uhmm...you guys are really out of touch with reality....tell you what...try to find something in your house that is not made in china besides your kids? Call up your credit card company....its being answered by rahmen in India...would the consumers here in america had paid a little more for things like steel? Of course...would it have led to more jobs and a better spending economy? Of course....and this worry about higher prices for electronics is a crock...Tivo's were 600.00 4 years ago...now they a 67.00 if you sign up for two years of service...Americans are more concerned with paying 3.50 per gallon of gas then they are with paying more for rubber dog shit from china......If protectionism hurts so much answer this: how come all the other country's are doing it and excelling due to it?
No, but having politicians who consider the US public taxpayers first before the "US" multinational corporations (whom are not even US anymore) IS. Sadly we in the US had politicos from both side of the isle who willfully and criminally ignored the public's interest and considered only the strongest lobbies often against national interest in voting and enacting laws.
agree 100%...especially if you look how much of our budget goes to foreign countries that offer us NOTHING.
Your flawed statement is that countries are excelling "because of tariffs". VERY RARELY does a country excell because of tariffs. They sometimes excel in spite of tariffs. Your other flaw is that you are using historical electronics prices as proof against the idea that tariffs cause higher prices. Medium/long term price declines in high tech goods are characteristic of the sector as production technology advances very quickly. This has nothing to do with tariffs. The following example better demonstrates the problem. A Sony laptop will likely cost more two weeks from now if a tariff were placed on Japanese computers today. This doesn't mean that it will cost more than the exact same laptop did last year. Only that I would've gotten an even bigger discount versus last year's price if the tariff wasn't there. With a tariff, one of two things must happen. 1- The producer holds price steady and absorbs the export cost increase. 2- They pass the tariff along to the consumer by increasing the price of the product. If domestic supply isn't sufficient to fill 100% of domestic demand, then prices must go up. The consumers who weren't able to purchase at domestic prices must now purchase at import prices that include a tariff. But rather than having one group of consumers pay a low domestic price and another group pay the high import price, the market is quite good at simply finding the equilibrium price. IOW, the price of both domestic goods and import goods increases until the quantity demanded is satisfied. This might seem good to someone who doesn't know any better because it will seem like the profit margins of domestic companies increased while margins of foreign companies decreased. This might be true occassionally, but usually it means that domestic producers margins increased considerably, while foreign margins went mostly unchanged. And who pays for this? Domestic Consumers. I now have to pay a higher price than someone in germany pays for the same Sony laptop. The way to combat tariffs against our goods is not to place a reciprocal tariff. The threat of tariffs might be a good tool if we are a large consumer of particular goods. IOW, threatening a reciprocal tariff might be used to prevent a tariff placed against our own goods, but actually placing the reciprocal tariff simply hurt both countries involved while relatively benefiting all other countries who were smart enough to avoid tariffs all together.
TM--- Just something for you to think over. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff (or Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act) was signed into law on June 17, 1930, and raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels, and, in the opinion of most economists, worsened the Great Depression. Many countries retaliated, and American exports and imports plunged by more than half. ....... Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market Crash of 1929, many economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act as a factor in causing the crash and/or the recession that began in 1929, and its eventual passage as a factor in deepening the Great Depression. Unemployment was at 9% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16% the next year and 25% two years after that. As America and European countries increasingly resorted to protectionism as an economic policy, the general amount of international trade radically decreased, causing the world economy to slow.
you forgot # 3...which is the Producer decides not to send the product overseas because of the tariff ( because he does not want to absorb it nor will the consumers in that country pay it) and PRESTO the producers of that good have a monopoly all to themselves in their country thanks to protectionism....ie: Japan allowed in about 50 american cars last year...out of a country of 600 million....don't you think that helps toyota and Nissan and hurst Dodge and GM?? say what you want about quality yadeee yadeee but 50 cars? come on.
what isn't made in china????? dumbass. all the clothes ur currently wearing is from china. your shoes are made in china. all those monitors ur reading from are made in china. ur tv is made in china (samsung/sony manufactures in china) ur computers are made in china. dell is made in china. hp is made in china. ur chair is made in china. ur pens are made in china. ur ipod is made in china. ur desk is made in china.