gehringer_2 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 (edited) 19 minutes ago, pfife said: Trump didn't enact tariffs for the reasons you typically would hear for enacting them. 84 is right, Trump is an idiot. He did it because he's under the misguided perception that having a trade deficit means you're losing so he was solely trying to change the trade deficit numbers It was a little more than that, but not much. He gave lip service to trying to support US manufacturing, but what he was doing still belied his inability (and unwillingness to do the homework) to get to effective policy. Investors were not going to put up long term dollars into US manufacturing based on capricious executive actions of a president who was as likely to reverse them the next day. If he had tried to implement a tariff structure with some kind of rational structure and as part of a wider industrial support policy and with long term legislative authority, then maybe you get an environment were investment dollars might have been encouraged to flow into industry rebuilds, but it wasn't going to happen based on the way Trump was proceeding - especially when was so transparent that if the Chinese were to play ball (at least according to Trump's idea of the rules) they could all be gone the next day. Edited February 2 by gehringer_2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutiger Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Bottomless cynicism lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimir Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Its interesting to me how someone that is lauded for their business intellect and leadership abilities admits to so many appointment **** ups in his term as president. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutiger Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 3 minutes ago, casimir said: Its interesting to me how someone that is lauded for their business intellect and leadership abilities admits to so many appointment **** ups in his term as president. Indeed... His comments on Powell, his recent comment about how things are going so well because "people think he's going to be reelected", and that he wishes the economy would crash now because he doesn't want to be known as Herbert Hoover.... all very instructive and informative on a number of levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewsieg Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 The problem with everyone on this board is that they have interest in politics and therefore keep up on news related to it. This leads to more nuanced responses and more push back on claims. That's a good thing, but my point on the average Trumper (and honestly the average Biden supporter) is that they don't pay attention to the details, they respond to the slogans. Obviously the type of news and how you interpret it leads to differing opinions, but the facts are Dems, over my lifetime, were the party of the unions and were much more open to tariffs. Maybe I went to far to say they 'love' them, but in the last 40 years, until Trump, no republicans were pushing for them. Biden did let a small one expire without pushing to extend it, outside of that nearly all of the Trump imposed tariffs still exist today. If Trump is an idiot that for idiotic reasons imposed the tariffs, what is Biden if he is the grown up finally back in charge and keeps them? That's a rhetorical question, in the second link below there are some reasons noted why he kept them, but again, most people don't care to go that in depth. Your average Trumper just sees this: * Trump enacted them and got ridiculed for it * Biden comes in, keeps them, and when pushed on it, his defenders explain why they are good while simultaneously saying Trump was an idiot for doing it. And to Lee, the Trump voters I know differ on that. Some steadfastly claim he's not in it for himself, the left just paints it that way. Most seem to think he's definitely trying to 'get his', but also that he wants to expose everything else that it wrong with government so they are fine with it. https://www.csis.org/analysis/democratic-trade-policy-part-i#:~:text=For roughly its first 150,greater choice that trade brings. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184027892/china-tariffs-biden-trump#:~:text=Biden hardly ever mentions the,wrap up later this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewsieg Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 10 hours ago, mtutiger said: There's probably a non-trivial number of Trump voters that would agree with his assessment behind closed doors lol I detest how angry and heated politics has become and would prefer that he continue to try to hold to some level of decorum. But realistically, I don't think he'd lose much by starting to call him out more. I don't want to see Biden go down this route either for the sake of decorum, but 1) I don't think it would turn off any of his current voters and 2) It would directly speak to and get the attention of Trump leaning voters. It's always annoyed me that it's the folks with '**** Joe Biden' stickers on their cars that are at the library meetings screaming about watching out for the kids and making sure they don't read inappropriate things. