Guest Post by The Zman
All of the usual suspects are freaking out over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. Most of it is by hysterics masquerading as analysts. Some of it is simply the innumerate throwing yet another tantrum about the bad man who vexes them. Some of the hysteria is due to the fact that people in the chattering classes were sure they had talked this bit of reality into going away for good. Reality, however, is that thing that does not go away when you stop believing in it. The reality of trade is now back.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
The amusing thing about trade debates among the chattering classes is that they never bother to mention the trade-offs that come with trade policy. Trade is, after all, like any other public policy. There is no policy option that does not come with a set of pluses and minuses. Our rulers, however, were sure they had sacralized their preferred set of trade-offs a long time ago. It turns out that the only people on whom this worked are the innumerate numskulls in the press. The rest of us remain skeptical about “free trade.”
In theory, which means not in reality, trade between countries is a net benefit to both countries. Open trade with Canada means they can sell more beaver hats and hockey sticks to Americans, thus making the typical Canadian richer. Similarly, it means Americans can sell more apple pies and boomsticks to Canadians, thus making the typical American richer. In reality, there will be Canadians who suffer from free trade with America and Americans who also suffer in the exchange. That’s how the world works.
While the hockey playing folks of northern Virginia will benefit from cheap hockey sticks from Canada, the suddenly unemployed hockey stick makers in Minnesota are the ones paying the price for it. Similarly, the apple growers of Canada get stuck with the bill for the suddenly cheap apply products in Toronto. The hidden cost of free trade is a lot of people you don’t know losing their jobs or seeing their wages cut. When you’re the guy getting the pink slip, the cost is not hidden and that has a social cost, as well.
Now, trade can be beneficial to both countries in that it promotes efficiency. The lazy and unscrupulous hockey stick makers in Maine, suddenly have to compete with the crafty canucks. This means better hockey sticks, but also less waste. Protectionism, like all public polices, comes with a cost too. That cost is more often than not carried by the consumer. Worse yet, it often promotes the sorts of corruption of public officials that erodes public trust in institutions. Again, there is no free lunch. Life is about trade-offs.
That is why the ruling class is in a panic over the Trump trade policies. It’s not about the cost of steel and aluminum. It is not about the possibility of retaliation. The real fear is that decades of hard work to de-legitimize open debate about trade policy is being undone. It means all of these trade-offs that come with trade between nations will have to be discussed. The billionaire class that has benefited from the current set of polices, is in no mood to defend their fiefs from the rabble. So, in waddles the clown army.
The fact is, the current trade regime ushered in after the Cold War, has proven to be the boondoggle critics like Pat Buchanan warned about 30 years ago. Open trade with Canada, an English-speaking first world country, is mostly beneficial. Trade with Mexico, a third world narco-state that now operates as a pirate’s cove for Chinese and American business, has been a disaster. NAFTA has made Mexico a massive loophole in American labor, tax, environmental and trade policy. A loophole ruthlessly exploited by China.
The current trade regime is also at the heart of the cosmopolitan globalism that seeks to reduce nations to a fiction and people to economic inputs. This neoliberal orthodoxy has eroded social capital to the point where the white middle class is nearing collapse. It’s not just America. The collapsing fertility rates in the Occident are part of the overall cultural collapse going in the West. Slapping tariffs on Chinese steel are not going to arrest this trend, but it does open the door for cultural critiques of the prevailing orthodoxy.
That’s the reality our betters would just as soon not allow back into the conversation. The fact is, a nation is its people. What defines France is the shared character and shared heritage of the people we call French. What defines a people is not the cost of goods or the price of labor. What defines a people is what they love together and what they hate together. It is the collection of tastes and inclinations, no different than family traditions, that have been cultivated and passed down from one generation to the next.
Even putting the cultural arguments aside, global capitalism erodes the civic institutions that hold society together. Instead of companies respecting the laws of host nations and working to support the welfare of the people of that nation, business is encouraged to cruise the world looking for convenient ports. There’s a word for this form of capitalism. It’s called piracy. Global firms flit from port to port, with no interest other than the short term gain to be made at that stop. Globalism is rule by pirates.
That’s the reason for the panic by the public relations firms hired by our globalist, billionaire masters. To question “free trade” is question the arrangement that keeps the current regime in place. It may seem like a small thing, tariffs on steel, but it is the sort of thing that can unravel the entire project, because it legitimizes the sorts of questions that can never be answered honestly by globalist. To his credit, Trump seems to get this, which is why he has pressed ahead with this. He’s flipping over an important table in this fight.
