US Politics: Free Trade, Freer Trade, and Nuclear War

[OldGimletEye]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

I agree with you that China will eventually have more consumption (it's either that or it falls apart or they succeed in building The Hive). The part I don't see as inevitable (or even particularly likely) is that they will start importing significantly more stuff from the US. They're large enough and produce enough to satisfy the demand mostly from internal production. Of course, they will still import some things from us and probably more than they were importing before, but not enough to make a difference to us.

Yes, but if China starts with higher consumption, it means they will export less and import more, unless they go full blown protectionist and raise high tarriffs or quantity quotas.

And I don’t see that happening. One because China wants to be a player on the world stage, and I don’t it get there if it goes full blown protectionist. Secondly, since China is not going to be some agrarian nation with lots of “low” skilled labor, protectionist policies are likely to be inefficient. Once a country like China has developed it’s capital intensive industries and it’s engineering know how, protectionism is harmful. And lastly if China continues to develop it’s financial markets, to the point that Chinese financial assets look desirable to hold for most of the world, that will bring down the positive trade deficits it is running.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

This part is true. It's a fairly classic action in that he's doing something that his base has been clamoring for, but it's something that will no longer make much of a difference.

The fact is Trump has always had some pretty skewed about trade. For him trade deficits are simply about keeping the score and it’s an indication of a real estate deal gone bad.

But there is no reason why trade deficits are bad in all context and all places. In fact, in most cases it is relatively benign. A few year back I believe, Norway ran lots of trade deficits. But those deficits allowed Norway to finance it’s booming oil industry, while not cutting back on it’s internal consumption. Norway did not “lose” by running deficits in that case.

One of the main problems with free trade is that it can have distributional effects. And in the case of the US, a drop in aggregate labor. It really wasn’t about the US “losing”. Now those problems could have been handled with more intelligent policy. If Trump was really serious about fixing the lasting effects of some of those problems, then he could have at least insisted on a sane corporate tax cut that would have been at least revenue neutral, but would have gotten a lower rate. Not that I think corporate tax cuts are the manna from heaven that conservatives think, I’m just saying there was a more sane way to do it. And he could have used the fiscal space the US had to help the people that he was allegedly supposed to. Instead, he helped passed and insane corporate tax bill, that used the much of the US fiscal space to hand gobs of cash to wealthy people.

Now the other problem I noted, and I think it applies to the US in the mid-2000s is that a huge trade deficit can lead to the FED policy rate being too low, which can present problems. Normally, for the most I think, the aggregate demand drop from from a negative trade deficit can be benignly offset by a nation’s monetary authority. But, when the policy rate, gets too low, it can potentially present problems and it might be better to use fiscal tools to offset any aggregate demand drops.

Ultimately, the point is I think is that Trump has a very skewed and not accurate view about trade and has no understanding about US policy mistakes.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Something like this would make a difference, but it's not happening in the US.

I know getting stuff done like this can seem about as futile and pointless as a World War 1 battle, but if it’s good policy, it’s something you have to keep pushing. In the US, things just don’t get done overnight. It’s always two steps forward, and then one step back. You’ve gotta be tenacious to get stuff like this done and not expect to get it accomplished overnight.

[Paladin of Ice]

It's official: DHS thinks 1984 was an instruction manual. They want to compile a list of and  monitor journalists around their world, including reporters, editors, foreign correspondents, bloggers, and social media influencers to track them and their content. Among the things to be tracker is journalist "sentiment".

Quote

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to monitor hundreds of thousands of news sources around the world and compile a database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers to identify top “media influencers.”

It’s seeking a contractor that can help it monitor traditional news sources as well as social media and identify “any and all” coverage related to the agency or a particular event, according to a request for information released April 3.

The data to be collected includes a publication’s “sentiment” as well as geographical spread, top posters, languages, momentum, and circulation. No value for the contract was disclosed.

“Services shall provide media comparison tools, design and rebranding tools, communication tools, and the ability to identify top media influencers,” according to the statement. DHS agencies have “a critical need to incorporate these functions into their programs in order to better reach federal, state, local, tribal, and private partners,” it said.

The DHS wants to track more than 290,000 global news sources, including online, print, broadcast, cable, and radio, as well as trade and industry publications, local, national and international outlets, and social media, according to the documents. It also wants the ability to track media coverage in more than 100 languages including Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, with instant translation of articles into English.

The request comes amid heightened concern about accuracy in media and the potential for foreigners to influence U.S. elections and policy through “fake news.” Nineteen lawmakers including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month, asking whether Qatar-based Al Jazeera should register as a foreign agent because it “often directly undermines” U.S. interests with favorable coverage of Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

The DHS request says the selected vendor will set up an online “media influence database” giving users the ability to browse based on location, beat, and type of influence. For each influencer found, “present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer.”

