Why do they list Russia as an “enemy”? That’s a neocon-Democrat talking point. Russia has lower income taxes than we do. Why am I supposed to fear Russia - and why are tariffs (sanctions) on Russian products fine with these “free market” economists?
Neocons seem to hate Russia because it blocked US-supported Islamic rebels from taking down Syria’s government. When did the American people agree to go to war against Syria’s government? Do these “free market” economists believe we should be spending tax dollars to take out Syria’s government? Why?
Larry Kudlow used to take calls on his radio show. he doesn’t seem to anymore (at least not on the program carried on my local station). That’s a pity. I like his show, but I’d like to hear him challenged once in a while
It’a direct assualt on the 2nd amendment.
Every Republican president, Lincoln through Reagan, imposed protectionist tariffs of one kind or other
Notice they call Russia an “enemy” - and favor trade restrictions against Russia - but don’t say anything about China (which is challenging us on all fronts, and mass-hacking us), or Saudi Arabia (home of 911 plotters). Curious.
To me, the tariffs seem like a sop to the labor unions in the US. Of course, it’s a common political tactic to take an issue and use it as a wedge to break off part of your political adversary’s constituency. Let’s hope he flips some of those rats sitting on the fence.
Free Traitors™ are, well, traitors.
As an academic exercise let me ask you, what would a complete trade embargo do to the USA, an embargo as an example of an extreme form of a tariff? Given that, what if the USA could no longer import consumer electronics then what would happen? I'll tell you what would happen, an economic miracle would happen. Factories would be built here, capital spent, people trained and employed and the economy would take off like gang busters.
Think of trade deficits as arterial bleeding and a tariffs as a tourniquet.
Six Simple Reasons ‘They’ Are Wrong On Tariffs
Townhall.com ^ | March 4, 2018 | Kevin McCullough
Posted on 3/4/2018, 5:26:09 AM by Kaslin
There was a simple reason why Donald Trump won the 2016 election. It wasn’t because Vladimir Putin was changing votes (though he didn’t.) It wasn’t because evangelicals voted for him in necessary numbers (though they did.)
The reason I felt strong enough about it the week of the election that I drew a map predicting how he would win—which states—and was correct, was far simpler than the wildest conspiracies you’ve heard.
He connected with working people, and they trusted him. Particularly they trusted him in states with a lot of empty production plants. Like making a solemn vow, they trusted him to keep his word.
Last week the Heritage Foundation calculated that the Trump administration has fulfilled close to 64% of his campaign agenda. This week he took one more enormous step to completion: tariffs on steel and aluminum.
The blowback came immediately. From the Wall Street Journal to The New York Times, CNN’s Jeffrey Sachs to Townhall’s Guy Benson the cries were all reflective of the same ominous warning.
For the day job in talk media I began engaging people on all sides of the issue and there are six points that the fearful trade-war-mongers I believe are wrong about. At the very least I believe they may be overstating the case.
1. Trade war is not a given - The most repeated statement in the collective analysis thus far asserts that an all out trade war will soon follow the implementation of the tariffs. Certainly in theory a nation that faces import tariffs to the United States could retaliate. But variables on a combination of factors would be a more probable cause for such. With steel we are looking specifically at China-whose steel industry is in part supported by government subsidies and a labor market that can be paid pennies on the dollar for the work necessary. This alone prevents the discussion of “free trade” being in any way “fair,” because China is cheating. China is also dependent for the USA to be a recipient of up to 20% of their total export volume. Our steel production suffers as they cheat. But they do not have the total upper hand.
2. Products may not cost more - The assumption that our products will go up significantly in price is a realistic concern. But it is not an absolute given. In the immediate period of implementation according to some of the best estimates the tariffs may raise the purchase price of a new car something close to $45, and a twenty-four pack of beer by .05 cents. But what happens if steel & aluminum production begins to match volume wise the amount we import from other world sources? Economics 101 teaches us that prices drop as inventory surges. If our steel production grows enough we could wipe out the gains mix-minused in our dependence on China.
