REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The Trump trade wars?

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, April 23, 2018 09:50
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Sunday, March 4, 2018 11:35 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Trump Offers No Tariff Exemptions In Conversations With World Leaders: Ross


Update: some further soundbites from Ross as he makes the Sunday morning TV shows:

ROSS: OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE MORE TO LOSE THAN U.S. IN TRADE WAR
ROSS: RETALIATION THREATS VS U.S. COMPANIES A `ROUNDING ERROR'

Finally, regarding Gary Cohn's future, Ross said that the former Goldman COO is not leaving the administration after failing to stop President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

"The president likes to hear every side of every argument," Ross said on ABC. "That way he's sure he's gotten all points of view. We've had lively discussion, but Gary Cohn, as far as I know, is certainly not going to walk out."

As for potential retaliation, while some was expected, Ross said it would be trivial: “As to the idea of retaliation, sure they may well be some sort of retaliation, but the amounts that they're talking about are also pretty trivial."

* * *

US allies and trade partners - especially Canada, Japan and the EU - who were hoping that they would be exempt from Trump's steel and aluminum import tariffs
which would violate intl trade rules
Quote:
may be set for disappointment.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that Trump has spoken to world leaders about his planned tariff hikes on steel and aluminum and is not considering any exemptions to the measure.

"I know he's had conversations with a number of the world leaders," Ross said according to Reuters, adding that "the decision obviously is his, but as of the moment as far as I know he's talking about a fairly broad brush. I have not heard him describe particular exemptions just yet."

Echoing his CNBC comments from Friday, Ross also played down the possible effects of the proposed tariffs on the U.S. economy: he said the total amount of tariffs the U.S. government is proposing is about $9 billion a year, a fraction of 1% of the economy.

"So the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things, is wrong," Ross said; confirming a recent analysis from Barclays according to which the adverse impact from the tariffs would be negligible.

Ross also dismissed European Union threats of retaliatory tariffs on flagship American products including Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and Levi's jeans as trivial and a "rounding error." The commerce secretary said the Europeans were discussing a "pretty trivial amount of retaliatory tariffs, adding up to some $3 billion of goods."In our size economy that's a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent," Ross said. "So while it might affect an individual producer for a little while overall, it's not going to be much more than a rounding error."

On Saturday, Trump also threatened European automakers with a tax on imports if the European Union retaliates.

* * *

Separately, speaking on CNN's State of the Union, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro whose recent promotion presaged last week's tariff announcement, repeated that Trump's decision to place steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports is for both national and economic security: “This is an action basically to protect our national security and economic security."

Navarro - a long term China trade hawk - argued that Beijing is the source of the problem despite its low place on the list of exporters. The White House advisor said China has “tremendous overcapacity” that allows it to flood the market, which “ripples down.”

As such, the tariffs are intended to support American-made products, although as we showed previously, China is not even in the top 10 nations from which the US imports steel.

“We can’t have a country that can defend itself and prosper without an aluminum and steel industry,” Navarro said.

Navarro also dodged a question about whether the United States will ultimately leave the World Trade Organization. Telling CNN's Jake Tapper that it was “a provocative question”, Navarro said that the WTO is a big part of the problem when it comes to trade.

“A lot of the problem has been the World Trade Organization, which is over 160 countries, and a lot of them simply don’t like us and so we don’t get good results there,” Navarro said, and instead countered that while the U.S. is a free trader, it is also a fair trader, echoing a line from the president: "we are fair and reciprocal traders and the World Trade Organization I think needs to change with the times."

* * *

It is unlikely that either Ross' or Navarro's comments will mitigate an increasingly angry foreign response to what most now acknowledge is the start of global trade wars.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-04/trump-offers-no-tariff-exemp
tions-conversations-world-leaders-ross

Just linking ZH for convenience; this obviously has been covered by MSM as well.

Some random thoughts ...

1) The prediction (from past history) has been ...financial war, trade war, shooting war. So, is a shooting war next?

2) Wilbur Ross is a turnaround expert in American manufacturing, especially steel-making. He knows a thing or two about how to make a manufacturing business run.

3) But there is simply not enough time to revive America's manufacturing status; I think that is a 10+year job, and even then it would require an unprecedented amount of government investment -mandate.

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Sunday, March 4, 2018 4:57 PM

THGRRI


Barely a year in and Trump starts the process of destroying our and our allies economies. All this while crawling on his knees behind the leaders of China and Russia. What more could we ask of him...so sad, such a loser.


T

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Sunday, March 4, 2018 8:48 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Destroying their economy by putting an import tax on them? Destroying ours by doing the same?

I dunno. Going to have to wait that one out since we have no choice. Far to early to tell what the long term impact of that will be. I'm sure I could find just as many people on Fox News that say it's the best damn thing that ever happened to this country.

That's the problem with "reporting" stuff you want to hear rather than objective truth.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 3:36 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


“This is an action basically to protect our national security and economic security."

It is the stupidest thing he's ever done, and that's saying something. I'm just going by Trump's favorite word:

Reciprocity...as he so simply puts it...is where things are equally applied on both sides.


SGG

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Monday, March 5, 2018 5:40 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I dunno. Going to have to wait that one out since we have no choice. Far to early to tell what the long term impact of that will be. I'm sure I could find just as many people on Fox News that say it's the best damn thing that ever happened to this country.

That's the problem with "reporting" stuff you want to hear rather than objective truth.
It happens that macroeconomics, a fancy word, can calculate ahead what comes next if Trump tries to close the trade gap by raising tariffs.

The Macroeconomics of Trade War
Paul Krugman, March 3, 2018 (Krugman got the Nobel Prize for his calculations on trade between countries. He is not just some blowhard editorial writer.)
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/opinion/the-macroeconomics-of-trade-war.htm
l

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our “very stupid” trade deals and policies. Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!
11:43 AM - Mar 3, 2018

It’s worth asking what would happen if Trump really did try to close the trade gap – it’s actually $500 billion, not $800 billion, but who’s counting – by imposing tariffs.

The trade gap is currently running a bit shy of 3 percent of GDP, while imports are 15 percent of GDP. Exports are around 12 percent of GDP. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=US

If the price elasticity of import demand is around 1, which is a typical estimate for the short-to-medium run, a 20 percent across the board tariff might, other things equal, be enough to close the gap. (price elasticity of import demand of 1 multiplied by 20% tariff multiplied by imports of 15% GDP = trade gap of 3% GDP)

But other things would very much not be equal.

Leave aside the issue of foreign retaliation, although that would be a very big deal in practice. Assume instead that the U.S. gets away with it, with no foreign response. Even so, this wouldn’t work out the way Trump imagines.

You see, diverting demand equal to 3 percent of GDP from foreign to domestic products would not increase US output by 3 percent relative to what it would have been otherwise. Why? Because the US is close to full employment. Maybe – maybe – we have another half-point of unemployment to go. But a 3 percent rise in output relative to trend would reduce unemployment about 1.5 percentage points. And that just isn’t going to happen.

What would happen instead is that the Fed would raise rates sharply to head off inflationary pressures (especially because a 20 percent tariff would directly raise prices by something like 3 percent.) The rise in interest rates would have two big effects. First, it would squeeze interest-sensitive sectors: Trump’s friends in real estate would become very unhappy, as would anyone who is highly leveraged (hello, Jared.)

Second, it would drive up the dollar, inflicting severe harm on U.S. export sectors. Greetings, farmers of Iowa!