I guess the "Congress shall make no law" part of the First Amendment doesn't carry any legal weight whatsoever, unlike the "shall not be infringed" portion of the Second Amendment,

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

It's official: DHS thinks 1984 was an instruction manual. They want to compile a list of and  monitor journalists around their world, including reporters, editors, foreign correspondents, bloggers, and social media influencers to track them and their content. Among the things to be tracker is journalist "sentiment".

I guess the "Congress shall make no law" part of the First Amendment doesn't carry any legal weight whatsoever, unlike the "shall not be infringed" portion of the Second Amendment,

First they wanted every library user's records . . . .  Always thought that the name 'homeland security' just screamed fascism, authoritarianism, etc.

Thank you GWBush.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Trump’s Saudi Arabia policy has gone unchecked by other political forces. Even before the current administration, Saudi Arabia had an impressive footprint in the Washington establishment, with many allies in think tanks and the media. As Vox noted in 2016,  “Washington’s foreign policy community” is “deeply, viscerally committed to defending and advocating for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country whose authoritarian government, ultra-conservative values, and extremist-promoting foreign policy would seem like an unusual passion project for American foreign policy professionals.” Pro-Saudi sentiment among the elite is rooted in a realpolitik preference for the status quo and a belief that the kingdom is a reliable bulwark against Iran, seen by Americans as a hostile regional power.

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/147784/mohammed-bin-salman-death-foreign-policy-debate

Mohammed bin Salman and the Death of Foreign Policy Debate

The Saudi crown prince is getting a hero's welcome in America, where politicians have largely given up on the whole democracy thing.

[Martell Spy]

 

Quote

 

In sum, growing labor market power may well be a significant explanation of the host of maladies that have beset wealthy countries, notably the United States, in the past few decades: declining growth rates, falling labor share of corporate earnings, rising inequality, falling employment of prime-age men, and persistent and growing government fiscal deficits. It’s remarkable how well labor market power alone can simultaneously explain all these trends.

Many conservative economists blame high taxes for these problems. But inordinately high taxes cannot explain these trends, because tax rates have been cut several times during this period. Nor can globalization and automation. Globalization and automation can help explain why inequality has increased but not why economic growth rates have stagnated: On the contrary, globalization and automation should have increasedeconomic growth (by expanding markets and by reducing the cost of production), not reduced it.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/6/17204808/wages-employers-workers-monopsony-growth-stagnation-inequality

More and moremonopsony-growth-stagnation-inequality companies have monopoly power over workers’ wages. That’s killing the economy.

The trend can explain slow growth, “missing” workers, and stagnant salaries

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes, but if China starts with higher consumption, it means they will export less and import more, unless they go full blown protectionist and raise high tarriffs or quantity quotas.

And I don’t see that happening. One because China wants to be a player on the world stage, and I don’t it get there if it goes full blown protectionist. Secondly, since China is not going to be some agrarian nation with lots of “low” skilled labor, protectionist policies are likely to be inefficient. Once a country like China has developed it’s capital intensive industries and it’s engineering know how, protectionism is harmful. And lastly if China continues to develop it’s financial markets, to the point that Chinese financial assets look desirable to hold for most of the world, that will bring down the positive trade deficits it is running.

They could also simply produce more and export and import roughly the same -- there are so many people there that there will always be lots of "low" skilled labor (or at least long past the point when the machines take over). Also, you are using words like "harmful" in the context of economics, but remember that unlike, say, the US (which is a capitalist society with a glazing of democracy), China is not a capitalist society with a glazing of communism -- the CCP has real power and it can (and does!) repress the capitalists if they threaten that power. They are more than willing to tolerate inefficiency if necessary.

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

One of the main problems with free trade is that it can have distributional effects. And in the case of the US, a drop in aggregate labor. It really wasn’t about the US “losing”.

Read that again and you'll see that it pretty much was. Yes, it is more complicated than simply saying the US lost -- if you include the gains of the 1%, on average we might even have come out ahead -- but the distributional effects brought a long list of negative consequences and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future (there's a very good chance that the populism of 2016 is only the beginning).

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I know getting stuff done like this can seem about as futile and pointless as a World War 1 battle, but if it’s good policy, it’s something you have to keep pushing. In the US, things just don’t get done overnight. It’s always two steps forward, and then one step back. You’ve gotta be tenacious to get stuff like this done and not expect to get it accomplished overnight.

It's good policy as long as you can convince the corporate leadership to implement this in good faith. Otherwise it's akin to making wishes with a malicious genie: they'll give you what you asked for, but in a way that not only doesn't give you what you want, but will actually make you wish you never asked. For example, they'll turn all of their workers into contractors or something like that.

[Kalbear]

9 hours ago, Shryke said:

No, it does matter. That's the point. Your "just haggling about the price" is as bullshit as the anecdote the quote comes from and missing the point just as hard. The difference matters. A lot.

