Off Shore
Off Topic Member
No, he's starting a war with Mexico.
Trump says he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to Mexican border
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
- Status
Trump says he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to Mexican border
He is trying to distract us. Change the narrative, which is working because I'm writing about tariffs instead if porn stars. He is a chicken hawk. I wouldn't rule out a real war. God help us all.
I feel Trump is trying hard to negotiate a fair trade. It's urgent and quite important for the nation's long term future. Currently US has $500B trade deficit each year, that's -$500,000,000,000. What did other Presidents do to address it, other than getting us into 20 trillion dollars of debt? Some say the $400B trade deficit with China is structural and fair. I think only part of that is true. Many of those rules were set up long time ago to protect their fragile industries. But things have changed a lot in the last 15 years. A fair trade should benefit both sides.
I wish anyone here more sympathetic to Trump's negotiating strategy than I could reassure about a more recent development.
Trump Doubles Down on Potential Trade War With China
Methinks we shall have another down day for the markets tomorrow. Again, hope I'm wrong!!!
Trump Doubles Down on Potential Trade War With China
Methinks we shall have another down day for the markets tomorrow. Again, hope I'm wrong!!!
Unfortunately I think you may be correct on a down day tomorrow. However, market were down big Wednesday when Trump made tariff statement so I’m praying this is what happens again.
Herbert Marcuse has said, "hope is made for those who need it." I don't know what Marxist's say about prayer.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Again, you and similar minded persons are trying to provoke him into a shooting war calling him a chicken hawk.
Gen. Mattis is our stop-gap. A few months
Fox news might provoke a war. We are living in strange days.
Fox news might provoke a war. We are living in strange days.
Esme Es Mejor
Member
I believe Lenin said, “the capitalists will sell us the hope with which we hang them.”
sundaymorning
Active Member
This is how I’m seeing the trade war, I might be over simplifying things but I’ll give it a shot. The US exports $130B to China, while in 2016 (I couldn’t find 2017 data) the US exports $2.7 trillion to everyone else in the world. So exports to China is less than 5% (not very significant in the grand scheme of things).
Now let’s look at China, exports for 2016 to the world was $2.04 trillion, of that amount $506 billion was exported to the US alone, or equaling about 25%. It’s very clear which country has more to lose if tariffs are imposed as American manufacturers start to move out from China in order to put itself in a more competitive situation. A trade war will obviously mean additional measures to cripple China if companies such as Apple and others begin moving out.
If you think the IPhone is expensive now, think about adding another $250 on top of that, will this encourage companies to move it’s supply chains somewhere else in order to compete with Samsung, whose phones will be much less? If this happens, I’m ready to ditch my iPhone in order to support US trade. China might be blowing a lot of smoke right now, but I highly doubt they want to go down that rabbit hole against Trump, who in my view is precisely the erratic president that just *might do it. In the end, I think China will blink, they might have very strong manufacturing efficiencies already in place, but it has 1.4 billion people, which needs to be employed.
Now let’s look at China, exports for 2016 to the world was $2.04 trillion, of that amount $506 billion was exported to the US alone, or equaling about 25%. It’s very clear which country has more to lose if tariffs are imposed as American manufacturers start to move out from China in order to put itself in a more competitive situation. A trade war will obviously mean additional measures to cripple China if companies such as Apple and others begin moving out.
If you think the IPhone is expensive now, think about adding another $250 on top of that, will this encourage companies to move it’s supply chains somewhere else in order to compete with Samsung, whose phones will be much less? If this happens, I’m ready to ditch my iPhone in order to support US trade. China might be blowing a lot of smoke right now, but I highly doubt they want to go down that rabbit hole against Trump, who in my view is precisely the erratic president that just *might do it. In the end, I think China will blink, they might have very strong manufacturing efficiencies already in place, but it has 1.4 billion people, which needs to be employed.
Last edited:
You're misanalyzing the tarriffs. The US has substantially more to lose from imposing tarriffs than China does, because the US is dependent on Chinese imports, and China isn't dependent on the US for anything at all. Basically, China doesn't need to import anything from the US, so they'll simply cut imports if the US imposes tarriffs. Meanwhile lost sales to the US don't matter to them that much either; they can export somewhere else or use its production locally; they don't really need US dollars (which they've been stockpiling in a warehouse, basically, to avoid allowing their currency to go up).
But the US is absolutely dependent for a large portion of our supply chain on Chinese imports and will simply end up paying the tarriffs. Now, *we shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place*, but now that we're here (a decision made back in the 1970s/1980s), the US only hurts its own companies by applying tarriffs on Chinese imports.
But the US is absolutely dependent for a large portion of our supply chain on Chinese imports and will simply end up paying the tarriffs. Now, *we shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place*, but now that we're here (a decision made back in the 1970s/1980s), the US only hurts its own companies by applying tarriffs on Chinese imports.
Remember, deficits don't matter.
Everyone with a clue knows that large deficits are normal and appropriate for governments; to a first approximation, the government debt == the money supply, and the money supply needs to continually increase to stabilize the economy.
Republicans want to print money and give it to rich people; Democrats want to print money and give it to poor people. Economically, the Democrats are correct here, because when too much of the money is concentrated in the hands of rich people, it does not serve its economic function of causing commerce to happen -- poor people spend their money, while rich people mostly don't.
When you hear a federal politician yammering about deficits, all he means is "I don't want to spend money on that, I'd rather spend it on something else". They never care about deficits when it comes to the things they want. And they shouldn't care about deficits, since deficits are a good thing, but it does mean any federal politician talking about deficits is trying to trick you.
Instant runoff is actually a bad system. Please go to the Center For Election Sciences if you want to learn about the game theory behind election systems, and what is actually a good system.
One very good system is approval voting. Each voter votes up or down on every candidate. The candidate with the most "up" votes gets elected. The greatest advantage here is that that candidate is unarguably the most popular.
You're saying something false, and the false thing here is "earners".
The very rich make most of their money off what is known as "unearned income". They are not the top "earners". They are the top "collectors" of income.
And of course the top 1% pays more than 50% of federal income taxes, because *they control more than 50% of the nation's wealth*. They're (I should say "we're" -- I'm one of them) paying less than their fair share and less than they would under a flat wealth tax system.
Well, I don't respect him and I do think he's doing a terrible job. He's acting like a spoiled baby, *and that's what his own cabinet members are saying*.
There are plenty of politicians I don't respect, but Trump is in a special category of dangerously out of touch with reality.
Oh, I think the 50% of the Democratic Party who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary knows exactly why Clinton lost (despite getting more votes than Trump). The electoral college bias, and an awful campaigner who was out of touch.
sundaymorning
Active Member
Neroden, your explanation makes sense. Still, I’m not convinced that the Chinese will escape unscathed, I think they are more dependent on the US than meets the eye. Initially, consumers will end up paying the tariffs, but competitors will simply open another manufacture elsewhere that would benefit from the 25% less in cost to give themselves an advantage, they will slowly move out of China. In the short term we pay the tariffs, in the long term, the Chinese will lose jobs due to manufacture moving out.
Do you have suggested readings on this topic? And which 1970s/1980s decision are you referring to?
- Status
Similar threads
