Tariffs. How are you affected?

It has been said that only the top income people are doing any sort of spending. That top income people are "driving the economy" in the USA.
This cohort has benefited from income tax relief.

So why not tariffs on Mazerotti's, Lamborgini's Bugatti's & Porsch's ?

All food and beverage purchases are mostly domestic. Energy is domestic.

Remembering reading on this very site, shade thrown on " people buying cheap imported goods at Walmart " Also:
proposals for a Consumption tax.

 

I don't know of any international financiers that have pushed propaganda against tariffs. I do know of a bunch wealthy elites here in America today who are pushing positive propaganda on tariffs in order to do anything and everything to avoid paying taxes themselves! But maybe you could give me some names.

But here is another very good reason why tariffs are considered bad:

In 1828 there was a spike in tariffs known as the Tariff of Abominations. It caused a depression in the US economy. Tariffs moved downward after that until the Morrill Tariff of 1861. Tariffs peaked in the late 1860's, though not as high as in 1828, and remained high contributing to the 'Five-Year Depression at the start of the 1870's. Tariffs remained realtively high through the remainder of the 1800's, bouncing around, but this was a period of numerous severe economic contractions or depressions. In the 1900's tariffs began declining downward, spiking down further in the 1910's. This was followed by the economic boom times of the 1920's. Though once again, protectionist fears raised its head and tariffs again started moving up peaking after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930, which clearly contributed to and exacerbated the Great Depression. (If nothing else, Americans should understand this from the teacher's lecture in, Ferris Beuller's Day Off!) These tariffs reached the levels not seen since 1828. After the Trade Agreement Act of 1934, tariffs dropped steadily and considerably and then dropped way down after the signing of GATT in 1947, which was a multilateral agreement between 23 nations designed to promote post-war economic growth. The results were amazing especially for the US economy. If you don't know about the post-war boom in America, and how the economy prospered ever since, then you don't know much about the US in the 20th century or even what socio-economic factors created the baby boom and the hippies. Tariffs remained low and economic cooperation among the countries of the world increased, as I have explained numerous times in this and other threads, and this has all created the economic strength we have today, including the momentum that, despite Trump's destruction of our economy, is still pushing us forward. Now 100 years after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, and 200 years after the Tariff of Abominations, we have another complete moron who wants to repeat this idiocy!

Study after study have shown that tariffs,especially blanket tariffs provide none of the benefits that you mention, because the result is trade wars, inflation and all kinds of other problems that smart people know about. The only excuse for tariffs that provides any benefit are targeted tariffs in specific situations. Period.

 

I am not presenting this as a straw man fallacy. I never claimed that you were making any argument over this.

You said that you did not feel that economics represented real life. You said that you cannot feed gdp to your family. What I am understanding you to say is that when the economy is strong, it does not feel that way for many Americans. We can have great job growth, a strong stock market, and a great GDP and yet many Americans are still struggling just to feed their families and put a roof over their head.

There is one clear and undeniable reason for this---trickle-down economics! If the very wealthy were not skimming all the profits, accumulating all the wealth, and avoiding their share of the tax burden-----then of course everyone else will struggle even as the economy grows. If it were not for trickle-down economics, most of us would feel the growth of a strong economy.

Look at the Post-War economic boom I mentioned in my previous post. This was the first time over the past century, that many American families could afford their own homes, and did not have to live with extended family. It was a time when workers were in such high demand that they could almost name their salary. A regular Joe on the street could feel when the economy was good, and when it was bad. That is when the length of a skirt could serve as an economic indicator----because everyone benefitted. And when the economy was bad, everyone struggled. And that was when you could rent a place to live on minimum wage and still afford to go out with your friends.

Then Reagan was elected, which brought me to the point that anyone can easily see what has happened since then, and exactly why most Americans do not benefit from economic booms.

Now one theme you seem to be harping on is factories laying off workers and moving overseas. So let me ask this question. Do you think we should be pushing for people to shoe horses and make buggy whips? Should that be our main focus? Should we be training sail makers and demanding that the Navy start hiring large numbers of sail makers? Should we lament the fact that there are not a large number of factories in our cities that put out buggies? Or that no one delivers ice anymore. How are you going to keep your food cold if the ice man never comes? What about the poor people that don't know any other way of living except delivering ice or making buggy whips?

