Part of the problem is that these theories are dogmatic. They’re articles of faith.
Tariffs Bad! Make stuff more expensive!
No! Tariffs Good! Make domestic economy more stable and resilient to global price shocks!
Like, you can get under the hood and talk messy details if you’re a professional economic planner doing real long-term strategic policy making. Maybe you really do want steel tariffs so that your country’s last operational blast furnace doesn’t shut down in the face of low priced imports and a short term domestic downturn in construction. Maybe you’re trying to fight brain drain, so you try to cultivate a domestic semiconductor industry. Maybe you’re a single commodity export nation and you want to try and diversify. Maybe there’s a bunch of reasons why defensive domestic industry tariffs are still dumb and counterproductive.
But this conversation means dealing with educated professionals and industrialists with some fucking skin in the game. It’s too easy to heckle from the sidelines by chanting “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Saying tariffs are bad or good is ideological, true, but saying tariffs will increase inflation and prices is just a fact, it is not connected to ideology.
More of a general rule than a fact, since there are situations in which a targeted tariff can reduce inflation given time, but in a ubquitious sense they are a pressure towards increasing inflation.
Blanket Tariffs are seldom useful. There are whole papers written about the efficacy of targeted Tariffs, none of whom would recommend this type of trade strategy
They’re useful as punitive measures. Taken to the extreme, sanctions, embargos, and such are - functionally - just very high price tarrifs.
There are political reasons for a country or confederacy to deliberately cordon off trade with a neighbor or global rival. Most notably, if you’re pursuing regime change or concerned over foreign intelligence services infiltrating through trade channels, you’ll deliverstely choke back trade.
For people who believe the whole world is against them, tariffs make a lot more sense.
Part of the problem is that these theories are dogmatic. They’re articles of faith.
Tariffs Bad! Make stuff more expensive!
No! Tariffs Good! Make domestic economy more stable and resilient to global price shocks!
Like, you can get under the hood and talk messy details if you’re a professional economic planner doing real long-term strategic policy making. Maybe you really do want steel tariffs so that your country’s last operational blast furnace doesn’t shut down in the face of low priced imports and a short term domestic downturn in construction. Maybe you’re trying to fight brain drain, so you try to cultivate a domestic semiconductor industry. Maybe you’re a single commodity export nation and you want to try and diversify. Maybe there’s a bunch of reasons why defensive domestic industry tariffs are still dumb and counterproductive.
But this conversation means dealing with educated professionals and industrialists with some fucking skin in the game. It’s too easy to heckle from the sidelines by chanting “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Saying tariffs are bad or good is ideological, true, but saying tariffs will increase inflation and prices is just a fact, it is not connected to ideology.
More of a general rule than a fact, since there are situations in which a targeted tariff can reduce inflation given time, but in a ubquitious sense they are a pressure towards increasing inflation.
But I think we can all agree that tariffs implemented the way they’re currently being implemented is horrible.
Tariffs are a tool to be used carefully, with thoughtful planning.
That’s true of any broad economic plan. Unfortunately, we don’t have broad economic plans anymore. Just vibes based noodling.
More than the tariffs themselves, it is the reckless and petty imposition of policy that’s fucking things up.
Blanket Tariffs are seldom useful. There are whole papers written about the efficacy of targeted Tariffs, none of whom would recommend this type of trade strategy
They’re useful as punitive measures. Taken to the extreme, sanctions, embargos, and such are - functionally - just very high price tarrifs.
There are political reasons for a country or confederacy to deliberately cordon off trade with a neighbor or global rival. Most notably, if you’re pursuing regime change or concerned over foreign intelligence services infiltrating through trade channels, you’ll deliverstely choke back trade.
For people who believe the whole world is against them, tariffs make a lot more sense.
Reminds me of being at the football game this weekend with some cunts shouting from the stands: “I’m blind, I’m deaf, I wanna be a ref”
Like dude, fuck off, if you think they’re doing a shit job why don’t you go out there and try for yourself?
Tosser.
They said they wanted to be a ref though, so apparently they do want to try for themselves
I suppose sarcasm can be hard to translate through text
Not hard at all when you use /s appropriately