Point #2 is one I have made here and elsewhere many, many times. It is hard for people to believe it happened. It is harder still to get them to wrap their brain around the idea that it was purposeful. But such was literally taught as fact in undergrad and grad level macro classes & trade classes.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
Europe's economy stagnating has nothing to do with any immigration issue. Just look at the once envied German economy and industrial prowess. Turns out you can't protect yourself to long term success, and being efficient is a net job killer. Europe's economy in general has been declining for decades. Its debt burden issue over the past 5 years does have something to do with taking on more social safety net expense, part of which is their immigration problem.The_barBEARian said:ATL Bear said:It may come as a shock, but we cheat on trade in other countries as well. The WTO is full of disputes from many parties including the U.S. But back to tariffs, if you want to take America to the European model, you're not going to like the outcome. The protectionism has slowly and steadily marginalized their economies, caused permanent high prices for consumers, actually depressed manufacturing, and has increased their reliance upon other markets.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
3. Tariffs don't equalize trade. They distort markets and protect inefficient companies, not to mention punish consumers as well as domestic producers, particular ones with diverse supply chain requirements. It's also incorrect to think of global trade as a zero sum game requiring it to be "equal".
Buddy the markets were already distorted by the tariffs that already exist in other countries and are imposed by our trading partners....along with a vast array of other dirty tricks
I grant you that a world of no nuclear weapons and no tariffs would be ideal.
But in a world where others are cheating on trade it is the only way to bring about some level of equal trade and protect Americans from savage trade practices.
[The sneaky ways countries cheat the U.S. on trade
https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/19/investing/wilbur-ross-china-cheating-trade/index.html]
1) I guess we arent very good cheaters with a trade deficit of $100 billion a year.
2) Europe isnt a mess because of fair trade. Europe is a mess because they dont enforce their borders and restrict immigration.
A lot of these "new Europeans" are a massive net drain on the countries they have chosen to invade and are not increasing GDP.
BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
Trump threatens to strengthen sanctions against Russia for launching large attacks against Ukraine pic.twitter.com/9OSNXS8GrK
Trade is built around nations leveraging their advantages globally. The Marshall Plan stuff went out in the 60s and 70s and isn't why we have structural trade deficits today. It's a myth that we can create, grow, and make everything domestically. Our consumption strength way exceeds our production capacity. That doesn't mean we can't do more, even much more, but we are hamstrung on several levels we seem unwilling to address to make that happen, and it isn't unfair trade tariffs.whiterock said:Point #2 is one I have made here and elsewhere many, many times. It is hard for people to believe it happened. It is harder still to get them to wrap their brain around the idea that it was purposeful. But such was literally taught as fact in undergrad and grad level macro classes & trade classes.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
MacroEconomic textbook fact: When you choose to run a structural trade deficit, you WILL lose manufacturing base and grow service industries. And you can prevent that trade deficit from devaluing your currency IF you maintain positive capital flows to offset the trade deficit. And every single year, we did.
So simple. The Marshall Plan effectively told the world "we will loan you the money to build/rebuild your economy and we will buy what you produce, as long as you ally with us and use the excess dollars generated by your trade surplus to purchase our Treasury bills." That's it. That's globalism in a nutshell. It allows you to build allies, finance and maintain a 2m man army and a 600-ship navy for several decades. And it worked! We won the Cold War.!! Along the way, over an over again in both university classes and in embassies abroad, I saw exactly what Trump is talking about - trade diplomacy that gave countries sweetheart trade deals, getting greater access to our economy than we got to theirs, not fulfilling their defense commitments, etc.... And the defense of it was "well, we need them as allies....don't be predatory, help them..." as if it was the natural order. And it was....natural order of a Cold War alliance where were were the great benefactor.
But the cold war ended in 1992.
Look how long it's take us to kill the model that delivered victory, and move on to one that serves our peoples better.
It makes no sense whatsoever to run a structural trade deficit in a post-Cold War world. None.
