[HN Gopher] America needs supply-side reform
___________________________________________________________________
America needs supply-side reform
Author : jseliger
Score : 118 points
Date : 2022-06-30 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| newaccount2021 wrote:
| ParksNet wrote:
| softcactus wrote:
| This list is emblematic of optimizing for a metric without
| considering the reason why we are optimizing for said metric in
| the first place.
|
| The reason why it is good to have a competitive labor force is
| so that wages and quality of life can go up.
|
| 1,4, and 5 are in opposition to the underlying goal we want to
| achieve by having a competitive labor force. These propositions
| are trying to mitigate human suffering by... increasing human
| suffering? There is zero consistency here.
|
| Just looking at #5, this is essentially a de facto ban on
| retirement, but it also doesn't make sense in practice because
| companies are already discriminating against older workers. I
| suppose you could argue that a shorter period of retirement
| would lead to decreased saving, and increased consumer
| spending, but I don't think the major problems with the US are
| currently caused by a lack of consumption.
| clairity wrote:
| that's an incoherent set of policy recommendations.
|
| we sorely need regulatory reform that focuses less on specific,
| ideological goals and more on market dynamism and fairness, but
| your list is a mishmash of more regulation and less.
|
| and just sugar, really? not the fertilizer industry? or farm
| equipment? or corn? or anything else? you fall down the rabbit
| hole really fast this way.
|
| moreover, punishing old people and single parents isn't going
| to make us more competitive. removing the mortgage tax
| deduction would though, as it'd make the housing market more
| efficient and dynamic, fueling growth and innovation. get rid
| of the implicit subsidy to housing via the government-backed
| mortgage companies, and we'd really get somewhere.
|
| let's remove subsidies and price in externalities across the
| board, not just in some ideological subset, then you don't have
| to finely regulate every market and commodity, which is just
| begging for more regulatory capture and corruption.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| 1. Consumers will prefer safer conventional vehicles over
| shitty EVs
|
| 2. People will just burn oil
|
| 3. Add more regulations on farms - and the food will also be
| imported from China.
|
| 4. It probably has been decided at some point that it's cheaper
| to intervene while the person in their childhood, rather than
| dealing with adults who grew up in miserable conditions
|
| 5. It will increase labor force supply, therefore decreasing
| salaries. Is it the intent?
| DesiLurker wrote:
| upvoted you but disagree on 1's implementation, 4 & 5 entirely.
| also replace Ban by disincentivise in 2.
|
| this list is also meta indicative of problems in US political
| system. Dems just have to be slightly better than rethuglicans
| to be viable so they keep adding unwanted half baked solutions
| till they are barely palatable.
| acd wrote:
| I think globalization is in a reversing trend due to freedom and
| control over supply chains. I also think cheap consumer non
| sustainable goods are reversing. If you buy too cheap goods you
| sell your future freedom.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like clothes,
| but we'll manufacture high end stuff like refrigerators."
|
| "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like
| refrigerators, but we'll manufacture high end stuff like TVs."
|
| "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like TVs but
| we'll manufacture high end stuff like computer chips."
|
| "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like computer
| chips but we'll manufacture high end stuff like bored ape NFTs."
| bko wrote:
| Serious question: how does a car company like Tesla remain
| competitive manufacturing in the US? This was supposed to be a
| solved. If you asked car execs prior to Tesla if a new car
| company could compete with the existing players and produce
| their product in the US they would have laughed in your face.
|
| Even now US electric cars are mostly a loss leader in the
| legacy market, without the constraint of being produced in the
| US. What's going on here?
