Trump tariffs

DaveInDenver

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This is my last post on tariffs and then I am moving on to something else that will give me depression and anxiety. I have no control over tariffs so there is no point in being upset, just have to live life but the headline on this article I read today pretty much sums it up.

'We're All Dead': GOP Senator Reacts To Trump Tariffs​

Per the Huffington Post:
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) wasn’t concerned enough about President Donald Trump’s steep international tariffs to vote against them Wednesday — like some of his GOP colleagues — but did scold staunch supporters of the policy with a dire warning to multiple outlets.

“In the long run, we’re all dead,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Wednesday. “Short run matters, too. Nobody knows what the impact of these tariffs is going to be on the economy.”

I guess Sen Kennedy is invoking his inner Keynesian.

"The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again."

-- John Maynard Keynes (in his 1923 book The Tract on Monetary Reform)
 

DaveInDenver

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TL/DR: the dollar is worth what other countries/orgs are willing to "pay" for it, whether we like it or not.
That is an underlying question. Do you think China wants to be sitting on $3 trillion in U.S. Dollar currency reserves? In a healthy economy and exchange those Dollars would have some reason to recycle back to the U.S. for something we're exporting but it's only paper and wars we're offering. In a tit-for-tat trade war the surplus nation has always come out on the short end of the deal. Trump isn't stupid, or at least his economic advisors aren't and he/they seem to have a plan (despite what the useless news is saying, who can only run around like chicken littles). We're at trade deficits with almost every nation except Australia and UK. Probably the most critical industry that comes to mind is jet engines coming from Rolls-Royce. Crashing the Dollar is a real worry but then again are the BRICs ready to fill the void? What will? It will accelerate de-dollarization I assume but the U.S. has the leverage. None of this will be painless but the future wasn't bright anyway so what are the options?

Anyway, the movers and shakers, particular the Mag 7 techs (which combined are 30% of the Dow valuation) aren't being blindsided by this.

For example, these piece of news in the past few weeks. There's been announced $1 trillion in new domestic investment by the likes of Apple and Nvidia.




revised-major-tech-firms-making-us-investments.jpg

Michael Shellenberger had a good post on X about the stakes here. The globalization predatory class has sold the U.S. out. It's not a crime to look out for your own interests and country. Whether that's the case here or what, can't really know this early. Maybe it's just another phase of the global grift by the vultures, maybe not. Then the question that arises is, does it matter why if the outcomes are beneficial? The whole ends justify the means. Yeah, that usually ends up biting you in end. I dunno.

 
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RayRay27

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I guess Sen Kennedy is invoking his inner Keynesian.

"The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again."

-- John Maynard Keynes (in his 1923 book The Tract on Monetary Reform)
Damn Dave! Hitting me with some knowledge today!
 

KC Masterpiece

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Keynes bears a ton of responsibility for getting us into this situation. Modern monetary theory has been a huge driver in screwing our economy.
 

DaveInDenver

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Keynes bears a ton of responsibility for getting us into this situation. Modern monetary theory has been a huge driver in screwing our economy.
Keynesianism - Politicians hearing "governments should deficit spend" and thinking "Hold my beer! Trillion Dollar deficits must surely means we're doing it right."

"We are all Keynesians now."

See, it really does come full circle. Nixon repeated Milton Friedman's quote in 1971 when he took us off the gold standard and poked the first pin in Bretton Woods, kicking into overdrive what we know today as persistent and constant inflation (or from a matter of perspective, rampant Dollar devaluation).

Untitled.png
 
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fyffer

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Keynesianism - Politicians hearing "governments should deficit spend" and thinking "Hold my beer! Trillion Dollar deficits must surely means we're doing it right."

"We are all Keynesians now."

See, it really does come full circle. Nixon repeated Milton Friedman's quote in 1971 when he took us off the gold standard and poked the first pin in Bretton Woods, kicking into overdrive what we know today as persistent and constant inflation (or from a matter of perspective, rampant Dollar devaluation).

Untitled.png
Help me make some sense out of this Dave, heres the White house Tarif Formula. Me no comprende
1743789091300.png
 

RayRay27

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Nah, it's a pretty well known in economic circles, the Notorious J.M.K or something.
Dave I can't even spell sirculs bro! At this point I just assume everything you post is truth.
 

Cruisertrash

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but it's only paper and wars we're offering.
Ain’t that the American way! Export our garbage and our wars haha.