More expensive steel will raise prices on things made of steel, at the benefit of a few companies and jobs.
From Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/01/us-steel-tariffs-against-china-are-working-americans-losing-jobs-becoming-poorer-as-a-result/#4b94e5445303):
The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC) Foundation
requested a formal examination of the impact of higher steel costs on American
steel-consuming industries,1 and in particular, a quantification of employment
losses at those companies. This study employed straight-forward and widelyaccepted
regression analysis using a variety of price and employment data to
maximize the reliability of the results.2 We found that:
• 200,000 Americans lost their jobs to higher steel prices during 2002.
These lost jobs represent approximately $4 billion in lost wages from
February to November 2002.3
• One out of four (50,000) of these job losses occurred in the metal
manufacturing, machinery and equipment and transportation equipment and
parts sectors.
• Job losses escalated steadily over 2002, peaking in November (at 202,000
jobs), and slightly declining to 197,000 jobs in December.4
• More American workers lost their jobs in 2002 to higher steel prices than
the total number employed by the U.S. steel industry itself (187,500
Americans were employed by U.S. steel producers in December 2002).
Higher steel prices as opposed to what? Slave labor. Listen, slave labor, and piracy will always be cheaper. Just like if I buy a TV from a shady character at the back of a truck in midtown Manhattan, it will be cheaper than buying it at a legitimate store. It is still theft. There is a reasonable cost to everything. Hiding that cost under “free trade” is just disguising theft, and allowing some to feel better about the support of it.
“More expensive steel will raise prices on things made of steel, at the benefit of a few companies and jobs. ”
And keep money circulating in the American economy, with all the beneficial effects that has for the American worker and economy, instead of sending it to foreign economies where it will enrich and benefit them and leave us in greater debt to them.
How much of the decline was from the dot bomb crash and 9/11?
Madmike,Don’t waste your time commenting on economics. You just make yourself look stupid
Where do these statistics come from? Answer-the “free trade lobby”.
The American middle and working classes have been decimated by “free” trade, so that mostly substandard merchandise produced by sweatshop or slave labor can be sold into our market.
That has to end.
Not to mention the use of H1B visas to bring in low-paid migrants to work American jobs.
A post from Evergreen, over at the Conservative Treehouse. “Free trade” as practiced in recent decades is not free. For example, if a widget maker in AZ supplies widgets reliably and is well received in the market, and a competitor sends its factory across the border to arbitrage the wage and regulatory difference, the competitor will edge out the AZ company in due course, as consumers buy the markedly lower cost widgets.
The AZ company would have to respond accordingly in order to remain in business. If its employees offered to take the pay equivalent to south of the border, the Feds would disallow it (Minimum Wage law). It would be illegal for an American to remain in employment. How’s that for betwixt a rock and a hard place?
So, an offshore product comes back to AZ for sale in the market, but it avoided US wage rates, US taxes, employee benefits, and US OSHA and EPA regulations (all capital and expense intensive). Why not require that those costs be borne by the offshore manufacturer in the form of tariffs? The AZ company had to carry those burdens in order to bring a product to US market, so it ought to be reasonable to expect its competitor to do likewise.
As to “rising costs”, they would be returning to their original levels. Note that they dropped for the period of time that the US was being disemboweled of its manufacturing infrastructure.
I used to be a conservative who believed the lowest cost of production theory. It’s a great theory, but it does an end run around one critical detail: the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution sets us apart from all others. It defines who we are and who we live. Our laws are set up around the Bill of Rights and adjudicated in the best judicial system. It establishes a high quality of life, with order, property rights, and the citizens exercise their vote to regulate the lawmakers. It’s a complex system, but it’s our system. If the will of the people is to place a high burden on domestic industry, that’s our call, since we pay for it from our own pockets. If it becomes onerous, we can decide to reduce it. But, it’s OUR call as a nation of voters. By opening the border to free passage of goods produced outside of our regulatory apparatus yet marketable we create a large gap where any American entity by law is NOT allowed to operate, quite effectively legislating away our ability to produce.
That’s before we get to the topic of illegal labor pouring across the border. Misery and poverty imported, the rule of law ridiculed. It will be the demise of the Constitution if not reversed, because it enables the rise of strongmen and desperate voting classes. Remember, in a lawless setting, the law abiding are held to account while the lawless grow bolder and stronger.”
What about the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Is it your opinion that the individual should not be allowed to choose what he prefers to purchase and own? Is the active majority of a minority to decide what the individual may do?
We have borders, Nimrod. Your bullshit doesn’t work the moment you don’t forget that
What do borders have to do with personal liberty Dimrod? The only bullshit is between your ears.
