I’m open to arguments that tariffs can be effective, but their advocates rarely seem open to the argument that the way they’re implemented matters.
To put it kindly a lot them are chaos apologists.
To put it kindly a lot them are chaos apologists.
So far it seems to be doing a good job at keeping cheap EU-made food out of our grocery stores.
Of course implementation matters a lot. We have no farmers growing corn in Norway, so we don't have any tariffs on corn. We do have farmers growing apples, but there's no harvesting those during our snowy winters so our tariffs on apples are just active when local apples are in season. We do produce beef all year, but not always enough so they hand out limited quotas allowing for massive reduction in duties to compensate and meet demand.
I'm curious: apples are fairly easy to store in bulk. That's a large part of why we have them year round.
So what's stopping someone from importing apples outside the season and then sorting them to circumvent those tariffs?
Though a lot of local apples goes to production of other goods.
For example various apple juices made from local apples have become popular, especially as an alternative to wine. The price of a 1L bottle of quality, loc apple juice can be the same as a 0.7L bottle of Riesling wine, around $7. And you need a lot of apples to make juice.
[1]: https://www.nettavisen.no/okonomi/provosert-av-kiwi-rema-og-...
“Wealth-class parasites” as you call them did that for decades under the guise of stability.
Why are none of the new protectionist policies implemented with a modicum of stability? Why must everything be done with flip-flipping gusto? Why do we have to become the laughing stock of the world?
For some reason, every sensible person arguing for protectionism (e.g. Oren Cass) at no point argues that how it’s being implemented is detrimental to the cause.
Do you really think tarrifs or any other policy experiments will survive if congress flips? The implementation of these ideas is a farce that will only encourage their elimination. This is not how policy persists for decades.
If it won't persist because democracy will flip it around schizophrenically, then you're just speaking ill of democracy at that point. Can't have that.
Because this is a weird talk where only extremes are talked about, that is popular when you have only two established parties and no system that enables more nuanced ideas.
> and they'll correct their strategic stances for the newer unstable order: Onshored supply chains,
In a decade or so... maybe.
But why touch that stable state? Maybe lets bring back slavery? Or how about mandatory service and some land invasion? Or split out the states as independent countries? What else would you like to flip to check if it maybe works better, since stable state is not great?
Because it's not working for a majority of people? In a democracy, those are the rules.
How exactly do you think instability encourages long-term investment in manufacturing? Not the dynamic of being in a better position if factories simply popped into existence, but actually plunking down money hoping for a return in the face of economic slowdown and political instability.
The actual response I expect is even more goods shipped directly from China, with tariff taxes built right into the sale price (Aliexpress didn't miss a beat on that one), and with the general uncertainty raising Chinese sellers' profit margins.
Rather there are many sticky intrinsic factors like network effects, path dependency, and economies of scale that would need to be overcome to make the scales tip the other way. This is why once manufacturing started going to China, it then continued accelerating. To start bringing it back, we would need to clear a high activation energy.
Then there are the additional issues with the current approach. For starters, building new factories requires a bunch of industrial equipment. But with the blanket import taxes that has all shot up in price as well.
There is also the uncertainty of trying to plan on the long term scales of capital payback in the presence of an administration that flip flops on policies by the month, has seemingly no clue what they're doing, carves exceptions for the politically connected who bribe at McDonalds-al-Lago, and continues escalating the attacks against our traditionally stable-for-capital rule of law. From the investment perspective, it feels we're moving in the direction of a South American dictatorship where it only makes sense to run economically-colonizing "suitcase operations" rather than broad-base industrialization.
It is not talking about a stable government and the benefits/drawbacks of that.
You just need to tax them.
Also the government is incompetent, bloated, and also evil. The only truly good government is god and his appointed ~grifters~ [messengers].
I wish I was joking. That's what I was taught at home for like 30y.