Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:59 am

ochotona wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:32 am
pmward wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:17 am
But at the end of the day that's only part of the reason. The real reason he wants to do this, his base has an irrational and super strong hatred for Mexico. I think that his base honestly would vote to blast Mexico off of the earth if they had the opportunity. At least in my own experience, the Trump followers I personally know fit that bill. So anything he can do to stick it to Mexico gets him credit from his base.
An advanced European country went off the rails too, for 12+ years. 1/3 of them watched in fear as 1/3 of them killed or suppressed the other 1/3. We're going in that direction, too.
Yep, Ray Dalio has a lot published the last few years about that specifically. Populism and nationalism, especially when they become global phenomenon like they are now, never end well. It almost always ends in some kind of repression and war.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by shekels » Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:51 pm

pmward wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:17 am
shekels wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:15 am
Ok this is what I think is happening. Trump is wanting the Fed to cut rates,he has tweeted as much. He wants the market/economy to look good before the next elections (window dressing).So to get that Liquidity injected into the system to raise the markets, he is trying to in a round about way force the FED to comply. If tariffs bring jobs back and stop illegal immigration, GREAT. There is more here than meets the eye.
As silly as it is to play Russian roulette with the Fed, I do think that this does have some effect on what he is doing. I have heard this theory before from some people that have ties to Washington. He wants both lower interest rates and QE for his re-election bid, so he is definitely trying to force the Fed's hand. However, will it be too late? Will they respond enough? It's a dangerous and risky game he is playing there.

But at the end of the day that's only part of the reason. The real reason he wants to do this, his base has an irrational and super strong hatred for Mexico. I think that his base honestly would vote to blast Mexico off of the earth if they had the opportunity. At least in my own experience, the Trump followers I personally know fit that bill. So anything he can do to stick it to Mexico gets him credit from his base.
It is very good probability that the FED will reduce rates in the near future so the tariffs will give a nudge. Now along the lines of Trump supporters it is very sad that the Trump followers that you know, think this way against Mexico. Is it a Regional thing that has produced this hatred IDK. Here where I am from in Texas the Trump base that I know thinks NO such thing about Mexico or Central America for that matter. In fact Trump base would like to see these countries prosper. The people of these South American countries just want a better life for themselves and families. So with so much Migration Legal borders be damned. Now the Government of Mexico may be a different story, but the same can be said about the US govt. Bat S crazy. If we want a sovereign country it is up to the U.S. to provide it. Illegal Immigration is not a new issue, this that gone on since Before Ronald Reagan.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:42 pm

shekels wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:51 pm
pmward wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:17 am
shekels wrote:
Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:15 am
Ok this is what I think is happening. Trump is wanting the Fed to cut rates,he has tweeted as much. He wants the market/economy to look good before the next elections (window dressing).So to get that Liquidity injected into the system to raise the markets, he is trying to in a round about way force the FED to comply. If tariffs bring jobs back and stop illegal immigration, GREAT. There is more here than meets the eye.
As silly as it is to play Russian roulette with the Fed, I do think that this does have some effect on what he is doing. I have heard this theory before from some people that have ties to Washington. He wants both lower interest rates and QE for his re-election bid, so he is definitely trying to force the Fed's hand. However, will it be too late? Will they respond enough? It's a dangerous and risky game he is playing there.

But at the end of the day that's only part of the reason. The real reason he wants to do this, his base has an irrational and super strong hatred for Mexico. I think that his base honestly would vote to blast Mexico off of the earth if they had the opportunity. At least in my own experience, the Trump followers I personally know fit that bill. So anything he can do to stick it to Mexico gets him credit from his base.
It is very good probability that the FED will reduce rates in the near future so the tariffs will give a nudge. Now along the lines of Trump supporters it is very sad that the Trump followers that you know, think this way against Mexico. Is it a Regional thing that has produced this hatred IDK. Here where I am from in Texas the Trump base that I know thinks NO such thing about Mexico or Central America for that matter. In fact Trump base would like to see these countries prosper. The people of these South American countries just want a better life for themselves and families. So with so much Migration Legal borders be damned. Now the Government of Mexico may be a different story, but the same can be said about the US govt. Bat S crazy. If we want a sovereign country it is up to the U.S. to provide it. Illegal Immigration is not a new issue, this that gone on since Before Ronald Reagan.
I'm in the southwest region, same as you. I know plenty of Trump supporters (including some family) in AZ, TX, and southern CA and all of them have a very strong dislike for Mexico. I even know a couple up in MI, my hometown, and they share the same views. It may indeed be that the people I know just happen to be that way. But it seems more than simply coincidence to me. /shrugs. It may also be worth mentioning that these people are mostly blue collar workers that feel personally harmed and threatened by foreigners (insert South Park "they took our jurbs"). For better or worse, Trump has taken that fear and hatred and used it to his advantage. Matter of fact, I don't think he would have gotten elected without it.