Liberalism is a mental disorder, douchebag. And you’re exhibit A. Try doing a point-by-point refutal of Evergreen’s post. Shouldn’t be too hard, there’s no really big words. Get back to us. Cheers
I grasp that you excel in name calling and insulting. Kudos on your kindergarten capabilities. However, your ignorance of economics, apparent disregard for liberty and inability to put forth anything resembling an argument makes conversing with you worse than useless. Happy starfcking.
David, I’m being a dick for a reason. Z-man and Evergreen make some really good points. Your reply is basically just to parrot the liberal talking points on the issue. To quote Z, “It may seem like a small thing, tariffs on steel, but it is the sort of thing that can unravel the entire project, because it legitimizes the sorts of questions that can never be answered honestly by globalist.” All I’m asking you to do is answer this honestly. I don’t believe it can be done by you or anybody. Theory is one thing. after twentyfive years, we can take a clear look at the results. It’s been a disaster. Nice wiff on my challenge by the way
If you would like to engage me in conversation or debate, then please refrain from juvenile name calling. You only make yourself look foolish. I understand that there are differences of opinion on the ethical and utilitarian arguments for tariffs and protectionism. I do not claim to be the brightest bulb in the box, but I do have some reasonable arguments to make, and would prefer to engage in tempered, yet enthusiastic debate. Otherwise, I would prefer to study and try to improve my understanding. Am I to be faulted for that?
Fair enough. We have a deal. Anytime, any thread. I enjoy debate on this topic. Bring your A game
“NAFTA has made Mexico a massive loophole in American labor, tax, environmental and trade policy. A loophole ruthlessly exploited by China.” – That is a PERFECT description of this. It is nothing but labor and wage arbitrage. It simply enables countries like China to literally kick people off of their land, build factories, and then give the previous owners of the land a choice – work at the factory for peanuts or starve, since you no longer have your own means of production. The libtards are always blathering about “human rights”, well? And, China has the worst environmental problems in the world. Well libtards? Your always screeching about how we need to stop “climate change”, how about you talk to the globalists about dumping directly in to rivers, and particulate matter in Hong Kong? Or is that not important as long as you can get a cheaper sign to use in your protests against anything Trump? Or, get that IPhone X that you have to use a proprietary cord just to use your headphones on? /rant over
The irony is that Mexican wage growth since NAFTA has been anemic. In fact, so has their economic growth. Egypt and Turkey have outgrown Mexico since NAFTA began. The labor arbitrage has helped corporate profits, not workers.
The oligarchs and cartels of Mexico have done well though. Canada’s results have been a little better, but not that impressive.
Not if you figure in the wages of all the millions of illegals it sent here to earn a living since they no longer can in Mexico.
Well that just reinforces my point, doesn’t it?
“The real fear is that decades of hard work to de-legitimize open debate about trade policy is being undone.” Bingo, Z
First world labor can’t compete with 3d world labor, much of which is coerced or slave labor, with respect to cheaper or low quality products. Unless you want your own people on the welfare rolls, which is REALLY expensive (but not figured into the picture by free traders).
Endorsing protectionist tariffs and pretending that they are somehow a “flipping over an important table in this fight” is to ignore how long the rent-seeking parasites in the US steel industry have been refusing to modernize, economize, and improve their overall efficiency, and have instead simply run to our crony-capitalist government seeking “relief.” Trump is just pandering to one group over another. How is THAT flipping over anything? That is how our worthless crony-capitalist economy has been run under every administration in one way or another. Indeed, there ARE winners and losers in every trade war. FREEDOM, true freedom, is not always pretty, but it is the MORAL and right approach to trade. For every steel worker and steel company that profits from this move, there will be hundreds if not thousands of American manufacturers who will suffer and be less competitive both domestically and abroad, all because of the much higher prices they will be forced to pay for their raw materials. You cannot selectively side with one set of winners and ignore one set of losers. But you can, on principle, side with freedom – the freedom to trade with whomever YOU wish, and let the chips fall where they may. Improving the economic/political/taxation conditions under which American businesses must toil, is the right thing for the government to do……NEVER is it ok to pick winners and losers with their trade policy. THAT is for the free market to do.
Marx, like yourself, was a free trader, and for much the same reason.
yep,
wasn’t it marx’s devotee who said let’s sell the capitalists the rope to hang themselves?
The current system is not “free trade”. It’s an elaborate system of managed trade with a metric ass-ton of regulations, duties, tariffs, bureaucracy etc. So the outcome we see is hardly the result of open and fair competition.