So protectionism wouldn’t do very much to reduce the trade deficit, even if other countries didn’t retaliate, and would inflict a lot of pain across the economy. And that’s without getting into the dislocations caused by disruption of supply chains.

Add in the fact that other countries would retaliate. They’re already drawing up their target lists. . . .

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Monday, March 5, 2018 6:03 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
It happens that macroeconomics, a fancy word, can calculate ahead what comes next if Trump tries to close the trade gap by raising tariffs.

The Macroeconomics of Trade War
Paul Krugman, March 3, 2018
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/opinion/the-macroeconomics-of-trade-war.htm
l

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our “very stupid” trade deals and policies. Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!
11:43 AM - Mar 3, 2018

It’s worth asking what would happen if Trump really did try to close the trade gap – it’s actually $500 billion, not $800 billion, but who’s counting – by imposing tariffs.

The trade gap is currently running a bit shy of 3 percent of GDP, while imports are 15 percent of GDP. Exports are around 12 percent of GDP. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=US

If the price elasticity of import demand is around 1, which is a typical estimate for the short-to-medium run, a 20 percent across the board tariff might, other things equal, be enough to close the gap. (price elasticity of import demand of 1 multiplied by 20% tariff multiplied by imports of 15% GDP = trade gap of 3% GDP)

But other things would very much not be equal.

Leave aside the issue of foreign retaliation, although that would be a very big deal in practice. Assume instead that the U.S. gets away with it, with no foreign response. Even so, this wouldn’t work out the way Trump imagines.

You see, diverting demand equal to 3 percent of GDP from foreign to domestic products would not increase US output by 3 percent relative to what it would have been otherwise. Why? Because the US is close to full employment.
That's a load of hogwash. If Krugman believes that phony figure, then he's stupider than I thought; and I thought he was a moron already.

Quote:
Maybe – maybe – we have another half-point of unemployment to go. But a 3 percent rise in output relative to trend would reduce unemployment about 1.5 percentage points. And that just isn’t going to happen.
And there goes THAT argument, because it's based on a bad assumption

Quote:
What would happen instead is that the Fed would raise rates sharply to head off inflationary pressures (especially because a 20 percent tariff would directly raise prices by something like 3 percent.)
And now we have a corresponding assumption that he knows what "the Fed" will do? How often has Krugman been able to predict Fed policy? It would be instructive to go over his earlier predictions and find out, but if he's like most economists, his prediction rate will be worse than by chance.

Quote:
The rise in interest rates would have two big effects. First, it would squeeze interest-sensitive sectors: Trump’s friends in real estate would become very unhappy, as would anyone who is highly leveraged (hello, Jared.)
If interest rates go up significantly, a lot more would happen than the real estate bubble popping. But interest rates are going up ALREADY; and that has nothing to do with tariffs.

Quote:
Second, it would drive up the dollar, inflicting severe harm on U.S. export sectors. Greetings, farmers of Iowa!
God, Krugman is an idiot. The reason why interest rates are going up is because the Fed WANTS them to go up. Don't forget that the Fed is NOT a government agency; it is a consortium of large PRIVATE banks, following policy that protects BANK interests. The Fed has been following a near-zero interest rate policy since 2009, which has blown huge speculative bubbles in the usual roster of speculative activities ... real estate, stock market, fine art ... and for reasons of its own has decided to change that policy. We can discuss what the Fed's reasons are for the policy change, but it has nothing to do with tariffs.

Quote:
So protectionism wouldn’t do very much to reduce the trade deficit, even if other countries didn’t retaliate, and would inflict a lot of pain across the economy. And that’s without getting into the dislocations caused by disruption of supply chains.

Add in the fact that other countries would retaliate. They’re already drawing up their target lists. . . .
Retaliation is prolly the best argument against tariffs, but then ... if trade wars are so self-damaging, why would other nations engage it them?

I wonder how much income these tariffs will generate for the Federal government? It used to be that the Federal government funded itself on tariffs ALONE, BEFORE income taxes were enacted. Early American government policy was, in fact, protectionist .... that allowed early American industry to thrive, even tho it could have been out-competed by more-developed nations, especially Britain, which in used its preeminence as THE imperial nation to become THE international industrial powerhouse.

So another way of looking at the effects of tariffs is that they could reduce the Federal deficit by generating income for the government, which would reduce borrowing pressure and allow interest rates to stay lower than they would otherwise be. It's at least as valid as Krugman's suppositions, anyway.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, March 5, 2018 8:20 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'd like to see what happens, and we're all going to see now that it's done anyhow.

Maybe this isn't the right play, but at least it's a play. This has been a problem for a long time that nobody from either side has tried to do anything about.

Democrat or Republican, the working class in America gets screwed more every year.


Really, there's no point bitching about it now. It's already done. Hopefully it works out.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 8:43 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

God, Krugman is an idiot.
Einstein, another Nobel prize winner who worked at Princeton, same as Krugman, would get long letters from writers who knew General Relativity made erroneous assumptions and Einstein was an idiot. Those letter-writing Signyms would educate Einstein on his published mistakes. Krugman gets his share of insults from cranks, too.
www.nytimes.com/1999/02/09/science/genius-or-gibberish-the-strange-wor
ld-of-the-math-crank.html

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Monday, March 5, 2018 9:19 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


If Krugman knew everything, he wouldn't be shilling for cable news networks. He'd be as rich as Warren Buffett.

I won't call him an idiot, but just because he says something doesn't mean it's true. He could be right. He might not be.

I think comparing Krugman to Einstein is an apples to oranges thing...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 9:44 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
If Krugman knew everything, he wouldn't be shilling for cable news networks. He'd be as rich as Warren Buffett.

I won't call him an idiot, but just because he says something doesn't mean it's true. He could be right. He might not be.

I think comparing Krugman to Einstein is an apples to oranges thing...
Not apples to oranges, but one secular Jewish intellectual to secular Jewish intellectual, both hired to be professors at Princeton because of their academic renown. Both professors used mathematics to explain how the world really works, rather than the way their enemies wished it worked. And both Einstein's and Krugman's enemies wanted them harmed.

I remember Krugman being amused by Republicans falsely claiming he had gone bankrupt. This was back when George Bush was planning a huge tax cut, claiming that it would not cause a deficit. Krugman wrote editorial after editorial calling attention to the GOP's phony-baloney economics calculations. All Krugman had to do was run the numbers. That pissed the Republicans, both politicians and voters. They responded with fake numbers and the bankruptcy. Who would listen to a guy who was in (fake) bankruptcy? Well, guess what? The GOP politicians lied to their voters to justify what they were about to do, figuring that voters can be bamboozled. Eighteen years later, voters are still easily mislead. They don't remember.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, March 5, 2018 10:21 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Okay... so both Krugman and Einstein are Jewish and professed at the same school. What's your point?

Is every white dude that goes to the same school on the same level? Every black woman? Every transgendered Asian?


He's got some brains. He doesn't hold a candle to Einstein. lol... Hardly anybody does. He shouldn't feel bad about that.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 10:32 AM

THGRRI


Mueller investigation is expanding. Think pay to play UAE.

If this tariff thing continues the republicans may see Trump as a major hindrance to them being reelected. If he destroys or even slows the economy it is over for them. That makes them less likely to protect him judicial appointments or not. It then becomes possible they'll join with the democrats to remove him.

