We Who Do Not Learn ...

Over 18 ONLY! For grown-ups. . .

Moderators: Sluggo, Amskeptic

User avatar
Bleyseng
IAC Addict!
Location: Seattle again
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by Bleyseng » Thu Mar 08, 2018 8:21 am

Under Obama the Civil Forfeiture laws were suspended and Sessions has revived them to “fight crime”. Several police depts were abusing this law to their gain.
Geoff
77 Sage Green Westy- CS 2.0L-160,000 miles
70 Ghia vert, black, stock 1600SP,- 139,000 miles,
76 914 2.1L-Nepal Orange- 160,000+ miles
http://bleysengaway.blogspot.com/

User avatar
JLT
Old School!
Location: Sacramento CA
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by JLT » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:14 pm

Well, the steelworkers have a right to be happy about the tariffs. The unions that aren't so happy are the ones that work with the steel or aluminum once it's here, notably the ones that represent the labor forces for heavy manufacturing like automobiles, airplanes, trucks, construction, and so on. They're concerned that a sharp rise in the price of steel and aluminum will make their products higher in price as well, making foreign competition more attractive and ultimately resulting in layoffs in the companies that employ them.

As an example, a company that makes barbecue grills was on NPR explaining that it's already getting stiff competition from Chinese manufacturers. If it raises its prices and the importers don't, it'll have to close that aspect of the business. And this scenario will be repeated over and over again. I've heard estimates that for every steelworker and aluminum worker job that's saved, there may be as many as two other manufacturing jobs lost.
-- JLT
Sacramento CA

Present bus: '71 Dormobile Westie "George"
(sometimes towing a '65 Allstate single-wheel trailer)
Former buses: '61 17-window Deluxe "Pink Bus"
'70 Frankenwestie "Blunder Bus"
'71 Frankenwestie "Thunder Bus"

User avatar
hippiewannabe
Old School!
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by hippiewannabe » Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:39 pm

JLT wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:14 pm
Well, the steelworkers have a right to be happy about the tariffs. The unions that aren't so happy are the ones that work with the steel or aluminum once it's here, notably the ones that represent the labor forces for heavy manufacturing like automobiles, airplanes, trucks, construction, and so on. They're concerned that a sharp rise in the price of steel and aluminum will make their products higher in price as well, making foreign competition more attractive and ultimately resulting in layoffs in the companies that employ them.

As an example, a company that makes barbecue grills was on NPR explaining that it's already getting stiff competition from Chinese manufacturers. If it raises its prices and the importers don't, it'll have to close that aspect of the business. And this scenario will be repeated over and over again. I've heard estimates that for every steelworker and aluminum worker job that's saved, there may be as many as two other manufacturing jobs lost.
Sure, anyone who took Econ 101 knows about comparative advantage and the inefficiencies and market distortions caused by tariffs. But we've been taking it up the...err.. on the chin for so long, that something has to be done to shake things up.

Economists talk about aggregate statistics, but the aggregate societal benefits of trade don't mean much to a laid off steelworker.

It was absolutely the right thing to do to bear the burden of defending Europe from the Soviet Union, and give them advantageous trade terms to help them reconstruct after WW2. But they've grown up, and need to pay their way and trade fairly with us.

In hindsight, it was not the right thing to do to give Most Favored Nation status to China, while letting them protect their own industries and put ridiculous conditions on our companies investing there. We naively thought democracy and joining the family of liberal nations would follow from their economic growth. We should have known from history that economic power is not mutually exclusive with brutal dictatorship. Hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted out of poverty, which is a good thing. But millions of American workers were sacrificed in the process. We have created a monster. It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle, but it's not too late to stop subsidizing them.
Truth is like poetry.
And most people fucking hate poetry.

User avatar
JLT
Old School!
Location: Sacramento CA
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by JLT » Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:27 pm

hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:39 pm


Economists talk about aggregate statistics, but the aggregate societal benefits of trade don't mean much to a laid off steelworker.

But those benefits mean a lot to a potentially laid-off auto worker.

