Board 8 > Freedom, Liberty, Ron Paul - New Domains of Freedom [dwmf]

(+) Yeah! (+)

I say go for it!

partly because I want to see you have a long lukewarm marriage with this girl that's practical and loveless
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EmoCombeeDancin posted...

I say go for it!

partly because I want to see you have a long lukewarm marriage with this girl that's practical and loveless

I mean this is what a normal person life looks like isn't it?

Most of my friends from high school ended up married to the first average-looking girl they dated in college. Can't be that bad of a life, can it?
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https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/969525362580484098?s=21

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, dont trade anymore-we win big. Its easy!

You guys know economics a lot better than I do. Is he right?
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yup. this is the one thing trump does right

I use the word "does" as loose as possible.
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SmartMuffin posted...

EmoCombeeDancin posted...

I say go for it!

partly because I want to see you have a long lukewarm marriage with this girl that's practical and loveless

I mean this is what a normal person life looks like isn't it?

Most of my friends from high school ended up married to the first average-looking girl they dated in college. Can't be that bad of a life, can it?

Nah I mean it might have sounded sarcastic, but as a pretty romantic person, I often wonder how much easier a marriage would be if there was no passion at the beginning. If there's nothing left to fade, then what does a late term marriage look like? Probably not bad by comparison.
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Santa does not have a biased view on marriage either
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Jakyl25 posted...

You guys know economics a lot better than I do. Is he right?

what do you think
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SmartMuffin posted...

EmoCombeeDancin posted...

I say go for it!

partly because I want to see you have a long lukewarm marriage with this girl that's practical and loveless

I mean this is what a normal person life looks like isn't it?

Most of my friends from high school ended up married to the first average-looking girl they dated in college. Can't be that bad of a life, can it?

So what's stopping you?
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foolm0r0n posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

You guys know economics a lot better than I do. Is he right?

what do you think

I dont know. Thats why Im asking people who know more about the subject than I do instead of just trusting my lefty friends.

I think my entire grasp of economics has come from this topic series.
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Apply the supply and demand curve
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Jakyl25 posted...

foolm0r0n posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

You guys know economics a lot better than I do. Is he right?

what do you think

I dont know. Thats why Im asking people who know more about the subject than I do instead of just trusting my lefty friends.

I think my entire grasp of economics has come from this topic series.

are you serious?

tariffs are completely and entirely awful

This is Trump's worst and dumbest position, by far.
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No you don't get it trade wars are GOOD AND EASY TO WIN!
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Why might someone believe that protectionist tariffs are good?

An inability to properly grasp how a globalized trading market works?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Why might someone believe that protectionist tariffs are good?

An inability to properly grasp how a globalized trading market works?

Mercantilism has long been popular, it is the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics that tends to cross party lines (Obama campaigned on how his awesome tariffs on tires were saving the industry while that dastardly greedy Mitt Romney wanted to put American tire employees out of business to benefit those darn Chinese!)
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Okay, so the issue is that trade, conceptually, is based on being mutually beneficial, so when your goal is to win at trade, you done goofed?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Okay, so the issue is that trade, conceptually, is based on being mutually beneficial, so when your goal is to win at trade, you done goofed?

It's not just that.

It's that looking at the "balance of trade" and saying "net exporter is winning and net importer is losing" is just fundamentally wrong.

Trump is literally complaining about the fact that every year, China sends us a bunch of useful products and machines, and in exchange, we mostly send them federal reserve notes.

If anyone is losing here, it's probably not the person who is getting a lot of useful goods in exchange for government IOUs...
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oh shit guys

the cute Bulgarian girl selected me as one of her mentors

welp, nice career I had there once...
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Jakyl25 posted...

I dont know. Thats why Im asking people who know more about the subject than I do instead of just trusting my lefty friends.

Basically an easy way to think about it is to take it to its logical conclusion.

If it's actually a good idea to add 25% steel tariffs, then that means an unmanipulated market is actually inferior. So then, what about the thousands of other markets which are unmanipulated? Bananas, concrete, paper, steak, programming, paint, whatever. What % tariffs should all those industries have? Maybe they should have % credits? If Trump knows best for steel, he knows best for all these too.