For example, Cisco cannot even sell routers in China for fucks sake. Our chip companies are required to have local partners who steal their IP. Movies get pirated and released on the web before they get to theaters!
I’m in favor of free trade between free people. What free worker can compete with slaves who cannot vote?
I understand and accept your frustration with poor corporate management in the steel industry circa 1979. I can assure you that today’s steel industry in the US is pretty sharp. And I agree with you that government shouldn’t pick winners etc. But this ain’t free trade.
“MrLiberty”, Don’t you have leaves to rake or something? Leave this to the grown ups
“Grown ups” that obviously don’t give a shit about freedom, liberty, or principles. Got it.
Hagakure. “Hidden in the leaves.”
“I have discovered that the way of the samurai is death. In a fifty-fifty life or death crisis, simply settle it by choosing immediate death. There is nothing complicated about it. Just brace yourself & proceed.” ~ Tsunetomo Yamamoto
This version is gussier. But the whole retainer committing honorable seppuku is typical bs. (Sous vide porkbelly, otoh, is yum.)
Freud’s ungussied death wish stuff is the hidden in plain sight leaf litter. Rake ‘em up, mulch ‘em, give ‘em the burial – in your garden – that they want. That’s their contribution. Fertilizer.
(But the fertilizer’s motivation is for all to be enjoined…equality in mulch…e pluribus unum fe-fi-fo-fum dum dum dum.)
Open hearth steel production, which was run by idiots and lobbyists, is largely dead, but secondary steel production is going strong and pretty efficient. It still can’t compete, in some cases at least, with 3d world production using serfs for labor.
Yup.
Skepticism’s a virtue. “Free trade” under piles of “policy” doesn’t even get to the skepticism threshold – that’s how stupidly counterproductive it is (except to the quid pro quo law colorers who benefit via booty). The nafta shafta. The euro tragedy of the commons “market.” Mercantilist shite for brains who’re all gonna’ be dead in the long run – so rip off as much as can *now.*
Freedom’s good.
“Policy” is a rigged numbers game.
Minnesotans can’t pay the competitive price? Then do something else. Or starve, grasshoppers.
The “hidden cost” of being subsidized so as to not need to do something else – to be insulated from reality – is higher costs to buyers forced to prop up 2nd & lower strings.
Tariffs – foodstamps for fatcats – are what brought the locust yanks south.
Yank those locust wings off – wherever they come from.
Learning a little basic econ might help – but not if your e•motion is paralyzed. In that case you’re just screwed & lookin’ to screw.
Middleman lovers, middling buggers, yobo’s bell curve Peyronie’s…is that a boomerang in yer pocket, or are ya’ just so happy to see me you in the mood to do you? 1st rule o’ fight flub: fuck yourself (up).
I am a Libertarian, but trade is one area I don’t agree with the Libertarian philosophy. Number one, because other countries don’t have the same rules and regulations our businesses are required to follow, which does not allow a level playing field.
In fact, I’ve never understood fully why we should import anything that we can’t manufacture ourselves. Why should we import regular table and chairs when we can make them at home? I can understand if a table and chairs was made out of an exotic wood not available in the U.S., but not regular stuff. That doesn’t mean we would be a closed society, it just means we manufacture what we need if it can be done in the U.S. and import other things.
I’ve always been libertarian leaning but I see nothing wrong with getting rid of income taxes and funding the country with a tariff on ALL imports to help level the playing field with the other countries.
I rode the libertarian road. All the way to its terminus at the beautiful rocky pacific coast of anarchy.
Nowhere along the road was there a “level playing field.” That’s mytho-narrative stuff.
When have rules-regs ever been homogenized – even “domestically”? When\where has nepostism, inside dealing, not been institutionalized, wrapped in flags, & worshiped by gangsters claiming sovereignty over all within their turfs?
That mytho-narrative jazz about federalism’s chief virtue, competition amongst states & their “borders,” is good truth told to deceive. The ol’ bait\switch. Yeah, bait has buttons – & the pushers know ‘em.
My property, person & satellites, *should* be deployable at my sole discretion. If the widget that fulfills my aims is net lower priced “over there” for whatever reason\s – including because the dopes local to that bit of unlevelness are “forcing” (it’s collusion) “their” denizen-citizens to subsidize that lower price, so be it – that’s where I’ll buy…low…sell…high…buy…it…back…lower.
My arbs are my business…well, they should be.
But huge numbers of pecu-people love the peculiar institution. Even more, those envy-heads love the Schadenfreude of reducing others to their “loved” plantation life.
