tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post5780179617569610784..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Trumpism's enemy is still GOP mainstream, not Never Trump fringe; Way forward is alliance with Bernieagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-55148161087992884662018-03-07T22:04:09.567-05:002018-03-07T22:04:09.567-05:00Wofgang Streeck, a Dutch semi-Marxian sociologist ...Wofgang Streeck, a Dutch semi-Marxian sociologist gets Trumpism. Lays it out as clearly as you can<br /><br />http://inference-review.com/article/trump-and-the-trumpists<br /><br /> Most of his stuff is pro-click/woth reading. although his ultimate view is pessimistic. dbk_999https://www.blogger.com/profile/05968807302466562896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-49266887249042412612018-03-06T09:19:27.833-05:002018-03-06T09:19:27.833-05:00The history of industrialization is massive tariff...The history of industrialization is massive tariffs -- to protect the helpless infant -- followed by steady subsidies -- to nourish the growing child.<br /><br />If tariffs worked the way the econotards claim they do, no country would have ever industrialized other than the first one, Britain, who would have enjoyed first-in-line advantage, while all other countries would have destroyed themselves through their misplaced tariffs.<br /><br />Reality is the exact opposite of mainstream econ theory, at the macro level.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-57017222247934684892018-03-05T22:00:41.494-05:002018-03-05T22:00:41.494-05:00Economic theory posits that suppliers face rising ...Economic theory posits that suppliers face rising marginal costs, thus why the supply curve in a supply and demand graph slopes upward. This envisions the supply side of an industry as constituting a number of small to mid-size firms all competing on razor thin margins, where marginal revenue barely exceeds marginal cost. A tariff, so the theory goes, would push marginal costs past marginal revenue, resulting in a significant price increase and thus a loss to consumers.<br /><br />But as usual, reality is far from economic theory. The empirical studies clearly show that a significant majority of firms have steady or even falling marginal costs (i.e. most industries are, to some degree, economies of scale). They can absorb tariffs with relatively insignificant price increases. As explained above, the hit goes to the bottom line. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-57700130950500878042018-03-04T10:25:43.137-05:002018-03-04T10:25:43.137-05:00If co's had the ability to raise prices, they ...If co's had the ability to raise prices, they already would have. They don't need permission from anyone, and they don't need to explain their pricing to anyone.<br /><br />They want to charge consumers the most while giving them the least.<br /><br />If they will only now raise prices in response to higher costs of production, and not suffer any hit in sales volume due to sticker shock from consumers, then they were leaving all that extra profit on the table to begin with, when their costs were lower, pre-tariff.<br /><br />They would've jacked those prices up lonnng ago, with or without some generic excuse that "sorry folks, but our costs have gone up".<br /><br />Because they have not raised prices to the extent imagined, they must not have had that price-raising ability to begin with. And if they don't have that ability, they will not be able to raise prices now either in response to higher costs or anything else.<br /><br />Higher costs = lower profits!agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-71131058069406023422018-03-02T22:47:19.477-05:002018-03-02T22:47:19.477-05:00"No society ever got rich on average from agr..."No society ever got rich on average from agriculture, only from industrial manufacturing."<br /><br />Hmm.... And which nations were the earliest and quickest to de-industrialize? Britian and the Anglo diaspora, which it just so happens were the earliest winners from the industrial revolution. Back in the Bush/early Obama era, I read about "Anglo disease", which is the post-late 70's rush to gut manufacturing and promote FIRE in the English speaking countries, while also meddling with perhaps not perfect for the Me Gen but still workable/sensible established practices, like the discouragement of abusive lending practices and irresponsible spending with inadequate savings. The recent "recovery" and the PC wave have cause a lot of people to shamefully ignore economic issues and their core status. Some good work was being done in the 2000's/early 2010's, then voila, it got buried under white privilege garbage and neo-Nazi trolling.<br /><br />The Anglosphere is the most individualistic culture ever produced, for good or for ill. We created much of the moving parts necessary for industry, and initially benefited a lot from that. But after that became the tradition, the establishment, an arrogant generation (or two, or three) came along and attacked "the old ways" as fake, rigid, boring, souless, etc. So let's trash it and start fresh. We're too good to be factory workers. That's for people in crappier countries. Let's give people more advanced, more uh, dignified work in our countries. Haven't you heard? The future's about everyone trying to make a living with their minds, while foreigners at home and abroad use their hands.