So either Trump has done an impossible amount of market research, considered all the exponential cross-cutting market effects of all industries on each other domestically and foreign with all the countries in the world, both currently and in foreseeing deep into future, and came to the smart and optimal conclusion that steel should have a 25% tariff while everything else is unaffected. Orrrrr he plucked a literal nugget of shit out his ass and is currently eating it to entertain his traditionalist blue collar base, like a chimpanzee at a unionized zoo.

Beyond that you can look at history and see how literally only terrible shit has come from tariffs and trade war. There are obviously winners in there, like in any war (I'll let you guess who the winners are in this case), but the cost is always in blood.
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SmartMuffin posted...

oh shit guys

the cute Bulgarian girl selected me as one of her mentors

welp, nice career I had there once...

I thought the whole reason you got into your industry was because it was super lenient with inappropriate power-abusing workplace sexual harassment. This could be your chance to make partner!
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SmartMuffin posted...

It's that looking at the "balance of trade" and saying "net exporter is winning and net importer is losing" is just fundamentally wrong.

Where the fuck does this idea even come from?
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people who don't understand that money is only good for stuff

spending money is losing money
receiving money is making money

I mean the psychology behind it is very obvious even if it is horrifically wrong
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redrocket_pub posted...

SmartMuffin posted...

It's that looking at the "balance of trade" and saying "net exporter is winning and net importer is losing" is just fundamentally wrong.

Where the fuck does this idea even come from?

It's literally 16th century mercantilism. Based on the idea that every nation's objective should be to collect the most gold.

Which made some small, semi-plausible amount of sense back when currency was literally gold and highly valued by all with little possibility of massive inflation. But makes zero fucking sense today with FRNs...
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Trump said he was gonna run the country like a business, so...!
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Maybe Trump has been playing too many RTS games
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If he played any RTS game he would know this wouldn't work at all because despite the insane complexity of real world economics, basic trade dynamics like this are obvious enough that they are used in tons of games that even children can understand.
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Jakyl25 posted...

I think my entire grasp of economics has come from this topic series.

spoilers: what most people in this topic series say isn't "economics."
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foolm0r0n posted...

If he played any RTS game he would know this wouldn't work at all because despite the insane complexity of real world economics, basic trade dynamics like this are obvious enough that they are used in tons of games that even children can understand.

Yeah, you don't win in Starcraft by sitting on a mountain of minerals (money). You win by building an army (useful goods). Having giant resource stockpiles that go unused is poor play.
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So thats why I was never any good at Age of Empires
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https://mises.org/wire/against-trumps-tariffs-0

I haven't read this yet - but Mises is basically never wrong, so treat it as an authority on "why tariffs are bad"
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SmartMuffin posted...

Mises is basically never wrong,

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-john-krasinski-jim-halpert-no-comment-gif-4812541
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SmartMuffin posted...

https://mises.org/wire/against-trumps-tariffs-0

I haven't read this yet - but Mises is basically never wrong, so treat it as an authority on "why tariffs are bad"

Thank you. I think I understand some of the general concepts. Some of these concepts are Greek to me though

For example, in the $5 tariff on British sweaters thought experiment:

The cost of British sweaters to the American consumer might thereby be forced so high that American manufacturers would find it profitable to enter the sweater business. But American consumers would be forced to subsidize this industry. On every American sweater they bought they would be forced in effect to pay a tax of $5 which would be collected from them in a higher price by the new sweater industry.

I dont understand why the new American sweater industry would charge more than the pre-tariff price of the British sweaters
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The point is that the tariff is set such that American sweaters would not exist (because they cannot be profitable) at the pre-tariff price of British sweaters. If the British sweaters cost $10 and zero American sweaters are produced, but a $5 tariff on British sweaters makes it so that American sweaters do start to get made and sold at $15 (the post-tariff price on British sweaters), that means you are basically paying a $5 tax, to the state, to support the existence of an American sweater industry.
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Okay, my problem was thinking that the American sweater industry didnt exist before because there was no opportunity to break into the market because people loved British sweaters so much and there was no money in trying to undercut $10 per sweater.

But then the tariff increases the price of British sweaters to $15, and now the American sweater market can exist and sell sweaters at $10 and make money like the British sweaters used to to. The forced increase in price of the BritSweats opens a window for being able to profitably undercut them.