BREAKING: Trump says tariffs on Mexico and Canada could go higher than a 25% rate imposed earlier this week, per Bloomberg.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 7, 2025
Canada-Mexico? NAFTA?ATL Bear said:Trade is built around nations leveraging their advantages globally. The Marshall Plan stuff went out in the 60s and 70s and isn't why we have structural trade deficits today. It's a myth that we can create, grow, and make everything domestically. Our consumption strength way exceeds our production capacity. That doesn't mean we can't do more, even much more, but we are hamstrung on several levels we seem unwilling to address to make that happen, and it isn't unfair trade tariffs.whiterock said:Point #2 is one I have made here and elsewhere many, many times. It is hard for people to believe it happened. It is harder still to get them to wrap their brain around the idea that it was purposeful. But such was literally taught as fact in undergrad and grad level macro classes & trade classes.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
MacroEconomic textbook fact: When you choose to run a structural trade deficit, you WILL lose manufacturing base and grow service industries. And you can prevent that trade deficit from devaluing your currency IF you maintain positive capital flows to offset the trade deficit. And every single year, we did.
So simple. The Marshall Plan effectively told the world "we will loan you the money to build/rebuild your economy and we will buy what you produce, as long as you ally with us and use the excess dollars generated by your trade surplus to purchase our Treasury bills." That's it. That's globalism in a nutshell. It allows you to build allies, finance and maintain a 2m man army and a 600-ship navy for several decades. And it worked! We won the Cold War.!! Along the way, over an over again in both university classes and in embassies abroad, I saw exactly what Trump is talking about - trade diplomacy that gave countries sweetheart trade deals, getting greater access to our economy than we got to theirs, not fulfilling their defense commitments, etc.... And the defense of it was "well, we need them as allies....don't be predatory, help them..." as if it was the natural order. And it was....natural order of a Cold War alliance where were were the great benefactor.
But the cold war ended in 1992.
Look how long it's take us to kill the model that delivered victory, and move on to one that serves our peoples better.
It makes no sense whatsoever to run a structural trade deficit in a post-Cold War world. None.
The deindustrialization of the heartland started with movement from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. Is that part of your "purposeful" equation? As we began selling in foreign markets, supply chains shifted. Instead of seriously looking at how we can match the scale and capabilities in those other markets, and incentivize innovation, we are doubling down on protecting outdated models and companies instead of encouraging new ones. We keep looking outward instead of inward for blame, and that's a problem both parties suffer from. Trump's not advocating anything new economically, he's just doing it in a broad and disorganized fashion and having it shouted from the social media rooftops. I'm old enough to remember when he touted his Canada-Mexico trade agreement the first time around.
Trump's efforts in pushing Europe to carry more of their defense burden and negotiating better trade agreements is always the right move. But blanket tariffs without a defined strategy is chaotic and destructive to the economy.
Bessent indicated that Trump is willing to take strong measures to achieve his trade goals.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 6, 2025
Read more: https://t.co/JFS7AZLvFe
Assassin said:And his name would be Sorosboognish_bear said:BREAKING: Trump has just said: Globalists are behind stock market sell off.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 6, 2025
boognish_bear said:“Women, we love you!”
— Unpack With Jack Mac (@UnpackJackMac) March 6, 2025
Trump signs executive order declaring March Women’s History Month pic.twitter.com/W2yfww2Bt9
BREAKING: Poland announces that all adult men will be called to undergo military training.
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) March 7, 2025
What's going on???
boognish_bear said:BREAKING: Poland announces that all adult men will be called to undergo military training.
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) March 7, 2025
What's going on???
boognish_bear said:BREAKING: Poland announces that all adult men will be called to undergo military training.
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) March 7, 2025
What's going on???
To Neverland, obviously.historian said:
Like the imaginary new manufacturing jobs that tariffs create?Oldbear83 said:
You use the tools available to you, not imaginary things .
Yes, the USMCA. "A terrific deal for all of us" said Trump at the time.FLBear5630 said:Canada-Mexico? NAFTA?ATL Bear said:Trade is built around nations leveraging their advantages globally. The Marshall Plan stuff went out in the 60s and 70s and isn't why we have structural trade deficits today. It's a myth that we can create, grow, and make everything domestically. Our consumption strength way exceeds our production capacity. That doesn't mean we can't do more, even much more, but we are hamstrung on several levels we seem unwilling to address to make that happen, and it isn't unfair trade tariffs.whiterock said:Point #2 is one I have made here and elsewhere many, many times. It is hard for people to believe it happened. It is harder still to get them to wrap their brain around the idea that it was purposeful. But such was literally taught as fact in undergrad and grad level macro classes & trade classes.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
MacroEconomic textbook fact: When you choose to run a structural trade deficit, you WILL lose manufacturing base and grow service industries. And you can prevent that trade deficit from devaluing your currency IF you maintain positive capital flows to offset the trade deficit. And every single year, we did.
