And so...the "recession" begins

Tariffs are not designed to protect asset prices. They’re designed to rebuild industry, reassert sovereignty, and tilt the playing field back toward production and labor. And, if other countries are willing to give up their mercantilism practices, tariffs could even bring us to something closer to genuinely free trade.

While the pain for investors may not be intentional, it probably could not be avoided. The shares of the corporate incumbents, the winners under the rules of the global economy that prevailed for decades, likely had to decline as their crowns are removed and the principalities are overthrown.

This isn’t about smoothing the path for investors. It’s about building a road to share prosperity that doesn’t lead through Shanghai.
 
I’m old enough to remember a time when the Northern states (where I lived) were full of prosperity. …. US Steel in Pa., Goodyear Rubber in Ohio, Car Industry Plants in Michigan., etc. …and there was the Coal Mining Industry in West Virginia, and Oil Drilling in Texas/LA.

Every industry got eroded over time by foreign countries. But we were happy, and life went on.


Can pull up on the Internet various corporations coming back now, and some plants in the building stages already. I know of 3 huge ones in my area.
It can’t be done overnight.
 
It happened even earlier than that.

There were once clothing and textile plants all over the North, because the South was run as a feudal economy with little innovation.

Wall Street gobbled up those companies, came in and gutted the plants of equipment, and moved it South to scab labor. No sharing with those pesky unionized workers!

Going to school in the 1960s I walked past a gutted Hanes plant that made underwear. It had all been moved to North Carolina. Some workers who could uproot followed it down, but aside from those able to maintain the equipment they found their standard of living plummeted. This mostly impacted women employees.
 
I see that Ford is offering Employee Discounts for all on most vehicles.

On Friday Toyota, Honda and Hyundai announced they’re holding steady on prices. At least for now.
 
smiley said:
I think we may be getting all our feathers a little bit ruffled at the moment? I have had the pleasure of working with individuals with unstable minds all my working life and can assure you that usually once they can see that their decisions and actions are causing chaos the say things like "oops /did I do that/ well it's not really my fault you know you guys - lets stop for a minute and change direction and see if that works better"

You mark my words former decisions will eventually be reversed. I've seen it happen in British politics and Aussies too and then there are those extreme examples when Presidents of some of the Americas in the South become too exuberance are sometimes assassinated to achieve change??? Just exploring some fairy like scenarios??
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You mark my words former decisions will eventually be reversed.

You are assuming that the guard rails are in place.
 
Timewise 60+ said:
Anyone recall the last time President Trump caused the economy to take a downfall? It was not long ago...

If you remember it, you should also recall how long it took the economy to return to its original state! It was only a few days...

This time it will take longer, but not a lot longer. The reason for both of these quick recoveries is President Trump did not do anything to cause these drops, except say that they would drop. If he did nothing to actually cause a decline in the value of investments and the rate people are continuing to invest. Accordingly, it is again a false trend, based on rumors or reaction to comments. Nothing material is behind this drop, it will not last long because all the fundamentals that drive our economy is still in place...

Mark my words and hold fast...
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Unfortunately this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I know 900 pages is a long item to read but I have read the plan they are following and a good result for us peons is not in it.
 
"The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 raised U.S. import duties with the goal of protecting American farmers and businesses from foreign competition."

"The Smoot-Hawley Act increased tariffs on foreign imports to the U.S. by about 20%. Over 25 countries responded by increasing their own tariffs on American goods."

". . . the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression."

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act is now widely blamed for worsening the severity of the Great Depression in the U.S. and around the world."

From Investopedia

From The United States Senate
 
Teacher Terry said:
Many people won’t survive because of all the cuts in human services, healthcare, food stamps, etc. Already people have died because they can’t afford their medications because the law to keep them affordable was one of the first things rescinded.

Trucks with food for our food banks and California were told not to deliver to us anymore and they are allowing the food to rot just as they did with the usaid food.

Tariffs are going to make people choose between eating and medication. Kids are going to go hungry because free lunch is going away unless the state can come up with the money. By September our form of government will be gone. The plan is actually ahead of schedule at this point.
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... Were told ... Can you please be specific?
 
MACKTEXAS said:
"The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 raised U.S. import duties with the goal of protecting American farmers and businesses from foreign competition."

"The Smoot-Hawley Act increased tariffs on foreign imports to the U.S. by about 20%. Over 25 countries responded by increasing their own tariffs on American goods."

". . . the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression."

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act is now widely blamed for worsening the severity of the Great Depression in the U.S. and around the world."

From Investopedia

From The United States Senate
Click to expand...

:) As the movie clip I posted in post #40
 
Lately, I've been thinking about the direction the U.S. is heading -- particularly around bringing back manufacturing that its big companies have set up in other countries, and relying on tariffs to make imported goods less competitive, and force the hand of its own companies, or at least attempting to.

On the surface, it seems like, use economic pressure to bring jobs and factories back home, reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, and strengthen national self-sufficiency. Raise the cost of U.S. goods in its own country as an unfortunate consequence?

The ‘thinking way’ of world’s politicians is one thing – the ‘thinking way’ of the world’s citizens is something completely different. We are no longer in a world where price alone dictates purchasing habits – the now very much opinionated citizens of the world have moved on since then. Many people, especially younger generations across the world are turning away from American products not because they are expensive, but because they no longer trust the U.S. It’s no longer just about trade policy or manufacturing locations or tariffs. It's about how the U.S. is perceived globally, by citizens.