In a tit-for-tat trade war the surplus nation has always come out on the short end of the deal.
Here’s a thought. Running a surplus isn’t something big businesses like. It’s bad for business. The input costs are there but the full revenue is not because some product is sitting on a shelf. Businesses are forever trying to get rid of surplus. I don’t know if I feel that they’re getting the “short end”, as if other nations are screwing them over - it’s not like a company is forced to make a surplus. They know the economy ebbs and flows and if they scaled up during a rise, well, they have nobody to blame but themselves when they’re overly scaled during a downturn. The fallacy of infinite growth and how that ties into shareholder value also comes into play here, a prime driver of surplus. More more more isn’t always a sustainable business model, as much as that’s the overriding business strategy of our time.

This is why credit is so popular. That’s on both a global scale with respect to trade, and on a personal level so we can keep buying junk, It’s a release valve for surplus so the graph of profit over time can keep going up and shareholder dividends can march along. Do that enough and oops! Now somebody owns all your debt! When you party hard, the party can only go on for so long - and you have nobody to blame but yourself. Borrowed money, borrowed time.

Trump isn't stupid, or at least his economic advisors aren't and he/they seem to have a plan (despite what the useless news is saying, who can only run around like chicken littles). We're at trade deficits with almost every nation except Australia and UK.
The relative intelligence of these maneuvers, I think, is dictated by who they’re serving.

Crashing the Dollar is a real worry but then again are the BRICs ready to fill the void?
That project probably isn’t completely ready yet, but there’s nothing like an emergency or deadline to kick yourself into action. Voids are often filled rapidly. My best school papers were written the night before they were due. Pressure or a deadline is great for productivity. I see this as playing with fire. We tell the world “fvck you, you’re going to do things are way” and leave a huge void by tanking the global economy. What if they call our bluff and manage to fill the void? That’s a huge gamble. And who’s on the hook for it? You and I my friend. To the people making these we’re probably less even than a bargaining chip, we’re nothing, and they’ll weather the storm just fine.

What will? It will accelerate de-dollarization I assume but the U.S. has the leverage. None of this will be painless but the future wasn't bright anyway so what are the options?
Options … I have complaints about the way things have gone for years under any party’s leadership, but if this continues I know for me personally, my life will be significantly worse off. So just reducing this to a simple before versus after it seems like maybe we weren’t out of options. Things weren’t great but my life wasn’t materially bad before.

Anyway, the movers and shakers, particular the Mag 7 techs (which combined are 30% of the Dow valuation) aren't being blindsided by this.
I’m scratching my head about the lack of public outcry from CEOs. There must be a reason most of them haven’t been vocal about this. Are they in on something we don’t know?

For example, these piece of news in the past few weeks. There's been announced $1 trillion in new domestic investment by the likes of Apple and Nvidia.




revised-major-tech-firms-making-us-investments.jpg
Announcements =/= investment. I’m a pessimist so I’ll believe it when I see it. Don’t get me wrong, those things are good news. But there have been announcements like that in the past that never materialized.


globalization predatory class
Who dat?

has sold the U.S. out.
Somebody has, that’s for sure!

It's not a crime to look out for your own interests and country.
Country equals who exactly?

the vultures
Who dat?

The whole ends justify the means. Yeah, that usually ends up biting you in end. I dunno.
Some pretty bad dudes have said that kind of stuff before. I’m mostly thinking of genocidal dictators here. Again, we’re less than pawns in their game. Not just economically, but in broader terms, perhaps theoretically. There are people in power all over the world who absolutely do not bat an eye to the suffering of regular Joe Schmoes. Their “end” might serve only them, and if their “means” hurts you and I … they aren’t sweating it. It’s happened over and over in history.

Good stuff Dave. Enjoying this.
 
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DaveInDenver

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Ain’t that the American way! Export our garbage and our wars haha.


Here’s a thought. Running a surplus isn’t something big businesses like. It’s bad for business. The input costs are there but the full revenue is not because some product is sitting on a shelf. Businesses are forever trying to get rid of surplus. I don’t know if I feel that they’re getting the “short end”, as if other nations are screwing them over - it’s not like a company is forced to make a surplus. They know the economy ebbs and flows and if they scaled up during a rise, well, they have nobody to blame but themselves when they’re overly scaled during a downturn. The fallacy of infinite growth and how that ties into shareholder value also comes into play here, a prime driver of surplus. More more more isn’t always a sustainable business model, as much as that’s the overriding business strategy of our time.