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Is the majority manufacturing of Tesla cars in US or other
| places of the world?
| bko wrote:
| Tesla's sold in the US are made in the US
|
| https://www.carshtuff.com/post/where-are-tesla-cars-made
| mhh__ wrote:
| $2.5T is a lot of bored apes
| deelowe wrote:
| You're last statement should be:
|
| "who cares, america won't manufacture low end stuff like
| computer chips but we'll manufacture high end stuff like
| Intellectual Property."
|
| As this is the reality.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| The problem is "Intellectual Property." does not really
| exist, it is more accurately called "Intellectual Privilege",
| and IMO you can not based a soild economy on it. Not even
| close
|
| "Intellectual Property" based economics, like "Service
| Economy" that we all heard in the 90's has the same flaw,
| they are self canalizing and built on intangible "honor"
| based trade
|
| Unlike Physical Manufacturing, of Physical Goods, or the
| development of Raw Resources.
|
| Solid Foundational economies require the production of solid
| tangible assets, not "Intellectual Property"
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Even then, our dominance in intellectual property is not
| assured. TikTok has taken the world by storm and I would have
| never imagined a Chinese company would make a social media
| app more successful and compelling than what any Bay Area
| company could produce. We're also seeing Hollywood movies
| become less successful overseas as other nations step up
| their own media production.
|
| Not only do I see our competitive advantage in Intellectual
| Property declining, I also don't know what comes next after
| Intellectual Property.
| conductr wrote:
| At some point there is no next, globalism seeks equilibrium
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| i would guess our comparative advantage in pie in the sky
| thinking about markets
| bushbaba wrote:
| Housing has become too expensive. The US would see huge GDP
| growth if it reduced the percentage of wages going to
| housing and rent-seeking corporations.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Housing is not expensive in much of the country. You're
| looking at a handful of heavily urbanized areas and
| projecting those dynamics to the rest of the U.S.
| bluedino wrote:
| It is now. Those $125,000 1400sq ft houses in the flyover
| states doubled in price over the last two years.
| dwater wrote:
| Housing values are strongly correlated with the local
| economy. By and large, the areas with cheap housing have
| weak job markets and low wages, and vice versa. Remote
| work may change this some, and it's great if you have the
| privilege of that option, but it is certainly not the
| norm across all workers.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Hollywood movies have been less successful lately because
| they've become heavily politicized in a way that turns off
| most of the audience. Foreign movies are also political of
| course, but in subtler ways, e.g. Chinese big-budget films
| promoting the harmony of a unified society. It's a totally
| self-inflicted problem.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Political in what way? Could you give a few examples of
| recent movies you feel are heavily politicized and for
| what reason?
| N1H1L wrote:
| So the original Top Gun wasn't political? Weird why there
| were Navy recruiting booths in halls. Must be a
| coincidence.
|
| Name me a war movie that _isn 't_ political.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| They Shall Not Grow Old.
|
| 1917.
|
| Possibly Dunkirk.
|
| Even Downfall is pretty light on politics, even though it
| takes place in the Fuehrerbunker itself.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Even Downfall is pretty light on politics, even though
| it takes place in the Fuehrerbunker itself.
|
| Downfall takes an anti-Hitler and anti-Nazi stance. Just
| because we all "agree" with the message doesn't change
| the fact that Hitler is seen as a weak, degenerating,
| hypocritical man throughout the film.
|
| Who happens to be a good boss to the main character.
|
| -----
|
| Finally, the secretary openly apologizes for her role in
| Nazi-ism. The film makes it clear that even "good people"
| (like the secretary), who end up helping the Nazis in
| little ways are still partially responsible for the evils
| the Nazis caused.
|
| The main character never killed anybody. But she helped
| Hitler write his last will (as well as Joseph Goebbels's
| last will), and other jobs that a secretary should do.
| The film is innately bringing to focus the role of the
| "typical" Nazi. Not the far right but just the little
| supporters and their role in Nazism. The "good people on
| the other side", if you will.
|
| And they're openly apologetic. Because even those little
| ways of getting a job and helping out in little ways was
| still Nazism, and in support of that awful ideology.
| RhysU wrote:
| Saving Private Ryan? Though it's been a few years since I
| watched it.
| dragontamer wrote:
| That film literally starts with some soldiers shooting
| surrendering enemies (a war crime) on the Beach of
| Normandy. It also takes the unusual stance to bring up
| the gore (charred bodies from flamethrowers, etc. etc.),
| which is almost certainly political. (How much gore to
| show, are we glorifying violence? Etc. etc.)
| pradn wrote:
| This seems like one of those ideas that is in the air and
| keeps floating around without solid evidence. Is there
| any? Surveys or such?
