Rand explains his opposition to tariffs:

[Swordsmyth]

Look what happened to Hong Kong throughout the 20th century. They became incredibly wealthy on this tiny strip of land with no natural resources all because of free markets and relatively unfettered trade.

Hong Kong was a tiny city state with a low population and few resources, being an international trade hub was its only option.
But you can't provide wealth for a Continental sized country with far more inland than coast and a huge population by being a trade hub or a service economy.

America became wealthy and developed the largest middle class in history using tariffs, it has become weak and lost its independence while driving its middle class into the poor and the poor into the dirt since adopting free trade.

[Swordsmyth]

Notice how none of the free trade cultists will engage with the facts posted in the charts, they just keep spouting dogma and appealing to authority.

[Invisible Man]

The charts literally show that American workers increased productivity and didn't get increased compensation for it.

What do you mean "compensation"? You mean dollars? The stuff that was produced that they buy with those dollars is the true compensation. The changing values of dollars per item isn't what matters. They now work fewer hours to get more stuff. That isn't less compensation, it's more.

[Invisible Man]

Hong Kong was a tiny city state with a low population and few resources, being an international trade hub was its only option.

Exactly.

[Swordsmyth]

Exactly.

And you deliberately edited out the part that shows why it's such a stupid comparison, you are literally comparing a mouse to a lion and telling the lion that it can get fat on the same diet as the mouse.

[Swordsmyth]

What do you mean "compensation"? You mean dollars? The stuff that was produced that they buy with those dollars is the true compensation. The changing values of dollars per item isn't what matters. They now work fewer hours to get more stuff. That isn't less compensation, it's more.

I mean either one, the charts show they can't buy as much and have to work more hours to get the same stuff.

And you again edited out the part where I showed you were wrong and being deceptive like the Fed and how it calculates inflation.

[CCTelander]

Notice how none of the free trade cultists will engage with the facts posted in the charts, they just keep spouting dogma and appealing to authority.

What I notice is you posting a bunch of disjointed data, that shows circumstances but doesn't "prove" a damn thing, then apply the usual post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and declare "See! Free trade is responsible for all the economic evils in the world! My faulty reasoning proves it!"

Give it a freakin' rest.

And now I really am done.

What utter nonsense.

[TheTexan]

But frankly, it just isn’t worth the time or effort to attempt to counter your relentlessly obdurate economic ignorance. So go ahead and rant. Anyone who isn’t too friggin lazy to actually learn a little about the topic will see it for what it is. Anyone else doesn’t matter.

I’m done.

Done doing what? Making snarky quips and reciting cliches?

I don't think I've ever seen you try to make a genuine counterargument in the context of tariffs.

If that's all you're gonna do, then ya, please stay "done".

[TheTexan]

Notice how none of the free trade cultists will engage with the facts posted in the charts, they just keep spouting dogma and appealing to authority.

And I'm still awaiting a logical rebuttal of the scenario I linked earlier.

[CCTelander]

Done doing what? Making snarky quips and reciting cliches?

I don't think I've ever seen you try to make a genuine counterargument in the context of tariffs.

If that's all you're gonna do, then ya, please stay "done".

Oh $#@! right the $#@! off, k?

I posted a ton of real life actual data proving beyond any reasonable doubt the economic harm caused by tariffs and you and Swordy just dismissed it. Then you turned around and made up a hypothetical, proceeded to “analyze” it in a near complete vacuum, ignoring any other possible factors and their effects, and declared that you “proved” that free trade was harmful. Oh, you also posted a bunch of $#@! you glommed from some AI tool and pretended that that settled it. You yourself admitted that you’re “lazy as $#@!” (your words, not mine) so that kind of superficial “research” and “analysis” isn’t surprising, but you really can’t expect anyone who actually bothered to learn at least something about the topic to take it seriously.

So yeah, $#@! right the $#@! off Tex.

Or don’t.

Frankly I don’t give a $#@! one way or the other.

Have a nice day.

[TheTexan]

Oh $#@! right the $#@! off, k?

I posted a ton of real life actual data proving beyond any reasonable doubt the economic harm caused by tariffs and you and Swordy just dismissed it.