Furniture. I know a guy who was in that biz. Mfg. He made a go of it for many years. Ultimately competition from offshore closed him down. He couldn’t even sell his operation – no economic value left in that proposition. He shuttered it & left. And began something else. & is doing well again.
In it to win it is surfing. Not pouring concrete around your ankles & standing in it waiting for it to harden.
Well said. I didn’t understand this though: That mytho-narrative jazz about federalism’s chief virtue, competition amongst states & their “borders,” is good truth told to deceive.
Just that the whole states rights gambit was part of the bait.
Maybe these terms aid digestion: anti-federalist states rights desires – competing states – was a federalist sop, sop, fizz, fizz – until true motivations as acted out in the so-called civil war (but telegraphed plenty before that) brought the desired oh-what-a-relief-it-is.
As in relieving the citizen-serfs of their property even more ‘efficiently.’
The federalist papers were good cop \bad cop fake news that helped get the empire ball rolling faster. & the prisoners mostly can’t solve their dilemma, & so stay mentally shackled, & projecting shackles, for life.
Thanks for the clarification. I see you have done your homework. Salute
Agreed with 95% of what you say Liberty, with one exception. Those that would need to pay more for their raw materials, need to begin asking why. Why is it so much more expensive to buy steel here than it was from other countries? That may go a long way in going after the crony-capitalists and rent seekers. Did you know that Goldman Sachs owns an enormous amount of steel production? GS has not gone in to the business of steel, no they are attempting to get extortion money from those forced to buy from them. Modern version of the Carnegie steel monopoly. Those are the type of questions that would go a long way toward fixing these issues. Maybe some painful pricing initially will force the right questions instead of the head in the sand, as long as it is cheaper who cares policy that has killed the nation for so long. The market will sort things out, but not until the real price in the market is exposed.
I agree with your agreement with Liberty. You make some good points as well. However, I don’t think your comparison to Carnegie is accurate. He poured profits back into his facilities, vertically integrated and economized. Consequently, the quality of steel went up as the price went down. He was better than his competitors, and consumers of steel were the beneficiaries. Where is the Carnegie of today?
In the White House
In the white album: helter skelter, back in the ussr, etc. Trumpy ain’t no Carnegie. Not even close.
Probably sitting in Pittsburgh or Cleveland waiting for the same conditions Andrew had in 1900 to return. Let me see. What were those conditions. Abundant coking coal in Pa. and West Va. Iron ore in Minnesota with a vast inland sea to ship it to the steel mills and plenty of cheap energy – oh wait, the Marcellus shale is spewing out natural gas and that is in Ohio and Pa. too.
Seems to me the US has what it takes to be in steel what it already was. The world leader up until 1968 when the USSR became the world’s largest producer.
Carnegie also gave most of his fortune to charitable causes, including building more than 1,000 libraries in the US.
Good point.
People also seem to be forgetting that this HAS been tried before. It was called Smoot-Hawley, and it didn’t end well for the US or the rest of the world.
You guys can keep believing trump is some kind of genius playing 4 D chess, but its far more likely that he is just an impulsive blowhard firing his mouth off on things he knows nothing about. I don’t like this globalist agenda, open borders nonsense any more than anyone else on here, but this isn’t likely to be the solution.
Morrill was an abominably poisonous mushroom, too. Tariffs, on goods, on people, *is* closed borders, *are* prison-industry walls. When goods ain’t allowed to be free, like info ‘sposedly longs to be, are disallowed crossing “borders,” then armies do the crossing.
Some say the stupid burns. But it must be a pleasant burn, an addictive burn, cuz the arsonists just keep on lobbin’ those molotovs. Ain’t no different than (low)Watts, et al, dummies burnin’ down their own neighborhoods, their own kith & kin.
Gator, you don’t know the first fucking thing about Smoot-Hawley other than what revisionist free-trade promoters have told you. It didn’t cause the depression, it didn’t prolong the depression. One big difference between then and now is that there’s so much bad information out there, that every conspiracy nut of every stripe can find the story that suits them best. Most ignorant people nowadays are generally some of the most informed. They just get their information from bad sources.
So Weinstein unrevised, right?
The “winners” 1st draft is gospel. Always. How dare anyone scrutinize.
But, face it or not – integrity or no – the draft on those boats is flat. Those boats have big wind generators hanging of the back, & much bigger blowhards in the captain’s chair. Those boats are what brackish swamp & marsh cretins get around in.
