It’s the thing that’s happening!
I don’t know where these guys get the idea that protectionism is the equivalent of leeches and balancing the tumors. Its bad policy over the long run, and comparative advantage tells us that the world is better of with more trade rather than less but its not true all the time under every circumstance. Nothing in economics is true all the under all circumstances. I mean even the supply and demand curves don’t always up and down respectively.
A little protectionism with Mexico isn’t going to kill us and a trade war with them will probably destroy their economy while we will barely feel it. Why is it that so many posters are can immediately spot when free market principles leads to inequitable distribution even though they may lead to greater over all wealth but don’t seem to see this sort of inequitable allocation when it comes to free trade? Its almost like both parties have been bought off by the multinational corporations.
I think you missed the part where Republicans control fucking everything. If the Republican don’t bring it up for a vote, then there isn’t a voting record. And Sessions can go ahead and start deporting Dreamers and Trump will say “Hey I was willing to make a deal but the Democrats wanted everything and wanted to give up nothing, well, you know how they are”
If you don’t think the Dreamers are in any jeopardy of being deported anyways, then why even ask for the DREAM Act?
Well it depends. If Mexico can afford to lose that much of its foreign markets to pricing pressure when sure, it will just tell our consumers to go suck it. But when exports to the USA represents 15% of their economy, they will accommodate.
When US demand for Mexican goods drops because of the tariff, they will lower their prices (or only lower price producers will be able to sell to us), its sort of how the supply/demand curve works isn’t it?
Its not what the white house is saying. Apparently the White house is either recanting or the Democrats were engaging in wishful thinking.
There are times when the things that we expect to happen are not likely to happen. But if you tell me the sun isn’t going to rise tomorrow, you need to show some compelling evidence. Tariffs have always cost the consumer of the tariffing country. That’s the way that they work. They raise prices and lower choice. There is no way for them to do otherwise. They may hurt the exporting country, but that’s a side effect. The main effect of them is that they raise the prices that the consumer needs to pay.
If you think that somehow, this time will be different than every other time, then it is on you to provide evidence about what is different here, not to assert that sometimes things will be different, maybe this will be one of those times.
Won’t kill us, sure, a 5% increase of all the goods coming in from mexico won’t kill us. A 10% increase wouldn’t kill us. If we increased the price of all the goods and services that you receive by 100%, that’s still not going to kill you, is it? It’s not whether it will kill us, but whether it will harm us, which it will.
Trade war would probably not destroy their economy, they have been developing other international trading partners, and it is largely our close partnership that has kept others out of the market. If China will take their goods, they will ship them to China.
Any damage that is done to mexico’s economy isn’t really good for us either. Intentionally destabilizing a large country on our border is not a wise move.
Did you read my quote from Trump on this page? He said this morning that he was close to a deal, and that wall funding would come later.
That seems consistent with what Schumer and Pelosi said was discussed. Of course, the White House staff are busy doing damage control with the rest of the Republican party, so they are insisting that there was no deal.
Who do you believe what was discussed? Trump, Schumer, and Pelosi seem to have their stories more or less consistent. The White House staff is busy saying “LALALALA NOTHING HAPPENED LALALALA!” And you believe the staff?
More from Trump this morning:
Strange how Trump said he wants “extreme security” on the border. He could have said he wants a wall. He didn’t say he wants a wall. And he said that Chuck and Nancy agree with him on security (again, not the wall).
Damuri, can you acknowledge that Trump, as of today, isn’t pressing your proposal for DACA in trade for a wall? Who knows what he may say tomorrow, but it’s clear that for now, he’s sold out your idea.
DACA, if Mexico pays for the wall.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
No relevance to the thread.
You’d be surprised…
And yours was better.
I think some of the people arguing against you are being so absolutist because it’s Trump. I wonder if they all have the same apparent ‘free trade or die’ attitude when it’s Berne-ite leftist populist protectionism (other countries have to have our labor laws or we won’t trade with them etc) rather than Trumpist rightist populist protectionism.
However as to ‘ask X’ protectionism can ‘make sense’ in a given political system depending whose interests that system mainly serves, without serving the best interests of the greatest number in the country.
The other advanced countries, particularly in Europe, are not necessarily examples of a lot more protectionism than the US already has. In some cases yes. For example the EU really does subsidize and protect its agricultural sector more then the US does (though the US does more than Australia and New Zealand do). That’s manifestly not good for the greatest number of people in terms of getting the best products at the best prices. It is good for the protected/subsidized farmers. And it’s arguably good in a more intangible sense for others that ‘a traditional way of life is preserved’. In fact some more recent EU policies (subsidy and protection are not totally distinct so it isn’t really changing the subject) specifically subsidize maintenance of the traditional landscape etc.