<br /><br />Certainly, as best I can tell the Boomers in Russia, Germany, and France didn't wholesale villify industrial society as so irredemably corrupt, such a blight upon the Earth and hopeful young minds that it was worthy of utter rejection by those who could make that choice. English speaking Boomers and Gen X-ers still think that we've made scarcely one iota of progress in saving us from the horror of the smoke stacks. Whereas continental Europeans appreciate the strides we've made in improving 1st world industry.Ferylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01336057631877941839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-36835494982379384712018-03-02T19:13:59.519-05:002018-03-02T19:13:59.519-05:00To complete the argument, it's Dems rather tha...To complete the argument, it's Dems rather than GOP who will form that alliance out of globalism.<br /><br />The sectors hit hardest by rising costs of materials (or of labor, regarding immigration and minimum wage policies), and that have the most global exposure to retaliation (what we actually export these days) are all Republican.<br /><br />Thus, the GOP stands most in the way of material progress for middle and working-class Americans. Although they may not like it, the Democrat sector elites do not face annihilation by going along with de-globalization.<br /><br />Allying with the GOP is self-destructive at this point, and must wait until their sectors are humbled by de-globalization carried out by a new regime of Bernie-style Democrats.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-18746251705486525202018-03-02T19:05:36.627-05:002018-03-02T19:05:36.627-05:00Notice the IT co's are not freaking about tari...Notice the IT co's are not freaking about tariffs and sending panicked PR shills on cable news shows -- they don't manufacture anything, so are insensitive to the changing costs of any industrial commodity like steel or aluminum.<br /><br />Some more than others -- purely informational co's like Facebook and Netflix will weather the storm perfectly, while those with connections to manufacturing like Apple or Amazon will get hit somewhat.<br /><br />Those with minimal international operations can't be even potential targets of retaliation -- Netflix, e.g.<br /><br />Those with maximal intl exposure, like agriculture, will be the only big targets. Sucks to the mega-farmers from the Great Plains, then. No society ever got rich on average from agriculture, only from industrial manufacturing.<br /><br />Stock performance today shows that -- quite a rally, because these tech stocks are so heavily weighted in the major indexes. NASDAQ sure didn't notice any hardline tariff tweeting from the president.<br /><br />That points the way toward easing out of the globalist regime -- a truce / alliance with some of the tech giants, and then let the chips fall where they may after that.<br /><br />In the meantime, team up with them against the Natl Assoc of Manufacturers, Chamber of Commerce, etc., in order to boost industrial commodities (workers *and* owners) and manufacturing workers.<br /><br />Big banks can invest in, and earn interest on loans to, these tech co's and industrial commodities, after re-allocating them from the hard-hit co's in a protectionist regime.<br /><br />Not so different from the New Deal alliance between labor-insensitive elite sectors like New York banks, and the mass-based labor unions.<br /><br />Politics continues making strange bedfellows.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-66511686149364854082018-03-02T17:52:02.801-05:002018-03-02T17:52:02.801-05:00Zero Hedge figuring out that higher costs = lower ...Zero Hedge figuring out that higher costs = lower profits rather than higher prices (no clue who "BMO" is):<br /><br />"BMO has a good point: tariffs would lead not to higher inflation but crushed margins (inability to pass through higher input costs)"<br /><br />https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/969571374879690752<br /><br />I've been making the point for a couple years, after writing more about Trump themes. But it's easy enough for anyone to figure out once you start thinking about these topics.<br /><br />We have just been living in such a laissez-faire / profits-over-people kind of world that everyone has forgotten what the alternative is -- not an apocalyptic hyper-inflationary world, but the good old Midcentury world of Leave It to Beaver.<br /><br />Of course there's one group of people who still know the score -- the elite investing class. They're the ones panicking over the prospect of tariffs and a trade war, because they know damn well they can't pass higher costs of their own onto consumers, due to competition with their rivals on price.<br /><br />(Or if they can, it's only because of lack of competition, which would only be highlighted in a high-tariff world, and would put them immediately in the cross-hairs of trust busters and angry mobs of consumers.)<br /><br />Ross & Navarro made the rounds today to show how little the passed-on costs would be to consumers, even if the consumers were to take on all of those higher costs. For a can of Campbell's soup, 6/10 of a penny more in steel costs.<br /><br />Trivial when you crunch the numbers, and nothing anyone would notice. And something that would be worth us paying in order to keep steelworkers prosperous.<br /><br />That's a good argument for collective focus rather than individual greed. But I don't think we need to go there on the topic of tariffs -- the more important point we're making is that the economy was made for man, not man for the economy. That takes square aim at the stock owners, their corporate executive boards, and the elite investing class.<br /><br />Yes, we should think of others and be willing to sacrifice a fraction of a penny to keep them gainfully employed. But the first line of defense of steelworkers is going on the offense against the investing class, and making them -- not the lowly end consumers -- eat any higher costs of production.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.com