Well I think he is trying to push for easing, but whether or not the Fed actually does it is another story. Don't forget that these tariffs will cause CPI increase, which if the Fed actually stays apolitical and sticks to their dual mandate would actually cause them to be more tempted to tighten. Also, look what happened back in December when he tried to bully the Fed. They hiked simply to spite him. He put them in a position they had to hike or else be accused of no longer being an independent entity. Without Trump trying to publicly bully Powell I don't think we would have gotten that December hike. But in the end Trump had nothing to lose because after bullying them he could always use them as a scapegoat. Trump is not out for what is best for the country, Trump is out for what is best for Trump. I mean, he is very publicly calling for the Fed to print money simply to buy himself re-election. That's not exactly what a man of integrity would do now is it? In the tariffs he is indeed trying to intentionally cause a liquidity squeeze so he can force the Fed's hand. Not exactly what a great leader that was truly putting America before himself would do, is it?
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:07 am

I'm reminded of that study that showed that, while conservatives were able to articulate liberals viewpoints, liberals were unable to comprehend how conservatives thought. You guys are really reaching here :o

In other border news:
Border authorities nabbed a group of 116 illegal immigrants from Africa this week, saying it’s the first time they’ve found Africans taking advantage of the large-group tactic Central American migrants have learned to abuse.

The Africans were caught Thursday night near the border crossing in Del Rio, Texas — though instead of presenting themselves at the port of entry, they jumped the border, an official told reporters.

Like Central American groups, this one was comprised of children and families, and appeared to be attempting to exploit the same loopholes the Central Americans discovered they could use to gain an illegal foothold in the U.S. and escape deportation.

“Bring a child, get released,” said a Customs and Border Protection official.

CBP said the group included people from Angola, Cameroon and Congo. link
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:42 am

I guess if I were liberal that might be true; alas I'm not. There are quite a few conservatives out there that do not like Trump. It also was not that long ago that the "conservatives" were the ones that were pro free trade and pro immigration because both are good for the economy and business. It wasn't that long ago that "conservatives" were claiming it was unconstitutional that Obama was taking liberties with his power and trying to force things through, yet now they cheer when Trump does the same thing only arguably worse. It wasn't that long ago that "conservatives" were complaining about the budget and the deficit, now they are the ones cheering for both going to hell. It wasn't that long ago that "conservatives" were upset that the government was printing money through QE, now they are cheering Trump as he tries to bully the Fed into doing it. It wasn't that long ago that the idea of a political figure trying to get the Fed to print money to buy his election would have offended every "conservative" to their core, yet today they all support Trump doing it.

By "not that long ago" I really mean just 3-4 years ago, prior to Trump. My how times have changed. This new "conservative" view does not make any sense to me, to me it goes against every "conservative" fundamental I've ever known, and I do not support it one bit. I am an independent, and while there are things I agree with and disagree with on both sides of the isle, I consider myself to be more on the "conservative" side (at least old school conservative, I’m not so sure about this modern conservative views mentioned above). I'm definitely not a fan of Trump though. I generally dislike him as a person; I don’t trust him, I don’t think he has any integrity, I don’t think he is a good leader, I don’t think he is a good person, I have serious questions about his sanity and mental stability, history has proven him time and time again to be a liar and a cheat, and I don’t think he has any interest beyond self interest.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by shekels » Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:24 am

pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:42 am


By "not that long ago" I really mean just 3-4 years ago, prior to Trump. My how times have changed. This new "conservative" view does not make any sense to me, to me it goes against every "conservative" fundamental I've ever known, and I do not support it one bit. I am an independent, and while there are things I agree with and disagree with on both sides of the isle, I consider myself to be more on the "conservative" side (at least old school conservative, I’m not so sure about this modern conservative views mentioned above). I'm definitely not a fan of Trump though. I generally dislike him as a person; I don’t trust him, I don’t think he had any integrity, I don’t think he is a good leader, I don’t think he is a good person, I have serious questions about his sanity and mental stability, history has proven him time and time again to be a liar and a cheat, and I don’t think he has any interest beyond self interest.
I do not believe Trump is a true conservative. The term Conservative to label someone of a different opinion gets thrown around way to often. Trump is hated and reviled yes, but he is also revered. If you don’t believe in the messenger, you probably won’t believe the message. On the reverse note. If you believe in the message, you probably believe the messenger.

