Trump's Tariffs

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Bobbo

There is an easy, though expensive, way of making solar energy practical. Simply hook the world together as a distribution network. There are deserts baking in sunshine, ideal for generating solar power, in the southern USA, and in South America, as well as the Sahara, Namib desert, Kalahari, Gobi desert, and Australia. The potential for 24 hour a day generation of electicity in vast amounts. All that is needed is the cables to distribute the power. Technically possible, but probably impossible due to idiot politics.

However, there are other ways of making electricity which are fully practical. The world need never run out of power as long as those in power can think rationally.

Hell, we are in trouble !

Power distribution from Saudi Arabia to the USA is that easy huh? Like space travel I suppose. ((Thats why I went with Hydrogen.))

[Lance Kennedy]

I never said it would be simple. The idea is easy, but implementation not so, due to the need for politicians to work together.

But hydrogen would not be simple either. There are major technical difficulties. It is difficult to make without fossil fuels, difficult to store, difficult to transport, and even difficult to use. Hydrogen loves to escape !

It might be possible to use a methanol system instead. Hydrogen gas can be converted to methanol (with a big loss of energy). Methanol is much simpler to store, transport, and use.

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Lance: I think you are behind in hydrogen technology. Labels like simple or hard just argumentative as everything is compared to what? But if you want to change it to a Methanol Economy....good by me. Re loss of energy: its part of the equation: the source being "for free." Helps all kind of economic assessments.

[Lance Kennedy]

No source is "For free ". You could just as readily describe burning coal as "for free ", since it is just dug out of the ground. All electricity comes at a price.

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

No source is "For free ". You could just as readily describe burning coal as "for free ", since it is just dug out of the ground. All electricity comes at a price.

Lance: the source of solar power is free. The source of coal is free. Its after the source that other cost factors are recognized and added in. This is compared to other energy sources that have a cost to establish the resource. Like hydrogen. You have to process some other resource each with its own cost structure.

Do you want to contribute.............or rotate on your own?

[Lance Kennedy]

Solar cells cost money. Installing them costs money. Maintaining them costs money. Storing energy costs money. Transmitting electricity costs money. The source may be free but the electricity is not .

Incidentally, no one seems to have noticed but I slipped a decimal point earlier when I quoted costs. Leaves me a bit embarrassed, but no one is perfect. Nuclear power costs about 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Not a dollar. Solar about 12 cents per kilowatt hour when storage is factored in. Not $ 1.20. Sorry about the mistake.

It may also be worth noting that these costs actually have little bearing on what the consumer pays for power. Too many middle men . The poor consumer pays a lot more.

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Thats what I said. Who you arguing with?

[Lance Kennedy]

Not an argument, Bobbo. This part of the thread is a discussion, and I was clarifying what you said.

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Heh, heh. Who were you clarifying for? aka: who here is so (x) that your explanation is anything but mind numbing redundant? ((I can't find any emoji holding up a mirror. A void in the universe?)

[Tom Palven]

If China's new retaliatory tariffs cause the US to remove its tariffs, that would be positive.

If not, then China is just shooting itself in the foot as the US has according to Adam Smith, which makes sense to me.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... H0053?il=0

[ElectricMonk]

China is sending the signal that it has plenty of room to escalate.
It is also posing as the responsible one, a defender of free trade: it is just another step of beating the US at what used to be its own game.

[OlegTheBatty]

China would do more damage to the US by stopping their purchase of T-bills. They've slowed down in recent years as it is. That's another reason for a small tariff response - they have more weapons to use in a financial war than the US.

[OlegTheBatty]

Another angle

Chinese hacking is better than American hacking

[Tom Palven]

Uncle Sam keeps shooting at the Invisible Hand and hitting his foot:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN1HO0XT

[Gord]

http://assets.amuniversal.com/440036801 ... 5056a9545d

[Tom Palven]

China claims dumping. retaliates:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1HR03Z

[ElectricMonk]

A trade war with China comes about 10 years too late: in the past, China might have agreed to suffer slower growth in return for stable trade relationships.
But now, China has a new sense of its power, and it will make it a point to prove that the US cannot force its economic policies.

[Upton_O_Goode]

A trade war with China comes about 10 years too late: in the past, China might have agreed to suffer slower growth in return for stable trade relationships.
But now, China has a new sense of its power, and it will make it a point to prove that the US cannot force its economic policies.

Indeed. China does need to trade with the US, but it has enough strength to give back as good as it gets in a trade war. Also in a war of nerves, as in the China Sea right now. If it came to total war in either arena, the US would win, but at tremendous cost to itself, which no politician dare risk.

[Matthew Ellard]

Indeed. China does need to trade with the US, but it has enough strength to give back as good as it gets in a trade war.

Trump is an idiot. You cannot win a "free capitalism" trade war against a controlled economy like communist China.

