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[Helgoland]

it's

I expected more of you. >:[

[Reelya]

"Free trade" is a misleading way to describe it, since that sounds like just the free and fair exchange of goods.

What we're talking about is people profiting off the flow of currencies, and the fact that international finance creates vast tax loopholes.

I think we all know how this sort of thing works. The classic set-up is that a company in the USA creates a shell corporation on some island somewhere, where the cost to run a corporation is a yearly flat fee. They then incorporate their US operations as a subsidiary of their post-office-box corporation on the island, pay out all their profits as cash payments to that shell corporation, then cry foul about how they're making a loss on their USA operations.

EDIT: But that's what Trump should be focusing on, rather than complaining about people in other countries having a job.

[mainiac]

it's

I expected more of you. >:[

I dont know why you would.  I have never claimed to be a grammatician and I never such a thing of.

[Frumple]

... though are we really calling trump against free trade? Don't get me wrong, he's definitely hammering that drum in rhetoric, but insofar as practice goes the guy seems to love free trade like he loves his daughter.

Well, except he's telling people to stop him in the case of the former.

... really, FD, it kinda' sounds like you've been a bit boondoggled by some of the hot air. I guess it's a sort of example of his strategy of just saying bloody everything and damn the coherency, working?

[Orange Wizard]

I never such a thing of.

I think I just had an aneurysm

What we're talking about is people profiting off the flow of currencies, and the fact that international finance creates vast tax loopholes.

Tax havens are a thing, yeah. It's pretty dumb to use it as an excuse for protectionism though.

That said, the USA probably could pull off the whole isolated market thing. There's enough diversity in their industries for it to work.
Honestly it'd make an interesting experiment. Can a country do that in the modern world without looking like North Korea?

[Frumple]

... well, interesting in the sense that most of the rest of the world would start looking like north korea, I guess. Maybe the US could manage it (though it would almost certainly mean a significant loss in quality of life, especially for those whose QoL are already kinda' shit), but it'd mean basically fucking the world economy.

Personally, I wouldn't want to see it tried. We haven't had a world war start up due to strictly economic concerns yet, and I don't want to be alive when one kicks off, either.

[mainiac]

North Korea?  That seems a bit hyperbolic.  There are plenty of advanced economies that aren't the US.  Western Europe+Japan+Canada+South Korea+Australia have a larger population then the US.

[Frumple]

Well, we're certainly not going to have time chambers if the US closes off, so I'd say it's rather anti-hyperbolic >_>

[mainiac]

Does hyperbolic mean time travel?

[Reelya]

I don't think the USA could pull it off. A significant part of the modern American lifestyle is reliant on having cheap sources of labor and resources off-shore. Modern capitalism hasn't actually gotten rid of the sweatshop conditions, they've just globalized it.

Yeah, so America can try that self-reliance thing, but I'm guessing you'd need to abolish most of the existing labor and environmental protections to do it. Oh, and expect to see 10 years knocked off the life expectancy (unless it's all robot labor I guess, in which case only knock 5 years off life expectancy due to all the pollution).

[Loud Whispers]

Or just place environmental tariffs on China :^)

[mainiac]

That's crazy.  Tube socks would cost another 50 cents a sock.  iPhones would cost another 3 dollars a phone.  It would be the end of the american way life as we know it.

[Spehss _]

Yeah, so America can try that self-reliance thing, but I'm guessing you'd need to abolish most of the existing labor and environmental protections to do it. Oh, and expect to see 10 years knocked off the life expectancy (unless it's all robot labor I guess, in which case only knock 5 years off life expectancy due to all the pollution).

As a college student wanting to get into robotics and AI work, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this plan.

[Flying Dice]

... though are we really calling trump against free trade? Don't get me wrong, he's definitely hammering that drum in rhetoric, but insofar as practice goes the guy seems to love free trade like he loves his daughter.

Well, except he's telling people to stop him in the case of the former.

... really, FD, it kinda' sounds like you've been a bit boondoggled by some of the hot air. I guess it's a sort of example of his strategy of just saying bloody everything and damn the coherency, working?

I think he's the sort of crazy that means it. He's got a pretty clear obsession with things branded as "his"-his building, his steaks, his daughter, &c. I can definitely see that extending to a nationalistic economic perspective, especially with how he's hammering the "fuck our allies we pre-Great War isolationism now" line. His wet dreams probably involve lines of Trump everything, from Trump Bread to Trump Sedans to Trump Sexual Lubricant. He comes off as the sort of capitalist who wants everything revolving around company towns in his back yard (so to speak) rather than outsourcing as much work as possible to places with cheap labor. Long-term control over every aspect of production rather than short-term increases to profits. Mostly because he's in it for himself rather than to fellate shareholder interests.

[NullForceOmega]

He is not the sort of crazy that means it.  He is a hard-core showman, all of this nonsense he spews is to attract and distract the voters, he knows full well that the only thing that matters is how he presents himself and how often people hear his name, all the rhetoric is completely meaningless.  At the end of the day Trump has only one goal, to win, and he will employ any means to do so, short of outright violating the law.