Tariffs Catch-All

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ZenMode said:
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I keep hearing these stories, but lack empathy. Do these people not realize that they sent someone to the unemployment line, or shuttered a business, when they started manufacturing or sourcing there products from places abroad with cheap labor.
 
ChileG said:
I agree. Losing $43M in annual sales and your largest trading partner is no big deal. I’m pretty sure less competition, higher prices, lost jobs, and a contracting economy is exactly what the pro-business Republican Party has always believed in.
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You’ll need to walk me through how 5ish% of sales represents one’s larger trading partner.
 
Purple Nurple said:
I keep hearing these stories, but lack empathy. Do these people not realize that they sent someone to the unemployment line, or shuttered a business, when they started manufacturing or sourcing there products from places abroad with cheap labor.
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If the goal is to transition back to more US manufacturing, that is fine. The correct way to do it, so that people aren't losing their businesses and or homes, is to begin transitioning with a goal of being completed a year or two from now. You don't just drop this bomb on unsuspecting American business owners.
 
Purple Nurple said:
I keep hearing these stories, but lack empathy. Do these people not realize that they sent someone to the unemployment line, or shuttered a business, when they started manufacturing or sourcing there products from places abroad with cheap labor.
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Yes, someone who wasn't even an adult when most manufacturing shifted out of the US is definitely whose head we should ceremoniously put on a pike. God forbid someone create a business based on the established global business climate. It's even more useful to cripple that person economically for no reason whatsoever because we all know none of this will result in more US manufacturing.
 
Purple Nurple said:
You’ll need to walk me through how 5ish% of sales represents one’s larger trading partner.
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Seriously? Let's see. If 60% of sales are domestic, then 5% of sales is actually 12.5% of international sales. And if you're selling to, say, 35 countries, then 12.5% is likely to be the highest. These are not hard math problems.
 
Purple Nurple said:
lol…math ain’t mathing. Not sure losing 4.5% of sales is devastating an industry.
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Oh, the math is sound. Granted, you have to use addition and subtraction to get there, but it does. There's also a special phrase used to describe the relationship between sales and profits.

Would you like to take back your math ain't mathing comment until you've done a little bit of reading, maybe jot down a few figures on a piece of paper?
 
Purple Nurple said:
I keep hearing these stories, but lack empathy. Do these people not realize that they sent someone to the unemployment line, or shuttered a business, when they started manufacturing or sourcing there products from places abroad with cheap labor.
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Where you from? SC, right?

There would be no manufacturing at all in SC if people had followed this logic a hundred years ago. Before China, the American South was the cheap labor. Bet y'all weren't complaining about putting northerners out of jobs. Bet you still aren't. BTW cheap labor remains the main reason to locate a factory in the south. Which is to say you're the beneficiary of exactly what you're decrying above.

Anyway, your portrait here of international trade does not remotely track reality. If your theory was correct, how could unemployment be in the 4s? Think about all those businesses who are sourcing their products abroad. Fifty million Americans should be out of work per your theory, and yet they are not. Hmm.

Is that because trade also creates jobs? And better jobs? Hmm. Who would have thunk it?
 
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ChileG said:
MAGAs are putting a lot of faith into the “one day after a transition period we will have the greatest economy ever” from a guy that previously promised we would have the greatest economy ever “starting on day one.”
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They are also putting a lot of faith in Democrats not having a vendetta once back in power. That faith is misplaced. They will find out what "mutually assured destruction" really means.
 
wmheel1287 said:
They are also putting a lot of faith in Democrats not having a vendetta once back in power. That faith is misplaced. They will find out what "mutually assured destruction" really means.
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That's when you point out that there are two ends to that whole" Do unto others..." thing. You wouldn't be a good Christian if you forgot the words of Jesus.
 
I mean, we are obviously aren't losing a trillion dollars a year to China. We are actually getting goods and services for that trillion -- a lot cheaper than if we bought those same goods and services from America. But Trump has had this absurd view of trade since the 1980s, so you might as well bang your ahead against a wall as explain basic economic theory to Trump.

The only teensy, weensy bit of "losing" that is correct here is that you technically subtract your trade deficit from total numbers to arrive at GDP. So, theoretically, and completely ignoring all the positive impacts trade has on GDP, our GDP is a trillion less because of the trade deficit. But, that is obviously not what Trump means when he says we lose a trillion to China. He literally thinks we lose it; like he literally thinks Garcia has MS-13 tattooed on his hand.
 
Calheel said:
our GDP is a trillion less because of the trade deficit.
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Not really. That assumes zero elasticity of demand. It's also ignoring the economic effects of foreign capital. Assuming full capacity, the trade deficit and the capital surplus should cancel out. Both consume demand.
 
superrific said:
Not really. That assumes zero elasticity of demand. It's also ignoring the economic effects of foreign capital. Assuming full capacity, the trade deficit and the capital surplus should cancel out. Both consume demand.
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I thought I sufficiently qualified my explanation, but perhaps not. I was limiting my point to a simple mathematical matter -- and not considering anything else -- the trade deficit is subtracted from GDP

 
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