“Buchanan is dead wrong when he makes the red herring argument that “free traders” claim that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, signed into law by Herbert Hoover in 1930, caused the Great Depression. No one I know of has ever made that argument, and I’ve been studying economics for 44 years now, as a student, professor, researcher, and author. The Smoot-Hawley tariff increased the average tariff rate to almost 60 percent and ignited an international trade war that shrunk the volume of world trade by two-thirds in three years, but it was not the sole cause of the Great Depression, which was another bust cause by the Fed’s boom-and-bust monetary policy.”
The fcker of stars is a wanna-be walkin’ boss – or at the least, an apologist – inside the plantation’s “borders.”
Countries at war need steel production. Didn’t Trump tweet something about ‘without steel a country is nothing!”?
He’s bringing the steel industry back for our war machine, without tipping off Beijing.
If we want substandard metals (ie; steel & aluminum et al) we should continue the practice of purchasing from China and India et al. As the preponderance of internationally sourced metals go into the construction area, the question becomes “are we building structures that will fail?” Carry this thought forward to our Military requirements “are we building weapons of defense that could fail when needed?” A country that is 90% self sufficient with regard to materials necessary for protection is a country that will endure. If America did not have the strong “Industrial Military Complex” it had in 1941, the entire world would today be in a different place. Subjugated by Nazi Germany and totalitarian Japan. Main Street would be called “Adolph Hitler Strasser” Think about it? MAGA! the only way forward is to be self sufficient. Buy American!-30-
It’s not like buildings in China fall over. Oh wait…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pktM__i-8IQ
“are we building structures that will fail?”
Chinese structures, built with the same steel, never fail.
China has notoriously had several school collapses…
Fuck yeah, and kick out all the illegals and cancel the H1-B program.
The free trade dogmatists have propagandized conservatives into believing that the essence of conservatism is to tolerate tariffs and trade restrictions from other countries while we adhere to ideological purity and allow all imports tariff-free. Fuck that.
Last time I investigated it (very hard to find data, since it’s buried), the entire foreign car share of Japan’s auto market was 4%. That’s not 4% American, that’s from everywhere: US, UK, Italy, Germany, Korea…. They may not have much in the way of actual tariffs, but they have laws that keep out auto imports: every single foreign car has to be inspected by the Ministry of Trade for “safety”. Can you imagine if every Toyota had to be sent to D.C. for manual safety inspection by the Commerce Department? No dealer of foreign cars in Japan could have an ownership interest in a dealership of Japanese cars. So anyone with experience in selling to the 96% of Japanese car buyers and would have to give that up to try to sell to the 4%. I’m sure the communist Chinese are much more honorable and devoted to free markets, though. /sarc
That would pretty much what you see on the streets of Japan in Japanese movies.
I’m hoping the higher price of aluminum will convince more brewers to go back to glass bottles. I won’t drink a beer out of an aluminum can.
Yep, beer out of aluminum cans tastes like, uh, …………..aluminum. Give me beer in a glass bottle or glass any day!!!!
I worked at an IT&T wire factory in Cairo, Georgia 35 years ago making insulated wire using Arizona copper and Louisiana plastic. The wire was then used to make electrical harnesses for US cars assembled in Detroit. Chicago interests owned the plant and flew in often to play golf, “hunt” at local deer ranches and fish in the Gulf. When Japan and Germany bought new equipment and began making better and cheaper wire, instead of our Chicago owners buying better equipment for our plant, they moved our old equipment to Mexico and used cheaper labor. When Americans began buying the better and cheaper Japanese cars, our whole car manufacturing industry shrunk. Tariffs would have helped us but not the consumer. American Oligarchs are a disgusting lazy greedy dual passport ZOG class who need to be replaced by Patriots that put American’s interests first.
Overall Zman makes good points but misses his most compelling argument: The current system is managed trade, not free trade.
If it’s going to be managed it should be managed with voters’ and workers’ welfare in mind. If it’s going to be free, which I prefer, let it be free between free peoples.
The whole idea behind letting China into the WTO was that through engagement and trade with us, they would democratize. How’s that working out?
Well, the Chinese President Xi, who was just made the equivalent of emperor for life last week says………………..
Captain, there’s an article in The Economist this week about that exact subject. It’s called, ” Where did the West go wrong on China?” I can’t find the link, you might search around till you find it
The US imported about 36 million metric tons of steel in 2017. At current prices, a 25% tariff would “cost” (“yield” might be a better term) about $6.3B. That’s about $19 per capita per year. Even on the most steel-intensive product a consumer buys – a car, the incremental materials cost increase is insignificant (less than $200, one-time) for a product the cost of which should be amortized over at least 7 years. Anyone bellyaching about this is crying crocodile tears.
