"Conservatives want environmental protection too, by the way. Or should we reject this “style” and just trust polluters to make their own economic decisions. What could go wrong?"
That is where an apolitical judiciary not influenced by corporate dollars provides quick, efficient summary judgements for traceable liability. That hasn't happened. Enforcing environmental regulations (which admittedly sometimes overreach) has been an uphill battle. The whiff of corporate malfeasance taints the endeavor. This undermines local, state, federal trust for marginalized people that they will ever receive any form of remediation.
While Tariffs may be an effective response to addressing problems related to our current economic conditions, the incoming president is using the threat of tariffs as retaliation for a range of other issues (fentanyl, illegal immigration) rather than as a mechanism to revive US manufacturing or other forms of industrial policy. Am I wrong to think that this risks undermining their impact by diffusing their purpose?
That we should move production away from geopolitical risk and towards strategic partners makes sense. However, dynamics and rate of change matter. Capital expenditure and production ramp up take time. The lag between the the implementation of tariffs and the supply side capacity expansion will cause a step change in inflation for the consumer.
Tariffs would need to be balanced with industrial policy and staged to match the lag in the increase in production capacity. Without this, the tariffs would simply be a tax on the worker.
On tariffs, there hasn't been enough mention of the likelihood and effects of retaliatory tariffs. We impose a 10% tariff on most things, and...other nations do nothing? Highly unlikely. Any model of the effect of tariffs needs to take into account their effect on our exports, too.
" Maybe making things matters to the nation, they argue, but individuals pursuing their own private interest will take this into account and ensure the strength of the American industrial base of their own accord."
On the contrary, once the rules were changed to allow American manufacturers to locate their most labor-intensive facilities in low-wage countries like China, they had little choice but to actually relocate those facilities if they hoped to stay in business in a competitive global economy. This point is not often understood: it wasn't greed but survival that compelled them to offshore.
"Economists had generally opposed tariffs, I noted there, because they rejected the idea that a strong domestic industrial base was something worth preserving."
Interestingly, Adam Smith opposed direct foreign investment precisely because it would adversely effect the power of the state. On the other hand, neither he nor David Ricardo could conceive of a world of high- and low-wage countries, thus never dreamed that pure trade between such countries (i.e., without direct foreign investment) could adversely affect the wages of workers in high-wage countries, and hence the general welfare. That was left to Eli Heckscher: "The Effects of Foreign Trade on the Distribution of Income."
Until we leave this English economic model, we put in place beginning 70 years ago we will continue down this path of economical desolation (refer to England). But it will, if can at all be done, a difficult way forward. The P.E, crowd, investment bankers, wall st, rich boutique firms, hedge funds, etc.) like this model just as the rich British/ English economic elites who really kicked it off 200 years ago did and do. This so called "free market gibber" will be what they push! It's very lucrative for them. Good luck!
"Conservatives want environmental protection too, by the way. Or should we reject this “style” and just trust polluters to make their own economic decisions. What could go wrong?"
That is where an apolitical judiciary not influenced by corporate dollars provides quick, efficient summary judgements for traceable liability. That hasn't happened. Enforcing environmental regulations (which admittedly sometimes overreach) has been an uphill battle. The whiff of corporate malfeasance taints the endeavor. This undermines local, state, federal trust for marginalized people that they will ever receive any form of remediation.
While Tariffs may be an effective response to addressing problems related to our current economic conditions, the incoming president is using the threat of tariffs as retaliation for a range of other issues (fentanyl, illegal immigration) rather than as a mechanism to revive US manufacturing or other forms of industrial policy. Am I wrong to think that this risks undermining their impact by diffusing their purpose?
That we should move production away from geopolitical risk and towards strategic partners makes sense. However, dynamics and rate of change matter. Capital expenditure and production ramp up take time. The lag between the the implementation of tariffs and the supply side capacity expansion will cause a step change in inflation for the consumer.
Tariffs would need to be balanced with industrial policy and staged to match the lag in the increase in production capacity. Without this, the tariffs would simply be a tax on the worker.
On tariffs, there hasn't been enough mention of the likelihood and effects of retaliatory tariffs. We impose a 10% tariff on most things, and...other nations do nothing? Highly unlikely. Any model of the effect of tariffs needs to take into account their effect on our exports, too.
" Maybe making things matters to the nation, they argue, but individuals pursuing their own private interest will take this into account and ensure the strength of the American industrial base of their own accord."
On the contrary, once the rules were changed to allow American manufacturers to locate their most labor-intensive facilities in low-wage countries like China, they had little choice but to actually relocate those facilities if they hoped to stay in business in a competitive global economy. This point is not often understood: it wasn't greed but survival that compelled them to offshore.
That's why tariffs are the only answer.
"Economists had generally opposed tariffs, I noted there, because they rejected the idea that a strong domestic industrial base was something worth preserving."
Interestingly, Adam Smith opposed direct foreign investment precisely because it would adversely effect the power of the state. On the other hand, neither he nor David Ricardo could conceive of a world of high- and low-wage countries, thus never dreamed that pure trade between such countries (i.e., without direct foreign investment) could adversely affect the wages of workers in high-wage countries, and hence the general welfare. That was left to Eli Heckscher: "The Effects of Foreign Trade on the Distribution of Income."
Until we leave this English economic model, we put in place beginning 70 years ago we will continue down this path of economical desolation (refer to England). But it will, if can at all be done, a difficult way forward. The P.E, crowd, investment bankers, wall st, rich boutique firms, hedge funds, etc.) like this model just as the rich British/ English economic elites who really kicked it off 200 years ago did and do. This so called "free market gibber" will be what they push! It's very lucrative for them. Good luck!
Don't worry about NR. They are being cast into the outer darkness.