Anyhow who cares what the USA does or does not do. It is for the rest of the world to get their free trade agreements up to date, to mitigate any economic downturn when the USA leaves for the next couple of years.....before coming back again ....after Trump.

[scrmbldggs]

Don't recall who said that he's probably not playing three-dimensional checkers but he's eating the pieces. Or something to that extend.

[Upton_O_Goode]

Indeed. China does need to trade with the US, but it has enough strength to give back as good as it gets in a trade war.

Trump is an idiot. You cannot win a "free capitalism" trade war against a controlled economy like communist China.

Anyhow who cares what the USA does or does not do. It is for the rest of the world to get their free trade agreements up to date, to mitigate any economic downturn when the USA leaves for the next couple of years.....before coming back again ....after Trump.

And, great news: (1) Canada has now imposed import tariffs on US steel and aluminum; (2) Trump's net worth, according to Bloomberg, has actually declined during his Presidency. Had enough winning yet, Trump?

Meanwhile, it appears other people aren't getting enough winning.

[Gord]

Canada has now imposed import tariffs on US steel and aluminum

Well, they won't go into effect for another month. First they're going to think about it to make sure it doesn't affect any Canadians, somehow. Not sure what that means exactly, other than that they're holding off for one month.

[scrmbldggs]

They already way ahead if they're thinking before an action.

[OlegTheBatty]

They already way ahead if they're thinking before an action.

Pay it little heed. It is politicianese for "we're not sure yet which businesses will be making campaign contributions, nor which will stop.

[Tom Palven]

The Visible Hand of sledgehammer bureaucracy that screws up spontaneous order:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 1705edee42

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Nice article. I can't follow it. If Whirlpool moved its production to South Korea, how would a tariff on imports help them? My head starts spinning when Whirlpool moves to South Korea while SK mfg LG and Samsung then decide to open plants in USA.

Its just too much BS to handle.

[Tom Palven]

Discussing protectionism in The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776, Scottish philosophy professor Adam Smith spoke too soon in saying:

"To expect that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain is as absurd as to expect that Utopia should ever be established in it. Not only the prejudices of the public, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it."

In discussing repeal of the Corn laws British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli spoke too soon stating in 1850:

"...protection is not only dead, but damned."


Round and round it goes,
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/p ... trade.html

[Tom Palven]

To laugh or to cry, that is the question:
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/07/11/us- ... -pipeline/

[landrew]

Protectionism is a bit like communism at this point; some holdouts still think it can work, despite decades of nearly universal failure.

[ElectricMonk]

Of course Protectionism works, assuming that what you want to achieve is shelter certain industries whilst helping them become more competitive with the goal of dropping tariffs in the future.
If you just collect tariffs as a tax on foreign goods you doom your economy to become depended on government protection.

[Matthew Ellard]

Of course Protectionism works, assuming that what you want to achieve is shelter certain industries whilst helping them become more competitive with the goal of dropping tariffs in the future.

I have no problem for short term protection for market failure events, in particular industries. However the state needs to issue clear and open fixed term tariff protection periods, otherwise the protected industry doesn't have any goal date to become more efficient and thus no incentive to become more efficient.

[landrew]

Of course Protectionism works, assuming that what you want to achieve is shelter certain industries whilst helping them become more competitive with the goal of dropping tariffs in the future.

I have no problem for short term protection for market failure events, in particular industries. However the state needs to issue clear and open fixed term tariff protection periods, otherwise the protected industry doesn't have any goal date to become more efficient and thus no incentive to become more efficient.

Free trade is as old as civilization itself. Blockading trade is one of the most punitive measures a nation can endure. I remember when blue jeans cost $100. Good for the small cabal of textile mill owners; not even good for their workers in the sweatshops.

[Tom Palven]

Of course Protectionism works, assuming that what you want to achieve is shelter certain industries whilst helping them become more competitive with the goal of dropping tariffs in the future.

I have no problem for short term protection for market failure events, in particular industries. However the state needs to issue clear and open fixed term tariff protection periods, otherwise the protected industry doesn't have any goal date to become more efficient and thus no incentive to become more efficient.

Free trade is as old as civilization itself. Blockading trade is one of the most punitive measures a nation can endure. I remember when blue jeans cost $100. Good for the small cabal of textile mill owners; not even good for their workers in the sweatshops.

You are right, and Trump and John Bolton hate free trade:
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/08/22/bol ... -expected/

[landrew]

Tariffs work like this:
Your neighbor wants to borrow your lawn mower, and offers to have his wife babysit your kids in return. YOU say, "Beat it bum, it'll cost you $100 an hour to rent my lawnmower, and I'll watch my own kids."

If you said, "Sounds fair," to this, please don't live in my neighborhood.

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

Ha, ha...…..thats not how tariffs work at all. But $100 an hour to rent the lawnmower does sound a bit steep. I flat out would not allow anyone to "use" my lawnmower. Too much liability. Speaking of same.....my neighbor hasn't returned my chain saw. I hope everything is OK?