This is why credit is so popular. That’s on both a global scale with respect to trade, and on a personal level so we can keep buying junk, It’s a release valve for surplus so the graph of profit over time can keep going up and shareholder dividends can march along. Do that enough and oops! Now somebody owns all your debt! When you party hard, the party can only go on for so long - and you have nobody to blame but yourself. Borrowed money, borrowed time.
Credit can be a drug but it's also expedient. In an economy of depreciating money value to not use credit is to fall behind. Even if you can pay off a mortgage it's dumb to do if you can put that cash to work in some other instrument that makes more than your interest rate. If you don't lose your head you grow over time and reasonably minimize liquidity risk even at the individual level you can carry-trade. You won't end up breaking the Bank of England like Soros. Or maybe you can take over the world.
I’m scratching my head about the lack of public outcry from CEOs. There must be a reason most of them haven’t been vocal about this. Are they in on something we don’t know?
Announcements =/= investment. I’m a pessimist so I’ll believe it when I see it. Don’t get me wrong, those things are good news. But there have been announcements like that in the past that never materialized.
Sure. Well, so far, Apple's main collaborator is Foxconn, who has spent a real $33 million to buy the property that is believed to be the location for this new Apple campus near Houston. This transaction happened late November 2024, which is why I think Trump has been working on the basics of his plan for a while, maybe as far back as 2020. He's must have had the CEOs in the loop for a while, certainly it would seem since Musk jumped on board, when Catz (Oracle), Bezo and others at least become seemingly neutral. Nothing that's happened since Inauguration Day is fly by the seat of his pants. It's just too rapid and focused to be reactionary. Agree with it or not this is a planned machine that was put in place a while ago.



Country equals who exactly?
In this context the country is the political subdivision who we prima facie are being governed under. The job (as it is) of the president and Congress is to work for the citizens of these united States. Why should it be surprising when they do?
Some pretty bad dudes have said that kind of stuff before. I’m mostly thinking of genocidal dictators here. Again, we’re less than pawns in their game. Not just economically, but in broader terms, perhaps theoretically. There are people in power all over the world who absolutely do not bat an eye to the suffering of regular Joe Schmoes. Their “end” might serve only them, and if their “means” hurts you and I … they aren’t sweating it. It’s happened over and over in history.
You shouldn't think like that. It seems like the little guy gets crushed but Keynes himself recognized that's not true. Aggregate demand is the grand poobah and the whole system falls apart when even just a fraction of people decide to change habits. Everything continues until it doesn't.
 

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fyffer

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Help me make some sense out of this Dave, heres the White house Tarif Formula. Me no comprende
1743789091300.png
As apparently you have a wealth of data. Highly educated, respected and gifted with a well rounded knowledge base.





Thought you properly attended the Trump University as well to your other Scholars and knew the Secret to the formula and would share.





My thought was, if there was a socioeconomic effect and consequences calculated in the equation involved.
A Micro, Macro and Mezzo considerations National and Global considerations.
Dave I can't even spell sirculs bro! At this point I just assume everything you post
 

Cruisertrash

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Credit can be a drug but it's also expedient. In an economy of depreciating money value
Ah, but because of the drive for infinite growth, inflation, et al. A victim of our own construct.
to not use credit is to fall behind.
…a victim of our own construct. In a very detached and theoretical way I’ve often wonder what the value of anything - good, service, raw material - is when everything’s based on credit. At a very base level, go back to cave men and the value of somebody carving a rock into a bead might have been worth a one skinned rabbit. Asking to take the bead now in exchange for a rabbit later kind of makes sense. But when you extrapolate to the point we are now with derivatives, shorts, credit default swaps, countries owning more sovereign debt than the entire economic output of all the humans in history prior to 1900 … and it starts looking like pure gambling. Then I start question the tangible value that any of that stuff inherently has, or even the value those things are supposedly based on or represent. But that’s far off topic.

Even if you can pay off a mortgage it's dumb to do if you can put that cash to work in some other instrument that makes more than your interest rate.
Leaving built equity and real estate as its own investment out of the equation.

You won't end up breaking the Bank of England like Soros.
Uh oh, boogeyman mentioned!

Sure. Well, so far, Apple's main collaborator is Foxconn, who has spent a real $33 million to buy the property that is believed to be the location for this new Apple campus near Houston. This transaction happened late November 2024,
Sure, I’m plenty familiar with Foxconn. They own the factory in China where they had to install suicide nets so the employees would stop defenestrating themselves. $33M is peanuts to these guys and investments happen from time to time without the desired project coming to fruition. Hopefully it does happen! But again, the pessimist in me will believe it when I see it.

which is why I think Trump has been working on the basics of his plan for a while, maybe as far back as 2020. He's must have had the CEOs in the loop for a while, certainly it would seem since Musk jumped on board, when Catz (Oracle), Bezo and others at least become seemingly neutral.
Bezos is interesting since his whole business model is to sell imported Chinese junk to Americans. I think it was discussed above vis-a-vis the 2008 real estate market crash, but I wonder if when the economy tanks it’s just setting up the big players to further consolidate and grow market share, since they would be best positioned to take advantage of such a thing. There’s no way of knowing if that’s the intent, but it would certainly keep them mum since they’d benefit directly from it.


