The Trump Presidency VII

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logger said:
Reagan certainly was for free trade. Trump seems to be for it in ways but it has to be reciprocal.
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When someone uses the language of "fair trade" or they say trade must be reciprocal, they are not for free trade. Trump is most certainly a mercantilist.
As Regan noted a long time ago, the countries with the least protectionism have the greatest per capita GDP.
Free Trade is like right of way rules: It is a rule for how you conduct yourself, We learn right of way because right of way is something given, not taken. Of course, we want it to be reciprocated but we are still much better off not being protectionist even if it is not reciprocal. This is based on history, experience, and math.
I recommend the PBS series "Free To Choose"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (1980) is a book and a ten-part television series broadcast on public television by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman that advocates free market principles. It was primarily a response to an earlier landmark book and television series: The Age of Uncertainty, by the noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1976.
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All ten hours are available on youtube.
 
White House says there is a 'special place in Hell' for the Canadian PM and Putin should be back in the G7 despite no movement on Crimea.

That's quite a policy shift by the USA in the last couple of days.
 
portlandatheist said:
When someone uses the language of "fair trade" or they say trade must be reciprocal, they are not for free trade. Trump is most certainly a mercantilist.
As Regan noted a long time ago, the countries with the least protectionism have the greatest per capita GDP.
Free Trade is like right of way rules: It is a rule for how you conduct yourself, We learn right of way because right of way is something given, not taken. Of course, we want it to be reciprocated but we are still much better off not being protectionist even if it is not reciprocal. This is based on history, experience, and math.
I recommend the PBS series "Free To Choose"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_to_Choose

All ten hours are available on youtube.
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I am not a fan of Friedman.
 
acbytesla said:
I am not a fan of Friedman.
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Friedman is a conservative and represents what used to be conservative ideology. I'm hoping that maybe that fact may resonant with the Trump supporters who have embraced Trump's anti free trade ideas.

As for myself, I certainly agree with Friedman's free trade part but I think a modern economy needs both bottom up design (free market) and top down design(central planning) but more on the bottom up part but certainly more top down than Friedman would have liked.
 
acbytesla said:
I am not a fan of Friedman.
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He’s important, but not necessarily relevant anymore. He did some very important work but also some stuff that never panned out. The former is accepted by nearly everyone and the latter essentially remains on the fringes with few real advocates in the mainstream literature. The stuff that worked you can find reflected in newer work by many economists so there probably isn’t much need to cite Freidman directly anymore as you can cite more modern work built on his foundation.
 
lomiller said:
He’s important, but not necessarily relevant anymore. He did some very important work but also some stuff that never panned out. The former is accepted by nearly everyone and the latter essentially remains on the fringes with few real advocates in the mainstream literature. The stuff that worked you can find reflected in newer work by many economists so there probably isn’t much need to cite Freidman directly anymore as you can cite more modern work built on his foundation.
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I think he is being brought up here not in regards to any work advancing the field, but his ability to communicate the basics.
 
portlandatheist said:
Friedman is a conservative and represents what used to be conservative ideology. I'm hoping that maybe that fact may resonant with the Trump supporters who have embraced Trump's anti free trade ideas.

As for myself, I certainly agree with Friedman's free trade part but I think a modern economy needs both bottom up design (free market) and top down design(central planning) but more on the bottom up part but certainly more top down than Friedman would have liked.
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Well said. I'm much more a fan of Keynes. IMV, the biggest problem with the economy is this absurd supply side nonsense that is simply not supported by reality. It has done exactly what it was meant to do and that was to create wage slaves out of half the population and give more wealth and power to a tiny few.
 
portlandatheist said:
Friedman is a conservative and represents what used to be conservative ideology. I'm hoping that maybe that fact may resonant with the Trump supporters who have embraced Trump's anti free trade ideas.

As for myself, I certainly agree with Friedman's free trade part but I think a modern economy needs both bottom up design (free market) and top down design(central planning) but more on the bottom up part but certainly more top down than Friedman would have liked.
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He was more Libertarian than Conservative. Largely it’s been Liberals finding useful practical implementations of his ideas while Conservatives have increasingly either moved away from his principles or welded themselves to parts that never worked in practice.