So simple. The Marshall Plan effectively told the world "we will loan you the money to build/rebuild your economy and we will buy what you produce, as long as you ally with us and use the excess dollars generated by your trade surplus to purchase our Treasury bills." That's it. That's globalism in a nutshell. It allows you to build allies, finance and maintain a 2m man army and a 600-ship navy for several decades. And it worked! We won the Cold War.!! Along the way, over an over again in both university classes and in embassies abroad, I saw exactly what Trump is talking about - trade diplomacy that gave countries sweetheart trade deals, getting greater access to our economy than we got to theirs, not fulfilling their defense commitments, etc.... And the defense of it was "well, we need them as allies....don't be predatory, help them..." as if it was the natural order. And it was....natural order of a Cold War alliance where were were the great benefactor.
But the cold war ended in 1992.
Look how long it's take us to kill the model that delivered victory, and move on to one that serves our peoples better.
It makes no sense whatsoever to run a structural trade deficit in a post-Cold War world. None.
The deindustrialization of the heartland started with movement from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. Is that part of your "purposeful" equation? As we began selling in foreign markets, supply chains shifted. Instead of seriously looking at how we can match the scale and capabilities in those other markets, and incentivize innovation, we are doubling down on protecting outdated models and companies instead of encouraging new ones. We keep looking outward instead of inward for blame, and that's a problem both parties suffer from. Trump's not advocating anything new economically, he's just doing it in a broad and disorganized fashion and having it shouted from the social media rooftops. I'm old enough to remember when he touted his Canada-Mexico trade agreement the first time around.
Trump's efforts in pushing Europe to carry more of their defense burden and negotiating better trade agreements is always the right move. But blanket tariffs without a defined strategy is chaotic and destructive to the economy.
BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
Trump announces that South African farmers and their families will receive a fast-track process to U.S. citizenship for safety.
White farmers have been falling victims to violent attacks for years. pic.twitter.com/6WVdNbEn4H
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 🇮🇳 President Trump says India has agreed to cut tariffs on US imports. pic.twitter.com/o4s1jY23G7
— Remarks (@remarks) March 7, 2025
Trump slammed Canada for unfair trade, citing a 250% dairy tariff and restrictions on U.S. lumber.
— 🅾️ Kat Kanada (@KatKanada_TM) March 7, 2025
He vowed reciprocal tariffs as early as Monday.
Trump also said it's been very difficult to deal with Canada's representatives. pic.twitter.com/7UOJo14Lz9
https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-hails-20-bln-investment-by-shipping-firm-cma-cgm-2025-03-06/Quote:
From 'The Post Millennial':
"This massive investment will go toward building out shipping, logistics infrastructure terminals, which will create an estimated 10,000 new jobs in America. It's so important because it's about shipping," the president continued." You know, we lost our way for many years. We haven't done anything. We used to build a ship a day, and now we essentially don't build ships. We're going to start that, and we're going to be announcing next week, or the week after, a massive new program for building very, larger, larger ships in the world."
Rand Paul: Almost every industry in Kentucky has come to me and said it will hurt our industry. And push up prices of homes and cars. I’m going to continue to argue against tariffs. pic.twitter.com/Ycpl42w28f
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 7, 2025
BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
"Poland must pursue the most advanced capabilities, including nuclear and modern unconventional weapons”
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk made the statement today 🇵🇱 pic.twitter.com/e4lVwwjaDU
boognish_bear said:BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
"Poland must pursue the most advanced capabilities, including nuclear and modern unconventional weapons”
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk made the statement today 🇵🇱 pic.twitter.com/e4lVwwjaDU
Nope. Imaginary like ignoring tariffs and just hoping other countries stop using them on us, like we have seen the last several decades.ATL Bear said:Like the imaginary new manufacturing jobs that tariffs create?Oldbear83 said:
You use the tools available to you, not imaginary things .