I suspect, and correct me if I'm wrong, that another part of why you think that economics does not reflect real lives is that it discards people in the sake of competitive advantage, and profit margins. I know that is a difficult issue, and economists are aware of it as well. But the real problem is not economists and economics. The real problem, we could say is the greed of industrialists. And that is true in the short run. But the real overarching issue is progress. The reason we don't have whole industries of people making sails and buggy whips is the same reason we have iron works that are rusting away, and whole towns that supported them are dying unless they can find a new industry. There is no difference here.

 

There was so much to unpack in that post. I think it was very indicative as well---all of the rage and desire for revenge over perceived wrongs all bundled up with projection. I thought about tackling it further, but I think you did a good job.

And of course, this must all be kept in the context that he argues that there has been an ongoing attack on our culture/norms since World War II.

We can't deny that there is so much animosity on both sides. But the animosity on one side is primarily reactionary to the other side taking on the persona of a schoolyard bully. How do we resolve this acute polarization?

Perhaps things have to get so bad, that both sides are forced to see the truth of what is happening. History tells us that this is what usually happens. I really hope not.

I was at a protest yesterday and I met this old British guy that was in his 90's. He sat in a wheelchair with a sign that said, 'Honk if you hate Fascism,' and waving an American flag. He was as lucid as could be. I plan to invite him over for dinner one of these days and get to know him better. He explained to me that he used to work in British Intelligence and worked mainly in Germany. He said that what is happening here is exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930's, and that he knows first hand. Later in his career he worked against fascist elements in the UK, and told me some stories.

 

No. You’re not confused at all and you’re not sincerely seeking any sort of clarification. Your questions are clearly disingenuous if we assume you can read plain English.

My statements were clear. While I occasionally make grammatical and punctuation errors, and a rare spelling mistake now and then, my diction is usually precise and my meaning is more than clear enough. If you do not understand what I wrote, re-read it, out loud if necessary. Sound out the larger words and refer to your dictionary as needed.

I come here to read and understand differing views and experiences and to express my own. I do not come here to endure your condescending cross-examination and, as stated several times before, I refuse to engage in it or with it.

I perceive a desire to maintain your little echo chamber and to guard your worldview from those that contradict it. I don’t care because I have no such desire. This is why I come here to listen to differing viewpoints. Your disingenuous badgering will not drive me away. If this is not an acceptable result for you, you’ll have to resort to censorship or “deplatforming.”

 

There was too much in this one for me to respond to it all. It’s just not my style or preference, as it clearly is with others, to quote and respond item by item. I have not the time, inclination, nor any desire to do so.

A point that stuck out to me, and that I thought an interesting thing to discuss, was your mention of people being able to own their own homes and not have to live with their extended family. I don’t know that that ability was a clearly positive result and I don’t know that living without our extended family is a natural or desirable state for our species.

 

The statements were there and were clear for all to read for themselves. The statements needed no restating or quoting for confirmation or to seek clarification. You feigned a need to seek clarification. You did those things to devalue, and to demonstrate your own sense of moral superiority over, my perspectives and opinions.

You’re an insecure little Internet forum moderator. (Yes I know. Breaking my own ad hominem rule. Oh well. The day I claim to be perfect, tradition dictates I be nailed to a cross). Pretend like you’ve got a pair and state YOUR OWN perspective, thoughts, and speculations about “life, the universe, and everything” for a change. Don’t copy and paste links and references to someone else’s article or study. Refrain from tearing down or dissecting other people’s perspective. State your own. Don’t be scared of being in error or misunderstanding of something: it’s no great sin.

 

Yes that could be an interesting discussion, but I prefer to have my own house separate from my siblings. My sister and I already do not get along very well, and we are civil to each other because of thousands of miles of distance between us. She is an evangelical Christian and I am a horrible sinner that has been seduced by Satan, and will burn in hell fire for all-eternity (in her opinion). My brother's and I get along well, but they have their way of doing things and I have mine. These all go back to our childhood. My sister, who is closer to my age, was always a goody-goody conservaitve, and I was a hippie walking to my own drummer. My younger brothers are close in age, but when they live together, as they did during and after college----tensions mount.

My wife's family is much worse. She has an older sister who convinced her to give her a power of attorney while my wife and I were in Japan to take care of her household in the Philippines. She used that to steal jewelry worth 10's of thousands of dollars, including the engagement ring I bought her. She then used it to take a loan out on one of my wife's properties without our knowledge. She got the money and had all communications sent to her. My wife lost the property without any knowledge of what was happening. She did have an ancestral property that was supposed to belong to all the siblings equally. It had been in the family for generations and had a nice large house on it. In the past several decades she had fallen on hard times, and so the family allowed her and her children to live there. She secretly tried to have the title turned into her name (I forget off hand what the legal process is called). My wife and I discovered what was happening and we prepared all the paperwork between all her siblings and she went to the Philippines to stop her oldest sister from doing this. Legally my wife was acting in plenty of time to do this, and she should have been able to stop her sister. But upon filing the paperwork, we discovered that she had already converted the title into her name----probably through bribes, possibly through sexual favors, but what she did was illegal. The rest of the family was cheated out of their ownership of the property.

