For as long as I can remember—but more so under editors Kelly and Goldberg—the Atlantic Monthly has had a habit of publishing bullshit right-wing misinformation on important topics that are in my...
Shorter: If an Atlantic article is wrong for 4 paragraphs, treat it like an Economist article after 2 paragraphs and click TF away. Corollary: If you are knowledge about the topic halve the paragraph allowance.
Quibble, but I don't think this—"Trump sincerely believes that NAFTA was the worst and USMCTA the best trade agreement America has ever made"—is well formulated. It's better to say he'd *like* it to be true, and sincerely believes it *could* be true, thanks to his complete ignorance of the subject, and is pretty confident he can say it without getting told to his face that he doesn't know what he's talking about. That is, it's pure bullshit.
Cass started with an idea that Clausing and Obstfeld mentioned near the end of their piece - that tariffs can be a way to deal with issues like allowing manufacturers to pollute the public commons, which I would consider to be a public subsidy - then abandons it in favor of the more traditional protectionist arguments. These arguments protect firms, not workers or citizens (oddly enough, the same people).
I've thought about very tightly designed and targeted tariffs as a means of leveling the playing field against countries that allow their citizens to be turned into little better than serfs and force them to breathe dirty air and drink foul water at the behest of greedy businesses, many of them American. I started thinking about this when companies started suing governments over environmenal and worker protection laws as "non-tariff barriers to trade" under NAFTA. But that's a discussion that needs to wait until after the election, because most Americans don't understand how markets actually work, and such a conversation would lead them to think Trump's tariff plan would work for them.
Yes and yes... I saw similar nonsense re Trump's tax cut (TBF , I'm not sure it was the Atlantic)
and when the numbers came in the tax benefit to corporations had pretty much gone to buybacks - very little to R&D or product development (and no - marketing expenses for drug sales is not R&D even if Pfizer thinks so) - and the nonsense keeps going on... I'm guessing you should start a graduate program in the econ dept on how to boost your visibility by being "controversial". See also "is the world flat"
Might be too long for some, but if you want to get an article in the Atlantic Monthly you probably have to make it substantive -- and the article is. I thought it excellent as an explanation for lay economists as to why his policy of "tariffs for all purposes" is so disastrous". However, I suspect that the tariff policy's regressive nature is just want he wants.
Isn't raising tariffs similar in effect to devaluing the currency?
I ask, because by the 1970s, Britains manufacturing caoability was getting worse and worse. In the 1960s, when excga=nge rates were fixed, Britain devalued against a number of currencies. This effectively continued when exchange rates floated. The argument was that devaluing the currency would result is increased growth as British goods would be cheaper and more competitive for export. However, this is not what happened. Firms simply raised prices to increase profits and the decline continued.
The Trump tax cuts did much teh same. Instead of investment, corporations used the savings to boost shareholder and C-suite returns through share buybacks. In both examples, the game was to enrich the stockholders, not improve the business.
It would not surproze me in teh least that raising tariffs will have teh same effect, creating an umbrella of higher effective import prices to allow domestic manufacturers to raise prices and increase profits.
"...Trump sincerely believes that NAFTA was the worst and USMCTA the best trade agreement America has ever made."
I don't think Trump ever knew or really cared what was in NAFTA. He was trying to be the next FDR, only instead of creating institutions to deal with real problems, he was destroying what was there to replace it with something carrying his brand. He will always say his stuff is the best, and what it replaced was the worst.
How possible is it that the universal tariff scheme is just a way to introduce VAT or some national sales tax so that the federal tax burden can be shifted to low-income consumers ?
Trump's economic proposals should be viewed with skepticism. Politicians often make proposals or promises they know are impractical. But they make these promises anyway because it will help them get elected. Once elected they quietly abandon impractical ideas. If someone asks about them they say the proposal is "being studied" or that Congress is not cooperating, or diplomatic concerns have arisen, etc. etc. Of course Trump is worse than the average politician, and so are many of his ideas.