|
| Maybe a bigger issues are simply audiences getting used
| to only seeing a certain kind of movie outside the house,
| that there's enough good stuff on TV that the quality gap
| between home and theater is smaller, the expense of a
| movie theater visit, an ongoing pandemic.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| Exactly. I refuse to watch the imperialist propaganda
| vehicle known as the Marvel cinematic Universe.
|
| Only partially kidding. There is a comical parallel
| though with China's Wolf Warriors movies. Hugely popular,
| and maybe even good cinema, but also propaganda
| fleddr wrote:
| Whilst I'm annoyed with overly political story-lines,
| it's not proven that this moves the needle.
|
| I'd say streaming is the main culprit in combination with
| the professionalization of the series format. The big
| budgets go into series now.
|
| Other than that, subjective as it is, there just doesn't
| seem to be many eye-catching movies anymore. I used to
| have big discussions with my g/f on which movie to go to,
| as at least 3 or 4 at any time would compete for that
| choice. Now we look at what's playing and cannot even
| find a single one that we would want to watch. It's all
| Marvel and sequels.
| TimPC wrote:
| Only because a certain side of politics thinks having a
| character of a certain identity is a political statement.
| Maybe people and characters should be free to be who they
| are without it being a big deal.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Yeah, I think the complaint is really more that "the
| cultural landscape has moved on such that people now want
| to tell stories about characters that make me feel
| uncomfortable, and I interpret this as pushing a
| political agenda on me."
| dragontamer wrote:
| You mean like the good ol' days when we had non-political
| movies like "Dr. Strangelove" ??
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Dr. Strangelove was _openly_ political. It was made as a
| dark comedy precisely as a way of making its message
| transparent and enjoyable to the audience. Modern films
| are quite different.
| foldr wrote:
| You originally said that Hollywood movies had _become_
| "heavily politicized". I think what you really mean to
| say is that they've started promoting certain ideas that
| you don't like. Or are you going to tell me that Birth of
| a Nation and Gone with the Wind didn't engage with any
| controversial political ideas?
| rayiner wrote:
| I think a fairer reading is that big budget summer
| blockbusters used to try and be politically palatable to
| 95% of the country.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Taking that same reading further, you'd have to
| acknowledge that they now try to be politically palatable
| to 75% of the world because the global markets are now
| available and rich.
|
| Catering to regional tastes just isn't competitive at
| that scale.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| You mean like Robocop, Starship Troopers, Avatar, Star
| Trek IV, ...
| corrral wrote:
| Shit, Jaws would probably be regarded as "too political"
| these days, by some folks. It could easily be read as an
| anti-Covid-denier allegory, after all....
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Not the OP, but a person from behind the former Iron
| Curtain who watched a lot of old commie stuff, the good
| and the mediocre and the really boring ones.
|
| There is politicized and politicized. Art often has a
| political message, but there is a certain threshold where
| the message starts squeezing everything else out of the
| picture and the characters become stuffy - a weird kind
| of "ideal exemplars" of a certain desired stereotype
| instead of believable humans.
|
| If the main hero can't be characterized more personally
| than "Soviet and a hero" or "trans and brave", the
| threshold is crossed.
|
| People like to watch movies about other people, not
| stereotypized puppets.
| foldr wrote:
| There are loads of Hollywood movies from all eras that
| meet all these criteria. It's not a new phenomenon. Check
| out the oh-so-subtle characterization in _The Sands of
| Iwo Jima_ , for example. Or if you want an idealized do-
| gooder character, how about Virgil Tibbs in _In the Heat
| of the Night_? (A great movie, but Tibbs 's character is
| only a little more filled out than 'black and a good
| guy'.)
|
| It's honestly astonishing to me that people would think
| that American movies with political messaging are somehow
| a new phenomenon. I'd have to assume that these folks
| have just not watched many old movies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_of_Iwo_Jima
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_(f
| ilm...
| corrral wrote:
| I think if you made two buckets labeled "sex" and
| "politics" a majority of well-regarded films from all of
| the 20th century, right back to the beginning of film,
| would land in at least one of the two. Lots would qualify
| for both.