In fact, my own evangelical sister tried to do a similar thing to me. I collect art and my collection began with three Japanese wood block prints which have a combined insured value in excess of $100,000. When I first left to live in Asia, I left them with my parents, and they took care of them. When I returned here to live, I allowed my parents to continue to keep them, but it was understood that they belonged to me, and that at some point I would want them back. When my dad passed away, my sister insisted that they were part of the estate. She had somehow decided that I had borrowed money from my parents while living abroad, and that I had never paid that back. (In truth, I had borrowed from them when we had run into hard times in the Philippines, and after my first wife had stolen almost all of my wealth in Japan, but I had more than paid them back, and we were very generous with my parents, but it was all from our hearts and never expected to have to account for it.) She had actually talked to my brothers over who would get which one, and which one she would keep---my brothers insisted that they were mine. It came to a head when I was at my parent's house right after my dad had passed, and my mom said, I assume you want to take your prints home, do you want them tonight? And my sister immediately protested saying they were not mine, but part of the estate. It became a big battle and she made sure that I didn't really get anything of value from the family after my dad's death. My mom is still alive (living with her) and my youngest brother is the actual one in charge of the estate, and he assures me that he will make sure that it is all divided up fairly. But of my dad's things, I ended up with the junk that needed to be cleaned out---the kind of stuff you'd sell in a garage sale----because they had to sell the house, and get rid of it. My sister is a miser, and spent her whole life saving and not going on vacations. Her husband did not make the kind of money I did. I on the other hand, spent money freely without concern for the future, traveled around the world, bought all kinds of things, and my wife is just as frivolous as I am. My sister and her husband never traveled until the last couple of years. They think I am very irresponsible and reckless and that I leech off the family any chance I get----which is not true at all. In her mind, there is no way I can live the life I do, and that surely God is setting up roadblocks all around me to teach me a lesson. How could I do what I do without saving every little bit I make each step of the way like she does?

While living with an extended family is common among certain cultures, in the case of the US, it was seen as an economic necessity for most people due to their lot in life during the late 1800's until the end of World War II.

Right now I am in the process of moving the ownership of everything we own offshore. My kids know what will be theirs. There will be no estate. They will just take what we leave for them when we pass on. And each one will have their own income, which I hope will be enough to provide income for a happy life even if they choose not to work, and it will be from an offshore trust so that their taxes will be minimal, and that they will have access to it no matter where in the world they go, and no matter what happens to which nation and what currency. I hope that they hold on to the art, antiques, and other things of value and pass it down to their kids. My biggest problem is how, and by who, it will be invested after I pass on. I have a friend who is trying to see if he can model AI to do it as I do it, but I don't have a lot of faith in that yet.

I do hope they remain close to each other, and do not cheat one another. There are no religious zealots among my kids. And they are bonding with each other. But each one is different and I know they wouldn't be able to share households. My oldest step son has a fantasy where we live with him and he provides for us and takes care of us. My wife and I would never be happy living under his roof. He is obsessively concerned with taking care of things his way. He would drive us nuts very quickly.

 

Ah, nothing brings out the best in siblings like estate money.

 

In your opinion!
Of course everyone thinks they explain things well but, often, they don't, which means clarification or further discussion may be required.
That said; I wonder which part of the following should apply to MeAgain but not to Bocci?

It's beginning to seem as though people are entitled to their own opinions here so long as they align with Bocci.
Oh; and if they don't agree with him or with his outlook, it seems they must be wrong and so, in turn, their opinion must be squashed.
That would be very childish, simple-minded and tedious.

Not that Bocci is a moderator but he should really look in the mirror and see one who is indeed an insecure little person.

He hasn't just broken his own rules (apparently) but, also, those of the forum.
Quite sad if one's tradition would require them to be nailed to the cross, though I do hope there's no attempt to suggest he is as worthy as the one who was, apparently and actually, nailed to the cross.

I don't understand why anyone would push others down as if to make themselves look almighty, when it achieves the absolute opposite effect.
I'll never understand bullies though.
Anyway, because Bocci played the man rather than the ball, he's demonstrated to me that he has little more to offer in this thread. He's clearly lost it.