This is a tax. One of the few explicitly authorized by the original Consitution itself. Yes it’s a tax borne by consumers, but in the grand scheme of almost $4 trillion in annual taxes extracted by the federal government, it’s practically nothing. Get a fucking grip, people. Steve Forbes and Larry Kudlow and Evan McMullen and John Podhoretz and George Will and all of the bow tie-wearing faggots at CPAC are who the term “cuckservative” was invented for. It’s no coincidence that the same people who are perfectly fine with our being invaded by uneducated illegal aliens are fine with ceding all of our extraction and manufacturing to foreign countries so we can save $20 a year. I can’t wait for Paul Ryan to chime in with his idiocy about how increasing a tariff is “not who we are” and conflicts with his Ayn Randian fantasy of how the world should – but never will – be.
I sure don’t see much connection between Ryan’s actions and anything in “Atlas Shrugged.”
Is there a particular example that struck you?
I’m too lazy to look for a quote, but Paul Ryan has said – in the past when he was more of an open Randian – that he favors open borders but no welfare state. We’re not getting rid of the welfare state – especially public schools – so his esoteric theorizing is ridiculous. Whether Atlas Shrugged touched on open borders I don’t know, since I couldn’t tolerate the writing to get to the story, but Ryan’s open borders Utopia seemed connected to Atlas Shrugged in his mind at least.
The utopian welfare state will get rid of itself. It’s doing it, right before your eyes. Only Barnes can kill Barnes…but the barnes replacement rate, so far, assures remission will return to metastasizing cancer pronto.
Atlas ain’t the only one can shrug.
Post of the day, Iska. “Steve Forbes and Larry Kudlow and Evan McMullen and John Podhoretz and George Will and all of the bow tie-wearing faggots at CPAC are who the term “cuckservative” was invented for.” You got me crying, man
Tariffs are GREAT!
There are thousands of examples from all over the world and from every time period.
The USA has a long history of imposing tariffs … right from our very beginning. Each and every time only good things have been the result. Factual. Look it up.
Trumpiffaga!! Meaning … Trump tariffs will make America great again!!
Stucky, if tariffs are as bad as you seem to imply, why do all the countries that run massive trade surpluses with us, all tariff our goods? Sometimes you’ve got to look at who’s winning and who’s losing to get to the truth.
You bet. The “tariff of abominations” and other tariffs essentially imposed on the south to fund northern manufacturing expansion, sparked the civil war in which 750,000 people perished and the republic was essentially destroyed. Only good things? Try reading something other than Pat Buchanan for a change.
Congratulations Zman if you are the Zman John Derbyshire cites for throwing Trump under the bus in his post at Unz Review today.
Now you want to rehabilitate Trump because he does something you approve of. This eclectic approach might work in some situations but not politics. Disowning Trump over some slip of the tongue on gun control damages the ‘brand’ and makes it harder for him to lead the nation. Pity you purists can’t see that but that is how we got to where we are today. With purists it is always two steps backwards and one step forward and then you wonder why we fail.
Now as to trade. There’s a lot arguments and counterarguments on the matter but, if you listen to Gail Tiverberg, the basic input or all economies is energy and those places with the cheapest energy inputs have the only REAL comparative advantage. Everything else is fake. Fortunately, right now, the US has an energy cost advantage over China, India, Mexico or Europe.
Aluminum production, for example, once was centered in Washington state because of the cheap hydro electric power generated by the dams on the Columbia river but due to technology exports resulting from globalism and Alcoa becoming a multinational corporation instead of an American company that ‘comparative advantage’ was thrown away.
My sense of the issue is this. The US doesn’t depend much on global trade, especially today with our oil and gas production soaring. We are a continental economy and can produce pretty much all of what we need and what we need now are the good jobs we had but then exported. Whatever higher cost we pay, if any, for domestic steel, is more than made up for by putting the children of former steel workers in Youngstown, Ohio or Bethlehem, Pa back to work making steel rather than having them shooting heroin on SSDI or serving drinks in casinos!
“Whatever higher cost we pay, if any, for domestic steel, is more than made up for by putting the children of former steel workers in Youngstown, Ohio or Bethlehem, Pa back to work making steel rather than having them shooting heroin on SSDI or serving drinks in casinos!”
I don’t pretend to know the circumstances of those former steel workers or their children, but I have sympathy for any honest person struggling to support themselves and their families. That having been said, if the goal is to help the people you mention, wouldn’t a more direct transfer of wealth be more efficient and also avoid the fallout from a trade war?
No douchebag, more welfare is not the answer.
Or more theft. What a moron.
It was a joke not a suggestion.
