tivert

Oh, goody. Isn't it great the Democrats prioritized keeping "the groups" and their donors happy? You know, instead of actually reorganizing around countering the existential threat they complained so loudly about?

> By now it’s well known that Trump desperately wants to proof his professor wrong

By now it it's well known that globalization is for a fantasy world that doesn't exist, and people should stop listening so much to economics professors. Trade barriers need to go up to re-orient things. Unfortunately, Trump is unlikely to do it competently.

> Well, about that... I sort of think maybe our food supply is also one of those strategic industries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It is, but our political system isn't wise enough to care. It's pissed away a lot of other strategic industries for stupid reasons in the mean time. And with the nationalization of politics, I'm not sure farm state senators will continue to have the ability to focus on serving their constituents' interests in the future like they have.

> It isn't quite the same thing. There is a difference between trying to empower historically marginalized groups, and trying to re-subjugate historically marginalized groups.

Not really. It's all language games.

This is just the mirror image of the liberal conceit they can magically change reality by forcing people to use different words or over-elevating some story (old or new) for ideological reasons.

The lesson from this is that it's all stupid, not just my-side's version, and it should stop.

> Let’s turn it around. How does keeping the Jones Act ensure a competitive shipbuilding industry in the US? We could easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on. But blocking competition just keeps the market uncompetitive.

Because the US can't "easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on." It has an ideological dysfunction that prevents that. Even if you could manage to get a program like that passed, there's a large chance it'd get cut in 10 years by some libertarian to pay for yet another tax cut.

> We have no problem with subsidizing farmers and roads so why not shipbuilders if it keeps our navy competitive?

That's only because of how the Constitution apportions senators and the electoral college. Farmers are spread out in a way that gives them disproportionate political power.

> If you are protected from facing competition, then you don’t need to actually compete. Therefore, you don’t develop the competitive advantages. You remain at a competitive disadvantage, but it doesn’t matter since you don’t actually have to face the competition… until someday when the protection is removed and you are left to face the more advantaged competition.

However, it's not uncommon for a company or industry to fail to develop a competitive advantage, and then go bankrupt and disappear.

Without the Jones Act, it's quite possible that the US shipbuilding industry may have ended up even more moribund than it is now, decades ago.

> But can that also make them more gullible?

Oh definitely. They often don't have the experience to question what they're told or see the holes and deceptions in it. For instance: they'd be more easily fooled by a fake deadline. Or in this case, they may trust and follow their leader like a little zealot, even when he's wrong and doing bad things.

> In my experience, youth has little to do with honesty or corruptibility.

It has a lot to do with naivete and not having the confidence to stand up when needed.

There's a lot of easily indoctrinated, exploitable idealistic youth out there. A lot of organizations run on them.

> Keep ignoring the world in front of your eyes.

Get your pink hat on, it's time to waste your energy on the wrong things.

> Keep ignoring the world in front of your eyes. Edit: Also if you think the "world of maximal opposition has failed" that's very amusing as the level of opposition was extremely low.

Trump got elected, despite being portrayed constantly as both hopelessly incompetent, totally unacceptable politically, and as existential threat to democracy by his opponents and most of the media; being subject to multiple criminal investigations by them; having huge protests against him; and more than $1.4 billion spent on advertising against him. He was opposed to the legal maximum, and anything more would have gotten into armed militia territory.

> My experience was markedly different.

But your experience with IT equipment does not generalize to all trade between the US and China, which includes more than just IT equipment.

> This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.

I don't think it's weaselly, rather it's one of those areas that's not black and white and there is a lot of variation, which does not lend itself to a crisp, succinct summary. One of the cases in the original article I linked was the supplier gives a little on margin, and the importer overall pays more due to the tariff, but not the full amount, and that's what the second article seemed to be describing.

> P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack.

That kind of thing can totally can be part of an attack: the most effective attacks usually start with easily observable facts (and then omit others to fit the desired narrative), because that gives them more credibility. And I didn't mean to imply that you were making an attack, I was just noting that rhetoric is in the air due to the frequent political attacks, which often leads to it getting repeated.

> P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.

And we can agree that would be a good thing.

So your plan is to freak out every time some junior backbencher proposes something, like it actually means something? You'll be freaking out all the time, and what will it accomplish? You might as well put on a pink hat and run around Washington DC for a weekend.

And then, maybe when the idea actually gets pursued, it won't seem so controversial because all the energy was wasted before it was actually a thing.

> Continue to pish posh while they continue dismantling the republic.

If you don't want it dismantled, you can start by not getting distracted by dumb stuff and/or taking the bait. Then, the next step is to realize the politics of maximum opposition failed, and try something else.

> Have you been paying attention to the kinds of things these people publicly say and do?

Yes, I have. You didn't understand my comment, which was the motives for the tariffs (hint: they're not there to distract from Elon).

And the market is the ultimate unaccountability machine. Just pay attention to how people use it as a justification sometimes.