Just placing this here in case anyone has not seen it.
Getting back to topic : https://buchanan.org/blog/tariffs-the-t ... eat-136986
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by ochotona » Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:37 am

I noticed my new blue jeans are made in Poland. When do Poland tarriffs start?
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:33 am

shekels wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:24 am
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:42 am


By "not that long ago" I really mean just 3-4 years ago, prior to Trump. My how times have changed. This new "conservative" view does not make any sense to me, to me it goes against every "conservative" fundamental I've ever known, and I do not support it one bit. I am an independent, and while there are things I agree with and disagree with on both sides of the isle, I consider myself to be more on the "conservative" side (at least old school conservative, I’m not so sure about this modern conservative views mentioned above). I'm definitely not a fan of Trump though. I generally dislike him as a person; I don’t trust him, I don’t think he had any integrity, I don’t think he is a good leader, I don’t think he is a good person, I have serious questions about his sanity and mental stability, history has proven him time and time again to be a liar and a cheat, and I don’t think he has any interest beyond self interest.
I do not believe Trump is a true conservative. The term Conservative to label someone of a different opinion gets thrown around way to often. Trump is hated and reviled yes, but he is also revered. If you don’t believe in the messenger, you probably won’t believe the message. On the reverse note. If you believe in the message, you probably believe the messenger.
All great points. I think that I especially agree with your comments on the disparity in the term "conservative". That's kind of why I've been using quotes on the term, because it's so hard to define these days. I think both "conservatives" and "liberals" kind of have two sects right now, and old school sect a modern sect. I find that I really strongly disagree with the modern sects of both sides, haha.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm

I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is. That's what reminded me of that study*. Your response is full of stuff that could be interesting to discuss, but wasn't what I was referring to by "reaching."

* MangoMan, here is a Jonathan Haidt article discussing a study he did. I don't know if that's the only study where they found that, but I do think it was Haidt where I first heard it:
In a study I conducted with colleagues Jesse Graham and Brian Nosek, we tested how well liberals and con­servatives could understand each other. We asked more than 2,000 American visitors to fill out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out normally, answering as themselves. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as they think a "typical liberal" would respond. One-third of the time they were asked to fill it out as a "typical conservative" would respond. This design allowed us to examine the stereotypes that each side held about the other. More important, it allowed us to assess how accurate they were by comparing people's expectations about "typical" partisans to the actual responses from partisans on the left and the right. Who was best able to pretend to be the other?

The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as "very liberal." The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the care and fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives. When faced with statements such as "one of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal" or "justice is the most important requirement for a society," liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm
I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is.
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by stuper1 » Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:48 pm

pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm
I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is.
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.
Are you familiar with this newfangled economic idea called the law of supply and demand? It applies to labor as well as products. It's really not irrational or racist to oppose abundant immigration if a person feels their livelihood is threatened. I'm one of the least racist people around, but I'd like to see immigration slowed down greatly.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:05 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:48 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm
I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is.
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.
Are you familiar with this newfangled economic idea called the law of supply and demand? It applies to labor as well as products. It's really not irrational or racist to oppose abundant immigration if a person feels their livelihood is threatened. I'm one of the least racist people around, but I'd like to see immigration slowed down greatly.
Of course it applies to labor. That's the whole point of my comment. What I said would make no sense if this wasn't the case.

So since it applies to labor we need to think this all the way through because trying to manipulate supply and demand is a double-edged sword. Every effect has innumerable side and counter effects. You have to be careful what you wish for. It is good for the economy, individuals, and business to purchase labor and supplies as cheap as possible. It leaves people more money to spend on other things. It leaves businesses and investors more money to invest in other places. All of these things create more economic activity, which in turn creates jobs. There are plenty of things the U.S. can supply cheaper and more efficiently than foreign counties, and it benefits all involved if we are focusing on these things we are efficient at, instead of trying to block competition so we can produce goods that we are not super efficient at. The economic tides are always changing, it makes no sense to cling to the past, we should be focused instead on moving forward. We should be focusing on what we do well, not on what we don't. In capitalism people need to learn to adapt. Its a constant wave of adaptation. Farmers were pissed back in the early 1900s, just like industrial workers are pissed now, just like people in the software industry like me will be pissed at some point in the future. The economy doesn't thrive when we focus on preventing change, it thrives when we move forward and innovate. The unfortunate cost is that those that refuse to adapt get left behind.

Also, it's common knowledge that the biggest predictor of economic growth is a growing population. Since we are no longer organically growing our population, we need immigration, or else we will turn into Japan.
Last edited by pmward on Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by moda0306 » Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:10 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:48 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm
I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is.
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.
Are you familiar with this newfangled economic idea called the law of supply and demand? It applies to labor as well as products. It's really not irrational or racist to oppose abundant immigration if a person feels their livelihood is threatened. I'm one of the least racist people around, but I'd like to see immigration slowed down greatly.
There are other things that would be far-less pernicious and more effective...

1) More class-consciousness, generally. Knowing what your true risks and resources are as a worker and who your lot is in with vs who is most opposed to your economic interests.

2) Union membership and activism.

3) Opposing trade deals in how mobile they allow capital to be. Trade deals are more "investor rights" deals than anything else, and any dollar invested overseas is a dollar not invested here. Put another way, If labor can't cross borders, why should capital be able to? If a brown body can't go from Mexico to the US, why should some US "investor" be able to purchase profitable property in Mexico?

4) Encourage economic independence, rather than submission to US capital interests, of other countries.

5) Tariffs based heavily on labor protections and environmental protections in the foreign country in question to prevent a "race to the bottom" of capital to the country with "leaders" most willing to allow their country and populace to be exploited.

6) Citizen's dividend to give workers more bargaining power by giving them more non-disappearing financial safety-net.

