US recession fears are growing

Did I quote your post?

 

That's because the thief in your scenario is not a citizen of a foreign country, unlike a citizen of a foreign country being in this country illegally.

 

The problem is that you ignore we're merely matching tariffs that protectionist China has already imposed on the US, and have been for years.

They're actually the ones engaging in "not-free" trade, and when we reciprocate, suddenly you have a problem with the US.

 

I'm ignoring no such thing. I've addressed this dozens of times.

 

Then you understand the actual reason the POTUS is placing reciprocal tariffs on China.

 

Yes. It is just that I also understand that reciprocal tariffs are idiotic. Tariffs do harm to both the country they target and the host country, and they typically do more harm to the host country. Reciprocating tariffs is like seeing someone shooting themselves in the foot in hopes of splashing blood on you and shooting yourself in the foot out of jealousy for how cool their gunshot wound looks.

 

You could say the same thing about taxes, couldn't you?

When both countries have the same general standards of living, business regulatory environment, and wage levels, yes, then I would agree with you.

 

. . . tariffs ARE taxes

 

I was just saying they weren't any worse than other taxes.

 

Well, all other taxes have to be passed by Congress whereas tariffs are now being unilaterally passed by someone who doesn't know how they even work and sometimes tries using them to solve problems that don't exist. And tariffs create deadweight economic loss through the trades they discourage. Most other taxes don't discourage wealth-creating trade.

We don't have over 1,000 economists, including over a dozen Nobel laureates, warning us about other taxes quite so much.

 

Yes.

 

Not when the objective of the reciprocal tariffs is to achieve parity and actual free trade.

Shrugging your shoulders and letting another country steal your property and impose tariffs at will and doing nothing is exactly how not to handle it.

 

If the objective were freer trade, Trump would have accepted offers of freer trade. He turned that down. He's offered several excuses for his tariffs. His most common one is that he (idiotically) believes trade deficits mean that we are losing money on trade.

Trade creates wealth. Tariffs destroy that wealth. Trump does not understand this. And he thinks that the other countries are paying for the tariffs. He doesn't even understand the unconstitutional powers he's stolen.

 

No he hasn't. China has not offered to remove their tariffs to an equivalent level. In fact, they just reneged on the deal they HAD arranged.

How did we get in this position? By following the type of advice you're giving.

Either you stand up to countries putting tariffs on us, or you take it on the chin, which is exactly what the US has been doing to make a few certain people rich.

The plain fact of the matter is this: China needs us far more than we need them. It's time we reminded them of that fact.

 

Yes, he has. China hasn't offered, but the EU has. He turned them down. Trump has been inconsistent about his goals for the tariffs. And the only goal that has a chance at being legal is national security, not an attempt to lower tariffs all around.

Your suggestion, and Trump's is to put us in a worse position than before.

If you want to stand up to those putting up tariffs that harm us, you'll have to start standing up to Trump.

By shooting ourselves in the foot. And you do realize that these aren't the only unconstitutional tariffs he's put in place, right?

 

Well then by all means let's switch to the EU in comparison.

Prior to the US increases, the trade-weighted overall tariffs for the EU was 3%. The US was 2.3%. So, as you can see, they started off with higher tariffs to begin with. Then you have the NTB's that the EU is famous for.

Then of course, you have the history of the EU going against trade agreements, like their ban on US beef under the OBAMA administration.

https://www.fas.usda.gov/newsroom/action-address-eus-unfair-trade-practices-against-us-beef-industry

So the US, under Trump, starts addressing these inequalities in the "free trade" you talk of, and we're the bad guys?

Does it sound like the EU is engaged in "free trade" with the US?

The only way to address these issues is to either ask nice, and they comply or to use our market to get to "free trade". Asking nicely doesn't seem to have worked for the past few decades.

No, my suggestion uses the juggernaut of the US economy to ensure that the mercantilism being engaged against us by countries like China and the EU ends.

 

Will it be near enough?

 

What Trump has been pushing for IS mercantilism. And you dodged the point completely. The EU offered to drop auto tariffs if we dropped ours. Trump declined. That's not his goal. I wish it were, although he'd lose all legal justification for his tariffs if that were the goal.

And I'll repeat: raising tariffs to try to get even with other tariffs does even more economic harm to our country.

 

I agree, ole' supply and demand.

However, my question was regarding your anti-Bush rhetoric and the fact that the sub-prime lending and bundling of mortgages was allowed by the removal of Glass Steagal by Clinton and a democrat congress.

What say you?

 

Propaganda Alert!

 

The. Economy is the only thing keeping trump above 40% approval....if that begins to slide....NONE of his lies will save him..

 

It was bad enough without all the outright fraud. The DoJ, SEC, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. etc. failed to use the regulatory tools available.

 

Absolutely, so Democrats need to work hard trashing the economy, try to spook the markets, circulate reports on trade deficits, rising inflation, China dumping Treasuries, low housing starts, government budget deficits, volatile stocks, overpriced IPOs... push hard to get the economy to tank, this will be certain to defeat Trump.

 

The bloviating orange **** will just blame someone else if the economy goes south. That is his MO....

 

You just cant bring yourself to criticize the deregulation of the mortgage industry by Democrats that allowed for the bubble to inflate.