So observing there is protectionism doesn’t mean it’s an optimal policy in ‘greatest good for greatest number’ terms. It could be far from that. It usually is actually (where often a squeaky wheel industry like steel gets ‘anti dumping’ tariffs that come out to $100,000’s per job ‘saved’ in steel plants). It’s just not a big enough problem to be obvious to the average voter, diffused interest v concentrated.
Back to the Mexico/WALL though, I agree your opponents are over simplifying to claim the incidence of a tariff would automatically be 100% on US consumers. As you’ve said that’s not true in a general case, depends the degree of various elasticities. It should be obvious that if Mexico and all other countries supply US import X the Mexican makers aren’t automatically free to raise their price 10% with a 10% tariff. Nor is the reaction the same as all producers experiencing a 10% increase in cost. There will be some tendency for Mexican providers to reduce their profit, hence to that extent ‘Mexico’ pays. Although the other part I didn’t see anyone mention is that in theory the value of Peso would also drop if the US imposed new tariffs and Mexico didn’t. Others did point out that there’s a game theory tit for tat aspect as well though. But the reality is that the jobs tied to exports to the US are more politically weighty in Mexico than jobs tied to exports to Mexico are in the US. That comes from the relative size and diversification of the economies, plus the trade deficit (Mexico is simply sending more goods directly on a bilateral basis).
For the record I tend toward being a free trade ‘extremist’ at least compared to the general skepticism about trade on a lot of the left (going back at least to Clinton needing the GOP to pass NAFTA in the first place) and Trump’s new non-conservative right. Not a real extremist, just relatively. Of course there will be some protectionism in the real world. A relatively leading country like the US thinking it can pull itself ahead using protectionism though is basically a delusion.
No, it’s not. You’re acting like Mexico has some great elasticity of production costs, and their cut will go down so that prices on the USA side stay the same. Not only will that not happen, it’s not even the point of protectionism. Protectionism against Mexican goods is not about Mexico taking a pay cut. It does not punish Mexico.
Here’s the first order effect:
- Mexican goods cost more in the USA.
Second order effects:
- Things that the USA only gets from Mexico cost more.
- Things that the USA can get from not-Mexico might come from not-Mexico.
- The USA consumer is losing money on this deal, and/or also buying less from Mexico. Value loss all around.
Third order effects:
- Mexico starts exporting more to countries not the USA.
- Mexico maybe exports a little less overall. But why, when they can export to the 90% of the world that’s not North America?
- USA production of a few things goes up–jajajaja no, I’m just kidding, USA labor costs x exchange rate means (non-prison-labor) USA producers don’t even compete, never mind.
Where is, “Mexico sells for less” in that? They’re not a captive supplier; China has money; France has money; Nigeria has money; Argentina, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, freaking Sweden, will all buy from them and not insult them so much.
Damn! I was beaten to it! (And yes, his was better.)
“It’s Congress’s job to create legislation. I think that’s something we all learned in eighth-grade civics. I know I certainly did, and I think that every member of Congress should know that is their duty and we’re asking them to fulfill it. It’s pretty simple. I think that the American people elected them to do it. And if they can’t, they should get out of the way and let somebody else take their job that can actually get something done." - Sarah Huckabee Sanders on DACA.
Umm, isn’t that exactly what Obama did on this issue that caused GOP apoplexy?
This is straight out of “The Art of the Deal.” You know there won’t be a wall; I know that there won’t be a wall. Donald Trump knows that there won’t be a wall. Nobody is spending $200 billion on a physical structure that makes no sense to build. As a poster mentioned upthread, you would need guards to man the wall, and if you have the guards, you don’t need a wall. He doesn’t have enough Republican votes for a wall, and there is no way Democrats would ever vote for a wall, even if it was attached to a single payer healthcare bill.
Trump has masterfully trolled everyone from the beginning on this. He gets to posture and bluff about the wall, and the Dems get to say that they beat him when they “only” vote for billions in border security. A year after the new border security is in place, Trump will talk about the wonderful, tremendous people who are keeping the border safe with the latest technology developed by the best, and I mean the best, engineers in Silicon Valley. And the tremendous, great people who have studied this new technology have told him that it is better than a wall could ever be, so there is really no need to build a physical wall.
It just goes to show that when a great leader puts together a team of wonderful people, a problem can be solved without spending all of the money we thought we needed to spend. Absolutely tremendous.
This morning’s Breitart headline:
Trump Supporters Begin Burning MAGA Hats in Protest Against Amnesty-For-No-Wall Deal with Dems
Masterful, I tells ya!
… We can c&p those little flames? Wow. My world is blown.
…and he’ll say so even if there is little or no real impromement or if the security is a year behind schedule. Either way he’ll claim a win and his people will say that’s what he meant all along.
Hah. Bannon/Breitbart lives in the knowledge that the day will come that Trump throws THEM under the bus… and the followers will stick with him.
Even if he is making the statement in the jail house courtyard to his fellow inmates.
I thought parodies were supposed to go in the Pit.