Nothing that's happened since Inauguration Day is fly by the seat of his pants. It's just too rapid and focused to be reactionary. Agree with it or not this is a planned machine that was put in place a while ago.

This is way off topic and I strongly disagree. Different conversation for a different time.
In this context the country is the political subdivision who we prima facie are being governed under. The job (as it is) of the president and Congress is to work for the citizens of these united States. Why should it be surprising when they do?
Their interests are far different from ours, which is why - left or right, of any stripe - they so often don’t work for us. It’s a nice thought, sure, but they’ve almost always been different bands playing the same tune. Case in point, yesterday I saw a few things that several members of Congress on BOTH sides of the aisle fared pretty well in the stock market over the past few days. Meanwhile my meager 401k just became meagerer.

You shouldn't think like that. It seems like the little guy gets crushed but Keynes himself recognized that's not true. Aggregate demand is the grand poobah and the whole system falls apart when even just a fraction of people decide to change habits. Everything continues until it doesn't.
The people in charge would abandon Keynes, Friedman, the entire Chicago School, or anybody else if it didn’t suit them. I don’t think they beholden themselves to ideologies unless it can be used as a convenient tool.
 

Burt88

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The mention of credit and debt keeps coming up and why it's so prominent in the current economy. Since interest and digital transaction fees make up the bulk of bank earnings and easy credit to buy goods locks in market share the market can be manipulated. I'm not too intelligent on the subject but I see the patterns and I've long known our current economy is that of transactions, not production, thus why the tariffs are so stupid. Since the 80's we've had to increasingly rely on credit to function in a normal sense and we've watched prices rise exponentially all while earning interest for the lenders. Why do you think vehicles are so outrageously expensive? Still the true remedy lies with the consumer to stop buying new even for just a little while. Stop buying from companies that don't care about you. Force the market to change rather than follow where easy credit is given.
 

DanInDenver

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Foxconn in 2017 that was to invest $10B in WI and create 13,000 jobs to build LCD panels. To date an estimated $1B was spent and ~1300 jobs created. Fortunately the $3B in tax incentives was performance based and the targets were not hit so little if any was paid out.
The promised factories may not go to where rural America or cities need them if they can’t provide the cheap labor and incentives. Even if they do will they come to fruition if the market changes and the business decides to abandon the project.
Will labor move to where the jobs are or do they expect it to come to there small town?
 

Cruisertrash

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Foxconn in 2017 that was to invest $10B in WI and create 13,000 jobs to build LCD panels. To date an estimated $1B was spent and ~1300 jobs created. Fortunately the $3B in tax incentives was performance based and the targets were not hit so little if any was paid out.
The promised factories may not go to where rural America or cities need them if they can’t provide the cheap labor and incentives. Even if they do will they come to fruition if the market changes and the business decides to abandon the project.
Will labor move to where the jobs are or do they expect it to come to there small town?
That’s tangible. Thanks for the example, and thanks for finally completing that loop in my mind - I remember when that was announced but never followed up on it.

Subsidies to attract business is another subject that really gets my goat too. Amazon is the prime example for me. Cities have to compete by offering free or reduced price land packages, along with tax forgiveness for X number of years, and all these other things that tax payers ultimately foot the bill for … just to pay workers low enough that they need social services. Which are also tax payer funded. So we shoulder part of the cost of companies like that doing business. If you don’t offer those incentives to the likes of Amazon a city loses out on the jobs at all. They force municipalities (and thus tax payers) into a race to the bottom. Sad.
 

AlpineAccess

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Help me make some sense out of this Dave, heres the White house Tarif Formula. Me no comprende
1743789091300.png
1744038642170.png


1744038809758.png

1744038832579.png

1744038864865.png


This is a trade imbalance equation and not a tariff rate equation.

Country X imports 10b from US
US imports 20b from country X.
They claim country X charges us 50% tariffs. ("Formula" = 10/20) is 50%?

Country X has an economy 1/1000th the size of the US market and so they buy less from us than we buy from them.
 
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BritKLR

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And why shouldn't we hold other countries accountable for their tariffs?
 

AlpineAccess

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And why shouldn't we hold other countries accountable for their tariffs?
These are trade imbalances noted above. South Korea is a smaller country than the US, for example.

It's saying the calculation for the tariffs doesn't tie out. Not that they shouldn't exist.
 
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