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Comment by codingslave | Hacker News Reader

The long story to this is that the Chinese dont like what Trump is doing, he is the first to stand up to their tactics. The thing is, if Trump doesn't get reelected, a democratic candidate will most likely not continue the trade war. China has every incentive to place pressure on the us stock market in the hope that it ruins Trumps chances at reelection. So they play this long waiting game, in the chance that Trump doesnt get elected.

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From that perspective, what is arguably good about this trade war continuing?

Its a battle for who is the world economic power in 20 or 30 years. The american public doesn't understand what is at stake here. Unfortunately the media is calling Trump a buffoon, when the trade war, and possible subsequent economic hit to the USA, is vital to our long term economic future.

Well, that's what I'm asking - game this out. How is the trade war and economic hit vital (I take your meaning to be a "long term benefit") to our economic future? What's the hoped-for sequence of events?

I can infer a couple of predictions - maybe the thought is that since China has already been very active in monetary policy (printing money), that they will eventually hit upper limits in doing so and will start experiencing massive inflation and will have to slow down their growth considerably. And that this hit will hurt China far more than it will hurt the US, thereby serving as a net benefit to the US overall. Is that on the right track?

(To make it really confusing you could point out how slower growth from both countries means less carbon emissions.)

Yea but what about 50 years? 100? 300? I don’t see a world where the US can maintain hegemony forever, it’s going to be multilateral.

Why would we willingly give up this fight? Isnt that idea defeatist? "Well in 100 years, theres no way we can continue, so may as well give up now".

Well in 100 years do you want to be remembered as a partner who helped out or an archnemesis who tried everything to abort progress?

Lee Kwan Yew has a pretty good book on the subject, it's worth considering.

I'm going to die in 50 years, why get out of bed?

Get out of bed, don't drink immortality potions you buy on the internet made from the suffering of others ;)

To that end, live a life in accordance with death, an event which you expect, don't try to deny it.

If it is indeed a battle, like you say, infrastructure investment in wind + solar, reliable public transportation, a public health system, and free public education would do us 100x more than playing silly games with China.

Clean energy will never beat oil, its a pipe dream. Oil packs too much energy per barrel, its not even worth discussing. Reliable public transportation has nothing to do with competing for industries on a mass scale, it helps but I really dont see how it could cause a categorical change. Education does nothing if you have no good jobs to employ people with, education reform is largely a myth, hundreds of millions have been pored into education by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, ZERO positive results have been shown. Bill Gates has said this himself. Education is a filtering mechanism, it doesn't upgrade people. The longer we continue with these pipe dreams the more jobs we lose.

1) Energy density matters. You cite no data to back your claims up, in fact the opposite is true. Lithium batteries pack just as much energy per kg. Lithium is at 41.7 kJ per gram [0], Oil is at 45 kJ per gram [1]

Battery tech has more room for improvement than the hard chemical/physical limits of oil.

2) Job creation is a farce. We don't more oil riggers any more than we need more lamplighters and switchboard operators. If you want to ensure everyone has a good quality of life - a basic income looks more promising.[2]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

[1]: https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ArthurGolnik.shtml

[2]: https://tcf.org/content/commentary/universal-basic-income-ve...

1.) By cost per barrel and energy provided, oil is impossible to beat. If there was something cheaper, it would have mass adoption.

2.) Job creation is a farce? So lets just give everyone money? We passed NAFTA and destroyed the mid west, 15 years later everyone in those states realized what happened and then voted for Trump. The whole nation was caught off guard by something that was hiding in plan sight. Government policy directly affects where companies put jobs. Ignoring and completely arguing against this is a really radical position.

1.) Environmental externalities are not included in the full cost of oil and now we have a classic tragedy of the commons problem.[0] It's not just the CO2 emitted in the burning of oil, it's also the energy loss in distribution, the energy + environmental cost or resource extraction, etc. [1]

2.) Yes! Precisely. If you're paying people to dig a hole, then some one else to fill it, why not skip the meaningless labor and just give people the money? It wastes less energy/labor. Obviously we need some people to do important jobs for society, but this is a driving principle behind a universal basic income. It's not about entitlements or free money, it's about what's most efficient for our country. While I'm undecided whether I'd vote for him in the primaries, Andrew Yang is actually doing a great job of educating people on this, I suggest you take a look at his website if this is new to you: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/. A really good alternative to this would be reducing the hours in the work week.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti...

So far it has worked pretty well for the US and China has been suffering. 6 million jobs with 2 million manufacturing jobs alone created since his election. China has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs and a lot of manufacturers are moving away from China and either coming back to US or moving to places like India where IP theft isn't a huge problem.

Not sure there will still be a trade war during the election. The world is no longer composed of warehouse economies that can hold out indefinitely in the face of war, disease, sanctions, etc, come what may. Either China will give, we will give, or China and the US will go their separate ways. Way too risky for the Chinese to try to bank on a new president, or a new president after that, or etc etc etc. See sawing back and forth between normal trade and no trade and never knowing where you're gonna stand in 4 years.

Better for them, game theoretically, to do exactly what they're doing. Either bring Trump to the table, or fail and look to their own markets.

Hmm

At first that sounds like a weird theory to me, but on second thought it’s quite reasonable. China has some long term goals, for which a more divided and more poorly controlled US would benefit them. But Trump is a strong immediate threat to their economy so it’s probably better to have him removed for China.

However the more ammo Trump has to vilify China, the more virtuous he appears. If this were really china’s aim, they should be playing the victim. So I think the us presidential race is not their top concern.

I'm not so sure. The democrats have been largely silent about the trade war (beyond using it as ammo against Trump).

I think no matter the administration, a lot of the existing executive branch would like to see this through.

Democrats have been silent because its a positive thing, but if they come out and agree with Trump it looks bad

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