|
| Tons of our most beloved films are political, and that's
| true back to the dawn of cinema.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I don't doubt that you are right, but I am fairly
| ignorant when it comes to older American movie
| production, so I cannot pinpoint any examples.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Different how? Like Lolita (1962) ? All the President's
| Men (1976)? Miss Saigon (1989, a play I admit, but a
| controversial one):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Saigon_controversy
|
| ??
|
| I don't even know what decade you're referring to.
| Movies, plays, and other forms of entertainment always
| had politics. Some of them (like Lolita) explicitly tried
| to court controversy.
|
| Or do you mean like Disney movies, like how Peter Pan
| (1953 Disney cartoon) has great, "non political" songs
| like "What makes the red man red" ??
|
| Like, you can't escape politics. Even when you're trying
| to be politically neutral (like a Disney cartoon aimed at
| children in the 1950s), these sorts of political issues
| just come up... because our base assumptions of life are
| in fact political.
|
| Whether we court politics on purpose (Dr. Strangelove,
| Lolita), or accidentally (Peter Pan 1953, "What Makes the
| Red Man Red?"), these sorts of things have been going on
| since the dawn of movies and cartoons.
|
| Lemme leave things off with this 1940s comic by Dr.
| Seuss:
| https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb3618599q/_2.jpg
| ren_engineer wrote:
| final step - "who cares, americans will just live in the
| Metaverse"
|
| Facebook moving towards the "metaverse" is disturbing to me
| because they are basically betting on people giving up on the
| real world, it's a form of surrender. Don't bother trying to
| solve real problems, just plug into the matrix
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| I'm not sure, but what kind of margin can persuade business
| people to re-open factories that produce TVs/refrigerators and
| ordinary workers to accept such jobs?
| quartesixte wrote:
| Which is a shame because the low-end stuff is what makes an
| economy tick. And is the training grounds for engineers and
| tradesmen.
|
| I also think it will help us as a society if we let people work
| rather mundane jobs that make essential products and receive
| good living wages. "I make a living making the bolts that keep
| your fancy EV together." Service economy be damned.
|
| That boat has long since sailed I'm afraid but maybe we can
| bring it back somehow. I remain hopeful.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Comparitive advantage is a fundamental principle and cannot
| be violated, at least without causing a lot of nasty long
| term consequences
| imtringued wrote:
| Comparative advantage is mostly nonsense because humans are
| extremely good generalists and pretty much every country
| has every industry to some degree.
| pydry wrote:
| The neoclassical theory of (static) comparative advantage
| is dead and buried.
|
| It was originally a kind of academic pretext for justifying
| exploitation of third world resources.
|
| Then western economists drank their own koolaid.
|
| They then tutted paternalistically at China in the 90s for
| engaging in export oriented industrialization and keeping
| their capital markets on a tight leash. They argued that
| China was shooting itself in the foot and should stick to
| things they were good at like making cheap tacky toys and
| clothes and open up their capital markets.
|
| Those 90s New York Times op eds hailing comparative
| advantage and chastising China aged really badly.
| fsckboy wrote:
| China would do better economically if they were open to
| more trade and competition, they _are_ shooting
| themselves in the foot compared to where their economy
| could go.
|
| and comparative advantage operates just fine without
| trade barriers. Since it's just a mathematical
| relationship, i.e. it can't be wrong, it also operates
| with trade barriers, just not as efficiently.
| 988747 wrote:
| Comparative advantage only works in a globalized economy
| with free trade - the world that is now ending.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Also more sophisticated industries evolve out of more basic
| ones in non-intuitive ways. For example in CH, pharma evolved
| from dyeworks.
|
| Imperialism isn't a necessity or even a proper answer. You
| need local expertise, education and decent living standards.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| CH as in Confoederatio Helvetica?
| wyldfire wrote:
| CH is an abbreviation for Switzerland (ISO country
| codes).