I assume Im missing some crucial detail
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That's sort of the idea that pro-tariff people occasionally suggest (our industry just needs a brief chance to get going, then we can get rid of the tariff!) but of course it never actually happens.

If temporary undercutting was a viable strategy, someone would just do it of their own accord, without a government tariff.
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The crazy thing to me is the pro-tariff people going on TV and being like SO WHAT if soup and beer and cars are a LITTLE more expensive. No one will care!

I would assume that those things are priced the way they are as a result of lots of market research
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Jakyl25 posted...

The crazy thing to me is the pro-tariff people going on TV and being like SO WHAT if soup and beer and cars are a LITTLE more expensive. No one will care!

I would assume that those things are priced the way they are as a result of lots of market research

I mean, you're not wrong, but this is also the argument for things like targeted sales taxes, which are more of a left-wing cause.

And the entire reason tariffs do get political support is that in small enough amounts, people really don't care much. The whole reason it's politically viable is because the targeted interest group (steel workers, farmers, whatever) cares a whole lot and spends a lot of time and money arguing and buying political influence. But the average consumer ends up seeing prices to up by a few cents.

Like, if the price of sugar were to increase by 5 cents a pound tomorrow, would you really notice? Sugar plantation owners sure would.
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JBL just posted a blog making all of your points so good job
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Jakyl25 posted...

But then the tariff increases the price of British sweaters to $15, and now the American sweater market can exist and sell sweaters at $10 and make money like the British sweaters used to to. The forced increase in price of the BritSweats opens a window for being able to profitably undercut them.

It's more like: Brits can make sweaters at $10, Americans can make sweaters at $14.99. It's obvious that everyone would just buy Brit sweaters at this point. But if a tariff is introduced that makes Brit sweaters $15, then the American sweater at $14.99 is the obvious choice.

The American $14.99 sweater was always there, as an invisible potential option. The tariff doesn't change that at all. All it does is make the $14.99 sweater economically viable, and thus the production will actually happen.
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the 5$ tax is based on the presumption that the government actually chose a "perfectly" effective tariff but let's be real the government is incapable of being that competent. The only way the tax should be equivalent to the tariff is if the tariffed good is still cheaper than the domestic product. If the domestic product is actually now more "competitive" as intended the tax is some amount less than $5, unless I'm missing something here.

Tariffs still dumb tho, and obv a net loss on the economy. Just corporate welfare.
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https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/969956753134809089

I'd probably vote for the bullies
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/prager-university?utm_term=.fo7apRlLb#.cxPpw5POm

A relatively fair profile. I was a regular Prager listener when he started all of this and always considered him to be among the smartest and most decent of neocons, but even I never expected it to blow up and be this big...
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Buzzfeed in a Freedom topic?
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Wait, is Prager still Neocon?
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Of course he is - what else would he be?
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Hey, the right is in utter chaos. With tons of icons converting/flip flopping between Alt Right, Trumper, and "Libertarian" it's hard to keep track these days.
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HotDogButts posted...

If the domestic product is actually now more "competitive" as intended the tax is some amount less than $5, unless I'm missing something here.

Yeah which is why the article should've said a tax of $4.99 or something
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SmartMuffin posted...

https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/969956753134809089

I'd probably vote for the bullies

Those brands and names are so awesome. This is the main reason I want a parliamentary style congress in the US... imagine what american marketing could come up with.

I like the one that's literally PG Tips
https://www.englishteastore.com/media/catalog/product/cache/6/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/t/p/tpgt_40b_pg-tips-40-count-tea-bags.jpg
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PragerU does the exact same bad science and propaganda that national news does, it just has good presentation and rhetorical tricks. They get like 80% correct in most of their videos and then slip in some total garbage for the other 20%. It's the same style that other philosophy-based channels like Kurzgesagt do, although Prager seems much more intentionally malicious most of the time. Some of the people they bring in are good but that's just so supporters can have a handful of good examples when defending the shitty vast majority.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/376524-trump-on-new-diet-after-presidential-physical-report

Go on diet
Cuck to the left on gun control
Raise tariffs

SOMEONE GET THIS MAN A CHEESEBURGER!!!
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Elect a rich fat liberal from NYC
Get surprised when he does rich fat liberal things
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