I do agree with you that countries like China, which are dumping steel on our economy, need to be reined in. Even Paul Ryan says that the sanctions should be "surgical" in protecting countries that play by the rules and punishing countries that don't. Trump's proposed tariffs are anything but surgical, though. He'd use a missile rather than a sniper's rifle, and say that the collateral damage was unavoidable, as long as the bad guy got wasted. That's why I'm concerned. He's also said that a trade war was "easy to win," but I can't think of any trade war that didn't end up with losers on both sides, and recessions that took years to recover from. Even conservative economists wouldn't disagree with that analysis (I talked to one just the other day, a friend of my father's who, after working in the State Department and AID, made a second career as an analyst for the Hoover Institution, not generally known as a hotbed of liberalism).
-- JLT
Sacramento CA

Present bus: '71 Dormobile Westie "George"
(sometimes towing a '65 Allstate single-wheel trailer)
Former buses: '61 17-window Deluxe "Pink Bus"
'70 Frankenwestie "Blunder Bus"
'71 Frankenwestie "Thunder Bus"

User avatar
hippiewannabe
Old School!
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by hippiewannabe » Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:27 pm

JLT wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:27 pm
hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:39 pm


Economists talk about aggregate statistics, but the aggregate societal benefits of trade don't mean much to a laid off steelworker.

But those benefits mean a lot to a potentially laid-off auto worker.

I do agree with you that countries like China, which are dumping steel on our economy, need to be reined in. Even Paul Ryan says that the sanctions should be "surgical" in protecting countries that play by the rules and punishing countries that don't. Trump's proposed tariffs are anything but surgical, though. He'd use a missile rather than a sniper's rifle, and say that the collateral damage was unavoidable, as long as the bad guy got wasted. That's why I'm concerned. He's also said that a trade war was "easy to win," but I can't think of any trade war that didn't end up with losers on both sides, and recessions that took years to recover from. Even conservative economists wouldn't disagree with that analysis (I talked to one just the other day, a friend of my father's who, after working in the State Department and AID, made a second career as an analyst for the Hoover Institution, not generally known as a hotbed of liberalism).
The across-the-board tariffs are certainly a blunt instrument. Being surgical would be great, but steel is fungible, and by the time you stop it coming in by one path, it finds another. China produced about the same amount of steel as the US in the year 2000. Now they produce 10 times what we do, half the worlds capacity. They refuse to shut uneconomic plants, preferring to keep their workers busy and dumping the unneeded product on the world. Even if it doesn't directly come here, it floods the market and forces other steel to come here.

The US was the worlds largest aluminum producer until the year 2000, producing up to 30% of the total. Now China produces over half, and the US is a small fraction. They didn't learn how to be more efficient and win customers with great service, it was a government strategy to target the industry and overwhelm the market at any cost.

I don't think adding $150 to the cost of steel in a $35,000 vehicle is going to be a major factor in automaker employment, and I don't think the prices will actually go up even that much.

The US has always given the concessions to support free trade. We figured it was in our interest to protect the economic system we built, even if most of the benefits went to our trading partners. They are all squawking and moaning, but they know they've taken advantage of us, and now they'll just have to bend a little. US presidents have held the keys to the best market in the world, and they gave away access without getting anything in return. It's about time we stood up for ourselves.
Truth is like poetry.
And most people fucking hate poetry.

Spezialist
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by Spezialist » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:39 pm

Kinda thought you people would stop comparing presidents by now. I guess if all you get to do in your democracy is complain about one president vs another have at it.
Just don't include everyone with your big paint brush, mmkay.

User avatar
tommu
Old School!
Location: Sunny Burbank
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by tommu » Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:56 pm

hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:27 pm


The across-the-board tariffs are certainly a blunt instrument. Being surgical would be great, but steel is fungible, and by the time you stop it coming in by one path, it finds another. China produced about the same amount of steel as the US in the year 2000. Now they produce 10 times what we do, half the worlds capacity. They refuse to shut uneconomic plants, preferring to keep their workers busy and dumping the unneeded product on the world. Even if it doesn't directly come here, it floods the market and forces other steel to come here.
A mealymouthed paragraph worthy of a politician. If China's the problem target china. If anyone imports it as a proxy for china, target them.