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 10 hours ago, gehringer_2 said: It was a little more than that, but not much. He gave lip service to trying to support US manufacturing, but what he was doing still belied his inability (and unwillingness to do the homework) to get to effective policy. Investors were not going to put up long term dollars into US manufacturing based on capricious executive actions of a president who was as likely to reverse them the next day. If he had tried to implement a tariff structure with some kind of rational structure and as part of a wider industrial support policy and with long term legislative authority, then maybe you get an environment were investment dollars might have been encouraged to flow into industry rebuilds, but it wasn't going to happen based on the way Trump was proceeding - especially when was so transparent that if the Chinese were to play ball (at least according to Trump's idea of the rules) they could all be gone the next day. That states not only how utterly stupid Trump is... But (I am also including an article below that shows)... How utterly ****ing STUPID MAGA is: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tariffs-hurt-u-jobs-123936378.html Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says Ana Swanson Fri, February 2, 2024 at 7:39 AM EST Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 1 hour ago, mtutiger said: Indeed... His comments on Powell, his recent comment about how things are going so well because "people think he's going to be reelected", and that he wishes the economy would crash now because he doesn't want to be known as Herbert Hoover.... all very instructive and informative on a number of levels. I said in 1984, once I actually heard him speak (he was never shy about opening his mouth and speaking, quite loudly): "Once a MORON, ALWAYS a MORON." That's proven 100% true. And now he has 30% of America following him like sheep. It says everything about that 30% (MAGA) to me. MORONS. Incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, smart and stupid, reasonable democracy versus violent fascism. I repudiate them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 (edited) 44 minutes ago, ewsieg said: If Trump is an idiot that for idiotic reasons imposed the tariffs... On Tariffs you can criticize Trump on two levels and give him credit on a third. The credit goes on the side of the ledger that we have been allowing ourselves to be played by China on trade issues for a long time on the theory that as they integrated into the world economy, their trade behavior would become less predatory. That assumption turned out to be utterly wrong*, and Trump can be duly credited for abandoning it and letting China know things had changed. He can be criticized (see above) for claiming his tariff work was going to help American manufacturing in the absence of any over all program in combination with tariffs that could actually do that. And he can be criticized for selling his approach as a way to force the Chinese to the table and then not having enough 'art of the deal' actually in his repertoire to bring China into negotiation instead of just starting a low level trade war. The last one is probably somewhat unfair because it takes two to tango and the Chinese have sort a programmed response of artificial excess outrage every time anyone does anything they don't like and that phase has to pass before they will enter negotiation about anything. But politics is hard ball and that kind of criticism that is fair game. It's the more benign policy cousin of entering a war without an end game. On Biden's side you can absolutely say that leaving the Trump tariffs in place is pure political expediency. But one real difference is that Biden is serious about re-industrialization in a way that Trump and the GOP never were and tariffs do fit into a larger framework in Biden's world. But the other question is what assumptions are we all making? If we give Trump credit for refooting the trade relationship with China, which I am happy to do, then we don't need to criticize Biden for leaving them in place. That is not an inconsistent position. *as we are seeing, China has become an economic super power, but as the current real estate crisis there shows, their economy is still very brittle and they know it, so politically it understandable they still have to try to have it both ways. That said, we are not obligated to let the Chinese solve their economic management problems at the expense of US workers. Maybe the real short form answer here is that with any policy initiative, you knew the Trump admin was corrupt and incompetent and would not be effective or productive in it. Edited February 2 by gehringer_2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewsieg Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 7 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: How utterly ****ing STUPID MAGA is: How utterly ****ing STUPID are you Biden supporters for supporting a guy that knew they were bad but kept them? That is how a MAGA would respond to you and on its surface, it's a legitimate response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewsieg Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Gehringer, there you go again by analyzing the decision, it's impact, how it can be leveraged now, and the host of variables that come with all of that. In looking at what you wrote, the only difference I think we have on it is that initially I was not critical of Trump for imposing them even though I tend to be against tariffs. I was willing to accept the tax on us to try and send a message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 34 minutes ago, ewsieg said: ... but the facts are Dems, over my lifetime, were the party of the unions and were much more open to tariffs. Maybe I went to far to say they 'love' them, but in the last 40 years, until Trump, no republicans were pushing for them. Biden did let a small one expire without pushing to extend it, outside of that nearly all of the Trump imposed tariffs still exist today. If Trump is an idiot that for idiotic reasons imposed the tariffs, what is Biden