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On November 27 2024 10:30 Turbovolver wrote: I dunno, people talk about the free market like it's water, naturally finding the path of least resistance and concentrating all the flow that way. It seems to me much more like a viscous sludge, slowly slopping its way around a very bumpy landscape. Sometimes you really do need an external push to find that true optimum.
Not going to pretend I know if Norwegian cheeses are an example or not, but Kwark's logic here feels like the arguments people make that no price is wrong or unfair, because if it was, nobody would pay it.
My argument is that you should do what you're good at and not what you're not good at. That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation and that tariffs run contrary to it. It's obvious and self evident to the point of absurdity.
For bolded I agree, rest however not so much. Your arguments in previous posts are based on some GH-ish scenario except you apply his solutions to nations rather than people. You would be correct if countries were all equal, good willing, unicorns and rainbows and so on, but then why even trade? They all can just share their surplus with others. I think this is were you erred: "That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation" - It is not build on cooperation, it is build on conflict. Cooperation is not natural, it is more often than not, forced by some external threat forcing coalition.
As for your example what if nation A and B are exactly the same except nation B is making way more food than A? trading will then effectively erase food production in nation A. What's then to stop nation B from saying: "sorry you cant have our food anymore, unless..."
Edit: Some typos Edit: typo
You're thinking too large scale here, rival empires etc. Someone in your tribe is old and doesn't see so well anymore. Another person in your tribe is young, fit, and sees well. Who goes hunting rabbits and who keeps the fire burning?
So no, all human civilization really is built on the basic concept of cooperation, that not everyone does everything all the time. Anyone who insisted on doing every part of every activity themselves would never get anywhere.
The upsides and downsides of cooperation at an individual level are self evident. The case against cooperating at a national level have the same downsides. The argument against forcing the guy with good vision to tend the fire is the exact same argument against tariffs.
You see, this is exactly what I was trying to point out, regarding tariffs "rival empires" is exactly what we talking about. Your misconception is based on this: " in your tribe" and I cant specify this enough. This presume some sort of ideological alignment. In simplest terms: someone in your tribe is baby Hitler and you know what his survival will result in (or at least you are hell of convicted of it), are you still willing to share your rabbits with him, in exchange for keeping fire burning, even though you know you are able to keep it as such yourself, at the cost of extra half an hour work?
Sorry, you lost me there with the baby tribal Hitler prophecy.
Again, it’s a simple point. Cooperation and specialization is the bedrock on which the rise of man from apes is built. The baby tribal Hitler prophecy doesn’t somehow change that. You can kill baby Hitler if you want to but it won’t make trade less efficient than doing everything yourself.
I’m not saying every trading partner always has the exact thing you want and that you should make deals everyone. I’m not saying every hypothetical deal is worth taking. I’m saying that if they have something you need and you have something they need then cooperation is an efficient way to both get what you need. And that an arbitrary rule against engaging in efficient trades does not make the forced inefficient alternative optimal.
It’s so very simplistic it should go without saying.
Not usually one to listen to Pod Save America, but they had on Harris' campaign staff, so I wanted to see if they might have learned something and no, no they have not.
To save you an hour and a half of your time,
They learned nothing, their failure was just because they were limited on time, they totally do not regret trying to swing Republican voters and believe it is fully and completely essential to winning and are almost assuredly going to keep doing it assuming these ghoulish jackasses aren't fired, which lol, sure doesn't seem likely given how the DNC operates.
Democrats will never learn anything, I swear to christ.
On November 27 2024 10:30 Turbovolver wrote: I dunno, people talk about the free market like it's water, naturally finding the path of least resistance and concentrating all the flow that way. It seems to me much more like a viscous sludge, slowly slopping its way around a very bumpy landscape. Sometimes you really do need an external push to find that true optimum.
Not going to pretend I know if Norwegian cheeses are an example or not, but Kwark's logic here feels like the arguments people make that no price is wrong or unfair, because if it was, nobody would pay it.
My argument is that you should do what you're good at and not what you're not good at. That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation and that tariffs run contrary to it. It's obvious and self evident to the point of absurdity.
For bolded I agree, rest however not so much. Your arguments in previous posts are based on some GH-ish scenario except you apply his solutions to nations rather than people. You would be correct if countries were all equal, good willing, unicorns and rainbows and so on, but then why even trade? They all can just share their surplus with others. I think this is were you erred: "That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation" - It is not build on cooperation, it is build on conflict. Cooperation is not natural, it is more often than not, forced by some external threat forcing coalition.
As for your example what if nation A and B are exactly the same except nation B is making way more food than A? trading will then effectively erase food production in nation A. What's then to stop nation B from saying: "sorry you cant have our food anymore, unless..."