Soon please...Trump is looking back to the past, the 18 hundreds as the future. Mining coal and steel to advance this country. China is looking 50 years into the future. AI, solar and so on.


T

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Monday, March 5, 2018 11:04 AM

THGRRI


Trump praises 'president for life' of China

Guests of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate laughed Saturday afternoon when Trump appeared to express envy that his Chinese counterpart could rule indefinitely if the nation decides to nix term limits.
The crowd burst into applause when Trump suggested the United States consider the same.

President Xi Jinping "is a great gentleman and he's now president for life," Trump said during a GOP fund-raiser, according to audio obtained by CNN.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-praises-president-for-li
fe-of-china/ar-BBJPLqV

We are now because of Trump competing with china in a valueless vacuum as the rest of the world looks on and even takes advantage.

T

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Monday, March 5, 2018 12:08 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So ... back to Krugman and Einstein - The reason why people think Einstein is a genius is because, as radical as his theories are, they've been tested over and over, and have not yet been falsified. Without those theories passing a rigorous testing process, Einstein and the people who agree(d) with him would be relegated to 'crackpot' status. Krugman OTOH, has had his predictions fail quite often. He's also a biased advocate for a POV, not a dispassionate observer.

So anyway ... anyone up for a rational, fact-based, and civil discussion about the topic?

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Monday, March 5, 2018 12:12 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Einstein, another Nobel prize winner who worked at Princeton, same as Krugman, would get long letters from writers who knew General Relativity made erroneous assumptions and Einstein was an idiot. Those letter-writing Signyms would educate Einstein on his published mistakes. Krugman gets his share of insults from cranks, too. - SECOND
How many times has Krugman been right?

Did he predict 2008?

No?

Scientists have been testing Einstein's theories since he published them. But economics is not a science; NOBODY tests THEIR predictions. If you would, you would find that economists are dismally, abysmally wrong more often than they are right, and Krugman falls into that category. There are all kinds of reasons why economists fail to predict over and over, starting with their initial (wrong) assumptions about human behavior (atomistic and all-knowing maximizers of individual benefit) to their initial (wrong) assumptions about market behavior (at equilibrium).

Maybe what you should do, SECOND, is take Krugman's writings over the course of ten years or so, and check all of his major predictions against what actually happened. That would be research worthy of a graduate-level degree, and would provide us all with a lot of information. Thanks.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, March 5, 2018 12:59 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh, hey KIKI! I saw we x-posted with the same idea. But doggie was desperate to go outside, so I had to run off for a bit.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, March 5, 2018 1:56 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, can we re-start this discussion without 'appeal to authority'? given that economists are more often wrong than right, maybe some original thinking is in order?

btw given the failure of 'economics' as a predictive science, I often chuckle at the thought of a Nobel Prize in Economics. It may as well be a Nobel Prize in Voodoo, or a Nobel Prize in Economic Religion.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, March 5, 2018 2:23 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay... so both Krugman and Einstein are Jewish and professed at the same school. What's your point?

Is every white dude that goes to the same school on the same level? Every black woman? Every transgendered Asian?


He's got some brains. He doesn't hold a candle to Einstein. lol... Hardly anybody does. He shouldn't feel bad about that.
Krugman and Einstein had no reasons to lie about how the world works. In stark contrast, there is Trump. He has been an ignorant trade hawk for decades. He’s feeling beleaguered on many fronts, and word is that his doctor has told him to eat fewer burgers. So there’s surely a lot of pent-up rage that he’s all too likely to take out on the world trading system. Will Trump back down from his urge to start a trade war? Nobody knows.

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Monday, March 5, 2018 2:58 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Krugman and Einstein had no reasons to lie about how the world works.
However, (unlike Einstein) Krugman is an establishment status-quo-er, and even if he isn't consciously 'lying', he could be so vastly brainwashed by accepted theory that he could be 180 degrees out of whack.

The only test of "who is right" is to actually ... er ... TEST the theories against reality. That means that a theory has to predict events, or at least answer questions that perhaps haven't even been asked yet.

Has anyone actually tested Krugman's predictions/ explanations/ opinions against real world events?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, March 5, 2018 3:08 PM

THGRRI


Major GOP fundraiser calls on Trump to drop tariff plan

WASHINGTON — A major Republican donor and businessman is asking President Donald Trump in a letter Monday to reconsider his decision to impose costly tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

"While I am a strong supporter of your administration's pro-growth policies and energy dominance agenda, imposing broad tariffs on steel risks unintended consequences that could jeopardize America's resurgent oil and natural gas industry," Dan Eberhart, CEO of Canary, an oilfield services company, wrote in the letter obtained by NBC News.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/major-gop-fundraiser-calls-on-
trump-to-drop-tariff-plan/ar-BBJTJb8?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp


T

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Monday, March 5, 2018 4:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay... so both Krugman and Einstein are Jewish and professed at the same school. What's your point?

Is every white dude that goes to the same school on the same level? Every black woman? Every transgendered Asian?


He's got some brains. He doesn't hold a candle to Einstein. lol... Hardly anybody does. He shouldn't feel bad about that.
Krugman and Einstein had no reasons to lie about how the world works. In stark contrast, there is Trump. He has been an ignorant trade hawk for decades. He’s feeling beleaguered on many fronts, and word is that his doctor has told him to eat fewer burgers. So there’s surely a lot of pent-up rage that he’s all too likely to take out on the world trading system. Will Trump back down from his urge to start a trade war? Nobody knows.


Please. Stop comparing Krugman to Einstein.

Do you like dogs? Well... Hitler liked dogs too.

Chances are that it's just a coincidence that you both like dogs, and nothing more could be read from that.


Your argument has devolved from "They're both Jews and professors at the same school" to "Krugman and Einstein are both not like Trump, therefore Krugman must be right".



Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 4:24 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Major GOP fundraiser calls on Trump to drop tariff plan

WASHINGTON — A major Republican donor and businessman is asking President Donald Trump in a letter Monday to reconsider his decision to impose costly tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

"While I am a strong supporter of your administration's pro-growth policies and energy dominance agenda, imposing broad tariffs on steel risks unintended consequences that could jeopardize America's resurgent oil and natural gas industry," Dan Eberhart, CEO of Canary, an oilfield services company, wrote in the letter obtained by NBC News.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/major-gop-fundraiser-calls-on-
trump-to-drop-tariff-plan/ar-BBJTJb8?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp


So.... we're supposed to root for the Oil Tycoons now.

Am I right?





Jeez... after reading the article, it sounds like Trump is pissing off a lot of Conservatives with this move. I would think that you'd be thrilled.

I'll bet the NRA is against it. I would LOVE to hear their opinion on this right now.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 7:22 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay... so both Krugman and Einstein are Jewish and professed at the same school. What's your point?

Is every white dude that goes to the same school on the same level? Every black woman? Every transgendered Asian?


He's got some brains. He doesn't hold a candle to Einstein. lol... Hardly anybody does. He shouldn't feel bad about that.
Krugman and Einstein had no reasons to lie about how the world works. In stark contrast, there is Trump. He has been an ignorant trade hawk for decades. He’s feeling beleaguered on many fronts, and word is that his doctor has told him to eat fewer burgers. So there’s surely a lot of pent-up rage that he’s all too likely to take out on the world trading system. Will Trump back down from his urge to start a trade war? Nobody knows.


Please. Stop comparing Krugman to Einstein.

Do you like dogs? Well... Hitler liked dogs too.