Cool
Unit, you’re being tough. Derb
was pretty complimentary of Z overall. Z fouled one off. It happens. Look at the title of his piece today. Derb did have a funny ending to his essay. “My recommendation to the President and the Congress on gun control is therefore: Don’t just do something, sit there.”
Zman, Good article. Thank you.
“Globalism is rule by pirates.”
Arrrrgggh. Time tuh walk de plank, ya one-eyed bitches…
[img
?w=584[/img]
[img
[/img]
Good pirate, bad pirate.
Globullism is twin simpling to anthropo globull warming\cooling. Both are hockey sticks to the head until the “right” answer is regurgitated.
“If only’d we’d kite some tariff paper walls ‘round & a roof over the place, we’d have perpetual motion machinery.” Lie’ms in coconuts.
I see “China” mentioned above many times re steel, and India a time or two.
Do you clowns know which country is the biggest exporter of steel to the US? Umm, that would be Canada at around 16% of US steel imports. Canada is not a low wage country. Number two is Brazil at around 13%.
China? A whopping 2% of US steel imports come from China. India? Around 1.5%.
The US is the world’s 4th largest steel producer. There are around 48,000 steel workers in total in the US. How many jobs will stopping that massive inflow from China create? Do you really think the US is going to tax Canadian steel? Really? And putting a 25% tax on a few percent of imports will have little effect on jobs. Maybe a few thousand steel jobs might be added. More likely a few hundred. At what cost?
Some asked why is steel imported. That goes back to the time when the Japanese got involved. The US plants were archaic. It opened the door to modern method producers. And the US is only now catching up. The steel made today is made with a tiny fraction of the labor it once was per tonne.
This is a fart in a hurricane. It will do nothing to help, and it could possible hurt via retaliatory tariff impositions.
But it sure has people talking, doesn’t it.
You know you could grow oranges in Antarctica cheaper than Florida if ice would burn. You just build greenhouses on the free land and burn the ice to keep the groves warm. Don’t even have to refrigerate the juice when you ship it back to Florida as you pack the ship full of free ice for the voyage. You could even sell the melt water as pure glacial drinking water to offset your fuel costs.
That is essential Gail Tverbergs point about modern economics. It is the cost of energy that is the only real ‘comparative advantage’. Everything is else is a man made cost. Taxes, environmental regulations, labor laws, etc. are what are abitraged in selecting the site for steel mills. Fortunately the US has the lowest energy costs of any major industrial nation so it really makes sense for steel and aluminum production to be centered here rather than Japan, Korea or Europe.
The center, imposed by centurions – all comparatively retarded (disadvantaged) – will not hold. But it’ll slosh from place to place.
My deals ideally are between me & those I deal with. “Ideally” cuz the world’s awash in crooks. The ‘protection$’ is paid, or you’re burned down by the million minion – crookling — army.
You are spot on with your stats Llpoh and I agree with you that it is much ado about nothing.
Muchado Mr. McGoo. Blind leadin’, bleedin’, blind.
I’ve been listening to Wilbur Ross being interviewed several times in the last few days. He says the main issue with the NAFTA negotiations is Canada and Mexico using NAFTA loopholes to export Chinese steel into the United States. And he says they intend to stop it
not china related but foreign trade related–this is an article from thelobelog.com ,which i would consider to be left of center but not wacky left–
we are probably going to sell saudi arabia multiple nuclear plants which will have the ability to produce weapons grade products-
what could possibly go wrong?
Carnivorous Capistrano swallows built nuclear family meltdowns, vaporizers. Not capitalists.
Just cuz some subsidized dopes (Engels by his family, Marx by Engels) – if that ain’t too redundant – grabbed the elephants tail & decided it was rope don’t mean he’s gonna a-dope Ali.
Or me.
Or necessarily thee…unless you’re already tied up in crossed synapses, las vagus nerves.
WHEN EVER TRUMP DOES SOMETHING FOR “WE THE PEOPLE” YOU CAN BET THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR MENTALLY HANDICAPED MINIONS ARE GOING TO ACT LIKE WITCHES.
Must we forget that U.S. technology stolen by or given away to the East has enabled those countries to modernize faster than a speeding bullet. What did the U.S. get back for foreigners to come here for their education, or for foreigners to stipulate the transfer of technology for a U.S. company to do business, say in China?
Disaster for industrial workers? who once had good-paying jobs which not only supported them in the critical family making part of our culture but in turn supported all manner of other jobs in their communities.
So now China exports its unemployment to the U.S. by dumping all sorts of cheaply made products that would not have been made without the gov’t debt China has accumulated.