Edit: typo
You're thinking too large scale here, rival empires etc. Someone in your tribe is old and doesn't see so well anymore. Another person in your tribe is young, fit, and sees well. Who goes hunting rabbits and who keeps the fire burning?
So no, all human civilization really is built on the basic concept of cooperation, that not everyone does everything all the time. Anyone who insisted on doing every part of every activity themselves would never get anywhere.
The upsides and downsides of cooperation at an individual level are self evident. The case against cooperating at a national level have the same downsides. The argument against forcing the guy with good vision to tend the fire is the exact same argument against tariffs.
The point is other nations aren't members of our tribe. They have no interest in making sure everyone gets enough rabbits, they just want the most they can get for their rabbits. If all of human civilization got along perfectly and we shared in the fruits of our labor then of course it would be most efficient for everyone to do what they were best at and trade freely. But if WW3 breaks out it's kind of a big deal if all your former steelworkers are out digging holes because another country is better at making steel anyway.
On November 27 2024 15:26 Zambrah wrote: Not usually one to listen to Pod Save America, but they had on Harris' campaign staff, so I wanted to see if they might have learned something and no, no they have not.
They learned nothing, their failure was just because they were limited on time, they totally do not regret trying to swing Republican voters and believe it is fully and completely essential to winning and are almost assuredly going to keep doing it assuming these ghoulish jackasses aren't fired, which lol, sure doesn't seem likely given how the DNC operates.
Democrats will never learn anything, I swear to christ.
There should be a reasonably open Democrat primary for the 2028 election. Whoever wins will bring their people with and those people at least have good enough ideas to win a Democrat primary, something Harris and her crew never did. Granted, she likely inherited a bunch from Biden and there was probably some carryover from his 2020 campaign where he won an open primary. Still, her people likely outnumbered and shouted down those who actually knew how to run a campaign as it seemed that everything after the Convention was pretty bad. Totally squandered the initial hype.
On November 27 2024 10:30 Turbovolver wrote: I dunno, people talk about the free market like it's water, naturally finding the path of least resistance and concentrating all the flow that way. It seems to me much more like a viscous sludge, slowly slopping its way around a very bumpy landscape. Sometimes you really do need an external push to find that true optimum.
Not going to pretend I know if Norwegian cheeses are an example or not, but Kwark's logic here feels like the arguments people make that no price is wrong or unfair, because if it was, nobody would pay it.
My argument is that you should do what you're good at and not what you're not good at. That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation and that tariffs run contrary to it. It's obvious and self evident to the point of absurdity.
For bolded I agree, rest however not so much. Your arguments in previous posts are based on some GH-ish scenario except you apply his solutions to nations rather than people. You would be correct if countries were all equal, good willing, unicorns and rainbows and so on, but then why even trade? They all can just share their surplus with others. I think this is were you erred: "That human civilization is fundamentally built on this basic concept of cooperation" - It is not build on cooperation, it is build on conflict. Cooperation is not natural, it is more often than not, forced by some external threat forcing coalition.
As for your example what if nation A and B are exactly the same except nation B is making way more food than A? trading will then effectively erase food production in nation A. What's then to stop nation B from saying: "sorry you cant have our food anymore, unless..."
Edit: typo
You're thinking too large scale here, rival empires etc. Someone in your tribe is old and doesn't see so well anymore. Another person in your tribe is young, fit, and sees well. Who goes hunting rabbits and who keeps the fire burning?
So no, all human civilization really is built on the basic concept of cooperation, that not everyone does everything all the time. Anyone who insisted on doing every part of every activity themselves would never get anywhere.
The upsides and downsides of cooperation at an individual level are self evident. The case against cooperating at a national level have the same downsides. The argument against forcing the guy with good vision to tend the fire is the exact same argument against tariffs.
The point is other nations aren't members of our tribe. They have no interest in making sure everyone gets enough rabbits, they just want the most they can get for their rabbits. If all of human civilization got along perfectly and we shared in the fruits of our labor then of course it would be most efficient for everyone to do what they were best at and trade freely. But if WW3 breaks out it's kind of a big deal if all your former steelworkers are out digging holes because another country is better at making steel anyway.
This is a remarkably xenophobic take on world politics and global trade. One which I think the EU already proved wrong. European tribes spent about 2000 years hating each other and wanting to conquer each other. It was a focal point of two world wars, but that was hardly the beginning of hostilities. Every 50 years or so, some nation had tried its hand at conquering their neighbour to varying degrees of success.
Particularly funny is your mention of steel, because that was exactly the material that the precursor to the EU started over: the European Coal and Steel Community. Resistance to the removal of tariffs was the main counterpoint to its foundation, with France and Germany both fearing their own industry would be undermined (the Germans fearing they'd get flooded by cheap French coal, the Frency fearing the German competitive advantage would destroy their manufacturing). Despite the fears, the ECSC was founded in the early 50s, just a few years after the French and Germans had been on opposite sides of a devastating world war, and most of the larger cities were still filled with rubble. Probably one could argue that this was precisely why the ECSC could be created: both the French and the Germans wanted to avoid another WW, and there was a lot of momentum to push for interlinking trade as a way to *avoid* a third WW.
