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Comment by throw_that_away | Hacker News Reader

I think people keep saying crap like this: Prices can absolutely come down without killing the economy. It's done by doing smart things that republicans were making talking points:

* Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the store come down.

* Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas.

* Create pipelines so that instead of "flaring" Natural gas, we transport it cheaply to be used for electricity generation

* Change the tariff structure so that American goods are worth something against Chinese imports that raises the value of the dollar which lowers the cost of goods

* Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45 cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in climate

NONE of these were democrat talking points.

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>Drill for oil

Current admin did this at record rates

>Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas

The US is a net exporter of energy so the instability is helpful

>Create pipelines

We have already entered the late stage hydrocarbon era. Massive imminent domain projects for a decade or two of utility are I advised

>Change the tariff

We cannot go to a pre-globalization time. Alea iacta est. The only way for tariffs to work against BRICS would be a unilateral tariff which would affect all American commerce.

What countries aren't using tariffs? Biden used tariffs. Biden kept Trump tariffs. I paid a tariff for my BMW. Germany was probably pretty happy about that. I liked their product enough, so I was happy, too.

Go read some Peter Navarro. He explains desperately how important it is to be protectionist (to a limited extent) with certain industries. Especially if they link to security and health of the nation. You do not want a hostile nation to make all of your pharmaceuticals. You do not want them to hold you hostage over your lack and their surplus of steel. This is basic, basic stuff.

And the whole point is that other countries are not engaging in fair trade practices. If they aren't engaging in fair trade, then they can't engage in this fabled myth of "free trade". This is literally the Trump trade doctrine. He has spelled it out and acted on it. If the CCP hadn't manipulated the price of steel to wipe out American steel producers, they wouldn't be subject to extreme tariffs. Simple, simple stuff.

Trump campaigned on BROAD BASED tariffs, not the targeted actions you're describing. Maybe he's bluffing but the effects are very different.

Explaining the minutia does not make for the best campaign trail rhetoric. But I can assure you, after speaking extensively in person with members of the Trump trade team, that their strategy is deep and sophisticated.

When he speaks of broad-based tariffs, he is using one of his framing techniques that he unironically explains in the Art of the Deal.

With all that said, the tariffs have me concerned, but allowing our industrial base to continue to evaporate has me more concerned.

History has shown us that Trump does not have "deep and sophisticated" plans. He has campaign rhetoric that sounds good to ignorant people, and then blindly moves into that plan. The trade wars with China required a bail out of farmers and is one of the things that helped fuel inflation, for example.

> he unironically explains in the Art of the Deal

He didn't write that book. Based on his numerous failed businesses and his history of poor negotiations (Afghanistan as a very obvious example), we should be operating on the assumption that he isn't actually good at this, and pray his advisors are.

> With all that said, the tariffs have me concerned, but allowing our industrial base to continue to evaporate has me more concerned.

Then you should have been happy with Biden, who worked towards things like the CHIPS act, which moved manufacturing of critical supply chain back to America.

The economist, the financial times, and large numbers of economists have said that his plans are going to fuel inflation and will reduce GDP. Elon Musk said we should be prepared to make sacrifices. People are telling you what's coming, and that's what you should be concerned about.

You convinced me.

Blaming Trump for Biden giving the Taliban 80 billion dollars in military equipment is about what I expected.

Trump negotiated the terms of the handover before Biden took office. It was just damage control from then on, with most of the troops already removed before day one of his term, his only option was to bring many back to secure that equipment, and the MAGA types would have blown an even larger gasket over that.

> But I can assure you, after speaking extensively in person with members of the Trump trade team, that their strategy is deep and sophisticated.

What is it?

Why do you think BMW was happy you paid a tariff? It means their cars are more expensive than they need to be, and therefore their volumes (and profits) are lower.

BMW doesn’t get the tarriff anyway. Why would they be happy about it?

Germany gets the tariff, and the people keep voting for the politicians who support it, so.......... I suppose the Germans are happy?

Why on earth would you think Germany gets to collect a tariff that the US imposes on imported goods. It makes zero sense. The US collects the tariff. It's effectively an extra tax citizens pay for imported goods. It hurts the people and it hurts the companies producing the goods.

Guess it's not just "hillbillies" and rubes who don't know how tariffs work, it's also "very educated" people in hackernews telling us about "simple simple stuff"!