if he is the grown up finally back in charge and keeps them? That's a rhetorical question... As G2 pointed out... The stupidity of Trump's tariff's is that they were unreliable. He changed them on a whim. If there is no method, there is no reliability. The tariffs themselves may or may not make sense. But to throw them up capriciously, as Trump did, inspires ZERO confidence, as G2 pointed out, for a business to make business decisions based on... capriciousness? The immediate after-effect of Trump's tariffs on China, as an example, did NOT "bring back American manufacturing jobs". In fact, the IMMEDIATE after-effect of Trump's China tariffs was that China shut the door on American soybeans and other products. American, midwestern, farmers were CRUSHED by the blowback to Trump's China tariffs. Do you remember this? It gets more complicated than that. China was losing manufacturing jobs PRIOR to Trump's tariffs. They were losing those jobs because Chinese wages had finally come up enough that they were no longer the most competitive (read: lowest wages) manufacturer in the world. They were losing these manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Thailand, etc... If Trump wasn't such a ****ing MORON, he would have passed TPP instead of killing it. Which would have lowered American tariffs for these southeastern countries, enforced American intellectual property rights (Chinese knockoffs would be forced out of these countries, increasing American goods sold), enforced American environmental and labor standards (not exactly, more like "minimums", but still...), and SPED UP the flight of cheap manufacturing jobs out of China. A year later, Trump BEGGED to get back into TPP and was told "no dice". He ****ed that up, bigly. Why is Biden now NOT eliminating all of Trump's tariff's? Because now that they are in place, you don't remove them CAPRICIOUSLY, as Trump did throwing them up. You NEGOTIATE to get them back down. As any NORMAL politician would. And if China is not changing its predatory practices... then there's no reason to just give them back up. I have no problem with Biden NEGOTIATING with China to bring those tariff's back down, and if China refuses to change practices, then refuse to change tariff's. It's not that difficult to understand. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 19 minutes ago, ewsieg said: How utterly ****ing STUPID are you Biden supporters for supporting a guy that knew they were bad but kept them? That is how a MAGA would respond to you and on its surface, it's a legitimate response. I answered that just above... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 2 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: China was losing manufacturing jobs PRIOR to Trump's tariffs. They were losing those jobs because Chinese wages had finally come up enough that they were no longer the most competitive (read: lowest wages) manufacturer in the world. They were losing these manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Thailand, etc... Good point. You've probably read some of the current analysis about how China might somehow end up in a economic conundrum where they miss the boat on per capita GDP growth and end up "developed" yet still only middle income. Maybe there is an odd parallel in wage stagnation producing bad leaders in the case of both Trump and Xi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 23 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said: On Tariffs you can criticize Trump on two levels and give him credit on a third. The credit goes on the side of the ledger that we have been allowing ourselves to be played by China on trade issues for a long time on the theory that as they integrated into the world economy, their trade behavior would become less predatory. That assumption turned out to be utterly wrong*, and Trump can be duly credited for abandoning it and letting China know things had changed. He can be criticized (see above) for claiming his tariff work was going to help American manufacturing in the absence of any over all program in combination with tariffs that could actually do that. And he can be criticized for selling his approach as a way to force the Chinese to the table and then not having enough 'art of the deal' actually in his repertoire to bring China into negotiation instead of just starting a low level trade war. The last one is probably somewhat unfair because it takes two to tango and the Chinese have sort a programmed response of artificial excess outrage every time anyone does anything they don't like and that phase has to pass before they will enter negotiation about anything. But politics is hard ball and that kind of criticism that is fair game. It's the more benign policy cousin of entering a war without an end game. On Biden's side you can absolutely say that leaving the Trump tariffs in place is pure political expediency. But one real difference is that Biden is serious about re-industrialization in a way that Trump and the GOP never were and tariffs do fit into a larger framework in Biden's world. But the other question is what assumptions are we all making? If we give Trump credit for refooting the trade relationship with China, which I am happy to do, then we don't need to criticize Biden for leaving them in place. That is not an inconsistent position. *as we are seeing, China has become an economic super power, but as the current real estate crisis there shows, their economy is still very brittle and they know it, so politically it understandable they still have to try to have it both ways. That said, we are not obligated to let the Chinese solve their economic management problems at the expense of US workers. Maybe the real