Some here might not care what their nation is thought of globally, but when most nations around the world start to significantly dislike (to put it politely), the US anymore, it starts to turn into the US vs the rest of the world. And it’s not just Canadians saying they won’t visit anymore -- social media is full of people from other nations saying the same, and boycotting American goods too.

America might be trying to shock the world into negotiating "better" trade deals. But in doing so, in the manner in which it is doing, may have accidentally turned a generation of global citizens/consumers against its brand entirely. People are boycotting U.S. goods not because of cost, but because of what those goods represent to them now. As they might perceive it: political instability, cultural arrogance, and heavy-handed, bullying diplomacy.

Even if some U.S. companies decide to remain inside foreign countries, the label behind the product still reads "American", and for many consumers, that might be enough to say, I’m not going to buy American regardless of what country it's manufactured in.

What happens if, five or ten years from now, the U.S. decides it doesn't want to be isolated from world trade anymore? What if it wants to rejoin global trade networks and rebuild those bridges? It might be too late. Supply chains will already have moved on. Trust will be harder to rebuild than it was to destroy, in the minds of the global consumer.

There is also the risk that, by shielding U.S. industries from competition for significant periods, innovation will stagnate. In the meantime, innovation outside the US continues. Without the pressure to compete globally, US domestic companies might lose the drive to improve, leading to complacency and falling behind technologically.

In trying to rebuild internal strength, in the manner in which it's doing, the U.S. might be pushing away the very world it wants to show its strength over. The rest of the world might not want to come back. Could that mean that if a recession is imminent, the rest of the world manages to eventually pull itself out, and the U.S. remains in one?
 
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dilettante said:
Ideally the tariffs should be removed bilaterally.
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As far as I know Australia, which has a free trade deal with US, does not** impose tariffs on US. The argument for the 10% tariff on Australian goods exported to US centres not on tariffs, but on biosecurity.

Because Australia is one big island, without any land borders, we are in the fortunate position of being able to avoid some animal and plant diseases because of our biosecurity laws and the diligent work of the customs people.

We are free of foot and mouth disease in our cattle but if it got loose in the wild buffalo in the north then there would be no way we could avoid it spreading to beef cattle herds. We don't have the form of mad cow disease that causes death in humans and for that reason I was not allowed to donate blood to the Red Cross after returning from UK decades ago. For the same reason we have a prohibition on imported beef from US.

If that is a problem for US beef producers then it could easily be resolved by negotiations over whether the ban could now be lifted. Imposing a 10% tariff on all Australian imports to US is overkill and in violation of the Australia/US Free Trade Agreement entered into on January 1, 2005.

The Australian government is not going to respond in kind, but neither will it allow a biosecurity measure to be used to justify a 10% tariff on all goods we ship to US.

There are some here who want the government to respond using the US bases in Australia as a bargaining chip but our current PM has a cool head and has ruled out that kind of retaliatory action.

Our response will be to look for other markets. We'll just sit this one out, just as we did the Chinese prohibition on our seafood and wines. It didn't work for the Chinese but the need to save face meant that it went on for several years.

not *** an edit, because I left this important word out. A Free Trade Agreement eliminates tariffs between all members of the FTA. It is possible that, by negotiation and agreement, some commodities could be excluded from the FTA.
 
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We are now in a Trade War between the US and virtually the rest of the world. There is no way we are going to win that. So what happens when defeat is inevitable? Do we turn to the military option? If we can't beat them with economics, maybe we can beat them with bombs?
 
Warrigal said:
There are some here who want the government to respond using the US bases in Australia as a bargaining chip but our current PM has a cool head and has ruled out that kind of retaliatory action.
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I for one, would encourage Australia to kick those U.S. bases out of the country. If enough countries would do that, then maybe the U.S. government will take the hint and cut that massive defense budget.
 
Twostep said:
... Were told ... Can you please be specific?
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You can look up and read project 2025 online. There’s a site that tracks their progress and if they are on schedule and shows all the things that they intend to do and have done. If you’re asking about the food the federal agency that controls donations to the food banks told the truckers not to deliver it to us even though they were on the way.
 
Teacher Terry said:
You can look up and read project 2025 online. There’s a site that tracks their progress and if they are on schedule and shows all the things that they intend to do and have done. If you’re asking about the food the federal agency that controls donations to the food banks told the truckers not to deliver it to us even though they were on the way.
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I was looking for an official link you used as you base for a broad statement. Not interested in running a crumb trail over a statement.
Constitutional torte is not likely to happen.
 
Timewise 60+ said:
Anyone recall the last time President Trump caused the economy to take a downfall? It was not long ago...

If you remember it, you should also recall how long it took the economy to return to its original state! It was only a few days...

This time it will take longer, but not a lot longer. The reason for both of these quick recoveries is President Trump did not do anything to cause these drops, except say that they would drop. If he did nothing to actually cause a decline in the value of investments and the rate people are continuing to invest. Accordingly, it is again a false trend, based on rumors or reaction to comments. Nothing material is behind this drop, it will not last long because all the fundamentals that drive our economy is still in place...

Mark my words and hold fast...
Click to expand...
I like the cut of ya jib Mr
 

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