Enlighten us, oh wonderful wizard. Why does Germany get taxes the US imposes?

The whole point is that people buy shit from the US by making the German stuff more expensive.

> Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45 cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in climate

You mean the gas taxes that fund road maintenance? That tax is a tyranny imposed by how much we rely on cars, not by climate change.

It's funny how other states must use magic wands to fix their roads, obviously since the gas prices are not jacked up as high elsewhere.

I don’t understand the sarcasm. Comparable states like Texas and New York charge far more in tolls than California. Many states have far fewer roads (with less usage), or they underfund their road maintenance, don’t repair them, and then rely on federal funds to make emergency repairs after something critical breaks.

Underlying the sarcasm is the assertion that California is not fiscally responsible with its budget. Understand now?

Nope, still don’t get it. We aren’t any more or less responsible than other states, just much bigger.

You sure about that?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you understood the point or would you like it explained again?

Do you have an actual explanation or just low effort memes? Read the forum guidelines, thanks!

Thanks! So in order to make this thread more "thoughtful and substantive", underlying that posters earlier sarcasm is the belief that California is not responsible with its budget. Hope that helps this time!

Oh ok, makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. Hope you feel better now :)

Concession noted, thanks!

California is more responsible than Illinois or New Jersey, but there are plenty of states who are more responsible than CA.

The tolls are 1. Used to fix toll lanes, much more prevalent now than in the past 2. Payments to private companies who siphon the proceeds out of the area they services

Gas tax is much better in this regard, but all of these are pretty extortionary.

Last I checked I think 60% was getting siphoned off to an LLC and only 40% of the toll was for the road.

Not only that, tolls suck for privacy (de facto installation of ALPR cameras, database presumptively controlled by a private company selling the data to anyone with money), are a regressive tax on the poor, and are often used to implement "taxation without representation" by sticking the tolls near a state border to extract rents from people not eligible to vote against them.

New York has even taken to explicitly charging higher rates to out of state residents, which is of questionable constitutionality.

But think about all the poor politicians who would miss out on their kickbacks.

I would like to be able to say that in Europe, tolls are managed by the state, but they aren't.

Driving is a privilege. You can walk on the walking road, thingy.

Driving is a right because travel is a right and walking between two points separated by dozens of miles on a daily basis is about as reasonable a suggestion as "let them eat cake".

Travel is a right, including interstate travel, but Dixon v Love (among others) have held that personally operating a motor vehicle (“driving”) is a privilege rather than an inherent right.

You can take a bus, taxi, or airplane to travel.

> Dixon v Love (among others) have held that personally operating a motor vehicle (“driving”) is a privilege rather than an inherent right.

The question in that case is whether someone's license can be suspended after conviction of traffic offenses without a separate hearing on the suspension. Denial of rights is common practice upon conviction of a crime, e.g. unless you've been convicted of a crime you generally have a right not to be incarcerated.

> You can take a bus, taxi, or airplane to travel.

So if you're a farmer in New Jersey and have to deliver your produce to a farm-to-table restaurant in New York City, which of these is supposed to apply? Also notice how little this has to do with tolls. If your license was suspended you could pay an employee to drive your truck into the city but the E-ZPass tag doesn't care about that.

That ruling refers to them as privileges in a direct way (without objection by the Court).

Perhaps you could cite the basis upon which you conclude they are legally a right.

Natural rights. Clearly. The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it limits abrogation of certain rights. The right to travel is long established in common law.

The right to your preferred mode of travel is not.

You're relying on "preferred" to do all the work there.

There are plenty of contexts where cars are the only realistic mode of travel and then it isn't a matter of preference because there isn't any viable alternative.

It appears to me that the Court holds that riding in an airplane or car is a right (of travel) but that piloting or driving that airplane/car is a privilege.

But then you come to the context where driving it yourself is viable and hiring a private chauffeur is infeasibly uneconomical and you've got some trouble.

What "privilege" means in this context is that you need a license to do it. That doesn't imply that it isn't still a right. For example, you might need a signage license to put up a sign, but free speech is still a right, and for that reason the government is constrained in the criteria they can use to deny you the signage license.

But people say "driving is a privilege, not a right" as if these things are alternatives to each other. Requiring you to pass a driving test is quite a different thing than discriminating against you based on your state of residence.

