The trade and economy mega-thread (7 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

Is there a trade deal with China? Is it really a deal or just a pull-back to status quo ante? Is Trump advancing US interests in this well-executed trade battle plan or was this poorly conceived from the start . . . and harmful?

I think the jury's still out, but I haven't seen that the Chinese are offering much in compromise - and it's not even clear if there's going to be an agreement. But it's clear they are working on something and I'm sure Trump will sell it as the greatest trade deal ever. The proof will be in the details.

 

[UriUT]

I think that's Milo Y something...a right winger who used to work at Breibart?

 

[fooferdoggie]

Top Trump Official So Freaked Out by Tariffs, He Wants to Quit

And so the revolving door of Donald Trump’s Cabinet members begins.

newrepublic.com

good luck on that and finding another job.

 

[bird]

good luck on that and finding another job.

Wonder if Trump is going to use Putin’s way of firing people? The guy better not be near an open window.

 

[Optimus Prime]

When you lose Ben Shapiro

Even Ben Shapiro slams Trump over tariffs in new video

Shapiro said Americans don’t want to work in factories ‘riveting all day’

www.independent.co.uk

 

[fooferdoggie]

Wonder if Trump is going to use Putin’s way of firing people? The guy better not be near an open window.

knowing Trump, they would forget to open the window, and it would fail.

 

[MT15]

It’s like Trump took an AR and blew a huge hole in a perfectly healthy US economy. For no particular reason that makes any sense whatsoever. And the reporting has been atrocious. Has nobody asked him to say exactly why he thinks trade deficits with tiny island nations are so bad? Can no one ask him to defend the absolute bloodbath in the markets? It’s so very frustrating.

Cuban knows how bad it is, too. As does every economist who isn’t insane.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

This is pure cultish behavior from a person that will tell you that they are not in a cult!

 

[efil4]

Signs like GameDay lol

 

[efil4]

"Does this arse make my country look smaller"

had me LoL.

 

[Lapaz]

Totally agree. Trade deficits are part of doing business. We all have trade deficits down to a personal consumption level.

His focus on trade deficits is an indicator of how simple his brain works. We buy more from them than they buy from us? Bad

The across the board tariffs are stupid. If a country produces cheap goods because they have cheap labor, that country is probably not going to be able to afford to buy our products. By imposing tariffs on them, it just means we'll pay more, but they still won't be able to afford to buy our products. I think that using trade deficits only works after you adjust for the country's per capita GDP.

 

[efil4]

 

[efil4]

The across the board tariffs are stupid. If a country produces cheap goods because they have cheap labor, that country is probably not going to be able to afford to buy our products. By imposing tariffs on them, it just means we'll pay more, but they still won't be able to afford to buy our products. I think that using trade deficits only works after you adjust for the country's per capita GDP.

Exactly. If we are running a trade deficit with say Vietnam, they aren't buying much of US made goods. Myriad of reasons why...price, the good ( do they need them?) Etc.

It's all so stupid. We shot ourselves in the foot. Still time to repair, but Trump may very well shoot the other foot in next week or so. He can't help himself.

 

[Lapaz]

I think that's Milo Y something...a right winger who used to work at Breibart?

If Trump doesn't get rid of work-place regulations, then we won't have a lot of deaths, but our products won't have a market outside he U.S., unless robots produce our products.

 

[efil4]

Signs like GameDay lol

A few more

 

[UriUT]

America’s Brexit? Trump’s historic gamble on tariffs has been decades in the making

Trump’s economic assault on the world stunned economists and sent stock markets into a spiral. Who will pay the price?

www.theguardian.com

Decades of US prosperity “came to a very abrupt end” with the Great Depression from 1929, Professor Trump opined before his class of aides, cabinet secretaries and supporters. “It would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy,” he claimed. “It would have been a much different story.”

Actual historians took issue with this account. “It’s what we would call a lie. False. Not true,” said Andrew Cohen, professor of history in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. “He’s wrong. No one thinks that. Even conservative economists don’t think that. Even protectionist economists don’t think that.”

Months into the depression, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 – which hiked tariffs on hundreds of imports in a bid to boost the US economy – is widely considered to have prolonged, and even deepened, the crisis. No other president has tried the same tactic again – until now.

 

[Lapaz]

Friedman’s last line is brilliant. It is the point I’ve been saying is undercovered. “The operation of the free market is so essential not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more to foster peace and harmony among the peoples of the world”

The tariffs will make us poorer and less safe. Trump wants to MAWA! I wonder how Trump will benefit?

 

[MT15]

Cabinet secretaries out clowning themselves to defend the tariffs

 

[MT15]

Cabinet Secretaries out clowning themselves to defend the tariffs, part deux