Chances are that it's just a coincidence that you both like dogs, and nothing more could be read from that.


Your argument has devolved from "They're both Jews and professors at the same school" to "Krugman and Einstein are both not like Trump, therefore Krugman must be right".
You are not a believer in experts, are you? Especially in this case. Believe what you want, 6ix.

It happens to be true that Congress could kick Trump in the balls and tell him not to change tariffs. The big but is that Trump will probably try to destroy the GOP if Congress does:

Quote:
Ah yes, how far will Republicans go to stand up to Trump? Will they send him a stern letter? Or, being Congress and all, will they pass legislation removing Trump’s authority to unilaterally levy new tariffs? Congress mostly leaves tariffs up to presidents, but as the Washington Post delicately puts it, “Congressional leaders believe that approach has worked well — until now.”

Still, if you go to war with Trump, you have to expect you’re going to get a real war. Trump could easily blow up so badly that he’d decide to engage in a scorched-earth campaign against the traitors in the Republican Party, leading to a tidal wave of losses in the November midterms unprecedented in human history. I wouldn’t put it past him. So I guess there’s that for Paul Ryan to think about.
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/03/paul-ryan-finally-finds-somethi
ng-he-just-cant-tolerate-about-trump-tariffs/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, March 5, 2018 9:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Nope. Not a big believer in experts. Especially when it comes to predicting the future.

I suggest you do as Sigs suggested and take a look at his overall track record. I'm willing to bet that he's right about as often as the Weather man is.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 5, 2018 11:40 PM

THGRRI


Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Mueller investigation is expanding. Think pay to play UAE.

If this tariff thing continues the republicans may see Trump as a major hindrance to them being reelected. If he destroys or even slows the economy it is over for them. That makes them less likely to protect him judicial appointments or not. It then becomes possible they'll join with the democrats to remove him.

Soon please...Trump is looking back to the past, the 18 hundreds as the future. Mining coal and steel to advance this country. China is looking 50 years into the future. AI, solar and so on.


Ryan splits with Trump as GOP lawmakers move to block planned tariffs

Republican congressional leaders stepped up their efforts Monday to stop President Donald Trump from implementing global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, warning that the protectionist move would damage the economy and muddle the party's message in the run-up to November's midterm elections.

For much of the day, an extraordinary public debate over core economic principles played out between the president and leading members of his own party.
ADVERTISING

"We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan," said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a letter urging the president to narrow the tariffs' focus, while high-ranking Senate Republicans voiced their own opposition. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, predicted that the president ultimately will scrap the trade levies.
Paid Post What's This?

"I think it would be a tragedy if they continue on the course that was announced," said Hatch, who blamed White House trade adviser Peter Navarro for steering the president toward protectionist policies.

The Republican lawmakers went public after several days of Trump airing his protectionist views. In an early morning tweetstorm and subsequent Oval Office remarks Monday, the president doubled down on his trade offensive, telling reporters: "No, we're not backing down."

At the White House, senior aides like Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, sought to convince the president to reconsider even as colleagues labored over the legal work needed to implement the import taxes, senior administration officials said.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-trump-trade-war-20180305
-story.html


T

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 8:07 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nope. Not a big believer in experts. Especially when it comes to predicting the future.

I suggest you do as Sigs suggested and take a look at his overall track record. I'm willing to bet that he's right about as often as the Weather man is.
The GOP and Signym already made up their minds: "If Krugman believes that phony figure, then he's stupider than I thought; and I thought he was a moron already," wrote Signym on this page. I've seen that tactic by Republican Texans in areas unconnected to politics. It is somewhat like an owner hires an auditor (imagine Krugman as auditor) to add up the figures and finds embezzlement, then the business manager angrily accuses the auditor of incompetence because the not-yet-identified-embezzler is the Republican business manager. www.entrepreneur.com/article/227689

Here is a Krugman story based upon Trump's inability to be factual.

A Ranting Old Guy With Nukes
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/opinion/trump-nuclear-weapons-trade.html
Paul Krugman MARCH 5, 2018

Imagine that you’re listening to some garrulous old guy in a diner, telling you what’s wrong with the world — which mainly involves how we’re being victimized and taken advantage of by foreigners. You hear him out; after all, there have been approximately 17,000 news analyses telling us that garrulous old guys in diners represent the Real America.

Despite your best efforts to avoid being condescending, however, you can’t help noticing that his opinions seem a bit, well, factually challenged. No, we aren’t experiencing a huge wave of violent crime carried out by immigrants. No, we don’t give away vast sums in foreign aid. And so on down the list. Basically, what he imagines to be facts are things he thinks he heard somewhere, maybe on Fox News, and can’t be bothered to check.

O.K., in general we should be prepared to cut ordinary citizens a lot of slack on such stuff. People have children to care for, jobs to do and lives to live, so we can’t expect them to be policy wonks — although maybe they should have a better sense of what they don’t know.

But what if the ranting, ill-informed old guy who strongly believes things that just aren’t true happens to be the president of the United States?

Donald Trump’s declaration that he’s ready to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum is bad policy, but in itself not that big a deal. The really disturbing thing is the way he seems to have arrived at that decision, which apparently came as a surprise to his own economic team.

In the first place, the alleged legal justification for his move was that the tariffs were needed to protect national security. After all, we can’t be dependent for our aluminum on unstable, hostile foreign powers like … Canada, our principal foreign supplier. (Canada is also our biggest foreign supplier of steel.)

The point is that the rationale for this policy was obviously fraudulent, and this matters: It gives other countries full legal license to retaliate, and retaliate they will. The European Union — which is, by the way, a bigger player in world trade than we are — has already threatened to impose tariffs on Harley-Davidsons, bourbon and bluejeans.

Meanwhile, in the days since Trump’s announcement, he’s tweeted out one falsehood after another. And I don’t mean that he’s been saying things I disagree with; I mean that he’s been saying things that are simply, flatly wrong, even according to the U.S. government itself.

He has, for example, declared that we have large trade deficits with Canada; actually, according to U.S. numbers, we run a small surplus. The Europeans, he says, impose “massive tariffs” on U.S. products; the U.S. government guide to exporters tells us that “U.S. exports to the European Union enjoy an average tariff of just three percent.”

These aren’t pesky little errors. Trump — who can get comprehensive briefings on any subject, just by saying the word, but prefers to watch “Fox & Friends” instead — has a picture of world trade in his head that bears as little resemblance to reality as his vision of an America overrun by violent immigrants.

And his notion of what to do about these imaginary problems amounts to no more than a bar stool rant. “Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” he tweeted, where he clearly thinks that “winning” means selling more to the other guy than he sells to you. That’s not how it works.

In fact, even if we could eliminate U.S. trade deficits with tariffs, there would be lots of unpleasant side effects: sharply higher interest rates wreaking havoc on real estate and those with large debts (hello, Jared), and a sharply higher dollar inflicting severe harm on exporters, like many of America’s farmers. And a full-scale trade war would disrupt international supply chains, displacing huge numbers of workers: The U.S. government’s own estimates say that exports to the European Union, Canada and Mexico support 2.6 million, 1.6 million and 1.2 million American jobs respectively.

Will Trump actually follow through on his ranting? Nobody knows. Maybe the adults in the administration, if there are any left, will find some bright, shiny objects to distract him — say, meaningless “concessions” by Canada and Mexico that convince him that he’s won big. But whether or not the trade war actually happens, Trump’s display of belligerent ignorance ought to worry us a lot.