short form answer here is that with any policy initiative, you knew the Trump admin was corrupt and incompetent and would not be effective or productive in it. This. I will give Trump for changing direction on China. But Trump, and MAGA... want to go into the China shop and instead of demanding a refund for defective (policies), decide that sending Trump the Bullheaded Jackass into the China shop to smash everything because... they think it's funny? Effective? This is the solution of simple-minded MORONS. Smash everything. He gets no credit for method. For actually having a workable plan. For actually knowing what the hell he is doing. Zero credit for thinking that smashing everything is the solution. IDIOTS. G2 here is pointing out putting together Policy/ Actions/ Tariffs/ and Methods... that actually do something. I do give Trump credit for changing direction. But for nothing else. And... Everyone KNEW that the direction needed to be changed, starting with Obama, who started the pivot away from the Middle East and towards China as the real problem. Trump just took a sledge hammer to the China shop and thought that would be the way to deal with them. Turump = MORON = MAGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger337 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 1 hour ago, ewsieg said: The problem with everyone on this board is that they have interest in politics and therefore keep up on news related to it. This leads to more nuanced responses and more push back on claims. That's a good thing, but my point on the average Trumper (and honestly the average Biden supporter) is that they don't pay attention to the details, they respond to the slogans. Obviously the type of news and how you interpret it leads to differing opinions, but the facts are Dems, over my lifetime, were the party of the unions and were much more open to tariffs. Maybe I went to far to say they 'love' them, but in the last 40 years, until Trump, no republicans were pushing for them. Biden did let a small one expire without pushing to extend it, outside of that nearly all of the Trump imposed tariffs still exist today. If Trump is an idiot that for idiotic reasons imposed the tariffs, what is Biden if he is the grown up finally back in charge and keeps them? That's a rhetorical question, in the second link below there are some reasons noted why he kept them, but again, most people don't care to go that in depth. Your average Trumper just sees this: * Trump enacted them and got ridiculed for it * Biden comes in, keeps them, and when pushed on it, his defenders explain why they are good while simultaneously saying Trump was an idiot for doing it. And to Lee, the Trump voters I know differ on that. Some steadfastly claim he's not in it for himself, the left just paints it that way. Most seem to think he's definitely trying to 'get his', but also that he wants to expose everything else that it wrong with government so they are fine with it. https://www.csis.org/analysis/democratic-trade-policy-part-i#:~:text=For roughly its first 150,greater choice that trade brings. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184027892/china-tariffs-biden-trump#:~:text=Biden hardly ever mentions the,wrap up later this year. One can think that Trump was stupid for thinking that tariffs would bring back jobs to America and also think that tariffs are smart for other reasons. One could also think that there is a good time for tariffs and a bad time for tariffs. I agree with you though that most people don't have an informed opinion on these things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewsieg Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 1984, The average voter does not get into the weeds on issues like those of us on this forum do so it is a little bit more difficult to understand than you claim. I'm not defending the tariffs. All I'm saying is that to the average Trump voter, you can't outline all these reasons why Trump's tariffs were the most idiotic decision in the history of all time, then try and defend why Biden still has them in place 3 years later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutiger Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 1 hour ago, ewsieg said: I don't want to see Biden go down this route either for the sake of decorum, but 1) I don't think it would turn off any of his current voters and 2) It would directly speak to and get the attention of Trump leaning voters. It's always annoyed me that it's the folks with '**** Joe Biden' stickers on their cars that are at the library meetings screaming about watching out for the kids and making sure they don't read inappropriate things. Same. As a young parent, it angers me that there will come a day that my son will (inevitably) ask about stuff like that and I will have to explain it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger337 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 18 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: This. I will give Trump for changing direction on China. But Trump, and MAGA... want to go into the China shop and instead of demanding a refund for defective (policies), decide that sending Trump the Bullheaded Jackass into the China shop to smash everything because... they think it's funny? Effective? This is the solution of simple-minded MORONS. Smash everything. He gets no credit for method. For actually having a workable plan. For actually knowing what the hell he is doing. Zero credit for thinking that smashing everything is the solution. IDIOTS. G2 here is pointing out putting together Policy/ Actions/ Tariffs/ and Methods... that actually do something. I do give Trump credit for changing direction. But for