There are many ways to protect your real wages... I'm amazed that the only way some want to explore is by a myriad of draconian policies to make millions of peoples lives hopefully miserable enough to make them move out of the country.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by ochotona » Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:28 pm

It's all about tribe now, not ideology. Ideas are used as tribal badges, not as the basic material for solutions to real-world problems. "Conservatives" virtue-signal just as much as the Millennial Snowflake Social Justice Warriors. It's all the same.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:58 pm

pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.

So since it applies to labor we need to think this all the way through because trying to manipulate supply and demand is a double-edged sword. Every effect has innumerable side and counter effects. You have to be careful what you wish for. It is good for the economy, individuals, and business to purchase labor and supplies as cheap as possible. It leaves people more money to spend on other things.
Hah, ok. You can't be sure nowadays. So, the people you know personally passionately dislike Mexico because it facilitates people illegally coming into America and depressing their wages/tekken thur jurb. When you say it like that it is not irrational, but you still think it's irrational. I can tell that you mean it on a macro level, because of what you wrote below it; but on a micro, personal level of the people you know, you should be able to tell that it isn't irrational, because those actual people would have less/no money to purchase labor and supplies, and therefore wouldn't have more money to spend on other stuff.
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:05 pm
It leaves businesses and investors more money to invest in other places. All of these things create more economic activity, which in turn creates jobs.
It is not an acceptable situation for illegal immigration to be the catalyst for job creation.

Now, I think I know what you're going to say after you read that, "Exactly, we need more workers."

(I guess that's pretty much what you said already, maybe you'd add "and we need the illegal immigration because our immigration limits are too low." ?)

I say we don't actually know what's going on, because we do not have secured borders and we don't know how many illegal immigrants are here. If we were reasonably sure how many people were even living here, we could probably figure out if we needed to let more people in and what kinds were needed. If we determine we need more people, and there are qualified people that want to become Americans (or maybe just get a work visa?), then that's how we should fill jobs, the answer isn't just letting anyone sneak across the border or overstaying a visa or whatever.

That's more of a "we need a logical process" angle, though. In a more practical sense, businesses don't need to save money on wages in order to create more jobs. Banks are desperate to lend money, at low interest rates, for good ideas that create jobs.

But, to go along with your statement, if Americans are already competing with illegal immigrants for jobs at a given skill level (and being undercut, presumably, so that wages are lowered), and business owners need the lower wages so that they can invest in other areas, what are they investing in? If they're creating jobs at a higher skill/wage level, the low skilled Americans competing with the illegal immigrants won't get those jobs anyways, and we'd need to import more immigrants at that skill level (assuming full employment among Americans) to fill them. If those same Americans were capable of performing higher level work, said business people could create those jobs right now for them, and they wouldn't be competing for low skill work. Again, in this instance, our supply of low-skill workers would be insufficient and we should legally bring in people interested in doing them.

SO, even if you want more people here, could we could agree our current illegal immigration situation isn't part of the solution?
There are plenty of things the U.S. can supply cheaper and more efficiently than foreign counties, and it benefits all involved if we are focusing on these things we are efficient at, instead of trying to block competition so we can produce goods that we are not super efficient at.
You're referring to Ricardo's law of comparative advantage. What if the other countries are only comparatively advantaged producing them because of state subsidies and import restrictions? That's what I was referencing when I brought up Japan's former MITI, and it's Trump's view, AFAIK. When he talks about China getting one over on us, it's because they haven't abided by the trade agreement they were supposed to abide by when they joined the WTO. In fairness, I guess other countries could say we've done the same thing.

This goes back to what I was saying earlier about each country looking out for its own interests, instead of aspiring to a theoretical free trade world. It makes me think of the Cartel Problem in economics, where a group agrees to fix prices, but one member lowers their to sell more so they gain an advantage. I'm sure there's a nice economics term for countries agreeing to trade freely, but then one of them doesn't to gain an advantage, but I don't know it.
The economic tides are always changing, it makes no sense to cling to the past, we should be focused instead on moving forward. We should be focusing on what we do well, not on what we don't.
I wonder if we really know what we do well? For instance, we pretty much import all of our TVs, despite an American inventing them. Is that because Korea, China, and Japan have a natural comparative advantage, or because they utilized state subsidies and trade-deal-facilitated industrial espionage, and import restrictions to gain one? I'm not sure anymore. Maybe we do more things well than we know, and we could be creating more goods/services here, but other countries have gotten one over on us like Trump says.

