill worker in a foreign land. Win-win.
Barring some exceptions re national defense critical technologies, there's nothing "better" about domestic jobs.
I guess that depends on how you are defining "better." I would think domestic jobs are better for American workers (more employment, which also *should* equate to more money going into the domestic economy as it gets spent) and, presumably in the long run, and increase in the GDP. I'm just speaking off the cuff though. I admit to not being any sort of an expert in economics, especially at a national or global scale.
Remember - every extra dollar spent on an "American" job is a dollar that can't be used for other goods and services. It's like the minimum wage. Some benefit, others get harmed, and the aggregate is worse.
Economies are not jars, where removing stuff from one to add to another lessens what's in the first jar. Economic activity is not zero-sum.
A healthy economy will provide jobs for whoever wants them, and that includes economies that engage in robust international trade. Tariffs punish the other side some, but they punish our side more, and that's before the other side retaliates. After the retaliations, everyone is worse off, except for a handful of favored people and companies.
Someone made a point regarding computer chips. Would you rather be the company making a a handful of super-high-end processors, with high margins, high-skill workers, etc, or the company that's churning out zillions of memory chips at super-low margins with low-skill, low wage workers? The former is better for the economy, no matter that there is a "trade deficit" created by importing the latter.
I realize that the economy is not a zero-sum system. I also realize that there are certain things that just can't be made or sourced in America, and that even among those things that can be, there are other places that can do it cheaper and/or better. I have no issue with having foreign trade. My issue is when politicians disadvantage or disincentivize domestic production. Tariffs can, when applied properly, help level that playing field. Will it ever be perfect? No. I just don't agree that tariffs in and of themselves are necessarily bad.
Tariffs are bad, just like immigration controls are bad, in a perfect free-market world. In the real world, there are always trade-offs. I don't support open borders (i.e. free movement of peoples across the countries) for the same reason - there is a trade-off and the cost/benefit analysis will show open borders are not helpful to the US.
Similarly, there are a lot of dependencies on this aspect for it to be evaluated in isolation. That is what Cato or any Libertarian argument is doing.
True, Trump (or the Dems) may demonize foreign imports, but they are not making it up. The factory closures, job losses are real. Unemployed people succumbing to drugs, the death and destruction are all real. We may save a few bucks by buying cheap Chinese goods, but as a society and also from Govt perspective, we are paying a high cost overall. In magic thinking, these displaced workers will learn new things and become more productive while Chinese workers take up the low skilled jobs, but in real world the displaced workers - a portion of them - have become our Govt problem. Libertarian ideology doesn't care about it, since in theory, that's not my/our/Govt problem.
One other issue is, what does China do with the income earned by selling us cheap stuff. They spend a part of it on military and cause problems wherever they want, and we end up spending a lot more than whatever we saved through the cheaper goods on our defense spend. Again, Libertarian thinking is, it's not our problem, but the real world is different.
Tariffs are bad no matter what. It's self harm born of a mistaken "zero sum" belief in trade, and the same misapprehension that trade deficits matter.
Unemployment is not being driven by offshore jobs or international trade. Jobs are not a finite quantity. The biggest barriers to domestic employment are high minimum wages and other mandates, not foreign competition. Besides, the biggest problem we have today is voluntary unemployment - i.e. able men of working age dropping out of the work force and living off Other People's Money.
Want to improve domestic employment? Cut welfare, cut minimum wages, cut taxes. This isn't about "libertarian ideology not caring." We actually care a lot, because we don't believe in coercing others to pay for things.
Moreso, by forcing people to pay more for products either by taxing imports or by forcing their production to our much more expensive labor market, you sap wealth out of the economy, which in turn kills other jobs.
It's easy and fun to cast blanket condemnations at libertarianism, but everything else that is being done is making things worse, not better.