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Guess what the CH stands for ;) I just haven't seen it
| used in context like that and would encourage people not
| to use abbreviations when possible.
| abakker wrote:
| another problem, though, is that as production methods
| change, there becomes less meaningful low-end work. Making
| bolts might have been a basic job at some point, but is
| basically only done by large automated machines now, or in
| small batches to incredibly high tolerance on CNCs.
|
| The thing we need to bring back is the full supply chain.
| E.g. it doesn't make sense to build things here if 90% of the
| components come from Shenzhen.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I'm not sure how representative it is, but there are still
| people making bolts with very labor-intensive, 19th century
| technology.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZYPG1ADPg
|
| There are endless similar videos of people making simple
| machined, cast, or forged parts by hand like this, in
| horribly unsafe conditions, at least by today's workplace
| standards.
| amelius wrote:
| Also, how are we going to invent better bolts if we keep
| moving our knowledge to the least educated countries?
| quartesixte wrote:
| Exactly!
|
| Inspiration to make improvements to the nuts and bolts
| requires daily, constant exposure to the nuts and bolts.
| There is a lifetime of knowledge required sometimes.
| jotm wrote:
| It works in Germany (and Nordic countries). Assembling
| washing machines is tedious, but not _that_ hard, and it pays
| well enough to buy a flat or even a house after years on the
| job. Cutting and welding metal containers all day long pays
| even better.
|
| But these are industries where you don't job hop every couple
| of years - you do it for decades and your wage rises
| accordingly.
|
| It's hard work, but there's always people who can do it and
| want to do it.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Manufacturing is similar to coding. You outsource the basic
| functionality to third-party libraries and create value on
| top of that. At some point, the inability to control your
| external dependencies obscure how your code actually run,
| introduce bugs and security exploits.
|
| People then swear off third party code and start writing the
| basics themselves or at least stop updating their
| dependencies.
| jsight wrote:
| We've seen this with solar panel tariffs. We add tariffs to
| encourage domestic manufacturing, but instead of domestic
| factories we just get cutbacks in installations and less
| employment overall.
|
| There the impacts are direct and obvious, but I worry that
| similar things happen in other industries as well. There are
| certainly a lot of people that think copper, steel, and aluminum
| tariffs are leading to workarounds that involve more imports of
| finished goods.
|
| Is the US ultimately hurting or helping domestic manufacturing
| with these policies? I don't think the answers are clear.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| It's almost as though we've been warned for decades that
| tariffs are mostly harmful.
|
| Time and time again we prove that R&D has a massive ROI, yet
| it's always being trimmed since it doesn't pay off in a short-
| enough time frame to keep the accountants happy (<6 months).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| You need to buy C-level for any long term investment. You
| can't buy MBAsed C-level who intents to drop out with a
| golden parachute after two years.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Table 1 made me realize you could probably protect the
| rainforests and improve American health and help US ranchers with
| a small tariff on Brazilian beef. I'm sure most Brazilians would
| be 1) happy to each cheaper beef and 2) welcome reduced pressure
| on their rainforests. Even the Brazilian ranchers don't
| necessarily lose. They still have beef to sell. They just won't
| have to invest as much in land-clearing.
| [deleted]
| mtoner23 wrote:
| But you would unfortunately get kicked out of office as the
| politician who made beef expensive
| Animats wrote:
| The author assumes this is related to economic policy, although
| he mentions the "depression economics" problem. Maybe it's not.
| Maybe it's related to antitrust policy.
|
| If you're a monopoly or oligopoly, a situation where there's not
| quite enough supply lets you crank up prices and run your
| factories at their most profitable point. You don't have to worry
| about losing market share to a competitor. If you're a monopolist
| in a range of products, you can deal with someone trying to move
| into part of your space by lowering prices for the competed items
| only, until the new entrant cracks. Known examples are generic
| drug companies, cable TV companies, cellular phone companies, and
| bulk agricultural product wholesalers.
|
| It seems to take at least four real competitors before price
| competition happens. That's from an EU study. Once you're down to
| three players, the magic happens, the margins go way up, and
| supply shortages become profitable.
| amelius wrote:
| > Once you're down to three players, the magic happens, the
| margins go way up, and supply shortages become profitable.
|
| That's because three is the maximum amount of CEOs that fit in
| a golf buggy (with equipment).
| N1H1L wrote:
| The financialization of American industry has been an unmitigated
| disaster, whose proportions we still haven't grasped.