In general, I agree with you though. Always be improving.
In capitalism people need to learn to adapt. Its a constant wave of adaptation. Farmers were pissed back in the early 1900s, just like industrial workers are pissed now, just like people in the software industry like me will be pissed at some point in the future. The economy doesn't thrive when we focus on preventing change, it thrives when we move forward and innovate. The unfortunate cost is that those that refuse to adapt get left behind.
You tweeted "learn to code" at reporters, didn't you :P

Macro- agree, though. It's good to be a winner. For instance, I don't really think about how pissed the shit tons of Europeans and various tribes were that died of contagious disease, but because my line was resistant I'm still here.
Since we are no longer organically growing our population, we need immigration, or else we will turn into Japan.
You say "we will turn into Japan" like you think it's a bad thing? I think they're doing alright. Minimal crime, high social cohesiveness and trust, high technology, high culture, good food, low obesity, almost free housing, etc.
Also, it's common knowledge that the biggest predictor of economic growth is a growing population.
It's a big one, sure. But growth can't go on forever, of course. It also makes sense that we don't need to have a growing economy for a good quality of life if our population isn't growing/is declining, per capitally (if that's a phrase, which I don't think it is). Evolving to a more steady-state economy at our current standard of living doesn't sound awful to me. Personally, I think it would be beneficial if the world population went down. But at the same time, I don't think it would be a good thing if the advanced countries curtailed their fertility, while ALSO importing tons of immigrants to bolster their population. The same per capitalness (shit, again) applies to them too; their quality of life would increase if they had fewer kids too.

Anyways, come at me bros.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:02 pm

ochotona wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:28 pm
virtue-signal ... Millennial Snowflake Social Justice Warriors.
Damn Boomers, takin' our jabs!
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:41 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:10 pm
1) More class-consciousness, generally. Knowing what your true risks and resources are as a worker and who your lot is in with vs who is most opposed to your economic interests.
I'd say more "personal finance" consciousness. Nobody really has to be working class their whole life, even if they start there. I think it would be a harder mental transition to become wealthier if you have a bunch of animosity towards wealthy peo... the bourgeoisie.
2) Union membership and activism.
Eh. I was in a union, they weren't too happy with it. There are a lot of problems with unions in general, and probably more so nowadays. moda would probably agree with half that sentence.
3) Opposing trade deals in how mobile they allow capital to be. Trade deals are more "investor rights" deals than anything else, and any dollar invested overseas is a dollar not invested here. Put another way, If labor can't cross borders, why should capital be able to? If a brown body can't go from Mexico to the US, why should some US "investor" be able to purchase profitable property in Mexico?
I've posted this before, but Keyne's probably would agree:
I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel--these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national. Yet, at the same time, those who seek to disembarrass a country of its entanglements should be very slow and wary. It should not be a matter of tearing up roots but of slowly training a plant to grow in a different direction.

For these strong reasons, therefore, I am inclined to the belief that, after the transition is accomplished, a greater measure of national self-sufficiency and economic isolation among countries than existed in 1914 may tend to serve the cause of peace, rather than otherwise. At any rate, the age of economic internationalism was not particularly successful in avoiding war; and if its friends retort, that the imperfection of its success never gave it a fair chance, it is reasonable to point out that a greater success is scarcely probable in the coming years.
I'd say there is less reason to be opposed to international investing than to allowing foreigners to purchase assets in your country. If, say, Mexico was willing to let me buy shares in one of their companies, why would Americans, or the Mexican owners of the company, be pissed? I could see Mexicans who want to own shares in the company being pissed that foreigners are inflating its price., though. But it would amount to me redirecting Mexican profits into the American economy (well, wherever I buy stuff from, if I buy stuff from Mexico with them I guess it's a wash?). It's the inverse that I would expect you to be opposed to: a Mexican taking American profits back to Mexico.

More in line with your thinking, if I buy an unproductive asset in Mexico, like a vacation beach house, that money is gone from America. So Americans could be pissed. But also Mexican non-property owners, because I'm driving up the cost of housing for the locals with my big purchasing power. Last I heard, Vancouverites and New Zealanders aren't too happy with foreigners driving up their housing costs and they're putting up obstacles.
4) Encourage economic independence, rather than submission to US capital interests, of other countries.
Well... maybe, right? I don't see why I'd want to encourage a country to be so economically independent that it was a threat. But encourage them to be able to produce something to trade with us, or to have a country we could visit? Sure, that's a win win. That's one of the catch-22's of immigration; if we siphon off a countries brainpower, how are they going to develop enough that we can be buddies?
5) Tariffs based heavily on labor protections and environmental protections in the foreign country in question to prevent a "race to the bottom" of capital to the country with "leaders" most willing to allow their country and populace to be exploited.
You are saying that countries with cheap labor, where corporations want to locate a factory or whatever, should resist them in order to protect local wages? Or that countries should restrict corporations from shifting operations to a lower cost locale (IE, what Trump is doing)?
6) Citizen's dividend to give workers more bargaining power by giving them more non-disappearing financial safety-net.
Maybe.
There are many ways to protect your real wages... I'm amazed that the only way some want to explore is by a myriad of draconian policies to make millions of peoples lives hopefully miserable enough to make them move out of the country.
Well, it's not the only thing we (I) want to explore, but it's what were were talking about.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kriegsspiel » Mon Jun 03, 2019 9:42 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 6:04 pm
Kriegs, thanks for the link. I found this particularly fascinating:
To escape from this political mess, I believe that psychologists must work with political scientists to identify changes that will indirectly undermine Manichaeism. I ran a 2007 conference at Princeton University that tried to do this. We learned that much of the increase in polarization was unavoidable. It was the natural result of the political realignment that took place after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The conservative Southern states, which had been solidly Democratic since the Civil War (because Lincoln was a Republican), then began to leave the Democratic Party, and by the 1990s the South was solidly Republican. Before this realignment there had been liberals and conservatives in both parties, which made it easy to form bipartisan teams that could work together on legislative projects. But after the realignment, there was no longer any overlap, either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. Nowadays the most liberal Republican is typically more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. And once the two parties became ideologically pure—a liberal party and a conservative party—there was bound to be a rise in Manichaeism.
I previously did not know this; a lot of things just got clearer on the whole left/right topic.
He expanded that article (I think it was that article) into a book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by stuper1 » Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:52 pm

