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[mainiac]

But you know what, a small tariff on imported "consumer" goods that's not meted out on "components" could in fact sneak semi-skilled jobs back to the USA, and in a way that wouldn't pollute the USA to hell. The easiest way to track that would be to say that if you can show X% of your production costs were U.S. labor then you get exemptions from the tariff.

Possibly. But is it going to be a blanket 35% import tariff, so targeted against specific countries? If it's just against China, Apple will move production outlets to Vietnam (or even just export the finished components from China to Vietnam and then import them from Vietnam to dodge the tariff).

If it's a blanket tariff, we're going to have to pull out of a gazillion free trade agreements and treaties and basically tell the WTO to go fuck itself, at which point WTO says "Ok, American copyrights are no longer internationally protected."

Also, agricultural exports will get slapped with retaliatory tariffs. There's several ag industries that would be hit hard (pork, tobacco, wheat, corn). Might make those commodities cheaper in the short-run, but will kill off smaller producers.

You make it sound so appealing.  What's the downside?

[Frumple]

If it's a blanket tariff, we're going to have to pull out of a gazillion free trade agreements and treaties and basically tell the WTO to go fuck itself, at which point WTO says "Ok, American copyrights are no longer internationally protected."

Not going to lie, that would almost make it worth it. Only almost, but still.

... though I'm now envisioning a crazy world of government sponsored warez teams, fighting a hidden war to undermine international opposition's profits via enabling piracy. Privateers of the cyber sea, or something like that.

[Loud Whispers]

Q: You would end NAFTA, kill the Pacific Trade Agreement, impose tariffs on some products like 35% on Ford cars made in Mexico.

TRUMP: I am all for free trade, but it's got to be fair. When Ford moves their massive plants to Mexico, we get nothing. I want them to stay in Michigan.

Q: But the American Enterprise Institute says, your Trump Collection clothing line, some of it is made in Mexico and China.

TRUMP: That's true. I want it to be made here.

Q: The point is you're doing just what Ford is--you're taking advantage of a global trading market.

TRUMP: I never dispute that. I just ordered 4,000 television sets from South Korea. I don't want to order them from South Korea. I don't think anybody makes television sets in the United States anymore. I talk about it all the time. We don't make anything anymore. Now you look at Boeing. Boeing's going over to China. They're going to build a massive plant because China's demanding it in order to order airplanes from Boeing.

Q: So, you would tear up NAFTA?

A: I think NAFTA has been a disaster. I think our current deals are a disaster. I'm a free trader. The problem with free trade is, you need smart people representing you. We have the greatest negotiators in the world, but we don't use them. We use political hacks and diplomats. We use the wrong people. Mexico is smart; they have out-negotiated us to a fare-thee-well. They're going to be the capital of automobiles pretty soon, the way they're going.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_Free_Trade.htm

[wierd]

*gigglesnort*

And then EuroDisney would FINALLY become a profitable business, as Disney moves wholesale out of the US, to protect the mouse.

[RedKing]

Trumpalin '16, baby.

Not The Derp We Want, But The Derp We Need

[FearfulJesuit]

To be honest, with Trump spewing more and more trainwreck policies, I'm more and more inclined to encourage others to vote for him. What better way to demolish the radical end of the Republican party once and for all?

Trump '16, Zombie Eisenhower '24?

EDIT: Also, dat Trump logic. I want to make my suits in the United States, but I can't make them in the United States because...nobody is making televisions in the United States?

[wierd]

The man clearly has no idea what "Free trade" means. 

You dont have "Free trade" when there are synthetic obstacles to trading, like tariffs and embargoes.

When there is genuine free trade, then the market will adjust to homogenize the total, resulting global market. That means other countries will rise (like his example with mexico becoming a hub for vehicle manufacture) and others will decline (like the US.)

He is literally spouting doublespeak here.