nothing else. And... Everyone KNEW that the direction needed to be changed, starting with Obama, who started the pivot away from the Middle East and towards China as the real problem. Trump just took a sledge hammer to the China shop and thought that would be the way to deal with them. Turump = MORON = MAGA. Trump has no in depth knowledge on any issue at all. He is just a populist demagogue and is too much of a psychopath to let smart people works things out reasonably even when his bull **** happens to go in the right direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 6 minutes ago, ewsieg said: ... you can't outline all these reasons why Trump's tariffs were the most idiotic decision in the history of all time, then try and defend why Biden still has them in place 3 years later. I just did that in 3 sentences. I mean, I agree with you... most regular Joe's aren't going to get into these weeds. But it isn't really that difficult to grasp the basic outlines of making smart moves instead of dumb moves. I should know... most of my family is MAGA. I've had these arguments... a LOT. But here's the real reason they can be such idiots: I explain. They get it. They understand. And then they respond with: "I don't care. I just want Trump to break everything". Myopic. Shortsightedness in its worst form. They want Mexican rapists kicked out of the country. And nothing else matters. I have a bone to pick with that attitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oblong Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Trump likes to frame things in a binary fashion, "Them vs me". When he complained about Amazon he'd set it up as Bezos vs Trump. "He's charging me a lot of money to deliver his packages on Sunday" It is done that way to emulate a TV show's programming. Hero vs Villain. He does it with China. The only ones he won't do it with are Putin and the Saudis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger337 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Fortunately, there are no MAGAs in my family. On the other hand, some of them probably won't vote at all because they think politics is stupid. They know he's an idiot and a pig, but they just don't think it matters to their lives. Those who do vote will vote against Trump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutiger Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 18 minutes ago, mtutiger said: Same. As a young parent, it angers me that there will come a day that my son will (inevitably) ask about stuff like that and I will have to explain it. I would also add that the mocking disdain you see from figures on the right over concerns about Trump's rhetoric (Mike Lee being the best example, with his constant invoking of "I'll take the mean tweets") is also pretty frustrating when you are trying to project decent values onto your kids. But it's not 1997 anymore - even then, maybe all the concerns over "values" was just hogwash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigeraholic1 Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 55 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said: As G2 pointed out... The stupidity of Trump's tariff's is that they were unreliable. He changed them on a whim. If there is no method, there is no reliability. The tariffs themselves may or may not make sense. But to throw them up capriciously, as Trump did, inspires ZERO confidence, as G2 pointed out, for a business to make business decisions based on... capriciousness? The immediate after-effect of Trump's tariffs on China, as an example, did NOT "bring back American manufacturing jobs". In fact, the IMMEDIATE after-effect of Trump's China tariffs was that China shut the door on American soybeans and other products. American, midwestern, farmers were CRUSHED by the blowback to Trump's China tariffs. Do you remember this? It gets more complicated than that. China was losing manufacturing jobs PRIOR to Trump's tariffs. They were losing those jobs because Chinese wages had finally come up enough that they were no longer the most competitive (read: lowest wages) manufacturer in the world. They were losing these manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Thailand, etc... If Trump wasn't such a ****ing MORON, he would have passed TPP instead of killing it. Which would have lowered American tariffs for these southeastern countries, enforced American intellectual property rights (Chinese knockoffs would be forced out of these countries, increasing American goods sold), enforced American environmental and labor standards (not exactly, more like "minimums", but still...), and SPED UP the flight of cheap manufacturing jobs out of China. A year later, Trump BEGGED to get back into TPP and was told "no dice". He ****ed that up, bigly. Why is Biden now NOT eliminating all of Trump's tariff's? Because now that they are in place, you don't remove them CAPRICIOUSLY, as Trump did throwing them up. You NEGOTIATE to get them back down. As any NORMAL politician would. And if China is not changing its predatory practices... then there's no reason to just give them back up. I have no problem with Biden NEGOTIATING with China to bring those tariff's back down, and if China refuses to change practices, then refuse to change tariff's. It's not that difficult to understand. Vet good insight. Thank you for breaking it down this way for Morons like me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1984Echoes Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Well, since we're ALL Motown Morons... We're all in the same boat anyways... Hopefully it doesn't sink... 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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