Has Musk family written all over this one.boognish_bear said:BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
Trump announces that South African farmers and their families will receive a fast-track process to U.S. citizenship for safety.
White farmers have been falling victims to violent attacks for years. pic.twitter.com/6WVdNbEn4H
And you are clearly bitter about this gesture of mercy.Aliceinbubbleland said:Has Musk family written all over this one.boognish_bear said:BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 7, 2025
Trump announces that South African farmers and their families will receive a fast-track process to U.S. citizenship for safety.
White farmers have been falling victims to violent attacks for years. pic.twitter.com/6WVdNbEn4H
You do not understand what you are watching.ATL Bear said:Trade is built around nations leveraging their advantages globally. The Marshall Plan stuff went out in the 60s and 70s and isn't why we have structural trade deficits today.whiterock said:Point #2 is one I have made here and elsewhere many, many times. It is hard for people to believe it happened. It is harder still to get them to wrap their brain around the idea that it was purposeful. But such was literally taught as fact in undergrad and grad level macro classes & trade classes.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Just a question. Are we stronger today than we were when Reagan was President? Militarily? Economically? Is life a multitude easier than it was in 1986? Technology not outsourcing has been the killer of the manufacturing worker, and the driver of our innovation that has propelled us. It's in a constant pursuit of minimizing human necessity in repeatable process tasks, and as AI progresses it's going much more complex.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:RINO. Reagan In Name Only…boognish_bear said:
Reagan was not a demi-god
He was right about a lot
But he was dead wrong about amnesty for millions of 3rd worlders and was wrong about the de-industrialization of the USA
A USA without powerful manufacturing and production capabilities could never have defeated the communists in the USSR
And if America is going to defeat the communists in China it has to change course from the failed orthodoxies of the past few decades
Sending 50,000 factories and millions of jobs overseas does not in fact make us stronger
Where you and others are lost is what Reagan and others like Milton Friedman understood. Trade, even if on unequal terms, pushes companies to innovate around it. Where we failed was being unwilling to actually deregulate to the level necessary to compete. We continue to hang onto labor value perspectives that are becoming obsolescent. Our auto industry still languishes in these historical burdens. We don't need more metal press operators, we need engineers. That's where China, India, Europe and elsewhere beat our butts. And now we want to limit our labor supply shortage through Visa limits.
We've gone next level in complaining about our lot ( which is pretty damn good comparatively), but we have a long way to go in actually trying to make the necessary changes if we want to get back to the low ends of the supply chain. Take mining for example. We don't need to buy Greenland to get into rare earth minerals again. We just need the fortitude to change our laws. Are we ready? Words are cheap and easy, actions not so much.
1. It actually debatable if we are stronger than during the time of Reagan
We do not yet have a major peer super power competitor to challenge us (though China is trying to get there)
[More than 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the United States since 1998. This has led to the loss of millions of jobs. The decline in manufacturing has devastated local economies and workers in industrial areas. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit by the closure of small factories.]
A great power war would tell us very quickly if we are stronger or weaker since the 1980s
2. De-industrialization of the American heartland was not just the work of dispassionate market forces....it was deliberate policy in many cases.
[Across the manufacturing sector, sophisticated industries that once served as the backbone of U.S. economic prosperity are dwindling in terms of both output and employment. Evidence of this U.S. deindustrialization should be raising red flags for U.S. policy makers, given manufacturing's long-recognized contribution to economic growth and prosperity, as well as the problematic manufacturing-driven trade and current account deficits (for more detail, see Hersh 2003). But rather than suffering through sleepless nights, U.S. policy
makers have met manufacturing's decline with a series of public policy choices that place U.S. manufacturing at a competitive disadvantage against foreign producers and provide perverse incentives for companies to relocate manufacturing overseas. In other words, U.S. deindustrialization is not simply a result of natural economic evolution, but also owes to policy makers' remarkable indifference to the manufacturing economy]
file:///C:/Users/James/Downloads/1285-Article%20Text-1766-1-10-20150205%20(2).pdf
3. Tariffs are about equalizing trade.....not killing free trade
You can still buy, sell, trade what products and services you want.