As best as I can parse documents written in idiot--

Trump laments that he cannot sell "Made in the USA" clothing, because there are no major textile mills suitable to meet his output and quality requirements in the US. They don't exist in the US, because textile mill jobs went overseas in the 70s and 80s, because it was more profitable to make those textiles overseas and ship the cloth to the US for assembly work, a la, what Levi Strauss co does.  Other companies determined that doing the entire production run overseas and simply selling to American consumers was the most profitable venture.  Trump is basically lamenting how he cant have his cake and eat it too.

He uses the example of "I can't find a US made television either" as an example of how this is a systemic issue. He is right on that-- it *IS* a systemic issue. The SINGLE, GREATEST attraction the US economy has to multinational corporations is our high money density in the hands of idiot consumers. Once we are tapped dry, they will go wherever the new money is, leaving the US with neither skilled laborers (because nobody hired anyone here, and skill sets died out), industry (because all the factories moved over seas) nor charity (Because frankly, we dont give money away to suckers. We take it instead.)

The US needs to wake up to this reality.

[RedKing]

To be honest, with Trump spewing more and more trainwreck policies, I'm more and more inclined to encourage others to vote for him. What better way to demolish the radical end of the Republican party once and for all?

Trump '16, Zombie Eisenhower '24?

EDIT: Also, dat Trump logic. I want to make my suits in the United States, but I can't make them in the United States because...nobody is making televisions in the United States?

Yeah, I'm really disappointed there was no followup of "Ok, what are the barriers to your suits being made here?"

He is literally spouting doublespeak here.

I see you're unfamiliar with Donald J. Trump.

[Loud Whispers]

Until I clicked the link I thought you were doing satire. Then it started to sound too much like Trump.

We must vote this man into office. I am starting to think that my inability to vote may actually be a good thing for the fate of this country.

Satire requires exaggeration

[wierd]

Indeed.

This is the political version of Poe's Law.

[smjjames]

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463633573/sarah-palin-endorses-donald-trump

  vice president Palin incoming. truly the most perfect pairing.

Palin is an idiot as usual.

I'd be reasonably willing to vote for a captain of industry. Our good friend Donald is, however, no captain of industry.

Like say, Bill Gates?

[wierd]

Difficult to qualify there-- but I would take Gates over Ballmer any day.

Hilariously, if he had not died from his cancer, Jobs would have probably had a huge swell of popular support, despite being a raging sociopath douchbag MFer.

[TheBiggerFish]

Heh.

You're probably right.

[Rolan7]

To be honest, with Trump spewing more and more trainwreck policies, I'm more and more inclined to encourage others to vote for him. What better way to demolish the radical end of the Republican party once and for all?

Trump '16, Zombie Eisenhower '24?

EDIT: Also, dat Trump logic. I want to make my suits in the United States, but I can't make them in the United States because...nobody is making televisions in the United States?

Yeah, I'm really disappointed there was no followup of "Ok, what are the barriers to your suits being made here?"

Well, they'd be a lot more expensive.  He's not a philanthropist, he's a businessman.  He (supposedly) wants to fix the systemic problem, but making his suits locally wouldn't have made Apple make things locally.  He'd just lose money while helping a little, temporarily.  Enacting tariffs has some chance of actually fixing the system.

(Assuming his tariff plan is at all sane, and it sounds like it's crazy extreme and would violate all those treaties...  I am no economist though.)

He should still get called out on it though, and try to explain that to voters.  It reminds me of when he was called out on running the businesses into the ground, and made a strange but interesting defense:  That he got out before they failed, making a fortune personally, because he is very savvy and knows the flaws of the system.  And he's offering that expertise to the United States.

[Bauglir]

So, basically, Trump thinks of himself as the economic equivalent of the mythical nerd who gets a job at the NSA by breaking into their servers - "I'm doing this to show you why it shouldn't be possible, and you should reward me with the power to help stop it." Which about as plausible a scenario as anything he's actually said, given that actually trying that would get you v& even if you succeeded, so I suppose that's par for the (Trump-brand golf) course. There's something to be said for demanding that the system be changed so that he can't do that anymore, instead of demanding that people just stop abusing the system, but on the other hand I don't think there's a doubt in any of our minds that he's doing it because he likes money, and he's only embracing populism because it's easy votes.