For one thing, talking tough and stupid on trade in itself damages U.S. credibility: If we go around threatening our most important allies with retaliation against policies they don’t even have, how can we expect them to trust us — or support us — on anything else?

Beyond that, is there any reason to believe that Trump’s belligerent ignorance stops with trade? Actually, we know that he’s just as bombastic and clueless (with added racism) when it comes to crime, and there’s no reason to believe that he’s any better on real national security issues.

Listening to a garrulous old guy spout nonsense is annoying in the best of circumstances. But when this particular old guy controls the world’s largest military, nukes included, it’s downright scary.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 8:14 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'm happy about the tariffs.

If for no other reason than all of the politicians hate them, and the media as well.

I've got to back pretty much anything that is making powerful people on both sides of the corrupt aisle shit themselves.



Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 8:39 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm happy about the tariffs.

If for no other reason than all of the politicians hate them, and the media as well.

I've got to back pretty much anything that is making powerful people on both sides of the corrupt aisle shit themselves.
How happy are you gonna be if Trump does a 180? What if he says "Never mind" about tariffs? I am all for Trump going full speed with every single one of his promises: deport 11.3 million illegals. (I dare him to finish it in the next 3 years. Dump the Dreamers, Trump). Build the Texas/Mexico wall. (Finish it, Trump and in a hurry) Go to war with North Korea over its nukes (Blow up North and South Korea, you pussy Trump. Do it now!) Invade Iran (they want an Arab nuke! Stop them now!) Pass a Federal law requiring handguns in every teachers' purse or briefcase (Do it, Trump, or are you chicken?) And while Trump is making all his dreams come true, could he please reduce the tax to 0% on incomes higher than $1,000,000? That's my dream. It's a great idea!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 9:04 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm happy about the tariffs.

If for no other reason than all of the politicians hate them, and the media as well.

I've got to back pretty much anything that is making powerful people on both sides of the corrupt aisle shit themselves.
How happy are you gonna be if Trump does a 180? What if he says "Never mind" about tariffs? I am all for Trump going full speed with every single one of his promises: deport 11.3 million illegals. (I dare him to finish it in the next 3 years. Dump the Dreamers, Trump). Build the Texas/Mexico wall. (Finish it, Trump and in a hurry) Go to war with North Korea over its nukes (Blow up North and South Korea, you pussy Trump. Do it now!) Invade Iran (they want an Arab nuke! Stop them now!) Pass a Federal law requiring handguns in every teachers' purse or briefcase (Do it, Trump, or are you chicken?) And while Trump is making all his dreams come true, could he please reduce the tax to 0% on incomes higher than $1,000,000? That's my dream. It's a great idea!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Well first off, let's stop calling criminals "Dreamers".

Most of those other things you mention, most Republican politicians are on board with. They do nothing for me.

As I said before, I like this one because the politicians on both sides unanimously show their opposition to it, as well as the MSM and rich business owners with influence.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 9:22 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

As I said before, I like this one because the politicians on both sides unanimously show their opposition to it, as well as the MSM and rich business owners with influence.
6ixStringJack, let’s do it and show those eggheads that Signym and you know more than they do, that history books are baloney! The consensus view among eggheads and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression. The Act and following retaliatory tariffs by America's trading partners were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by more than half during the Depression. #MAGA!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act

Smoot-Hawley passed with the support of 208 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Even way back then, the Republicans were more in favor of higher tariffs than Democrats.

The consensus view among economists and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression,[16] although there is disagreement as to how much. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was a leading cause of the depression.[17][18] However, many economists hold the opinion that the tariff act did not greatly worsen the great depression. According to Paul Krugman, "Where protectionism really mattered was in preventing a recovery in trade when production recovered." He cites a report by Barry Eichengreen and Douglas Irwin: Figure 1 in that report shows trade and production dropping together from 1929 to 1932, but production increasing faster than trade from 1932 to 1937. The authors argue that adherence to the gold standard forced many countries to resort to tariffs, when instead they should have devalued their currencies.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 1:01 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump has now linked the metal tariffs to on-going talks between the US, Mexico and Canada to re-negotiate the trade rules between the three closely linked nations. “Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed,” the president wrote this morning. Either these new tariffs protect an industry that is vital to the safety of the US, or they are a bargaining chip to be used against other economic gains — but they cannot be both. Even suggesting that the tariffs are negotiable will undermine their rationale. Investors are unlikely to increase funding in metal production if Trump tells them the rules will be changed again at the drop of the hat -- by Trump.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/970626966004162560

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 1:13 PM

THGRRI


Congress has to fund any and all aspects of carrying out what would be in a tariffs bill. Let's see if that happens. Or they stonewall. Maybe it won't get that far.

I think he may be able to just do it but without any support I don't know if it will happen.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/23/news/economy/trump-tariff-power/index.
html

T

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 9:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

As I said before, I like this one because the politicians on both sides unanimously show their opposition to it, as well as the MSM and rich business owners with influence.
6ixStringJack, let’s do it and show those eggheads that Signym and you know more than they do, that history books are baloney! The consensus view among eggheads and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression. The Act and following retaliatory tariffs by America's trading partners were major factors of the reduction of American exports and imports by more than half during the Depression. #MAGA!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act

Smoot-Hawley passed with the support of 208 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Even way back then, the Republicans were more in favor of higher tariffs than Democrats.

The consensus view among economists and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression,[16] although there is disagreement as to how much. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was a leading cause of the depression.[17][18] However, many economists hold the opinion that the tariff act did not greatly worsen the great depression. According to Paul Krugman, "Where protectionism really mattered was in preventing a recovery in trade when production recovered." He cites a report by Barry Eichengreen and Douglas Irwin: Figure 1 in that report shows trade and production dropping together from 1929 to 1932, but production increasing faster than trade from 1932 to 1937. The authors argue that adherence to the gold standard forced many countries to resort to tariffs, when instead they should have devalued their currencies.


This country is already fucked economically speaking. I'm not that concerned about it. Maybe Krugman and all of those Republicans are right. The fact is that I don't care if they are or not. This works, or it doesn't. It's a bargaining chip, or it's not. It passes, or it doesn't.

T is right. The president doesn't even have the power to do something like this anyhow. I doubt it's going to go anywhere.

But perception is reality. If you listen to crazies like you, who I'm assuming are getting your information from the news, then a lot of people believe that he does have that power. Maybe he's banking on the fact that people like Trudeau are stupid enough to believe it too.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 8:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SECOND< let's get some essential facts in place.

Quote:
The tariff history of the United States spans from colonial times to present. The first tariff law passed by the U.S. Congress, acting under the then recently ratified Constitution, was the Tariff of 1789. Its purpose was to generate revenue for the federal government (to run the government and to pay the interest on its debt), and also to act as a protective barrier around domestic industries. An Import tax was collected by treasury agents before goods could be landed at U.S. ports.

Tariffs have historically served a key role in the nation's foreign trade policy. They were the greatest (approaching 95% at times) source of federal revenue until the Federal income tax began after 1913. For well over a century the federal government was largely financed by tariffs averaging about 20% on foreign imports ...

According to Michael Lind, protectionism was America's de facto policy from the passage of the Tariff of 1816 to World War II, "switching to free trade only in 1945, when most of its industrial competitors had been wiped out" by the war. It has been argued that one of the underlying motivations for the American Revolution itself was a desire to industrialize, and reverse the trade deficit with Britain, which had grown by a factor of ten in the space of a few decades, from £67,000 (1721–30) to £739,000 (1761–70).

