I have written before that I see an analogy between Trump's schemes and blackjack tourney strategy. Because in blackjack tournaments the expert counter who plays normally correct strategy loses to the bad player who concentrates on plays that hope to stay slightly ahead of the expert without regard to their correctness.

I guess most of you think that the steel and aluminum tariffs are a bad idea. But will it gain more votes than it costs him?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/04/trum...nd-unions.html

I'd love to hear Trump say "that's a spicy meatball" in an exaggerated Italian accent.

With all the BernieBros on this forum I would think that most would support TRUMP on these tariffs.

Bernie Sanders on Foreign Trade - Again

Quote:

Don't believe that unfettered trade creates U.S. jobs

CLINTON: I voted for a multinational trade agreement, but I opposed CAFTA because I did not believe it was in the best interests of the workers of America. I did hope that the TPP, negotiated by this administration, I was holding out hope that it would be the kind of trade agreement that I was looking for. Once I saw the outcome, I opposed it. We are 55 of the world's population. We have to trade with the other 95%.
SANDERS: I do not believe in unfettered free trade. I believe in fair trade which works for the middle class and working families, not just large multinational corporations. I was on the picket line in opposition to NAFTA. We heard people tell us how many jobs would be created. I didn't believe that for a second because I understood what the function of NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, and the TPP is, it's to say to American workers, hey, you are now competing against people in Vietnam who make 56 cents an hour minimum wage. This is an area where the secretary and I have disagreements
Source: MSNBC Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire , Feb 4, 2016
I disagree with Obama on TPP, but he's done a great job

Q: President Obama is for the Asian trade deal known as TPP. Is President Obama, based on this policy, a progressive?
SANDERS: If we remember where this country was seven years ago, 800,000 jobs lost monthly, $1.4 trillion dollar deficit, the financial system on the verge of collapse. I think that President Obama has done a fantastic job. Do I think President Obama is a progressive? Yes, but I disagree with him on issues including the trade agreement, but I think he has done an excellent job.
Source: MSNBC Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire , Feb 4, 2016
I will take on corporations that take their jobs to China

There are many corporations who have turned their backs on the American worker, who have said, if I can make another nickel in profit by going to China and shutting down in the United States of America, that's what I will do. I will do my best to transform our trade policy and take on these corporations who want to invest in low-income countries around the world rather than in the United States of America.
Source: MSNBC Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire , Feb 4, 2016
I strongly opposed NAFTA and DOMA from their inception

I have strongly criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Defense of Marriage Act since a certain presidential couple enacted them back in the 90's. Six months ago, when I began my campaign and announced we were going to take on these types of legislation, as well as the political and economic establishment of this country, very few people knew who I was. Well, in the last six months, things have changed.
Source: ABC News on 2015 presidential Democratic hopefuls in Iowa , Oct 25, 2015
Does not support ANY free trade agreements

Q: What do you think about the new TPP trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
SANDERS: I voted against NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China. I think they have been a disaster for the American worker. A lot of corporations that shut down here move abroad. Working people understand that after NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China we have lost millions of decent paying jobs. Since 2001, 60,000 factories in America have been shut down. We're in a race to the bottom, where our wages are going down. Is all of that attributable to trade? No. Is a lot of it? Yes. TPP was written by corporate America and the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. That's what this trade agreement is about. I do not want American workers to competing against people in Vietnam who make 56 cents an hour for a minimum wage.
Q: So basically, there's never been a single trade agreement this country's negotiated that you've been comfortable with?
SANDERS: That's correct.
Source: Meet the Press 2015 interview moderated by Chuck Todd , Oct 11, 2015

China trade has led to loss of 3M American jobs so far

Q: What does Bernie's track record look like with regard to Chinese trade policy?
A: Time and time again, Bernie has voted against free trade deals with China. In 1999, Bernie voted in the House against granting China "Most Favored Nation" status. In 2000, Bernie voted against Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China which aimed to create jobs, but instead lead to the loss of more than 3 million jobs for Americans.
Q: Maybe these trade agreements aren't all great for Americans, but don't they provide millions of jobs for Chinese workers?
A: Bernie firmly rejects the idea that America's standard of living must drop in order to see a raise in the standard of living in China.
Q: So what does Bernie propose we do?
A: Instead of passing such trade deals again and again, Bernie argues we must "develop trade policies which demand that American corporations create jobs here, and not abroad."
Source: 2016 grassroots campaign website FeelTheBern.org, "Issues" , Sep 5, 2015
Priority of trade deals should be helping American workers