3. The world doesn’t like it - Of all the pushback this reasoning is among some of the most inane. When the United States does what we have to do to shore up our markets, jobs, workers, and life we have less and less need to care what the world thinks about it. This isn’t hubris, this is independence. To be tied to China’s cheap steel, Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves, and the good graces of the global community fundamentally puts us at a more vulnerable position from an economic & national security standpoint. Like much of the rest of the Trump focus, America needs to shore up America’s capacity for whatever faces us, and being utterly dependent upon others doesn’t move us in that direction.
4. We shouldn’t pick winners & losers - This is an argument normally made when discussing competition between domestic companies here in the USA. Jonathan Hoenig, appearing on Neil Cavuto on Friday, repeatedly invoked this as some sort of determining factor as to why the tariffs should be prevented. But it’s an illegitimate argument. This isn’t picking one steel factory over another and using tax-payer incentives to cause one or the other to succeed. This is a fight for survival between a metal industry that has suffered enormous loss for the better part of multiple decades, and the slave labor of China. The winners in the near term are steel and aluminum workers.
5. The national security consideration - Those that have argued that a trade war is inevitable, seem to also forget the increasingly perilous hair trigger of real war that the globe is constantly on the edge of. If America were to find itself drawn into a conflict with North Korea or Iran, it is likely whatever degree of imports we get from China and Russia would immediately be frozen. Fifteen years ago more than a dozen aluminum smelters were in operation. Today there are only three and the entire capacity of one of those three is necessary just for the military and related technologies. We are more vulnerable than necessary, and increasing domestic production solves this vulnerability.
6. Had to be (as it was) done in the correct sequence - Because of the rapid growth of the economy by rolling back some 2000+ regulations coupled with the very real impact that Trump tax reform is having now is the absolute right time to push for this “leveling of the playing field.” Most Americans will be more likely to accept an increase in the price of their next car by $45 if they know that Americans are benefitting. They are even more so if they have on average $90 more per week appearing in their pay check.
President Trump should not have surprised anyone with this announcement. He campaigned on the idea and it is keenly linked to why he won the rust belt and the nation. The tariffs are called “protectionist” by voices trying to scare the American people. But fear is unnecessary.
If the five preceding presidents all held the same position (which they did) but were unable to get it done due to economic stagnation, terrorism, etc. now is the perfect time to take it up and create a far more favorable playing field for our domestic metals industry as well as the workers who would love to show the world the pride they take in American Steel and Aluminum.
The tariffs are the right thing to do!
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3637071/posts
We are going to have to fight a war. And it wont be the shoot and scoot kind of war that is going on in the mid east right now.
I wonder how long these people think we will last if we have to fight a full blown war against the likes of China without our industrial capacity we used to have?
Jackasses.
Cheap import without tariffs are taxes, too.
If a person sells a product at $10, but is undercut by foreign products at $1, he has suffered a $10 loss at the hands of government. That’s a $10 tax.
Free Trade is not Fair Trade.
How can Americans with a high standard of living compete with slave labor or people living in mud huts?? That’s not fair to ask them to do that.
It just a race to the bottom when that happens.
“The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929 was signed into law by Republican president Herbert Hoover. It gave us the Great Depression and worsened it along the way.”
Nonsense. Kudlow, Laffer and Moore are not economic historians although they’d like you to think so.
The NBER is who calls our recessions, and the Great Depression began in August 1929 nine months before the Smoot Hawley Tariff passed in June 1930. Unless Smoot Hawley possessed magical powers it didn’t “give us the Great Depression”, it followed on its heels.
Moreover the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 was basically the same as the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922, which using the logic of Kudlow, Laffer and Moore must have “given us The Roaring 20s”.
The Great Depression was not the result of tariffs passing, or the stock market crashing, it was the result of a massive collapse in the American banking system and the money supply. In three years one third of American banks collapsed and 30% of the American money supply simply vanished, always a risk in a fractional reserve monetary system.
Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote extensively about it, as did Joseph Schumpeter. Our peculiar branch banking laws and the absence of FDIC to protect depositors were two of the major factors, plus a Fed that froze and failed to provide liquidity to halt the cascading series of bank failures. Ben Bernanke was a student of Friedman and Schwartz, and the Fed’s response the 2008 economic crisis was based upon their study of the Fed’s failure to act during the Great Depression.