According to Paul Bairoch, since the end of the 18th century, the United States has been "the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism". In fact, the United States never adhered to free trade until 1945. A very protectionist policy was adopted as soon as the presidency of George Washington by Alexander Hamilton, the first US Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795 and author of the text Report on Manufactures which called for customs barriers to allow American industrial development and to help protect infant industries, including bounties (subsidies) derived in part from those tariffs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history

So, tariffs were the policy of the USA throughout most of our history. And I think the policy was very successful.

There are many instances where tariffs have had a positive effect on industry. Germany, for example, the German tariff on "feed in" electricity has done a great deal to promote renewable energy.
https://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/07/germany-solar-feed-in-tariffs-sei
a/

There are cases where tariffs are widely seen as not having "worked" for the economy ... Argentina is widely cited. I have to say that I don't know much about that nation's economy, but I think the problem included corruption and vastly unequal wealth distribution as well as tariffs.

If you want to look at sanctions, which are involuntary tariffs, some nations have done quite well at internal development, despite sanctions, and that includes Cuba and Iran. While Cuba is very small and lacks the diverse set of resources necessary for a self-sustaining economy (they have no iron deposits for steel production, for example) the people don't lack for the basic necessities of food and medical care. Iran has a diverse economy, which they have been forced to create because of western sanctions. You can look at its counterpart- Saudi Arabia- which is dependent on one commodity (oil) and which is currently NOW attempting to diversify its economy as its oil fields play out.

IMHO, all nations should have as close to a neutral balance of trade as possible. You don't want to be a importing nation, because that makes you a dependent borrower. OTOH, you don't want to be an exporter either, because that means you depend on other markets for your wealth. Also, as a matter of sheer security ... and not necessarily military security, just robustness in the face of economic shocks, natural disaster (which interrupts trade routes and shipping) or war, you need to be able to sustain your economy over the long run.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 9:41 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The idea that free trade orthodoxy went too far in the past has a reasonable amount of support. (I recommend Stephen Cohn and Brad DeLong’s book Concrete Economics for that argument; its restraint makes it all the more convincing.
www.amazon.com/Concrete-Economics-Hamilton-Approach-Economic/dp/142218
9813 )

Certainly, a new administration elected on a trade-skeptical message is entitled to take a shot at turning rhetoric into action.

Take an earlier Trump initiative that at least kind of made sense — the decision to slap punitive tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels. That protected US solar manufacturers, and induced at least one Chinese company to announce plans to build a factory in the United States. Squint and you can see a nascent industrial policy effort to make the USA a world leader in solar power. (Except, in every other possible way, Trump maintains laser-like focus on deterring the growth of renewable power.)

Trump paired solar tariffs with new tariffs on Chinese home appliances, seemingly an effort to promote the US appliance manufacturing industry. Appliances, however, are made of metal. While taxing imported appliances gives US-based appliance manufacturing a leg up, taxing imported metal takes that leg away — which is why Electrolux is putting a planned $250 million investment on hold.

The net result is simply to make everything more expensive for no reason. The country will survive an arbitrary, pointless increase in the price of consumer durable goods, but it’s still a stupid way to run the country.

On some level, it should be no surprise that Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs don’t advance any coherent economic goal because the legal authority he invoked as justification has nothing to do with economics.

Prior presidents have dabbled in steel protectionism by invoking “anti-dumping” rules that lead to legal and bureaucratic wrangling at the World Trade Organization, mild international tiffs, and then usually both sides backing down to some extent.

But Trump, who likes to be tough, was reaching for stronger statutory authority. He found it in Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to protect strategically vital industries.

There is no explicit statutory requirement that the president’s invocation of this authority not be total nonsense — it was just one of those unstated norms — so Trump is off to the races, even though the invocation is really, truly nonsense.

For starters, the Pentagon says its total needs only come to about 3 percent of total domestic production. So there’s no risk that being cut off by our suppliers would make military production impossible.

But it gets sillier (with Trump it always does) because America’s biggest foreign supplier of steel is Canada. That’s followed by Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Turkey, the European Union, and Japan (then comes Russia). Defense Secretary James Mattis sensibly suggested that we might consider exempting our close allies from the tariffs to avoid creating a ridiculous diplomatic incident, but Trump blocked that idea because exempting allies would make the policy economically meaningless.

Trump’s analysis of the economics is correct. But that’s just another way of saying that the vast preponderance of the steel America imports comes from allies, so the national security case is nonsense. The whole thing is a failure on every level.

The only saving grace of the situation is that everyone knows Trump is bullshitting, so we have a minor trade crisis on our hands rather than a major national security one. Still, with this level of slipshod decision-making, who knows?

www.vox.com/2018/3/6/17072226/trump-tariffs-steel-aluminum-governing-s
tyle

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 10:52 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SHINY ... this is an example of "national" versus "international" oligarchs.

*****
SECOND ... American steel producers agree that this helps them. They have idled lines that can be brought back into production if the tariff goes thru. And if those businesses are savvy, they will take their profits and reinvest them in newer and more efficient production facilities, which will bring them up to par where they are internationally substandard.

The problem - as I heard on NPR- is one of global overcapacity, and THAT overcapacity resides in China.

Now, there is a problems with how "we" handle China:

China wants to be given MES ("market economy status") by the WTO. However, China CLEARLY is not a market economy, and its SOEs (state owned enterprises) have a clear advantage in state support and state funding ... and these SOEs include steel manufacturing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state-owned_enterprises_of_China.

So the Trump administration has been tackling the China-steel overcapacity problem in two ways already

1) They (along with the EU) refused to grant China MES in 2017,



and
2) They have invoked "anti-dumping" clauses against China, which are still tangled up in WTO courts. http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/donald-trump-executive-order-steel-dumpi
ng-xi-jinping-china/

And BTW, the USA isn't the only one invoking anti-dumping complaints against China, so has the EU. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/china-russia-hit-wit
h-5-year-eu-anti-dumping-tariffs-on-steel Also, you can apply the same logic to aluminum.

Just as an aside, I always wondered why Mexico allowed the importation of (heavily subsidized) American corn under NAFTA, which drove their small farmers out of business, off their land, and into maquiladoras and (illegally) into the USA. It must be that the internationalists in Mexico got greased to do something that was against Mexicans' essential interests. Again, I digress.

Claiming a national security issue is only another procedure by which Chinese steel-dumping can be halted.

The REAL problem that I have with the tariff is the loophole that NPR pointed out. I'll leave you to figure out what that is; but since you know so much you prolly know about it already.



-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 12:13 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND ... American steel producers agree that . . .
If you are correct, then Trump must raise those tariffs. But Trump might be bullshitting: HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Wednesday he was “not sure” if President Donald Trump had made up his mind about levying tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
www.reuters.com/article/us-ceraweek-energy-perry/u-s-energy-secretary-
perry-unsure-if-trumps-views-on-tariffs-are-final-idUSKCN1GJ2FO

I've always wanted Trump to keep his promises: 25% tariffs, lock up Hillary, deport all 11.3 million illegals including the Dreamers, arrest those millions of voters who voted illegally for Hillary, take away N Korean nukes, reduce the trade imbalance with China to zero, build the Texas/Mexico wall, etc. But not because these are good ideas. I want to see what happens (I think I know what will happen), and I very much want to see how Trump denies what happened didn't work out as well as he dreamed.