|
| The sugar rush that comes from a bump in stock prices when you
| hire ex-MBB MBAs is corrosive to societal fabric and national
| security in the long run.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| The current administration's ideas of supply-side reforms starts
| with the Defense Production Act and ends with Executive Order
| 11615. The opposition party's idea of supply-side reforms
| involves looking for additional ballots in Georgia.
|
| Hang onto your inflation hedges, because it doesn't look very
| good for America.
| revscat wrote:
| America doesn't change policies, only parties.
| [deleted]
| rossdavidh wrote:
| That, in the wake of energy shocks from Russia's invasion of
| Ukraine and everything-else shocks from the zero-covid policy in
| China, the author can still say with a straight face that free
| trade will solve our supply problems, can only be the product of
| motivated reasoning. It's one thing to supplement your domestic
| production with a bit of temporary outside help, but to allow
| whole industries to go overseas and have no substantive domestic
| production, in a nation as large as the USA, makes no sense. Free
| trade is what got us here. It's like the author slept through the
| last three years.
| cowpig wrote:
| Can you explain the connection between free trade,
| covid/russian agression, and the economy? It's not obvious to
| me
| idontpost wrote:
| Free trade results in most production moving to its most
| inexpensive location. That's the whole point.
|
| Then when bad things happen in that location, you lose that
| production. The result is that you can't get what you need at
| any price.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| 1. Optimization like outsourcing sacrifices resiliency in the
| name of maximizing profit. In the software world trying to
| save money by keeping no backups or not allocating additional
| server capacity in the name of maximizing profits would be
| seen as insane but that's how US manufacturing has been
| managed.
|
| 2. Economists in general don't account for any externalities
| or 2nd order effects when it comes to free trade. In theory
| comparative advantage makes sense, but it doesn't account for
| how outsourcing cheap manufacturing to China eventually
| allows them to build up an economic base that threatens the
| US militarily
|
| Basically for the US economy to work requires the system to
| be completely perfect, anything like a war or pandemic that
| throws even a minor wrench in an extremely complicated system
| causes disaster.
|
| If we put economists in charge they'd have outsourced all
| food production because cheaper labor in other countries
| would be more "efficient". Which would be fine until some
| sort of famine, then those countries would just keep the food
| and we'd be stuck with "high value" products while starving
| naravara wrote:
| > Economists in general don't account for any externalities
| or 2nd order effects when it comes to free trade.
|
| Many do. They just don't get hired as lobbyists so their
| impact on the conversation is limited. The economics that
| gets done in economics departments is often quite different
| from the economics that percolates out into popular
| consciousness. But a lot of it involves math. . .
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Analogy to not paying for backups or additional server
| capacity, is excellent.
| closeparen wrote:
| It's really not. Resiliency and capacity headroom are
| orthogonal to where they're located.
|
| Better analogy would be the cloud. You could imagine a
| number of different points on the cloud vs. self host
| spectrum:
|
| - Fully dependent on high level APIs of a third party.
|
| - Dependent on commodity VMs and dedicated servers from
| third parties.
|
| - Purchase equipment from third parties to host on leased
| premises with leased connectivity.
|
| - Purchase equipment from third parties to host on own
| land with leased connectivity.
|
| - Fabricate your own equipment to host on your own land
| and lay your own fiber to customers.
|
| - Dig your own mines to obtain the raw material for such
| equipment. Fabricate your own machines to make it.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > If we put economists in charge they'd have outsourced all
| food production because cheaper labor in other countries
|
| This shows great ignorance of both farming and economics.
| For cereal crops, labor barely registers as an input.
| N1H1L wrote:
| > If we put economists in charge they'd have outsourced all
| food production because cheaper labor in other countries
| would be more "efficient". Which would be fine until some
| sort of famine, then those countries would just keep the
| food and we'd be stuck with "high value" products while
| starving
|
| I am going to use this line from now on. Your whole comment
| is brilliant, BTW
| metabagel wrote:
| That's not what parent is saying. They are saying there is a
| connection between Covid and the Russian war in Ukraine; and
| supply shocks and inflation. They are saying that free trade
| policies are unrelated and won't solve the current supply
| shocks and inflation. I agree.
