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This line of thinking is what people are pushing to justify the insane tarriff policy. Amazon is evil, slave labor, they tarriff us, etc. I'm not saying these t

This line of thinking is what people are pushing to justify the insane tarriff policy. Amazon is evil, slave labor, they tarriff us, etc. I'm not saying these things aren't true. However, my problem with this argument is that it frames the consumer as a victim to Amazon and to the 'hollowing out of America'. Consumers have a choice - they love using Amazon and importing cheap goods. Where is the self-reflection?

rayiner 1y ago
> I'm not saying these things aren't true But it still seems like you’re disagreeing with my conclusion? Yes, consumers love cheap goods. And businesses love to make short term profits even if it means selling out the future by gutting American companies and turning them into mere distributors for Chinese companies. That’s why you need the government to intervene to change peoples’ behaviors. There is a reason we tax cigarettes and other things that are bad for us. We do it to change people’s behaviors, to get them to consume less of the bad thing. Yes, like with tariffs, it makes the bad thing more expensive. That’s the whole point! Amazon is a bad company with a bad business model, and I don’t actually care who is the one who takes them out.
- slibhb 1y ago
  Yeah, let's ban machines in factories while we're at it. Then Americans will have the honor of stitching clothing and standing at conveyer belts. On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. There are economists who think the US should manufacture more. They talk about taxing consumption more and savings/investment less. When you cite economists to tariff-enthusiasts, they usually reply with "economics is a scam!" or some such nonsense. That's only a breath away from an equally dumb Marxist line: "economists are just servants of The Capital". Bleh. And I love Amazon. They're a fantastic company and have been since day 1. I'm a grown-up. If I want to buy cheap Chinese goods, I should be able to. And if that hurts Americans, that sucks for them, but I shouldn't have to pay a tax because some US company can't compete with Chinese companies. And if I lose my job because someone in China does it better/cheaper, I won't whine about it. I'll find something else to do.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    > On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-policies-economists-love-and-politicians-hate https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT? I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant trade offs are. Economics is somewhere between the social “sciences” and real science in terms of methodological reliability. I’m not a Marxist, but I’m also not a religious zealot. I believe in aerospace engineers enough that I’m comfortable getting into a metal tube that’s 35,000 feet in the air. But I don’t have similar confidence in the postulates of economists. > And if that hurts Americans. that sucks for them The whole point of government is so people can vote to override anti-social individual behavior like this.
    - slibhb 1y ago
      > Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six- https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT? You don't have to go all the way. Just experiment with a VAT and lowering corporate taxes. > I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant trade offs are. Economics is somewhere between the social “sciences” and real science in terms of methodological reliability. What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. > The whole point of government is so people can vote to override anti-social individual behavior like this. Is that the point of the government? Not in the American tradition. Americans are remarkably invididualistic. If that's anti-social, well, the experiment has been running for a few hundred years and it's worked pretty well. I don't believe the past 20 years have been so bad that the US should start acting like a third world country.
      - rayiner 1y ago

rayiner 1y ago

> I'm not saying these things aren't true But it still seems like you’re disagreeing with my conclusion? Yes, consumers love cheap goods. And businesses love to make short term profits even if it means selling out the future by gutting American companies and turning them into mere distributors for Chinese companies. That’s why you need the government to intervene to change peoples’ behaviors. There is a reason we tax cigarettes and other things that are bad for us. We do it to change people’s behaviors, to get them to consume less of the bad thing. Yes, like with tariffs, it makes the bad thing more expensive. That’s the whole point! Amazon is a bad company with a bad business model, and I don’t actually care who is the one who takes them out.

slibhb 1y ago
Yeah, let's ban machines in factories while we're at it. Then Americans will have the honor of stitching clothing and standing at conveyer belts. On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. There are economists who think the US should manufacture more. They talk about taxing consumption more and savings/investment less. When you cite economists to tariff-enthusiasts, they usually reply with "economics is a scam!" or some such nonsense. That's only a breath away from an equally dumb Marxist line: "economists are just servants of The Capital". Bleh. And I love Amazon. They're a fantastic company and have been since day 1. I'm a grown-up. If I want to buy cheap Chinese goods, I should be able to. And if that hurts Americans, that sucks for them, but I shouldn't have to pay a tax because some US company can't compete with Chinese companies. And if I lose my job because someone in China does it better/cheaper, I won't whine about it. I'll find something else to do.
- rayiner 1y ago
  > On a less sarcastic note, pretty much zero mainstream economists believe that tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US. Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-policies-economists-love-and-politicians-hate https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT? I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant trade offs are. Economics is somewhere between the social “sciences” and real science in terms of methodological reliability. I’m not a Marxist, but I’m also not a religious zealot. I believe in aerospace engineers enough that I’m comfortable getting into a metal tube that’s 35,000 feet in the air. But I don’t have similar confidence in the postulates of economists. > And if that hurts Americans. that sucks for them The whole point of government is so people can vote to override anti-social individual behavior like this.
  - slibhb 1y ago
    > Mainstream economists also widely agree corporate taxes and capital gains taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six- https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Should we eliminate those taxes and have everyone pay a large VAT? You don't have to go all the way. Just experiment with a VAT and lowering corporate taxes. > I don’t have confidence that economists have fully figured out how economies work or what the relevant trade offs are. Economics is somewhere between the social “sciences” and real science in terms of methodological reliability. What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. > The whole point of government is so people can vote to override anti-social individual behavior like this. Is that the point of the government? Not in the American tradition. Americans are remarkably invididualistic. If that's anti-social, well, the experiment has been running for a few hundred years and it's worked pretty well. I don't believe the past 20 years have been so bad that the US should start acting like a third world country.
    - rayiner 1y ago