The quote comes from a joke. 

And it is still entirely rational to ignore personal failings if you're getting political value. If anything Republicans are more rational in this regard than democrats tend to be. 

9 hours ago, Shryke said:

I mean, Donald Trump is President right now. Franken isn't even a Senator. And you can't tell me Franken wasn't doing his part to get the policies his supporters wanted.

Sure, which is why getting rid of him is somewhat irrational, though it is less easy to ignore the personal scandal when the person is small time by comparison. Franken wasn't potus, wasn't the head of the Democratic house or Senate, and didn't have a lot of tenure. the calculus is whether or not his personal failings will result in overall political loss if you do something, and that becomes weighed higher towards getting rid of them. 

This calculation is what is making the evangelicals nervous - they aren't upset with Trump, they're worried that the scandals will hurt his midterm success. 

[Altherion]

I said above that it is possible the populism of 2016 is only the beginning. Here's one way the story could go:

Quote

During the interview, Jones -- a right-wing conspiracy theorist -- said he wanted to know why liberals hate America and "love communism."

"Don't ask why," Nugent said. "Just know that evil, dishonesty and scam artists have always been around and that right now they're liberal, they're Democrat, they're RINOs, they're Hollywood, they're fake news, they're media, they're academia, and they're half of our government, at least."

"So come to that realization," he continued. "There are rabid coyotes running around, you don't wait till you see one to go get your gun, keep your gun handy. And every time you see one, shoot one."

I'm rather surprised at how open he's being here: he does veil it in the coyote metaphor, but still...

[Week]

24 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I said above that it is possible the populism of 2016 is only the beginning. Here's one way the story could go:

I'm rather surprised at how open he's being here: he does veil it in the coyote metaphor, but still...

Veil what? His blatantly psychotic and homicidal world view?

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/147784/mohammed-bin-salman-death-foreign-policy-debate

Mohammed bin Salman and the Death of Foreign Policy Debate

The Saudi crown prince is getting a hero's welcome in America, where politicians have largely given up on the whole democracy thing.

It was interesting reading some of the legacy-padding interviews coming out of the Obama White House back in 2016, including several with Obama, because they would frequently mention how over the years they grew to distrust most of the DC foreign policy establishment, especially the think tanks, because they believed they were funded by foreign governments to influence US policy to the benefit of said governments. The Saudis being the biggest culprit there.

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, Week said:

Veil what? His blatantly psychotic and homicidal world view?

Yeah Nugent doesn't veil shit.

[Inigima]

13 hours ago, Zorral said:

First they wanted every library user's records . . . .  Always thought that the name 'homeland security' just screamed fascism, authoritarianism, etc.

Thank you GWBush.

I've always thought the same. I couldn't believe that name didn't set alarm bells at the time. I think the people involved were probably well-meaning at the time, but it's about one step removed from WWII-era German propaganda.

[OldGimletEye]

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

They could also simply produce more and export and import roughly the same -- there are so many people there that there will always be lots of "low" skilled labor (or at least long past the point when the machines take over).

S - I = NX

And that's really all I got I say about that. You're flailing around, grasping for straws here.

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Also, you are using words like "harmful" in the context of economics, but remember that unlike, say, the US (which is a capitalist society with a glazing of democracy), China is not a capitalist society with a glazing of communism -- the CCP has real power and it can (and does!) repress the capitalists if they threaten that power. They are more than willing to tolerate inefficiency if necessary.

Well sure they are communist and I don't expect the communist party to lose power anytime soon. But, they stopped being conventional communist a awhile back. Remember Beijing has about as many billionaires or more than New York. And with communist like that, who needs capitalist? But, anyway, China may not do capitalism the way the US does it and they may keep a large number of enterprises owned or partly owned by the state. Still they would probably will find it in their interest to let the efficient firms survive under trade, while letting the inefficient ones go by the wayside. And I'm not sure how this threatens the grip of the Chinese communist party. And anyway, besides potential efficiency gains, China seems pretty committed to developing trade agreements with other countries. So it doesn't look like it is going the protectionist route in the long term.

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Read that again and you'll see that it pretty much was.  

Except I doubt that's how Trump really sees matters. Rather than concentrating on the distributional effects that trade brings, Trump believes the US lost in the aggregate. And that is not how trade works, normally. Yes, there can be negative distributional effects that hits some segments hard, but overall the gains to trade are beneficial to society.

Yes, I do believe the losers under trade agreements should be compensated and a government should help them find new jobs or help to retrain them. But that is not the same thing as saying a country "lost" through free trade.

And Trump seemingly believes that the size of the trade deficit is an accurate measure of keeping the score between countries. And that is simply nonsense.