Bernie Sanders believes that the top priority of any trade deal should be to help American workers. Unfortunately, as Bernie has warned year after year, American trade policy over the last 30 years has done just the opposite. Multinational corporations- who have helped to write most of these trade deals--have benefited greatly while millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas. American trade policy should place the needs of American workers and small businesses first.
Source: 2016 grassroots campaign website FeelTheBern.org, "Issues" , Sep 5, 2015
Base trade policy on working families, not multinationals

Q: The president says that expanding trade helps service industries & opens new markets. You talk about workers that would lose their job from trade. They say this will open up markets that will increase jobs.
SANDERS: I have been hearing that argument for the last 25 years. I heard it about NAFTA. I heard it about CAFTA. I heard it about permanent normal trade relations with China. Here is the fact. Since 2001, we have lost almost 60,000 factories and millions of good-paying jobs. I'm not saying trade is the only reason, but it is a significant reason why Americans are working longer hours for low wages and why we are seeing our jobs go to China and other low-wage countries. And, finally, what you're seeing in Congress are Democrats and some Republicans beginning to stand up and say, maybe we should have a trade policy which represents the working families of this country, that rebuilds our manufacturing base, not than just representing the CEOs of large multinational corporations.
Source: CBS Face the Nation 2015 coverage:2016 presidential hopefuls , Jun 14, 2015
Wrong, wrong, wrong that trade deals create jobs here

Q: As secretary of state, Clinton said she favored a trade deal with our 11 Pacific partners & fast track authority to make that happen. Is that an issue for you?
SANDERS: In the House and Senate, I voted against all of these terrible trade agreements, NAFTA, CAFTA, permanent normal trades relations with China. Republicans and Democrats, they say, "oh, we'll create all these jobs by having a trade agreement with China." Well, the answer is, they were wrong, wrong, wrong. Over the years, we have lost millions of decent paying jobs. These trade agreements have forced wages down in America so the average worker in America today is working longer hours for lower wages.
Q: So, is that a litmus test for you, to see whether or not Clinton is going to come out against the TPP?
SANDERS: I hope very much the secretary comes out against it. I think we do not need to send more jobs to low wage countries. I think corporate America has to start investing in this country and create decent paying jobs here.
Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls , Apr 19, 2015
End disastrous NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China

Since 2001 we have lost more than 60,000 factories in this country, and more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs. We must end our disastrous trade policies (NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, etc.) which enable corporate America to shut down plants in this country and move to China and other low-wage countries. We need to end the race to the bottom and develop trade policies which demand that American corporations create jobs here, and not abroad.

.....
Impose tariffs against countries which manipulate currency.

Sanders signed Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act
Amends the Tariff Act of 1930 to include as a "countervailable subsidy" requiring action under a countervailing duty or antidumping duty proceeding the benefit conferred on merchandise imported into the US from foreign countries with fundamentally undervalued currency.
Defines "benefit conferred" as the difference between:
the amount of currency provided by a foreign country in which the subject merchandise is produced; and
the amount of currency such country would have provided if the real effective exchange rate of its currency were not fundamentally undervalued.
Determines that the currency of a foreign country is fundamentally undervalued if for an 18-month period:
the government of the country engages in protracted, large-scale intervention in one or more foreign exchange markets
the country's real effective exchange rate is undervalued by at least 5%
the country has experienced significant and persistent global current account surpluses; and
the country's government has foreign asset reserves exceeding the amount necessary to repay all its debt obligations.

Here's the problem, the tariffs will lead to bad GDP numbers and poor S&P returns thus losing him the idiot Republicans who claimed that the great economy was Trump's doing

No.

So does DS pay people to write terrible content for him or what is going on here.

I'm hoping trump tweets tonight that he wants to dismantle NAFTA as well, for selfish reasons of course..

The tariffs are a bad idea because they will hurt the economy. They may also win him more votes than the economic damage causes him to lose. I hate populism.

How is this guy not banned yet?

While I agree that tariffs are bad for the economy overall, it's clear that international trade doesn't benefit the millions of people whose own prospects have worsened. These people deserve hate because they aren't willing to vote in your economic best interest?

So lets take away the blackjack tourney/politics aspect of my OP. Lets just discuss the fact that a lot of Democrats and unions like the tariffs while it seems like every two plus twoer agrees with the Republicans. What's going on? Are there any other issues like that?

The neo-liberals run the DNC. I seriously doubt there are very many pro-tariff members of the Democratic congressional delegation at this time. Unions are practically nonexistent in the private sector and public employees aren't working in manufacturing.