Eg Friedman identified that Monetary not Fiscal policy was king wrt inflation and growth but feared too much direct government control over Monetary policy thinking this could be subject to abused or errors in management. He tried but failed to come up with a ridged formula for managing the money supply. Paul Volker took a more practical approach using economic data like inflation growth and employment data to guide decision making wrt monetary policy and that has generally worked.

Republicans/Libertarians have gone the other direction focusing on fiscal policy in an attempt to create growth and often call for a return to an inflexible gold standard to take monetary policy out of the picture even though Friedman was firmly opposed to a gold standard.
 
So Trump tweeted that the tariffs on steel and aluminum are payback for the tariffs on dairy - but I thought it was national security.

No, with Trump it's all about payback and he had to make sure the whole world knew. Trudeau's comment was extremely understated, mild-mannered and consistent with past statements. But it sure got Trump's undies in a bunch.
 
acbytesla said:
Well said. I'm much more a fan of Keynes. IMV, the biggest problem with the economy is this absurd supply side nonsense that is simply not supported by reality. It has done exactly what it was meant to do and that was to create wage slaves out of half the population and give more wealth and power to a tiny few.
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Supply Side economics is more closely related to Keynes then Friedman IMO, as it is essentially an implementation of Fiscal Policy where Freidman was advocating the use of Monetary Policy. Freidman favored smaller government as a principle but did so because he thought government failures took a bigger toll on economic efficiency than market failures, not because he wanted to use tax policy to create growth.

Overall though he commonly underestimated the cost of market failures and overestimated the cost of government failures. At least IMO he did.
 
Minoosh said:
So Trump tweeted that the tariffs on steel and aluminum are payback for the tariffs on dairy - but I thought it was national security.

No, with Trump it's all about payback and he had to make sure the whole world knew. Trudeau's comment was extremely understated, mild-mannered and consistent with past statements. But it sure got Trump's undies in a bunch.
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As usual, he is throwing reasons against the wall and lets other people see what sticks for whom.
 
Minoosh said:
So Trump tweeted that the tariffs on steel and aluminum are payback for the tariffs on dairy - but I thought it was national security.

No, with Trump it's all about payback and he had to make sure the whole world knew. Trudeau's comment was extremely understated, mild-mannered and consistent with past statements. But it sure got Trump's undies in a bunch.
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Or you know, all about making up whatever at a moments notice.

Canada doesn’t actually impose tariffs on Dairy, rather it uses a supply management system to keep prices stable for both producers and consumers. The US, on the other hand let’s producers sell for whatever they want but gives them massive subsides on the back end to keep them viable in spite of selling their product at a loss.

The US system results in lower prices but also overproduction which is why the US has a surplus in Dairy trade overall. Canadian producers can’t compete with the subsidized prices of US producers on items that are not part of Canada’s supply management system.

In the absence of both supply management and subsidies the big winner is likely Western Canadian producers. Western Canada has much larger farms for better economies of scale and generally optimise for low cost over intensity. On unsubsidised unprotected trade they can almost always produce at a lower cost than the US or Eastern Canada.
 
This bears repeating: by saying that he'd happily bin the new tarriffs if the other countries removed alleged unfair trade barriers, Trump denies that he imposes for reasons of national security. I hope the WTO spots that as well and rules accordingly.
 
Oystein said:
This bears repeating: by saying that he'd happily bin the new tarriffs if the other countries removed alleged unfair trade barriers, Trump denies that he imposes for reasons of national security. I hope the WTO spots that as well and rules accordingly.
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You still don’t understand why he said it.
 
Oystein said:
This bears repeating: by saying that he'd happily bin the new tarriffs if the other countries removed alleged unfair trade barriers, Trump denies that he imposes for reasons of national security. I hope the WTO spots that as well and rules accordingly.
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Oh, Trump is away ahead of you on that one:
But those mechanisms themselves are also now under threat. The WTO's appellate body has been solving problems for more than 20 years, and its decisions have to be accepted by all members of the WTO. There is no veto.
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But the appellate body is rapidly running out of members, as the US is blocking new appointments in an argument over their role. It needs a bare minimum of three members, though six or seven would be much better - at the moment it has just four.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43786175
 
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