And rather than developing a strategy to deal with the specific problem what does Trump do? He advocates for a sorry ass corporate tax cut, that will make distributional issues worse, and used the fiscal space the US had to give out gobs of cash to the wealthy. And by the way, those corporate tax cuts, particularly in its current form, in theory, at least should make the deficit worse, though I doubt it will happen in practice as I doubt all this foreign investment will come rushing in quickly and plus its sorry ass territorial provisions, seemingly gives incentives for capital to flow out. His whole approach is utterly incoherent.

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Read that again and you'll see that it pretty much was. Yes, it is more complicated than simply saying the US lost -- if you include the gains of the 1%, on average we might even have come out ahead -- but the distributional effects brought a long list of negative consequences and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future (there's a very good chance that the populism of 2016 is only the beginning).

But recognizing that distributional effects can happen isn't the same thing as saying a country lost on the whole. And that seemingly is the thrust of Trump's trade message. I don't particularly care for mindless free trade orthodoxy. But, I also don't care for mindless mercantilism, which is basically Trump's approach. And because of his mindless mercantilism and utter stupidity he has not approached the distributional issues or the job losses in any intelligent way. His tariffs will do little to remedy what happened in the past and are a distraction.

 

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's good policy as long as you can convince the corporate leadership to implement this in good faith. Otherwise it's akin to making wishes with a malicious genie: they'll give you what you asked for, but in a way that not only doesn't give you what you want, but will actually make you wish you never asked. For example, they'll turn all of their workers into contractors or something like that.

I guess there are two types of people here.

There are those who just like to throw the dice and say “Golly, anything could happen!”

And then there those of us who are more risk averse and don’t like to throw the dice when we don’t have to.

Voting for Trump cause you didn’t like the current economic system is throwing the dice and saying “Golly anything could happen!” Though, I’d argue if your information set was large enough, Trump’s current policies shouldn’t be too surprising. It would seem that some were just throwing the dice on a very small information set. I like to play craps once awhile, but in most cases, I understand I'm going to lose.

For those of us who don’t like to throw dice or like to at least mitigate it’s downside risk, would prefer to concentrate on policies that might work. And the codeterimination system might work. And such an idea certainly isn’t going to be advocated by the Republican Party or a Republican President anytime soon. And I don’t expect corporate leaders to be fond of the idea. Of course, I really don’t give shit if corporate leaders like it or not or their opinions about it, anymore than I give a damn about Bernie Marcus's opinions about tax cuts. And I don’t expect them to passively accept it. They will have to be forced to accept it. And they will be forced to accept it if there is enough political pressure on them to accept it. Of course, that type of political pressure doesn’t just come about overnight. It takes time. And if you think it’s a good idea, you just gotta keep pushing it, until it becomes politically popular enough. And right now, it would seem the idea is overall rather popular, at least based on what the article says.

Anyway, I’m under no illusion that the modern conservative movement and the Republican Party is going to change through a bunch of polite and civil parlor talk. It’s going to have to be repeatedly hammered politically.

[OldGimletEye]

11 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

 

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/6/17204808/wages-employers-workers-monopsony-growth-stagnation-inequality

More and moremonopsony-growth-stagnation-inequality companies have monopoly power over workers’ wages. That’s killing the economy.

The trend can explain slow growth, “missing” workers, and stagnant salaries

Yes, conservative clowns and libertarian clowns like to explain income distribution through the mindless application of marginalist theory.

CEO guy says, “hey man, I’m just earning my marginal product, man!” Uh, maybe not, as this article points out.

But, aside from the issues, raised in this article, your marginal product will depend on luck, in part at least, where and how you were born for instance. And, for instance, it might depend on whether you're lucky to land a job in an efficient firm as opposed to a relatively inefficient one.

[GAROVORKIN]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes, conservative clowns and libertarian clowns like to explain income distribution through the mindless application of marginalist theory.

CEO guy says, “hey man, I’m just earning my marginal product, man!” Uh, maybe not, as this article points out.

But, aside from the issues, raised in this article, your marginal product will depend on luck, in part at least, where and how you were born for instance. And, for instance, it might depend on whether you're lucky to land a job in an efficient firm as opposed to a relatively inefficient one.

You seem to understand a great deal about economics . This is your specialty ? 

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, GAROVORKIN said:

You seem to understand a great deal about economics . This is your specialty ? 

Nah. Goofing off is my real specialty. Econ is something I read about when I'm not goofing off.

[LongRider]

5 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Nah. Goofing off is my real specialty. Econ is something I read about when I'm not goofing off.

Don't let OGE fool ya, he can write a mean limerick or song parody as well.

[LongRider]

 

[GAROVORKIN]

7 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Don't let OGE fool ya, he can write a mean limerick or song parody as well.

My attempts at Limericks and poetry  are enough to make even a vogon blush.

[GAROVORKIN]

15 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Nah. Goofing off is my real specialty. Econ is something I read about when I'm not goofing off.

For goofing of you do pretty well.