| beebmam wrote:
| It's just an opinion. There's no serious argument being
| made in the comment everyone is replying to. It's just
| apriori reasoning, not based in evidence, about how the
| world works.
|
| It's fun to read, but it's not founded on reality
| (evidence), and people should not take it seriously, just
| like virtually all comments on social media sites.
| csa wrote:
| > Can you explain the connection between free trade,
| covid/russian agression, and the economy? It's not obvious to
| me
|
| Negative externalities can happen such that access to your
| trading partners is severely reduced or eliminated.
|
| In terms of COVID and China, the biggest trading center and
| very large (largest?) shipping port in China largely came to
| a grinding halt as the entire city was locked down for covid.
| Massive amounts of cargo ships were just stuck outside the
| port with nothing to do. This gummed up the entire inner
| workings of the international trade system and international
| shipping system, and this negatively impacted many economies
| due to lack of goods and increased cost of good that were
| available due to limited supply.
|
| In terms of Russian aggression, the main issue has been
| restricted access to Russian oil. Energy drives economies. If
| energy prices go up and/or supply goes down, it slows the
| economy.
| metabagel wrote:
| The other argument which I think is being made is that free
| trade has led to supply chains which lack redundancy and are
| susceptible to shocks.
| corrral wrote:
| Free trade--if it results in greater reliance on foreign
| suppliers, which it pretty much always does--comes at some
| national security risk, since you're depending on sources
| beyond your control for the supply of more goods and
| resources. To illustrate by extreme example: that your
| country has realized its greatest Ricardoan(?) comparative
| advantage potential and has efficiently converted its entire
| productive capacity to making teacups is not great if there's
| a global food shortage and you don't produce any food.
|
| Shocks to supply and to the economy (so, things like Covid or
| Russia invading a neighbor) can cause that risk to be
| realized as harm, or at least cause the risk to be more
| evident.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large
| as the USA
|
| The US very much still has a domestic manufacturing sector, it
| just happens to be the case that fewer people work in it.[1] In
| fact the US manufacturing output is the second largest in the
| world, on par with China.[2]
|
| Insofar as the US does struggle, I don't see the connection to
| free trade. The US has one of the largest domestic economies,
| and free trade only comprises about 23% of the American GDP.
| That makes the US the third least free trade reliant country in
| the world. Compare that to Germany or South Korea, two strong
| manufacturing countries in the developed world, where trade is
| about 4 times(!) as important.
|
| [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN
|
| [2]https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-
| scor...
|
| [3]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_rec
| ...
| rdxm wrote:
| lkrubner wrote:
| The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714
|
| By Christopher Hill
|
| Copyright (c) 1961, 1980 by Christopher Hill
|
| In 1601 a member of Parliament asked, when a list of monopolies
| was read out, 'Is not bread there?' His irony exaggerated only
| slightly. It is difficult for us to picture to ourselves the life
| of a man living in a house built with monopoly bricks, with
| windows (if any) of monopoly glass; heated by monopoly coal (in
| Ireland monopoly timber), burning in a grate made of monopoly
| iron. His walls were lined with monopoly tapestries. He slept on
| monopoly feathers, did his hair with monopoly brushes and
| monopoly combs. He washed himself with monopoly soap, his clothes
| in monopoly starch. He dressed in monopoly lace, monopoly linen,
| monopoly leather, monopoly gold thread. His hat was of monopoly
| beaver, with a monopoly band. His clothes were held up by
| monopoly belts, monopoly buttons, monopoly pins. They were dyed
| with monopoly dyes. He ate monopoly butter, monopoly currants,
| monopoly red herrings, monopoly salmon, and monopoly lobsters.