For anyone who thinks it's a good idea for our southern border to be a sieve, with virtually no limit to the number of illegal immigrants who come across, I invite them to go spend a few months or years living in a Latin American country. I'll give you a little summary of what you will find. You will find a lot of very nice, intelligent people who are very proud of their countries and heritage. Guess what you will also find: that America is even nicer, especially if you are dirt poor. Is this because we have better dirt on our side of the border than on their side, or is it because of many social, cultural, and historical factors? Whatever the reasons, things are clearly better on our side, which is why dirt poor people are trying to come to America. But guess what, if too many dirt poor people come at once, instead of us lifting them up to our level (i.e., assimilation -- the old "melting pot" idea), they basically drag us down to their level (rules of law flouted). This is why the American people through their government and a legal process (i.e., immigration law) should be the ones to decide how many immigrants get to come. Well, we have immigration laws on the books, which means we have already decided, but the laws are being actively bypassed by illegal entries and even when such entries are caught, enforcement is often laughable.

Trump was the first politician in decades to seriously promise to address this problem. I know someone who is an ICE agent, and he says that enforcement became much more serious with the Trump administration. Many people who voted for Trump wish he would do more.

Please show me if I have said anything irrational or racist.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by ochotona » Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:58 am

Fast forward halfway into the 6/3/19 show to hear about the ISM Manufacturing Index report for May... which doesn't even include Mexico news.

https://marketwrapwithmoe.com/
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by WiseOne » Tue Jun 04, 2019 8:29 am

It is certainly internally consistent to support an open southern border and uncontrolled immigration of unskilled workers and dependents, at the same time as supporting global free trade. It benefits American businesses and keeps prices low (due to low labor costs) in the short term, yes. However, there are long term consequences to this policy, and the people most affected by these consequences are the very reason why Trump was elected.

By the way people seem to have forgotten about the hidden costs of cheap labor. That just transfers cost from the companies hiring the cheap workers to the complex web of the US's social safety net. That includes not only government welfare programs but also hospitals, charities, local food programs, and other institutions. Who pays for that safety net? You do! You may not see the entry in your checkbook that says "Cost of cheap labor", but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's buried in your medical insurance premium & copays, and higher state & local taxes among other places.

I believe these costs are severely downplayed by groups talking up the benefits of open borders. One simple technique is to lump together costs of all immigration, including skilled immigration, and then report the results as applying exclusively to illegal immigration. Here's a statistic that helps put this into perspective: More than 1/4 of the NY state population is on Medicaid, and that number has been increasing. Medicaid is the largest budgeted state expenditure in this famously high tax state. And, a large proportion of Medicaid recipients in NYS are either recent immigrants (largely Hispanic) or their dependents.

Any attempts to tinker with these outcomes using the Citizen's Dividend, unions, etc is more likely to backfire spectacularly than to fix the problem (not to mention that all those proposals still have to be paid for). The best way to fix the problem is to deal with it at its source. Which is, do what every other first world country has done and implement sane, controlled immigration with a points system, while tightening oversight of illegal hiring by bringing E-verify up to speed and making it mandatory. (Whatever happened to that btw?)

Also, why is it that we are expected to have so much more sympathy for people trying to cut in line and come here illegally than for people who are already here who are being screwed by the effects of said illegal entries?
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:32 am

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:58 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.

So since it applies to labor we need to think this all the way through because trying to manipulate supply and demand is a double-edged sword. Every effect has innumerable side and counter effects. You have to be careful what you wish for. It is good for the economy, individuals, and business to purchase labor and supplies as cheap as possible. It leaves people more money to spend on other things.
Hah, ok. You can't be sure nowadays. So, the people you know personally passionately dislike Mexico because it facilitates people illegally coming into America and depressing their wages/tekken thur jurb. When you say it like that it is not irrational, but you still think it's irrational. I can tell that you mean it on a macro level, because of what you wrote below it; but on a micro, personal level of the people you know, you should be able to tell that it isn't irrational, because those actual people would have less/no money to purchase labor and supplies, and therefore wouldn't have more money to spend on other stuff.
pmward wrote:
Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:05 pm
It leaves businesses and investors more money to invest in other places. All of these things create more economic activity, which in turn creates jobs.
It is not an acceptable situation for illegal immigration to be the catalyst for job creation.