The US has always given the concessions to support free trade.
The US is what it is what it is today because of the free trade it foisted on the world for the last 70 years. The notion that the richest and most powerful nation in the world is a victim to those mean foreign countries is risible.

User avatar
hippiewannabe
Old School!
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by hippiewannabe » Wed Mar 21, 2018 8:29 pm

tommu wrote:
Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:56 pm
hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:27 pm


The across-the-board tariffs are certainly a blunt instrument. Being surgical would be great, but steel is fungible, and by the time you stop it coming in by one path, it finds another. China produced about the same amount of steel as the US in the year 2000. Now they produce 10 times what we do, half the worlds capacity. They refuse to shut uneconomic plants, preferring to keep their workers busy and dumping the unneeded product on the world. Even if it doesn't directly come here, it floods the market and forces other steel to come here.
A mealymouthed paragraph worthy of a politician. If China's the problem target china. If anyone imports it as a proxy for china, target them.
Just because you don't understand doesn't make it mealymouthed. We've tried playing this whack-a-mole before, it can take months or years to chase down each proxy, by which time it has moved on to the next. Apply the blanket tariff first, and then lift it for individual countries when they can provide assurances they aren't a conduit for economically and environmentally disastrous Chinese metals.
Truth is like poetry.
And most people fucking hate poetry.

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Mar 24, 2018 9:13 pm

Spezialist wrote:
Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:39 pm
Kinda thought you people would stop comparing presidents by now. I guess if all you get to do in your democracy is complain about one president vs another have at it.
Just don't include everyone with your big paint brush, mmkay.
"You people"

Let's knock off the "you people" crap, Spezialist.
Join us as one individual among many. Standing off in the proud self-exalted isolated splendor of your own magnificent mind is tedious.

"don't include everybody with your big paint brush, mmkay."

As you paint us with your own big stupid "you people" paintbrush . . . do you see the projection?

"Mmkay" went out in the mid-nineties. It is unbearably affected.
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

User avatar
tommu
Old School!
Location: Sunny Burbank
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by tommu » Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:04 am

hippiewannabe wrote:
Wed Mar 21, 2018 8:29 pm
tommu wrote:
Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:56 pm
hippiewannabe wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:27 pm


The across-the-board tariffs are certainly a blunt instrument. Being surgical would be great, but steel is fungible, and by the time you stop it coming in by one path, it finds another. China produced about the same amount of steel as the US in the year 2000. Now they produce 10 times what we do, half the worlds capacity. They refuse to shut uneconomic plants, preferring to keep their workers busy and dumping the unneeded product on the world. Even if it doesn't directly come here, it floods the market and forces other steel to come here.
A mealymouthed paragraph worthy of a politician. If China's the problem target china. If anyone imports it as a proxy for china, target them.
Just because you don't understand doesn't make it mealymouthed. We've tried playing this whack-a-mole before, it can take months or years to chase down each proxy, by which time it has moved on to the next. Apply the blanket tariff first, and then lift it for individual countries when they can provide assurances they aren't a conduit for economically and environmentally disastrous Chinese metals.
If you intend to educate me then give me the evidence. What ‘whack-a-mole’ happened before? I have no idea what you’re referring to. We’re not talking sanctions against North Korea here. Then tell me how this time trade tariffs will work better this time than in 1930.

User avatar
Amskeptic
IAC "Help Desk"
IAC "Help Desk"
Status: Offline

Re: We Who Do Not Learn ...

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:47 pm

tommu wrote:
Sun Mar 25, 2018 8:04 am
If you intend to educate me then give me the evidence. What ‘whack-a-mole’ happened before? I have no idea what you’re referring to. We’re not talking sanctions against North Korea here. Then tell me how this time trade tariffs will work better this time than in 1930.

I keep hearing of unintended consequences.
Trump, I believe, does not have a nuanced understanding that "raw materials" are used in "countless industries".

Meanwhile, the list of exempted countries is growing. Such confusion a lack of competence sows.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

Post Reply