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| I have the feeling that the whole trade war starts from a pile of nonsense. |
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| NorthGuy:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 12, 2019, 04:32:18 pm ---I've often seen arguments in favor of unlimited free trade. It's often compared to some form of natural selection, leaving only the fittest alive or something. This point is largely debatable (would probably take a long time to discuss), and it also assumes ultimately having only the "fittest" on a global market will be for the greater good. This also is largely debatable, even somewhat fallacious. --- End quote --- It's much simpler. Free trade instills the "do or die" situation on all the participants - businesses and individuals alike: If you cannot produce anything that others would pay for, you die of hunger. Consequently, everyone works hard, which creates prosperity. Everything else except for free trade assumes that some of the businesses (which do not produce anything useful and would otherwise die) must be artificially supported. But why? And by whom? As to the tariffs. Billions of dollars are removed from the market and re-directed to bureaucrats. Since bureaucrats do not produce anything, this automatically means less production and therefore slower economy. |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: NorthGuy on August 12, 2019, 11:05:18 pm --- --- Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 12, 2019, 04:32:18 pm ---I've often seen arguments in favor of unlimited free trade. It's often compared to some form of natural selection, leaving only the fittest alive or something. This point is largely debatable (would probably take a long time to discuss), and it also assumes ultimately having only the "fittest" on a global market will be for the greater good. This also is largely debatable, even somewhat fallacious. --- End quote --- It's much simpler. Free trade instills the "do or die" situation on all the participants - businesses and individuals alike: If you cannot produce anything that others would pay for, you die of hunger. Consequently, everyone works hard, which creates prosperity. Everything else except for free trade assumes that some of the businesses (which do not produce anything useful and would otherwise die) must be artificially supported. But why? And by whom? As to the tariffs. Billions of dollars are removed from the market and re-directed to bureaucrats. Since bureaucrats do not produce anything, this automatically means less production and therefore slower economy. --- End quote --- The tariffs depress business and create lay offs, so there are plenty of people to hire as the additional bureaucrats needed. It all works out. |
| CatalinaWOW:
This is bringing up an old part of the thread, but this came up again in my area so I thought I would toss out a question. Why is the death penalty cruel, but locking someone in a cage for the rest of their life is humane? I personally would prefer a quick death to life in a box if ever I was in that situation. It doesn't seem to me that cruelty is the deciding point here. Most will agree that there are some people so evil that society needs to be protected from them. Many things have been tried and all have their shortcomings. The major shortcoming to the death penalty is that there is no chance for a do over. But if there is any doubt of the evil of the individual permanent protection of society of any type isn't warranted so this should be a minor issue. The cruelty and cost of locking someone in a cage is the drawback of that approach, in addition to the imperfect protection of society since there is the possibility of escape. Another approach that has been tried to various degrees is an isolated environment. Australia was once used this way, as were some islands in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. As the world has become more populated this approach has become totally impractical, and it never worked that well anyway. Since mankind hasn't worked out a good solution for what to do with the fortunately small number of truly evil it seems pointless to denigrate solutions different than whatever your country is currently trying. |
| VK3DRB:
The trade war with China is primarily about the theft of intellectual property which has badly damaged companies in the USA and other nations considerably. One thing Trump's government is doing, that the former US administrations completely failed to do, is making the communist regime accountable for its role in supporting the theft of IP. China has learn to respect intellectual property, stop hacking western companies and governments, learn to innovate themselves, and just grow up. Trump's tariffs will decentralise manufacturing out of China - having all your eggs in one basket is not a good idea. When the Sumitomo plastics plant caught fire in the 1990's, the entire semiconductor industry was affected, and memory chip prices skyrocketed. Why? Because it was almost the only single source of plastics to encapsulate IC's in the world. On a bigger scale having so many key electronic parts only made in China is quite risky. And furniture, tools, etc, etc. |
| Simon:
So what IP have the chinese stolen? Yes diversifying your sources is a good idea and tariffs should seek to equalise prices so that alternatives stand a chance. |
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