Here's a quote from your own case:

> The nature of the private interest involved here (the granted license to operate a motor vehicle) is not so great as to require a departure from "the ordinary principle . . . that something less than an evidentiary hearing is sufficient prior to adverse administrative action," Eldridge, supra at 424 U. S. 343, particularly in light of statutory provisions for hardship and for holders of commercial licenses, who are those most likely to be affected by the deprival of driving privileges.

Strongly implies that constraints exist on what the government can deny. What's that about, if there isn't a right to be implicated?

Not when it is mandatory to function in society. Then, it is a necessary utility.

>Last I checked I think 60% was getting siphoned off to an LLC and only 40% of the toll was for the road.

Which tolls on which road? At least where I live there's more than one toll road in the area.

California has the worst roads of any state I've driven in. San Fran and San Jose, rank among the top 10 in the country of the worst roads. Whatever they are using it for, isn't for road maintenance.

Agreed. Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Florida..... visited all of them in the last 12 months during various seasons.... they ALL have significantly better roads than California. HOW!!!!!! HOW!

California has the second highest total lane miles by state[0] and it has the highest number of registered vehicles of any state, by a big margin.[1]

Being a such a populous big state with only tiny, regional public transportation systems means everyone and their cousin drives everywhere, all the time. That's how.

[0]https://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/

[1]https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/sta...

Germany has an equal GDP to California with double the road miles. Their roads are ranked higher.

California can do better, it just doesn't.

Germans roads are often very nice. The autobahn is awesome. Germans also pay $2.76/gallon in fuel tax.

Californians only pay $0.68/gallon. You up for an additional $2.08/gallon in taxes to pay for those sweet, German roads?

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/gas-taxes-in-europe-20...

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-gas-tax-rates...

No. If that's the difference maker, definitely not.

I've lived in California for 30+ years now and what I've observed is that we spend huge amounts of money on infrastructure and a lot of the spend seems to be absolute waste. For example, there is no realistic reason for high speed rail to cost what it does per mile; I am certain that a very close inspection of the process would uncover huge amounts of waste, padding, and theft. On top of that, people have been able to limit development using enivronmental rules and other legal methods to slow down things that are truly needed.

I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors. I think this has happened over and over again (Rome, and many other societies).

> I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors.

How about Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

Oil production is at all time highs (AFAIL). Further, drilling locally for oil does not directly reduce local prices. It is still shipped abroad to the highest bidder. That is ignoring the refinement issues that not all oil is equal and needs to be refined.

'Just' stop wars short of surrendering is easy to say. No evidence Republicans actually could deliver or prevent. Just talk.

The tariffs were largely kept in place between Biden and Trump. The criticism here would apply equally to both but also ignores trade wars.

The pipeline bit is perhaps viable, but a drop in the bucket (with respect to at least the keystone XL [1])

[1] https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-895299166310

"Even if the Keystone XL pipeline had been completed, the amount of oil it was designed to transport would have been a drop in the bucket for U.S. demand, experts noted. The U.S. used nearly 20 million barrels of oil a day last year, while global consumption of oil was near 100 million barrels. The pipeline would have contributed less than 1% to the world supply of oil, according to AP reporting.

“The total volume of additional supply is negligible in a market that uses 100 million barrels of oil every day,”"

I think the way I am interpreting the parent comments is that whether or not these Republican promises are true or viable is beside the point.

The right still has them as talking points, where the left has failed miserably. Talking about any potential solutions seems to have enticed American voters more than trying to sweep it under the rug.

Conventional oil drilling peaked in the 70s exactly as predicted in peak oil. It was made up for with fracking, except fracking has always lost money.

> Just' stop wars short of surrendering is easy to say

Also easy to observe that it would be better than conducting wars and surrendering anyway.

These are nice TV soundbites, but reflect a clear lack of understanding of how these issues (gas prices, wars, tariffs, etc.) work.

But I guess that explains why people voted for Trump.

- Drill for oil: oil production is at all all-time high. Drilling more doesn't drop local prices.

- Stop the wars: 100% agree we should end all wars. Except that Trump has no control over this. Also, the one thing that both parties agree on is increasing the military budget (Congress voted for more than Biden proposed).

