Posted on 01/28/2016 11:55:58 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
Donald Trump is right when he calls for high trade tariffs to protect American jobs, according to one brave economist. The Republican presidential candidate’s protectionist rhetoric has been playing well with voters heading into the primary season. But Trump has been attacked by economists and the media for violating the sacred belief that free trade is always a good thing, writes Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland. Morici argues that China hasn’t been playing fair, however, and says the artificially weak yuan has cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs. “Trump’s proposals for fixing trade — starting with China — address the salient issues of currency, trade barriers and subsidies,†Morici wrote on Newsmax. A recent academic study by three prominent labor-market economists found China’s entry to the global trading system 15 years ago has caused deep and lasting harm to Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
The Chinese aren’t subsidizing their exporters, you are subsidizing the drug industry billionaires who live in Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco area and other Democratic-run regions.
Can you name the famous woman who made about $300,000/year as a hospital community relations person?
As an ordinary person or non-health care employer in the USA, expect to get fleeced.
I wasn’t talking to you. I already know you are a statist nut. Cheers!
Our founding fathers viewed tariffs as a tax on foreigners wanting to sell into our markets.
Who pays for cheap imports. You pay for the import. You pay again to support the unemployed American. You pay again when the 1% import tariff isn’t equal to the 10% Employer tax they would have gotten off of the domestic producer. You pay again, when you pay interest because your governments now in debt because half your working age population is unemployed.
Actually, I believe imports were equal to 5% of GNP and exports were 4% of GNP. So we were slightly a net importer. But nothing compared to the scale we are now.
Now imports are equal to 16% of GNP and I don’t remember but I think exports are 8%?
- Raise the cost of their products
- Lower the cost of our products
To lower our costs, we'd have to do stuff like:
- reduce taxes (tax reform)
- reduce regulations
- reduce insurance costs (tort reform)
- reduce labor costs (unions)
We all know those aren't going to happen so, apparently, we're going to have to throw a band-aid on the problem and raise the cost of their products through tariffs.
We don't. Chinese consumers pay the tariffs levied on their imports from us just like U.S. consumers will pay the tariffs on our imports from them. It's a tax increase.
From where?
Danny. I didn’t say tariffs were unconstitutional. I asked who pays for corporate taxes, tariffs and goods. I know you are smart enough to know the answer to that. It’s the consumer. A tax/tariff is just another cost of business passed on to the consumer. A direct transfer of money from the individual to the government. Would seem to be counter productive for limited government types, no?
???
I did answer you and I said nothing about constitutionality. Did you confuse responses or something.
A tariff is not a tax, not in the age of the global economy. a tariff just makes an item less competitive. The consumer is under no obligation to buy the item and almost certainly has the opportunity to buy a cheaper item that isn’t subject to a tariff.
from anywhere.
You are economically and conservatively challenged. Any government action that increases the cost of goods and ends up in the government’s coffers is a tax.
Do you have any conservative views?
I misunderstood. Could you explain to your fellow travelers RC_one that the founders saw tariffs as a tax for a good reason. It is a tax. On American consumers.
I wasn’t talking to you. I already know you are a statist nut. Cheers!
And I can see you are a Cruzman Sachs loving globalist. Cheers to you to, FRiend.
The Chinese aren’t subsidizing their exporters, you are subsidizing the drug industry billionaires who live in Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco area and other Democratic-run regions.
Chinese subsidize their exporters by keeping their currency weak. They would be little market (and Chinese jobs) for Chinese junk if it wasn’t so cheap.
Oh, OK-now unrestricted trade with Communist China is a core conservative value. Get lost.
So you have learned today that tariffs are taxes and a direct transfer of wealth from the consumer to the fedguv? That is a good thing. Perhaps now you will not reflexively support huge increases in taxes because your guy supports them.
The founding fathers saw it as a tax on foreigners. And a voluntary one at that, as you could buy American products instead of imported ones.
You make some interesting points. Perhaps the more responsible way to fund government is to put the larger share of the burden onto tariffs, and lessen the tax burden on domestic production. If we raised our tariff on Chinese goods and offset that with domestic tax cuts, that could make our goods more price competitive, even with the tariff that China imposes on our incoming goods. It could also pressure China to lower those very tariffs to a more reasonable level.
How is a tariff a tax on foreigners? A tariff is just another cost of business. Corporations do not and can not absorb costs and stay in business. All costs are passed to the consumer. Americans are consumers. The tariff portion of the COGS travels from the consumer to the corporation to the fedguv. A tax.
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