By all accounts it seems to have worked. All the great nations of Europe eventually joined, except one (although the UK subsequently left again, showing it is (1) not a panacea, and (2) possible, albeit hard, to peacefully leave the bloc again if you decide the trade is no longer in your best interests (even if you're fairly obviously wrong about that). There has been no major war between any of the EU nations. Interlinking trade has also, by most accounts, crippled the Russian economy when they decided they did like the idea of a big war rather than free trade. This hammers in again that it isn't a panacea: war can still happen, and the economic harm to both sides is real. But that is part of the point: we don't want war, so making war less easy to justify is good!
Now, we're not claiming you should remove all tariffs with everyone (yet). Obviously there are real concerns about China. Clearly sanctions against Russia are needed. But why advocate for tariffs with your largest allies (Canada and UK, to be clear)?
On November 27 2024 09:53 BlackJack wrote: Your analogy only makes sense if you assign zero value to building up and protecting the industry and infrastructure in your own country. A better analogy would be why employ people to dig a well in your own community when daddy Nestle can sell you bottled water for cheaper.
Biden put in a 100% tariff on EVs from China. The argument that's offered is that we would be stronger as a country if GM/Ford and other US manufacturers were priced out of the EV market, we put those workers on the government dole, had them dig holes for no reason, and then bought all our EVs from China. Your mistake is thinking I can't comprehend this argument when really I'm asking why you think this is self-evidently true. The argument that it's better to pay people to do something absolutely useless than paying them to do something "less optimal" is not convincing me.
How will you value something "less optimal" over optimal when the set of people doing "less optimal" work can potentially pivot to something more optimal when the resources become available by not letting them do "less optimal" work? Also, if your less optimal products were less optimal before, are you going to keep the gap between less optimal and optimal constant, or is this going to widen, making it harder and harder to sustain in the long run? Also, it's a double whammy, because you're now forced to pay people to produce suboptimal products that are more expensive. Chances are people just pivot to something else and then you don't have any sales and you can let your people dig holes once more. It's not just "protecting the jobs", there's a lot that's tied to it that can impact the protected jobs negatively.
The ideal is that in a free market you have a surplus of resources which you can then invest in infrastructure and subsequently your people (training, (re)education, specialization, subsidies, pivoting). The ideal in a protected market is that you can give the people work and meaning. If they can become competitive through innovation, that's even better.
The pitfall of letting your free market run its course is that these people keep being neglected because there's simply nothing worthwhile to let them do. This is bad. The pitfall of protecting your own production is that you're pricing out yourself and consequently this can affect your entire economy. This is also bad. Which do you think has better upsides and worse pitfalls?
I guess another argument for why tariffs could work out in the US is that if you are an economic superpower you can simply force other countries to relocate manufacturing to circumvent (some of) the tariffs. I think this is what Reagan did with the Japanese cars, which are now largely manufactured in the US as a result.
Again WP by the current President, Donald Trump. Joe Biden is not the President right now.
In a matter of a few days Trump has managed to apply heavy pressure on the USA's #1 trading partner. America First Baby!
On November 27 2024 20:14 Elroi wrote: I guess another argument for why tariffs could work out in the US is that if you are an economic superpower you can simply force other countries to relocate manufacturing to circumvent (some of) the tariffs. I think this is what Reagan did with the Japanese cars, which are now largely manufactured in the US as a result.
was This the myth sold to the US taxpayer? Toyota sold less than 300K vehicles in the USA in 1985. Japanese cars were not much of a factor in the market.
The reality is that the UAW's unreasonable demands lost Michigan a metric tonne of jobs to the more reasonable CAW just a short drive north east.
The competition really was not between Michigan and Japan. It was between 2 neighbours: Michigan and Southern Ontario. It was between 2 unions... The UAW and the CAW.
I guess it is more exciting to make it seem like it was some epic battle of ideologies and nations when, in fact, it was all about making reliable cars at the lowest possible cost.
Ontario won. Michigan lost. The standard of living in Southern Ontario soared... Detroit died. This was not the entire story of car jobs in the USA. However, it was a major aspect. Turns out .. CAW > UAW. Reagan and his policies were a non-factor.
To get a deeper insight into how ridiculous US unions were behaving check out how comedians portrayed unions in the late 70s.. early 80s. Note the audience reactions. US Unions were viewed as unreasonable in their demands.
This is why Reagan's move to fire air traffic controllers was so popular. Americans were sick and tired of American Unions. The UAW was a bad union that did a poor job representing its workers.
EPT