Nuclear power.

This is probably the first good post David has had in a while. I say that because of some esoteric math or poker analogy this gets to the heart of the issue.

OK. Also thinking that most of the beliefs of Islam are incorrect.

How could the beliefs of any religion be incorrect when none of them are, in fact, correct?

As soon as I heard reports that Trump intended to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum, I recalled a previous time in our economic history when something similar to this was tried: The 1930's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%...ley_Tariff_Act

Several theories have been advanced as to what caused the "Great Depression" of the 1930's - an economic calamity that my mother constantly reminds me of since she lived through it. Her most frequently repeated memory is that "nobody had any money" which makes sense as the unemployment rate at the time of the Great Depression was over 20 percent.

The first (incorrect) theory is that the stock market crash of October 1929 "caused" the Great Depression. Most economists and historians dispute this, generally agreeing that the stock market crash did not cause the economic strife that followed. Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman, insists that the failure of the central bank, (i.e. the Federal Reserve), to step in and "save" failing banks was the main cause of the Great Depression. (Mr. Bernanke wrote his Ph.D thesis at Princeton on the Great Depression. He has a firm conviction that the massive wave of bank failures that swept the country led directly to the massive fall in production, employment and lack of confidence which plagued the nation until World War II. It was this conviction, that the central bank made a terrible mistake by letting the banks fail, which led Bernanke to spearhead TARP and the bank bailouts during the 2008-2010 financial crisis.) A third theory, believed by some but not all economists, is that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act either caused (or exacerbated) the Great Depression.

Reading the Wikipedia article (cited above) a big difference I notice between the 1930's and now is the amount of foreign trade - as a percentage of annual GDP - that was going on then versus now. According to the article, somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 percent of GNP was exports. The United States was not selling that many airplanes (Boeing) and agricultural crops to the rest of the world. We weren't importing oil from the Middle East - or not in the volumes and quantities that we are today. Most cars were made (and sold) domestically. Today it's different. I don't know what the percentages are, but a higher percentage of GDP is directly attributable to exports and imports. If Trump goes through with these threatened tariffs, (and threatened retaliation occurs), the Big Question will be: How much does GDP contract?

Trump says that trade wars are "easy to win". History suggests that trade wars aren't helpful. I suppose we're about to find out. Politically, it's a master stroke political move with Trump's base. A lot of those laid off steel workers believe Trump is going to get their $30.00/hour jobs back. Those jobs (at those wages) will probably never come back - even with the imposition of tariffs. It's a sure bet that prices for cars and anything made from steel or aluminum will go up. Imposing tariffs will have the same effect as raising taxes. In the short term this may be a political winner for Trump, but let's see what a majority of Americans are thinking three years from now when Trump is up for re-election and they're having to pay an extra $1,000 to $2,500 for a new car.

So you're recommendation is to sell your stock positions and even go short.

So you reject Bernie Sander's positions on trade right?

My're thoughts are that I doubt these tariffs will last very long and they may not even be implemented.

An increase in new car prices isn't likely to provoke a populist revolt against Trump. Fewer than 20 million new cars are sold in the US each year, so you're taking 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 households. This is not a daily concern for most Americans.

Furthermore, most of Trump's cult base will never under any circumstances attribute something like increasing prices or a decline in the stock market to his idiotic policies. The most deluded and insular will just lap up whatever story he tells about how actually prices are up because of the Mexican Muslim Commie Nazi boogeymen. The ostensibly smarter Trump supporters will twist themselves into knots trying to create a narrative where actually the crashing economy is part of Trump's secret plan to win the next election against Democrat nominee Condoleeza Rice.

Here's an interesting Fortune magazine article which suggests that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act may have, indeed, "caused" the Great Depression.

http://fortune.com/2018/03/04/did-ta...at-depression/

Trump's a gambler, but one thing's for sure: If these tariffs result in the kind of major economic disruption hinted about in the article; he won't stay "popular" (or re-electable) very long.

I somehow doubt that lots of unions in the auto industry and other metalworking industries are in favor of tariffs on steel and aluminum. DUCY?

Do you think the tariffs are a good idea or not?

My own personal opinion is that, in lieu of tariffs, any country that wants to do business with the United States must at least meet, if not exceed, the labor safety and environmental protections offered here.

This would allow each country to continue to produce the good for which they have a comparative advantage with the added bonus of reducing environmental degradation. It would also mitigate the brutal exploitation of third world labor.