Says he and, in doing so, he's done exactly that, which he criticised the other for lol.

I wonder what is wrong with posting someone else's article.
It's actually a normal part of discussions and to try to stifle that, it seems to me, could only be about stifling debate until one viewpoint becomes dominant.
Subverting or suppressing other's opinions isn't intelligent or rational.

 

The pointing/posting/linking is usually cherry picked to support one’s own opinion. In this day, with an excess of information and articles supporting one thing or the other, it just seems to be little more than confirmation bias support. It is also bordering on an appeal to authority. This is why I prefer folks give their own experience, thoughts, and opinions. If they wish to do the linking/posting/etc., so be it. When they demand it of me (Source!!!) I refuse. When they continue to demand it, I refuse much less politely.

 

Wow, that took a much more personal turn than I was expecting. Nonetheless, thank you for sharing it to show both your experience and why you would have such a perspective.

I was thinking of it more from an anthropological point of view. Our species evolved in extended family - tribal type of organizations and, until relatively recently in the western world, has maintained it. It seems quite natural for us in my opinion.

 

Ok. Where have I attempted to squash, or asked for anyone’s opinion here, to be squashed? Are you referring to my expression of schadenfreude at liberal-leftists getting a good dose of what they have freely expressed and gleefully claimed they have done and wish to do to others? Schadenfreude, though certainly not a noble emotion, is hardly as sinful as the demonstrated behavior that has caused me to wish for it.

I come here, as I have repeatedly mentioned, to read and hopefully understand, people’s opinions and direct experiences that are different from my own. An echo chamber is like a circle-jerk: neither one holds any appeal to me. Giving both of them a moment of second thought, they both actually repulse me.

 

LMAO!!

Yeah, originally I was going to write from a social perspective. But in the end, how we experience it is from a purely personal perspective. Again, its like your feelings on economics. Though I would argue that economics plays out in personal ways in terms that we may not recognize or always understand.

The point I really didn't get into is that living with an extended family would not be as big of a problem for someone in a culture where that was the norm and to be expected. For example, in a traditional planter culture such as you would find in villages across the Middle East or India, where the group overrides the individual, it would be normal, and the interpersonal friction would be suppressed by social norms. The friction would still exist, but generally everyone would be programmed to grin and bear it. This is not ideal or healthy, but at a social level it would be the norm. Forced genital mutilation of daughters and the abuse and murder of wives over something as simple as the family dignity, for example, are common in such societies, but living with extended family is common because that is the way it is, and would be expected.

It could possibly work best in a tribal situation handed down from our hunter-gatherer ancestors (an actual tribal situation, as opposed to the modern definition of tribalism), where the overall social structure is like a family which emphasizes the strengths of the individual, because there is the acknowledgement of the individual but within the comfort and safety of the family. But this works because there is no advanced programming or understanding of in-group/out-group, or ownership, and one's worldview is defined by multiplicity rather than duality.

But in the modern world we clearly understand the world in dualistic terms, which means we understand everything in terms of in-group/out-group, and 'this is mine/that is not.' The logical end conclusion of this understanding is ultimately development of the self, rather than the group. This is embodied in the direction of Enlightenment Liberalism. Psychologically, and philosophically, we understand the goal of our existence today as one of individuation. In the modern context, living with extended family suppresses individuation. One's will is marginalized against the will of the family group.

Collectively, as we achieve a higher level of individuation, and dualism is deconstructed, then perhaps we would be able to live in a group setting in a more healthy and mature way, and that may be more possible---as it would have been with our hunter-gatherer ancestors. But this would involve the very things you are afraid of----attacks on our culture/norms.

 

They dont(eu/nl)......they mostly effect you(us)

Mzzls

 

Hmmm. “Psychologically, and philosophically, we understand the goal of our existence today as one of individuation.” I don’t know about this one: as in, I think I’m quite ignorant of it. How do you arrive at this conclusion? What philosophy leads you to this conclusion? How do you define individuation and why is it good/desirable? I don’t even know as such a thing, as I might poorly understand it, is possible.

 

On yet another tangent so please bear with. You mentioned the genital mutilation of girls. No such mention for boys. Every male mammal (of which I am aware) has some covering/protection for part or all of their penis. A fair bit of our populations have taken to removing it for various seemingly cultural reasons. Few people bat an eye at this. But amputating a part of a female’s external genitalia is considered abhorrent. What are your thoughts on both types of augmentation?