The Great Tariff Debate: Schiff vs Morrison

[A. Havnes]

 

[CCTelander]

One the one hand this guy is constantly reiterating that “you cannot predict outcomes in a complex system,” then out of the other side of his mouth he keeps insisting that a system as complex as the global, or even just US economy can be ‘managed” from the top down because “Trump knows what he’s doing.”

Typical mealy mouthed socialistic bullshit. The two positions are mutually exclusive.

 

[TheTexan]

“Trump knows what he’s doing.”

The shenanigans he's doing with these tariffs proves he has no idea what he's doing.

The strongest argument against tariffs is that political corruption automatically precludes them as any kind of tool of positive use, and we're seeing that play out now.

 

[spudea]

I've listened to Peter Schiff since the 2000s, and he is always saying we have to stop consuming, stop spending, and start saving and producing. It's very strange for him to be against tariffs. We've conned the world into accepting our dollars and debt, and the trade deficit enables our government to go into massive debt. The best thing that can happen is to cut off our reliance on Asia.

 

[Madison320]

I've listened to Peter Schiff since the 2000s, and he is always saying we have to stop consuming, stop spending, and start saving and producing. It's very strange for him to be against tariffs. We've conned the world into accepting our dollars and debt, and the trade deficit enables our government to go into massive debt. The best thing that can happen is to cut off our reliance on Asia.

We need to cut off our reliance on Asia with less socialism not more.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it is probably true that protectionism makes you more reliant. The downside is a much lower standard of living.

 

[spudea]

We need to cut off our reliance on Asia with less socialism not more.

That sounds great if we could get Congress to balance the budget and end the fed. But that's never going to happen under the current system. You have to disrupt the system. Trump is doing what he can while Congress does nothing.

 

[Madison320]

That sounds great if we could get Congress to balance the budget and end the fed. But that's never going to happen under the current system. You have to disrupt the system. Trump is doing what he can while Congress does nothing.

Bullcrap. He wants to increase spending.

 

[Snowball]

Bullcrap. He wants to increase spending.

and he is using them and the threat of them as a political weapon, and a geo-strategic bullwhip.

what this will do is lock things up, make business afraid to commit.

Schiff wouldn't be against them if were reasonable, targeted, but Trump is doing something very different.

he's making countries and businesses afraid to do anything, and the consensus is that they won't stick around long enough
to justify the years or even decades it takes to truly change the paradigm we've lived in for a generation already.

 

[A. Havnes]

Part of me understands what Trump is trying to accomplish, I just think it's a bad way to go about doing it. Coming from the man who claimed to be appalled by the prices of goods in the United States, he should know that it's Americans who pay through the nose for tariffs, not foreign industry.

Tariffs, being a tax, are only, kind of, justifiable if you have no income tax. While I tend to oppose taxation in general and, therefore, am not a big fan of tariffs, I could understand his reasoning if we weren't already paying taxes.