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> 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

> 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
      > What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. You've got it backwards. If people have the feeling that there is more dignity working in a factory than delivering Door Dash, that's a preference that should be factored into the economic analysis. Similarly, economic analyses considers factors like labor laws and environmental laws as detracting from "comparative advantage," even though it probably better reflects peoples' preferences for those things to be a minimum standard that no country is competing on. And it's certainly relevant that being a manufacturing powerhouse provides a long-term military advantage compared to a services-based economy. Prior to World War II, the U.S. had largely demilitarized. It built the world's largest military within a couple of years, because of its industrial capabilities. Those are real-world considerations, but aren't factored into simplistic comparative-advantage analyses.
      - slibhb 2y ago
        What I posted there was a bit muddled. Economics is attempting to be a science. To the greatest extent possible, it should not be value-based. Politics is value-based, and it has priority over economics when it comes to making decisions. But if your politics is "we need more manufacturing in the US" then you should listen to economists in pursuit of that goal. Bringing back manufacturing with tariffs is like banning fossil fuels to combat climate change. It's not good policy.

slibhb 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
    > What economists have is better than vague feelings about the dignity of working in a factory as opposed to a service job. You've got it backwards. If people have the feeling that there is more dignity working in a factory than delivering Door Dash, that's a preference that should be factored into the economic analysis. Similarly, economic analyses considers factors like labor laws and environmental laws as detracting from "comparative advantage," even though it probably better reflects peoples' preferences for those things to be a minimum standard that no country is competing on. And it's certainly relevant that being a manufacturing powerhouse provides a long-term military advantage compared to a services-based economy. Prior to World War II, the U.S. had largely demilitarized. It built the world's largest military within a couple of years, because of its industrial capabilities. Those are real-world considerations, but aren't factored into simplistic comparative-advantage analyses.
    - slibhb 2y ago
      What I posted there was a bit muddled. Economics is attempting to be a science. To the greatest extent possible, it should not be value-based. Politics is value-based, and it has priority over economics when it comes to making decisions. But if your politics is "we need more manufacturing in the US" then you should listen to economists in pursuit of that goal. Bringing back manufacturing with tariffs is like banning fossil fuels to combat climate change. It's not good policy.