Clearly there must have been some reasonable doubt.

Then you turned around and made up a hypothetical, proceeded to “analyze” it in a near complete vacuum

Still awaiting a logical rebuttal. Instead I get only this ^.

and declared that you “proved” that free trade was harmful.

I never declared that. I simply declared that free trade has the capacity to be harmful (seems like a reasonable statement), and then posted a scenario using assumptions and logic to demonstrate that.

, ignoring any other possible factors and their effects,

If by "other factors" you mean the costs and corruption associated with the implementation of tariffs I have more than acknowledged them, I have said they present the strongest argument against tariffs. If there are other factors and effects I am "ignoring", I will happily address them...

Oh, you also posted a bunch of $#@! you glommed from some AI tool and pretended that that settled it. You yourself admitted that you’re “lazy as $#@!” (your words, not mine) so that kind of superficial “research” and “analysis” isn’t surprising, but you really can’t expect anyone who actually bothered to learn at least something about the topic to take it seriously.

Well, I'm not gonna commit a huge amount of effort to making the historical case for "trade can cause dependencies". Such a thing is true prima facie. Reasonable counterarguments in favor of free trade can still be made while acknowledging the reality that trade does, in fact, create dependencies. Yet the people in that thread refused to acknowledge even that simple fact.

There's no point in arguing with religious zealots.

So yeah, $#@! right the $#@! off Tex.

Or don’t.

I choose the latter.

Frankly I don’t give a $#@! one way or the other.

Have a nice day.

I will. Thank you.

[Voluntarist]

... to reimburse me for what I've already paid to your government in tariff. And your government is using that tariff money, which we all pay, to help finance the wars, the subsidies to Elon Musk, and the payouts to all those government programs you love so much.

[Swordsmyth]

... to reimburse me for what I've already paid to your government in tariff. And your government is using that tariff money, which we all pay, to help finance the wars, the subsidies to Elon Musk, and the payouts to all those government programs you love so much.

Actually the exporting country often pays the tariff by lowering prices or devaluing their currency to try to maintain marketshare, and the importing companies often eat part or all of the cost for the same reason.
When tariffs are high enough that the exporters and importer companies don't eat the cost the American consumer may face some higher prices temporarily, but they are more than made up for by higher wages when the industrial economy recovers and improves the rest of the economy along with it.
Meanwhile we can lower or eliminate other taxes to compensate the consumer as well, and we regain our independence and resilience.

[Voluntarist]

Actually the exporting country often pays the tariff by lowering prices or devaluing their currency to try to maintain marketshare, and the importing companies often eat part or all of the cost for the same reason.
When tariffs are high enough that the exporters and importer companies don't eat the cost the American consumer may face some higher prices temporarily, but they are more than made up for by higher wages when the industrial economy recovers and improves the rest of the economy along with it.
Meanwhile we can lower or eliminate other taxes to compensate the consumer as well, and we regain our independence and resilience.

Often? Can you supply a dozen examples then?

[PAF]

Who Ultimately Pays the Cost of Protective Tariffs? ~ Mises.org

[Swordsmyth]

This is proof-positive we're not just poorer now than we were 40 years ago, we're much, much poorer.

Armies of well-paid apologists, apparatchiks and propaganda peddlers--economists, pundits, statisticians, influencers--spend their entire careers pushing a big shining lie; we're more prosperous now than ever before. This is demonstrably false, as the truth--that we're much poorer than we were 40 or 50 years ago--would disrupt the status quo in which the few at the top get to control the narratives and wealth as long as the masses believe the propaganda that we're all better off.

This is the reason why the four-decade collapse of the purchasing power of wages must be papered over with propaganda and gamed statistics. If we accept the reality of our declining standard of living and well-being, then a few reforms will be recognized as insufficient; we'll awaken to the necessity of a Reformation, not just a handful of standard-issue policy tweaks.

Inflation statistics are easily gamed. So are statistics such as median wages. Official inflation is gamed by various statistical tricks (hedonics and what's in the price basket) to understate the real-world decline in purchasing power.