| His food was seasoned with monopoly salt, monopoly pepper,
| monopoly vinegar. Out of monopoly glasses he drank monopoly wines
| and monopoly spirits; out of pewter mugs made from monopoly tin
| he drank monopoly beer made from monopoly hops, kept in monopoly
| barrels or monopoly bottles, sold in monopoly-licensed ale-
| houses. He smoked monopoly tobacco in monopoly pipes, played with
| monopoly dice or monopoly cards, or on monopoly lute-strings. He
| wrote with monopoly pens, on monopoly writing-paper; read
| (through monopoly spectacles, by the light of monopoly candles)
| monopoly printed books, including monopoly Bibles and monopoly
| Latin grammars, printed on paper made from monopoly saltpetre. He
| exercised himself with monopoly golf balls and in monopoly-
| licensed bowling alleys. A monopolist collected the fines which
| he paid for searing. He travelled in monopoly sedan chairs or
| monopoly hackney coaches, drawn by horses fed on monopoly hay. He
| tipped with monopoly farthings. At sea he was lighted by monopoly
| lighthouses. When he made his will, he went to a monopolist. (In
| Ireland one could not be born, married, or die without 6d. To a
| monopolist.) Pedlars were licensed by a monopolist. Mice were
| caught in monopoly mousetraps. Not all these patents existed at
| once, but all come from the first decades of the seventeenth
| century. In 1621 there were alleged to be 700 of them.
|
| Apart possibly from beer and salt, these were not quite
| necessities. But monopolies added to the price of just those
| semi-luxuries which were beginning to come within the reach of
| yeoman and artisans whose standard of living was rising. They
| affected the daily life of hundreds of thousands of Englishmen.
| By the end of the sixteen-thirties they were bringing nearly
| PS100,000 a year to the Exchequer.
|
| Monopolies interfered with the normal channels of trade.
| Merchants were prohibited from landing their cargoes at the most
| convenient port whenever a monopolist's right of search chanced
| to require their unloading elsewhere. By the late sixteen-
| thirties the economy was beginning to suffer. The clothing
| industry was hit by increased cost of soap and alum, and by the
| scarcity of potash caused by suppression of imports. The
| Greenland Company lacked oil. The salt monopoly embarrassed the
| Fishery Society. The rise in the price of coal hit nearly all
| industries. 'No freeman of London,' said a pamphlet of 1640,
| 'after he hath served his years and set up his trade, can be sure
| long to enjoy the labour of his trade, but either his is
| forbidden longer to use it, or is forced at length with the rest
| of his trade to purchase it as a monopoly, at a dear rate, which
| they and all the kingdom pay for. Witness the soap business.'
|
| Nor was the objection to monopolies only economic. Buckingham,
| the great monopoly-monger, had popish connections. The soap
| monopoly, which promised the King PS20,000 a year in the sixteen-
| thirties, was attacked not only because it doubled the price and
| its inferior product blistered the hands of washer-women, but
| also because the monopolists were Papists. If we think of
| monopolies simply as a tax, then we can regard them as a crude
| anticipation of the excise, the value added tax on consumption
| later developed under Parliament's auspices. The fiscal benefit
| to the crown from monopolies was considerable, but it could not
| compare with the injury done to the consumer and industry by the
| rise in prices. Every 1s. charged at the customs brought 10d in
| to the Exchequer; but 1s increased cost to consumers by
| monopolies brought a bare 1 1/2d to the Exchequer: the soap
| monopoly brought less than 1/2d. The rest went into the pockets
| of patentees and courtiers.
|
| Since monopolies were enforced by the royal prerogative and the
| prerogative courts, they gave rise to constitutional conflicts.
| Parliament, the representative institution of the men of
| property, favoured greater industrial freedom. In 1624 Parliament
| declared that monopolies were opposed to the 'fundamental laws of
| this...realm'. Because of its invasion by the prerogative, this
| Statute of Monopolies was described by a contemporary as 'a bill
| against monarchy'. Charles evaded it by disregarding the common-
| law courts, and bringing cases affecting monopolies before Star
| Chamber, on the ground that his prerogative was being questioned.
| Sale of monopolies was the line of least resistance for
| governments in financial difficulties, and was extensively used
| in the sixteen-thirties. The knowledge that their patents would
| be attacked if Parliament ever met encouraged monopolists to aim
| at quick profits. Indeed, the King himself was not above selling
| the same patent twice over, so no patentee could be squeamish
| about consumers' interests. It was a vicious circle.
|
| The industrial revolution could not have happened if the system
| of monopolies had remained in place.
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