Trade wars are good and easy to win!

dflea said:

creepycoug said:

dflea said:

Lots of tax lovers in this thread.

Not the usual crowd, either.

I lean on @UW_Doog_Bot and others for my international economis analysis, but it seems with China we are in a predicament. They need our markets, it seems pretty desperately, we need theirs, I think a little less desperately, but they hold our debt and thus can indirectly affect (or effect) our monetary policy.

There seems to be a little mutually assured destruction going on here Cold War style. Seems to be the time to lay some tuff lumber on the Chinese and make them play real capitalism with the ultimate capitalist big boy. If not now, when.

I'm not a Trump guy 75%+ of the time, but playing hardball with China seems worth a go. Of course it's going to be painful. Paying the price of gaining ground always hurts. I think it's more than IP theft; it's simply unfair trade. We have a much harder time competing in their markets than they do in ours. I know this for a fact because we? (my company) exports to China. We have teams of people just to deal with their layer upon layer of import agents. As I've said in another thread, things we take as blatant dishonesty here passes for routine business there. You either have a hammer to deal with that or you don't, and if not, you shut up and eat it. If you do, and I think we do, then you swing it. Vito Corleone style.

Well, I also have an Econ degree from UW, and I'm pretty certain that tariffs and trade restrictions are generally frowned upon because they lead to higher consumer prices, a net loss of jobs, and can escalate into really ugly shit that gets very costly - for consumers, not governments.

I know what cocks the Chinese are. They're straight up belligerent thieves, but do we really want to torpedo farmers and turn them into welfare cases to fight intellectual property theft? Stick it to aircraft manufacturers and other users of metals so that software companies can be protected?

Sounds like a whole lot of government interventionist bullshit and higher taxes disguised under the term "tariffs" to me. I'm selfish and I give a fuck about my prices more than this battle. Can we win this? Of course. But there's lots of battles you can win if you're behind raising taxes. Trade-warring with China just isn't my preferred battle.

Not a fan.

GDS said:

Gasbag thinks posting facts is rooting for the away team. JFC

TurdBomber said:

dflea said:

creepycoug said:

dflea said:

Lots of tax lovers in this thread.

Not the usual crowd, either.

I lean on @UW_Doog_Bot and others for my international economis analysis, but it seems with China we are in a predicament. They need our markets, it seems pretty desperately, we need theirs, I think a little less desperately, but they hold our debt and thus can indirectly affect (or effect) our monetary policy.

There seems to be a little mutually assured destruction going on here Cold War style. Seems to be the time to lay some tuff lumber on the Chinese and make them play real capitalism with the ultimate capitalist big boy. If not now, when.

I'm not a Trump guy 75%+ of the time, but playing hardball with China seems worth a go. Of course it's going to be painful. Paying the price of gaining ground always hurts. I think it's more than IP theft; it's simply unfair trade. We have a much harder time competing in their markets than they do in ours. I know this for a fact because we? (my company) exports to China. We have teams of people just to deal with their layer upon layer of import agents. As I've said in another thread, things we take as blatant dishonesty here passes for routine business there. You either have a hammer to deal with that or you don't, and if not, you shut up and eat it. If you do, and I think we do, then you swing it. Vito Corleone style.

Well, I also have an Econ degree from UW, and I'm pretty certain that tariffs and trade restrictions are generally frowned upon because they lead to higher consumer prices, a net loss of jobs, and can escalate into really ugly shit that gets very costly - for consumers, not governments.

I know what cocks the Chinese are. They're straight up belligerent thieves, but do we really want to torpedo farmers and turn them into welfare cases to fight intellectual property theft? Stick it to aircraft manufacturers and other users of metals so that software companies can be protected?

Sounds like a whole lot of government interventionist bullshit and higher taxes disguised under the term "tariffs" to me. I'm selfish and I give a fuck about my prices more than this battle. Can we win this? Of course. But there's lots of battles you can win if you're behind raising taxes. Trade-warring with China just isn't my preferred battle.

Not a fan.

You can’t gain ground against a sneaky opponent without sacrifice. Your Econ books would never teach you that. You’d need to read some history to figure that out.

GDS said:

creepycoug said:

dflea said:

Lots of tax lovers in this thread.

Not the usual crowd, either.

I lean on @UW_Doog_Bot and others for my international economis analysis, but it seems with China we are in a predicament. They need our markets, it seems pretty desperately, we need theirs, I think a little less desperately, but they hold our debt and thus can indirectly affect (or effect) our monetary policy.

There seems to be a little mutually assured destruction going on here Cold War style. Seems to be the time to lay some tuff lumber on the Chinese and make them play real capitalism with the ultimate capitalist big boy. If not now, when.

I'm not a Trump guy 75%+ of the time, but playing hardball with China seems worth a go. Of course it's going to be painful. Paying the price of gaining ground always hurts. I think it's more than IP theft; it's simply unfair trade. We have a much harder time competing in their markets than they do in ours. I know this for a fact because we? (my company) exports to China. We have teams of people just to deal with their layer upon layer of import agents. As I've said in another thread, things we take as blatant dishonesty here passes for routine business there. You either have a hammer to deal with that or you don't, and if not, you shut up and eat it. If you do, and I think we do, then you swing it. Vito Corleone style.

If tariffs were the only way to deal with the issue then I’d agree with you. Luckily for us they aren’t. Unfortunately for us Trump thinks they are. Tariffs cause a lot of unnecessary harm to the US economy and American jobs. If only we had had the potential to join a multinational trade agreement with the strongest IP protections ever negotiated in an effort to contain and counter Chinese economic power...