Saying stop the wars is nice. Saying it while you cheer the people starting the wars with a badge of "Best Friends Forever" is just cynical and disgusting.

It’s incomprehensible to me how people don’t think through what Trump says.

Even more incomprehensible that even if Trump’s policies were sound that Americans would vote to have such a reprehensible person as their leader.

> * Drill for oil, lower the price of gas, prices at the store come down.

Strategically and economically stupid. Buy oil when everyone has it, sell oil when everyone else has ran out.

> * Stop the wars that make for unstable access for gas.

The US military is the largest socialist jobs program in the world and is the single greatest creator of skilled labor for our economy.

> * Change the tariff structure so that American goods are worth something against Chinese imports that raises the value of the dollar which lowers the cost of goods

Lets say you make widgets for $9 and sell them to me for $10 (a healthy 10% profit). The government comes along and tells you there is a $2 tariff on widgets. Are you going to sell me widgets at $8 (a $1 loss) or raise the price to $12? Tariffs are a tax on goods paid by the buyer and a way to de-incentivize overseas production. But here is the problem - do you want to make 39 cents an hour sewing soccer balls or do you want to pay 10x for that soccer ball so that an American can have a livable wage doing the sewing for you?

The "American Dream" is exploitation of cheap overseas labor because of our superior economic position. Regardless of how you feel about that morally, Trump's economic plan is to try and figure out how to on-shore the lowest paid factory jobs.

> The US military is the largest socialist jobs program in the world and is the single greatest creator of skilled labor for our economy.

This sounds an awful lot like the broken window fallacy. Wars are destructive and any amount spent on that destruction is lost from the economy no matter how many people you hire in the process. Surely funding schools would be a more direct way of creating skilled labour.

What about the microwave oven and the thousands of other products the military has indirectly created?

It isn't military that's in question. It's their engagements.

The U.S defense budget would be a fraction of its budget if used for defense.

There is an upside in wining wars. But since the U.S has been losing them, it's funding jobs that provide no value. Would better be spent elsewhere.

The Japanese unique economic boom after WWII was mostly due to having little to know defense budget. Germany's was less impressive but also benefited from focusing on the economic performance.

> Trump's economic plan is to try and figure out how to on-shore the lowest paid factory jobs.

Not necessarily. Tariffs are a limited tax, in this case maxing out at 100%. Making soccer balls from China cost twice as much is not going to bridge the gap between viable and non-viable for onshore production. It really only bridges the gap where the off vs on shore savings are much closer, which tends to apply to more complex manufacturing processes, which incorporate more automation in the process, as cost gaps between developed and undeveloped countries tend to be greatest in the cost of labor. Automation is often cheaper in more developed countries, in fact.

Onshoring those kinds of jobs/infrastructure would provide a range of national security and economic benefits.

I genuinely don't understand how tariffs have become so poorly understood and divisive. Every argument about them I see framed seems either highly biased or pure misinformation, from both sides. They are not free tax money, but they also can have benefits for low and middle class people.

1/2 of the claimed benefits are just lies: China isn't going to be paying the tariffs, but maybe it will spark some limited increase in US manufacturing. The thing it will do is increase prices (inflation).

Of course, the increase in manufacturing will be limited. Is there a policy that can increase it without limit?

I also think its disingenuous to call tariff induced price increases inflation. That's like calling a sales tax inflation. Maybe its technically correct, maybe not, but if your going to apply it here, make sure you are also applying it to carbon/gas taxes, environmental regulations (they also increase costs), and capital gains taxes (they lower asset supply).

Most people don't care why the prices went up, they just want them to not go up. Distinction on definition really doesn't matter.

It does. Inflation is a broad phenomenon, whereas tariffs mostly only affect targeted imported goods. We should all strive to be precise when discussing our opinions and preferences, lest we believe we disagree when we infact do not.

Agree. Higher prices are a known predictable consequence and could be reversed by removing the tariff. You can't change a policy like that and immediately end inflation, that's an entirely different thing.

You didn't cover the global supply chain.

> * Stop the insane energy policies that raise gas prices by 45 cents per gallon (in CA for example) for 0.0001% change in climate

Climate change aside, you do realize that States decide on gas taxes, not the Federal government, right? Which means that neither Trump nor Harris can do anything about what gas taxes CA decides to add, or any other State.

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