Got an example. Trump wimped out on a long-term promise this morning:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

China has been asked to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States. Our relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon!
9:10 AM-Mar 7, 2018

The problem here is that in Trump’s first year in office, the US-China trade deficit was $375.2 billion - well over $1 billion per day. That was a hefty increase from the $347 billion deficit we ran into 2016. Trump wants us to know that he is getting tough and demanding a plan to reduce the US-China bilateral trade deficit by a measly $1 billion out of $375 billion.

Oh, I forgot that Trump wants the Chinese to give him ideas on how to reduce trade with China. I think that is Trump's responsibility, not China's.

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 12:58 PM

THGRRI


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND ... American steel producers agree that . . .
If you are correct, then Trump must raise those tariffs. But Trump might be bullshitting: HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Wednesday he was “not sure” if President Donald Trump had made up his mind about levying tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
www.reuters.com/article/us-ceraweek-energy-perry/u-s-energy-secretary-
perry-unsure-if-trumps-views-on-tariffs-are-final-idUSKCN1GJ2FO

I've always wanted Trump to keep his promises: 25% tariffs, lock up Hillary, deport all 11.3 million illegals including the Dreamers, arrest those millions of voters who voted illegally for Hillary, take away N Korean nukes, reduce the trade imbalance with China to zero, build the Texas/Mexico wall, etc. But not because these are good ideas. I want to see what happens (I think I know what will happen), and I very much want to see how Trump denies what happened didn't work out as well as he dreamed.

Got an example. Trump wimped out on a long-term promise this morning:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

China has been asked to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States. Our relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon!
9:10 AM-Mar 7, 2018

The problem here is that in Trump’s first year in office, the US-China trade deficit was $375.2 billion - well over $1 billion per day. That was a hefty increase from the $347 billion deficit we ran into 2016. Trump wants us to know that he is getting tough and demanding a plan to reduce the US-China bilateral trade deficit by a measly $1 billion out of $375 billion.

Oh, I forgot that Trump wants the Chinese to give him ideas on how to reduce trade with China. I think that is Trump's responsibility, not China's.


Trump may change his mind after the elections in Pennsylvania. That's what the tariffs may be about.


T

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Wednesday, March 7, 2018 2:46 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Trump may change his mind after the elections in Pennsylvania. That's what the tariffs may be about.
All this sturm and drang will be over on March 13th after a PA special Congressional election is held. NPR describes this race where "The congressional race is being run in Pennsylvania's 18th district, but the March 13 election is expected to offer clues about how voters will turn out in the November midterms." Apparently the district is in the heart of steel country. The day after the election, Trump will suddenly see the light and stop talking about tariffs.

Pennsylvania expects more jobs, not just more steel. Trump has called his tariffs a way to halt the slide in U.S. jobs. But Pennsylvania's and Trump's expectations might not be met because the slide in U.S. steelworker jobs has in large part been the result of increases in efficiency.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/06/how-american-steelmaker
s-have-survived-without-trumps-help/

Labor productivity has seen a fivefold increase since the early 1980s, going from an average of 10 hours of work for each finished ton to an average of two hours in 2016, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. Many North American plants were producing a ton of finished steel in less than one person-hour, AISI said.

Thanks to automation, workers in control rooms operate equipment that used to require hundreds of people. Open vessels once used to melt raw material have been replaced by more labor- and energy-efficient furnaces.

“The steel producers that survived did so by aggressively increasing physical productivity,” said Edward “Ned” Hill, a professor of economic development and urban planning at Ohio State University. “Labor costs are a very small part of production costs at this point. When you consider old pictures of cluttered steel mills, the level of automation has been fantastic.”

Hill said that the steel plant that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, then a corporate restructuring expert, took out of its last bankruptcy in 2002 now uses one person-hour for every ton of steel it makes.

Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariff on steel imports wouldn’t stimulate “massive rehiring because there aren’t that many plants to fill,” Hill said. He said he was aware of only one idle plant in Ohio with equipment still intact. “You really can’t turn on a valve and — boom — up comes the steel plant,” he said.

Hill said it was more likely that workers at existing plants would get some overtime pay and that companies would be able to fatten up their profit margins.

Industrial Production: Durable Goods: Raw steel
Steel production sure does fluctuate during the year, but it has been mostly constant for one third of a century.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=iTrI


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, March 8, 2018 7:08 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND ... American steel producers agree that this helps them.
And the American industries that buy steel agree that this HURTS them. There’s a reason we have international trade agreements, and it’s not to protect us from unfair practices by other countries. The real goal is to protect us from ourselves: to limit the special-interest politics and outright corruption that used to reign in trade policy.

Trump, however, don’t see corruption and rule by special interests as problems. Of course he wants to wreck it.

Some background: Contrary to what some seem to believe, textbook economics doesn’t say that free trade is win-win for everyone. Instead, trade policy involves very real conflicts of interest. But these conflicts of interest are overwhelmingly between groups within each country, rather than between countries.

And here’s the thing: The small groups that benefit from protectionism often have more political influence than the much larger groups that are hurt. That’s why Congress used to routinely pass destructive trade bills, culminating in the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Enough members of Congress were bought off, one way or another, to enact legislation that almost everyone knew was bad for the nation as a whole.

In 1934, however, F.D.R. introduced a new approach to trade policy: reciprocal agreements with other countries, in which we exchanged reduced tariffs on their exports for reduced tariffs on ours. This approach introduced a new set of special interests, exporters, who could offer countervailing power against the influence of special interests seeking protection.

F.D.R.’s reciprocal agreement approach led to a rapid unwinding of Smoot-Hawley, and after the war it evolved into a series of global trade deals, creating a world trading system that these days is overseen by the World Trade Organization. In effect, the U.S. remade world trade policy in its own image.

Tariff policy, which used to be one of the dirtiest, most corrupt aspects of politics both in the U.S. and elsewhere, has become remarkably (though not perfectly) clean.

But then came Trump.

Under U.S. trade law, which is written to be consonant with our international agreements, the president can impose tariffs under certain narrowly defined conditions. But the steel and aluminum tariffs, justified with an obviously bogus appeal to national security, clearly don’t pass the test.

So Trump is in effect both violating U.S. law and throwing the world trading system under the bus. And if this escalates into a full-scale trade war, we’ll be back to the bad old days. Tariff policy will once again be driven by influence-peddling and bribery, never mind the national interest.

But that won’t bother Trump. After all, we now basically have an Environmental Protection Agency run on behalf of polluters, an Education Department run by the for-profit schools industry, and so on. Why should trade policy be different?

www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/trump-trade-tariffs-steel.html

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Thursday, March 8, 2018 7:21 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


lol... "remarkably clean", so long as we're taking it up the arse and nobody is complaining.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Thursday, March 8, 2018 9:52 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol... "remarkably clean", so long as we're taking it up the arse and nobody is complaining.
Who is this "we" you are talking about? Did you know that in Baytown Texas, I can hear the sound of foreign steel, not overpriced Indiana steel, being made into oil field drilling pipe when the wind is in the right direction? It is Texas that will be taking it up the ass when the price of steel increases 25% so that an Indiana steel plant can make more money at the expense of a Texas drilling pipe factory.
www.drillpipeinternational.com/

Then there are the Texas drillers paying more for pipe. This 25% tariff does them no favors.

