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Surely the null hypothesis isn't "The USA would have a domestic industry for every crop known to man if not for external factors"
by yifanl 2y ago
Surely the null hypothesis isn't "The USA would have a domestic industry for every crop known to man if not for external factors"
- apexalpha 2y agoOh that's 100% what Potus thinks. There's no other rationale for this other than thinking this.
- jredwards 2y agoYou're assuming he has any rationale at all
- overfeed 2y agoLeverage over importers, i.e. all of industry. If you're a captain of industry and want an exemption or a lowered rate, they you approach the deal table, cap in hand, with tears in your eyes and beg like a dog. "Please, sir..." In return for a minor reprieve, you ensure your factory bathrooms and hiring policies are aligned with the president's agenda, among many other things. This can be a cudgel over the heads of the Apples and Costcos of this country who dare to defy the edicts of POTUS on social policy.
- phtrivier 2y agoOther popular options are very publicly taking your card of the Party, writing odes and poems to the Great Leader, and give your firstborn daughter's virginity as a token of vassality. The problem is not so much that people don't like doing such things - they get by - it's that, at some point, enough people will start getting more favours than you do, and you'll start feeling the need to stage a coup, which is a lot of work. I wonder how it will work out in a world where tiktok is always there as a much less exhausting form of entertainment than revolutions.
- _heimdall 2y agoLet's ignore whether we'll actually get there, that's a very deep question and entirely theoretical for now. If we could snap our fingers and domestically produce most or all of our own products, would you not prefer that?
- scratchyone 2y agoNo, because it is far more expensive to domestically produce our own products. I would rather not have a huge increase in the cost of living.
- giantg2 2y agoI don't want a cost of living increase either. However, this raise the question of what the real cost is. The prices might be cheaper, but is that only because we're exploiting poorer people in markets with fewer worker protections and fewer environmental protections? Is it just because I'm greedy and I'm not willing to pay someone a liveable wage here or go without whatever it is? I'm not sure, but it makes for an interesting thought experiment.
- rthomas6 2y agoI worry about this, but I started worrying about it less when I read about Purchasing Power Parity. The same stuff costs less in poorer countries.
- giantg2 2y agoFor some things that's true. For others it is not, or at least not enough to make up for the difference. For example, "housing" might cost less, but the definition of housing might be different. Even if we adjust the standards and built the exact same thing, it would be cheaper, but likely still out of reach for the average person in the poorer market.
- anonfordays 2y agoShhhh, you're not supposed to ask those questions!
- blitzar 2y agoOr (more likely) they would not have access to many crops at all. Personally I don't mind not having strawberries in the middle of winter, but for some they care about that.
- hombre_fatal 2y agoSure, but that's the rationalizing of someone who can't get strawberries in winter. Getting food that's not grown locally much less in the current local season is one of the most QoL-improving parts of the modern world. Kinda sad to go from that back to "well I guess I don't really need these nice things we took for granted. I suppose I can live off jellied eels again."
- me_again 2y agoDonald Trump, champion of the locavore community. Now I've heard everything.