[New reciprocal Trump tariffs aim to match the already existing tariffs other countries place on U.S. goods]
MacroEconomic textbook fact: When you choose to run a structural trade deficit, you WILL lose manufacturing base and grow service industries. And you can prevent that trade deficit from devaluing your currency IF you maintain positive capital flows to offset the trade deficit. And every single year, we did.
So simple. The Marshall Plan effectively told the world "we will loan you the money to build/rebuild your economy and we will buy what you produce, as long as you ally with us and use the excess dollars generated by your trade surplus to purchase our Treasury bills." That's it. That's globalism in a nutshell. It allows you to build allies, finance and maintain a 2m man army and a 600-ship navy for several decades. And it worked! We won the Cold War.!! Along the way, over an over again in both university classes and in embassies abroad, I saw exactly what Trump is talking about - trade diplomacy that gave countries sweetheart trade deals, getting greater access to our economy than we got to theirs, not fulfilling their defense commitments, etc.... And the defense of it was "well, we need them as allies....don't be predatory, help them..." as if it was the natural order. And it was....natural order of a Cold War alliance where were were the great benefactor.
But the cold war ended in 1992.
Look how long it's take us to kill the model that delivered victory, and move on to one that serves our peoples better.
It makes no sense whatsoever to run a structural trade deficit in a post-Cold War world. None.
That and the international monetary system we structured (allowing USD to be a reserve currency for everyone) is entirely the reason. I mean, that was taught in class, and then I observed it abroad.
It's a myth that we can create, grow, and make everything domestically.
Wrong. We almost alone among nations COULD grown and make and be self sufficient. (Which is a different thing from saying we could do it all as cheaply as others).
Our consumption strength way exceeds our production capacity.
That is a choice, not a law of gravity.
That doesn't mean we can't do more, even much more, but we are hamstrung on several levels we seem unwilling to address to make that happen, and it isn't unfair trade tariffs.
We have never had reciprocal tariffs. We always tolerated unbalanced tariffs. We always tolerated non-tariff barriers. Always. "This is good" we said. (professors and policymakers alike).
The deindustrialization of the heartland started with movement from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. Is that part of your "purposeful" equation?
We hastened it rather than forestalled it. It was 100% a policy choice. Again, that was a test question.
As we began selling in foreign markets, supply chains shifted.
Of course. That was the point! Trade makes peace!!
Instead of seriously looking at how we can match the scale and capabilities in those other markets, and incentivize innovation, we are doubling down on protecting outdated models and companies instead of encouraging new ones. We keep looking outward instead of inward for blame, and that's a problem both parties suffer from. Trump's not advocating anything new economically, he's just doing it in a broad and disorganized fashion and having it shouted from the social media rooftops. I'm old enough to remember when he touted his Canada-Mexico trade agreement the first time around.
Uh, no. He's leveling the playing field, forcing companies to calculate something they've never had to calculate before - if you want to have access to the US market, you better invest IN the US market. Oh. Wait. We did do that before. That's why there's a Toyota truck plant in Texas. And so many more examples. We forced that in the 1980's, to stop total collapse of our automobile manufacturing capability which was under pressure from cheap Japanese imports. (again, we studied newspaper articles in class for examples of the dynamics we were studying.)
Trump's efforts in pushing Europe to carry more of their defense burden and negotiating better trade agreements is always the right move. But blanket tariffs without a defined strategy is chaotic and destructive to the economy.
But they're not blanket. They're specifically targeted. At certain nations, and certain industries. And, in several cases, the tariffs are not merely about trade. They're about national security concerns. And others.
but, but, but.....wait......I thought that Russia always controlled all that.Redbrickbear said:boognish_bear said:BREAKING: Poland announces that all adult men will be called to undergo military training.
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) March 7, 2025
What's going on???
They see a chance to rebuild the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth
His threat of tariffs have prompted trillions of dollars of direct investment in manufacturing plants HERE.ATL Bear said:Like the imaginary new manufacturing jobs that tariffs create?Oldbear83 said:
You use the tools available to you, not imaginary things .
WORLD WAR III: Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says the quiet part out loud, "Ukraine is bying the precious time for us every day, paying with the blood. So it would be highly irresponcible to waste this time." Europe is preparing for war. pic.twitter.com/ntTgBtf4UD
— @amuse (@amuse) March 7, 2025