Now, I think I know what you're going to say after you read that, "Exactly, we need more workers."

(I guess that's pretty much what you said already, maybe you'd add "and we need the illegal immigration because our immigration limits are too low." ?)

I say we don't actually know what's going on, because we do not have secured borders and we don't know how many illegal immigrants are here. If we were reasonably sure how many people were even living here, we could probably figure out if we needed to let more people in and what kinds were needed. If we determine we need more people, and there are qualified people that want to become Americans (or maybe just get a work visa?), then that's how we should fill jobs, the answer isn't just letting anyone sneak across the border or overstaying a visa or whatever.

That's more of a "we need a logical process" angle, though. In a more practical sense, businesses don't need to save money on wages in order to create more jobs. Banks are desperate to lend money, at low interest rates, for good ideas that create jobs.

But, to go along with your statement, if Americans are already competing with illegal immigrants for jobs at a given skill level (and being undercut, presumably, so that wages are lowered), and business owners need the lower wages so that they can invest in other areas, what are they investing in? If they're creating jobs at a higher skill/wage level, the low skilled Americans competing with the illegal immigrants won't get those jobs anyways, and we'd need to import more immigrants at that skill level (assuming full employment among Americans) to fill them. If those same Americans were capable of performing higher level work, said business people could create those jobs right now for them, and they wouldn't be competing for low skill work. Again, in this instance, our supply of low-skill workers would be insufficient and we should legally bring in people interested in doing them.

SO, even if you want more people here, could we could agree our current illegal immigration situation isn't part of the solution?
There are plenty of things the U.S. can supply cheaper and more efficiently than foreign counties, and it benefits all involved if we are focusing on these things we are efficient at, instead of trying to block competition so we can produce goods that we are not super efficient at.
You're referring to Ricardo's law of comparative advantage. What if the other countries are only comparatively advantaged producing them because of state subsidies and import restrictions? That's what I was referencing when I brought up Japan's former MITI, and it's Trump's view, AFAIK. When he talks about China getting one over on us, it's because they haven't abided by the trade agreement they were supposed to abide by when they joined the WTO. In fairness, I guess other countries could say we've done the same thing.

This goes back to what I was saying earlier about each country looking out for its own interests, instead of aspiring to a theoretical free trade world. It makes me think of the Cartel Problem in economics, where a group agrees to fix prices, but one member lowers their to sell more so they gain an advantage. I'm sure there's a nice economics term for countries agreeing to trade freely, but then one of them doesn't to gain an advantage, but I don't know it.
The economic tides are always changing, it makes no sense to cling to the past, we should be focused instead on moving forward. We should be focusing on what we do well, not on what we don't.
I wonder if we really know what we do well? For instance, we pretty much import all of our TVs, despite an American inventing them. Is that because Korea, China, and Japan have a natural comparative advantage, or because they utilized state subsidies and trade-deal-facilitated industrial espionage, and import restrictions to gain one? I'm not sure anymore. Maybe we do more things well than we know, and we could be creating more goods/services here, but other countries have gotten one over on us like Trump says.

In general, I agree with you though. Always be improving.
In capitalism people need to learn to adapt. Its a constant wave of adaptation. Farmers were pissed back in the early 1900s, just like industrial workers are pissed now, just like people in the software industry like me will be pissed at some point in the future. The economy doesn't thrive when we focus on preventing change, it thrives when we move forward and innovate. The unfortunate cost is that those that refuse to adapt get left behind.
You tweeted "learn to code" at reporters, didn't you :P

Macro- agree, though. It's good to be a winner. For instance, I don't really think about how pissed the shit tons of Europeans and various tribes were that died of contagious disease, but because my line was resistant I'm still here.
Since we are no longer organically growing our population, we need immigration, or else we will turn into Japan.
You say "we will turn into Japan" like you think it's a bad thing? I think they're doing alright. Minimal crime, high social cohesiveness and trust, high technology, high culture, good food, low obesity, almost free housing, etc.
Also, it's common knowledge that the biggest predictor of economic growth is a growing population.
It's a big one, sure. But growth can't go on forever, of course. It also makes sense that we don't need to have a growing economy for a good quality of life if our population isn't growing/is declining, per capitally (if that's a phrase, which I don't think it is). Evolving to a more steady-state economy at our current standard of living doesn't sound awful to me. Personally, I think it would be beneficial if the world population went down. But at the same time, I don't think it would be a good thing if the advanced countries curtailed their fertility, while ALSO importing tons of immigrants to bolster their population. The same per capitalness (shit, again) applies to them too; their quality of life would increase if they had fewer kids too.