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Friday, March 9, 2018 9:02 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump's tariffs will cost Texas oil and gas jobs

By Ryan Maye Handy and Jordan Blum, Updated: March 8, 2018 10:17pm
www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Trumps-tariffs-will-cost-Tex
as-oil-and-gas-jobs-12739624.php

Tariffs on steel and aluminum will have a heavy impact on employment in Texas, where the number of jobs in the energy industry — which relies on foreign steel and aluminum for rigs, pipelines and other equipment— are nearly double the number of aluminum and steel jobs nationwide.

The U.S. can expect to lose between one and 1.5 oil and gas jobs for every single steel or aluminum job saved by the tariffs, said Karr Ingham, an economist who studies the Texas oil industry. Texas has 225,000 jobs in oil and gas exploration, production and services, far more than the 140,000 jobs nationally in steel and aluminum that the tariffs are meant to bolster, Ingham said.

And that’s not counting the Texas employees who work for refining, pipeline or petrochemical companies, he added.

“There’s nothing about these tariffs that can be considered positive for the oil and gas industry,” Ingham said. “The imposition of these tariffs will result in net job loss, not just in oil and gas, but in other manufacturing sectors like construction and transportation that use steel.”



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, March 9, 2018 9:10 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump's tariffs will cost Texas oil and gas jobs

By Ryan Maye Handy and Jordan Blum, Updated: March 8, 2018 10:17pm
www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Trumps-tariffs-will-cost-Tex
as-oil-and-gas-jobs-12739624.php

The tariffs go into effect in 15 days. The squishy nature of the order, though, is no less concerning for the American energy industry and likely to spark an international trade war, said Ethan Bellamy, an energy analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.

“I think the technical term an economist would use for this tariff is boneheaded. This is Econ 101, not quantum physics,” he said. “You can’t cast a stone into a lake and expect it to stop at the first ripple. This action will reverberate across the economic and political landscape.”

The ripples will hit Texas’ independent oil and gas producers, which on average put 10 percent of total costs into steel-related expense, according to Ingham. Refining and petrochemical companies will also feel the effects.

“Implementing tariffs on specialty steel and aluminum, which many U.S. steelmakers do not supply in the quantities and timelines needed for projects, could harm America’s energy renaissance and jobs,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. “Steel and aluminum are central to nearly every part of the U.S. energy value chain, from on- and offshore development, to pipelines, refineries and the local manufacturing facilities that support them."

Steel workers unions, meanwhile, called Trump’s tariffs a common-sense mechanism for trade enforcement and protecting American jobs.

“Wall Street’s hair is on fire over these tariffs because wealthy investors enrich themselves by closing mills and factories in the United States and moving them overseas,” said Richard Trumka, the president of AFL-CIO, which has thousands of members in the Houston area. "There’s been a war on working people for decades, and we have been getting our butts kicked.”

The Texas oil and gas industry, meanwhile, is drilling wells lined for miles with foreign steel.

“It really is a worldwide web of steel from countries that’s going in the wellbore,” said John Tintera, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. “The wells being drilled now in Texas are a mile deep and 2 miles long. That’s enough steel to put up a fairly decent sized building for each well that’s drilled.”

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Monday, March 12, 2018 10:07 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/opinion/trump-trade-peter-navarro.html

Trump’s ire seems increasingly focused on an unexpected target: the European Union, which he tweeted has “horrific barriers & tariffs on U.S. products going in.”

Picking a fight with Europe, of all places, seems strange. The U.S. has always looked favorably on the E.U., which is, for all its faults, a major force for peace and democracy. Why rush into a spitting match with our allies that only serves the interests of enemies of freedom like Vladimir Putin? Oh, wait.

Beyond all that, however, Trump is just wrong on the facts. “U.S. exports to the European Union enjoy an average tariff of just 3 percent,” says the U.S. government’s own guide to exporters.

Where is Trump getting his misinformation? Probably from Peter Navarro, his trade czar, whose star is clearly rising. Navarro’s nonmainstream views mainly seem to involve basic conceptual and factual errors. One of these errors, which bears directly on the Trump-Europe spat, is a complete misunderstanding of the trade effects of value-added taxes (VATs), which the U.S. doesn’t have but play a large role in most European countries’ revenue.

In Navarro’s version of the world, for example as expressed in a campaign white paper, VATs give European companies a huge, unfair trade advantage. U.S. products sold in Europe have to pay VAT — for example, they must pay a 19 percent tax if sold in Germany. This, says the white paper, is just like an import tariff. Meanwhile, German producers pay no VAT on goods they sell in America; this, the paper says, is just like an export subsidy. I’m pretty sure that’s what Trump means when he talks about “horrific” tariffs.

But what this story misses is the fact that when German producers sell to German consumers, they also pay that 19 percent tax. And when U.S. producers sell to U.S. consumers, they, like German producers, don’t face any VAT. So the tax doesn’t tilt the playing field at all, in either market. In reality, a VAT has nothing to do with competitive advantage; it’s basically a sales tax — a tax on German consumers — which is why VATs are considered legal by the World Trade Organization.

So how does someone who misunderstands such a basic, well-understood point about taxes and trade get to be a key economic adviser? He tells the boss what he wants to hear. Here’s what Navarro told Bloomberg recently: “My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm Trump's intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.” Wow. Since when has it become acceptable to declare that Dear Leader is infallible?

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Tuesday, March 13, 2018 4:34 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Here’s what Navarro told Bloomberg recently: “My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm Trump's intuition. And his intuition is always right in these matters.” Wow. Since when has it become acceptable to declare that Dear Leader is infallible?


Yeah. This one does give me a little pause. It sounds like every reporter talking about everything Obama said or did for 8 years.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, March 14, 2018 4:06 PM

THGRRI


Trade wars are not a good thing despite what Trumps says.

T




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Wednesday, March 14, 2018 4:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Picking a fight with Europe, of all places, seems strange. - SECOND
Not at all. The EU has a huge competitive advantage over the USA, because they are living under the security umbrella of NATO, paid for and maintained by the USA taxpayer.

There is a reason why the military takes up 3+% of our GDP and approx 1.5% of EU GDP, and why EU nations have healthcare and education, and we don't.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, March 14, 2018 4:28 PM

THGRRI


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Picking a fight with Europe, of all places, seems strange. - SECOND
Not at all. The EU has a huge competitive advantage over the USA, because they are living under the security umbrella of NATO, paid for and maintained by the USA taxpayer.

There is a reason why the military takes up 3+% of our GDP and approx 1.5% of EU GDP, and why EU nations have healthcare and education, and we don't.



I'd rather give my friends a better deal, and even impoverished nations than my enemies. Trump missed our enemies and hit our allies. That makes no sense at all. Unless you are interested in serving Putin and kowtowing to China.

Lets face it. That's exactly what this is. Remember, NATO's military budget is more than Russia's and that's a big boon to us. NATO works as a collective. Some are wealthier than others. Some just escaped the oppressive yoke of the Soviet Union. We need to help them out and give them time.

Sig cares nothing for any of that. She spreads the seeds of doubt, which is also a part of Putin's agenda.


T

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Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:10 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Donald Trump Boasts About Being an Idiot in Talks With Canada

MAR. 15, 2018 12:41 AM

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/03/donald-trump-boasts-about-being
-an-idiot-in-talks-with-canada/

It is a tale of incompetence and confusion on Trump's half of the negotiation. If this story is anywhere close to true, can you just imagine what Trudeau told his people when he got back? I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that debrief.

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