Shorter: If an Atlantic article is wrong for 4 paragraphs, treat it like an Economist article after 2 paragraphs and click TF away. Corollary: If you are knowledge about the topic halve the paragraph allowance.
Yes...
Quibble, but I don't think this—"Trump sincerely believes that NAFTA was the worst and USMCTA the best trade agreement America has ever made"—is well formulated. It's better to say he'd *like* it to be true, and sincerely believes it *could* be true, thanks to his complete ignorance of the subject, and is pretty confident he can say it without getting told to his face that he doesn't know what he's talking about. That is, it's pure bullshit.
Touché...
Cass started with an idea that Clausing and Obstfeld mentioned near the end of their piece - that tariffs can be a way to deal with issues like allowing manufacturers to pollute the public commons, which I would consider to be a public subsidy - then abandons it in favor of the more traditional protectionist arguments. These arguments protect firms, not workers or citizens (oddly enough, the same people).
I've thought about very tightly designed and targeted tariffs as a means of leveling the playing field against countries that allow their citizens to be turned into little better than serfs and force them to breathe dirty air and drink foul water at the behest of greedy businesses, many of them American. I started thinking about this when companies started suing governments over environmenal and worker protection laws as "non-tariff barriers to trade" under NAFTA. But that's a discussion that needs to wait until after the election, because most Americans don't understand how markets actually work, and such a conversation would lead them to think Trump's tariff plan would work for them.
Yes and yes... I saw similar nonsense re Trump's tax cut (TBF , I'm not sure it was the Atlantic)
and when the numbers came in the tax benefit to corporations had pretty much gone to buybacks - very little to R&D or product development (and no - marketing expenses for drug sales is not R&D even if Pfizer thinks so) - and the nonsense keeps going on... I'm guessing you should start a graduate program in the econ dept on how to boost your visibility by being "controversial". See also "is the world flat"
Might be too long for some, but if you want to get an article in the Atlantic Monthly you probably have to make it substantive -- and the article is. I thought it excellent as an explanation for lay economists as to why his policy of "tariffs for all purposes" is so disastrous". However, I suspect that the tariff policy's regressive nature is just want he wants.
Isn't raising tariffs similar in effect to devaluing the currency?
I ask, because by the 1970s, Britains manufacturing caoability was getting worse and worse. In the 1960s, when excga=nge rates were fixed, Britain devalued against a number of currencies. This effectively continued when exchange rates floated. The argument was that devaluing the currency would result is increased growth as British goods would be cheaper and more competitive for export. However, this is not what happened. Firms simply raised prices to increase profits and the decline continued.
The Trump tax cuts did much teh same. Instead of investment, corporations used the savings to boost shareholder and C-suite returns through share buybacks. In both examples, the game was to enrich the stockholders, not improve the business.
It would not surproze me in teh least that raising tariffs will have teh same effect, creating an umbrella of higher effective import prices to allow domestic manufacturers to raise prices and increase profits.
Are not these the effects that Behavioural Economics have studied (or should study)?
"...Trump sincerely believes that NAFTA was the worst and USMCTA the best trade agreement America has ever made."
I don't think Trump ever knew or really cared what was in NAFTA. He was trying to be the next FDR, only instead of creating institutions to deal with real problems, he was destroying what was there to replace it with something carrying his brand. He will always say his stuff is the best, and what it replaced was the worst.
How possible is it that the universal tariff scheme is just a way to introduce VAT or some national sales tax so that the federal tax burden can be shifted to low-income consumers ?
Trump's economic proposals should be viewed with skepticism. Politicians often make proposals or promises they know are impractical. But they make these promises anyway because it will help them get elected. Once elected they quietly abandon impractical ideas. If someone asks about them they say the proposal is "being studied" or that Congress is not cooperating, or diplomatic concerns have arisen, etc. etc. Of course Trump is worse than the average politician, and so are many of his ideas.