Anyways, come at me bros.
A lot of good points here. Though I wasn't referencing illegal immigration exclusively, it's not just the people here in the U.S. they see as taking their jurbs, but the competition overseas as well. So it's workers here and abroad. I'm in total agreement that we need less illegal immigration, however I think the true solution to that is to improve legal immigration and make it easier for law abiding foreigners to come here legally. Once they are here the market will sort the rest out. It's not about finding more ways to keep them out, it's about figuring out how to improve and increase the efficiency in the process of bringing productive migrants in (obviously, we don't want to bring people in here just to collect welfare, that wouldn't make much sense).

And yes, at the micro level it does suck to be the people working in manufacturing. I know this more than anyone as I come from a family of blue collar Detroit steelworkers. But that's the system. Capitalism is Darwinian in nature. There are some people I knew that were blue collar types that swapped careers and are doing great. It's only the ones that were inflexible that are stuck in a rut. The real question is, is it the foreign workers fault or is it their fault for being inflexible and unwilling to adapt? Capitalism will always reward those that are the most adaptable and punish those that are the least adaptable. And anytime we try to prevent this all it does is breed inefficiencies in the system, which has a net effect of lowering our productivity and dampening our economic prospects.

As to your comment about the TV's, there's a difference between inventing something, and investing capitol to be able to create something efficiently. Manufacturing is very capitol intensive, especially up front in building and maintaining the state of the art facilities. So the cheaper the labor the better. American companies (rightly so) saw more profitability in investing in the creative, inventive, and intellectual processes here, and then outsourcing the manual manufacturing to those who were willing to invest the heavy capitol in creating these more efficient factories. It's worked out pretty well for us as a whole so far. There is no country in history that has been self sufficient, so no matter how much Americans think that idea sounds great, it's really not all it's cracked up to be. We don't have the facilities here, we don't have the skilled workforce here, and we don't have a new generation of people the wants to learn those trades. Manufacturing jobs are going the way of farming jobs. They will never completely go away, but it would be silly to try to ramp it back up here because we just don't have the capabilities or desire to truly compete. Nostalgia is great and all... until you actually go try to work a factory job and realize it completely sucks ass, haha. Every factory worker in my family hates life. There's a reason these jobs are leaving and better jobs are taking their place; imo, good riddance!

Sure, things like subsidies are obnoxious. But at the end of the day, at least on a macro level, we are the ones that are winning. We are getting goods below cost. A penny saved is indeed a penny earned. Every dollar we don't have to spend on widget A is a dollar that can be used to invest in other things. If China wants to pay us to buy a good from them, I'm not personally going to argue. Sure it sucks for any of those companies here that have to compete with that, as they are certain to go out of business. But once again, this is a feature not a bug of capitalism. The branches that can't compete must be pruned to make way for branches that can. It harms more to waste our capacity on trying to keep a dying, unproductive, and uncompetitive limb alive. Pruning of unhealthy limbs is a very important fundamental part of the recipe for successful capitalism. Trying to bypass the uncomfort that the pruning process causes only causes the sickness to spread.

I think those things you like about Japan have more to do with their culture than their economic policies. Japan is a much different culture than the U.S. We will never be those things because it is simply not who we are.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kbg » Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:41 pm

Enough of the politics already, ::) how did your stock vesting go?
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by pmward » Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:52 pm

Kbg wrote:
Tue Jun 04, 2019 2:41 pm
Enough of the politics already, ::) how did your stock vesting go?
So far quite badly. They didn't get me the shares on time even though I was technically vested on the 1st. I still don't have the shares, but today I did see my accounts "Potential Benefit Value" decrease by the amount I'm vesting for so hopefully tomorrow I'll have the actual shares. It's possible that it takes the 3 day clearing that a stock purchase transaction does.

In the meantime, the tech wreck yesterday from the antitrust worries caused the shares to plummet 6%. If I would have had the shares yesterday morning I would have sold around the open when it was only down 1%, annoying. The companies slack channel for stocks was full of tears yesterday as the stock plummeted 6% on RSU vesting day. Today we got a 2% bounce at least. Either way, a few weeks ago I had a 30%+ gain from the initial cost basis a year ago, and now I'm sitting at about a 4% loss.

I'm hoping that the tech bounce today continues through tomorrow. I'm ready to sell and be done with the stress. I mean, I will still have a ton in unvested shares, but at least this initial huge chunk will be done and diversified. From here on out the amount of new shares I receive and vest for will be in smaller more DCA like increments (I get a new grant 25% of my initial grant yearly to essentially continually refill what vests, and I will vest on a quarterly schedule as opposed to this large full 1 years worth of shares at once). Also, after this big chunk is sold it will reduce my concentration in company stock substantially, and that will help me feel quite a bit better as well. I'm so ready for this stressful initial vesting to be done and over, and have the funds safely tucked away in my golden butterfly.
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Re: Immediate 5% across-the-board Mexican tariffs

Post by Kbg » Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:57 pm

pm...my first rule of stock market investing/trading: As soon as I do anything it will initially be very bad. Hopefully you can unload quickly.

Pug,

In terms of message volume ratio, the board should probably be renamed the "Other Discussions" forum. ;)
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