There is only one true measure of prosperity: the purchasing power of an hour's labor / wage. It doesn't matter what the wage or price numbers are, what matters is: how much can you buy with an hour's wage?

Fact: in 1977, it took 2.25 days of work (18 hours) to pay the monthly rent on my studio apartment in the most expensive city in the U.S., Honolulu. In virtually any other city or town, the rent would have been less. I was 23 years old, working as a non-union apprentice carpenter for a small contractor. The pay was a bit above average, but by no means fabulous. I wasn't working at Goldman Sachs. The rent was fair market; it wasn't some special deal offered by a relative.

Since this was a cheap apartment, let's round that up to 3 days of work to pay the monthly rent.

OK, so how many young wage earners today can pay the rent for their own apartment with 3 days' pay? Any hands? OK, the Ivy League MBA working at Goldman Sachs, making mega-six-figures in annual compensation. Any average folks out there paying their rent with 3 days' pay? No?

Today, that would require an hourly wage of $60 to $90 an hour. The median annual wage is around $60,000, around $30/hour--half or a third of what it takes to pay the rent on a studio apartment in a high-cost urban area with 3 days of work.

It's important to understand that I didn't have the only cheap apartment in the city. Most of my friends had similar cheap housing, because there were more nooks and crannies in the housing market and in the economy: more small landlords and lower costs of doing business. One friend rented a converted WW2-era Quonset hut on the edge of an upscale neighborhood. Another lived in an old apartment next to the freeway. Another rented an in-law cottage in a single-family home neighborhood. I rented a wealthy couple's poolside cabana for a year. (Most of the space was filled with their stuff, but the price was right.)

Much of this low-cost housing has been demolished or rehabbed into high-priced rentals.

Fact: in 1985, it took about four hours of work to pay my individual healthcare insurance premium for the month ($54). This wasn't phantom insurance with a huge deductible--it was the standard insurance offered by employers large and small. Being self-employed, I paid the premium myself.

OK, everyone who can pay a market-rate, non-subsidized, non-giant-deductible monthly healthcare insurance premium (for an individual) with good coverage with 4 hours of work, raise your hand. With an average cost around $350 a month according to reputable sources, that requires a wage of $87 an hour--roughly triple the median wage.

Costs were lower across the board: my monthly utility bill: two hours of work. Three full lunches at a working-class cafe--one hour of work. And so on. The key takeaway here is that the cost of doing business was lower across the board, so everything from auto repairs to going to the dentist was much cheaper. Compared to the present, it took very few hours of work to pay for auto repairs, dental work and other services.

We're told our vehicles are so much better now, but this too is open to debate. Cars and trucks cost a fortune now, and they're bigger and heavier and dependent on electronics that can't be repaired at home and that are super-costly to repair. And what exactly makes them so much better? Recall that we all managed to get by without rearview cameras and hands-free mobile phone technology for decades. Let's look at vehicles as transport, not rolling entertainment centers.

My 1979 Honda Accord (bought used for $2,600 ($7,350 in today's dollars) operated for many years with little more than routine maintenance despite being 8 years old when I bought it. It got about the same mileage (40 MPG) as my current 2016 Civic, which has a bigger engine and is much heavier. Is it a "better" vehicle given that repair estimates of $3,000 or more are now the norm? I could still replace a defective sensor in my 1998 Civic myself. Now--forget it.

In terms of repairability, modern vehicles are off-the-scale worse than the highly reliable vehicles of 30 or even 40 years ago.

Given the impossibility of doing much more than changing the oil at home and the insane costs of repairs, it's clear that the hedonics aren't worth the stupefying increases in costs. The same can be said of the 4-cylinder pickup trucks of that era, which did the same work as the far larger, far more costly and unrepairable trucks of today that cost $80,000. How many hours of work does it take now to own and operate a vehicle? Far more than in the past.



In the 1980s, I paid my annual home insurance with a few days' labor. Is that possible now? Sure, if you make $80/hour. Even at that rate, it takes a couple weeks' earnings to pay home insurance in some areas. And yet we're all more prosperous now?



How about the cost of building a new home? In the early 1980s, I built my own 1,400 square foot conventional house with a two-car garage for $26,000, which equates to about $90,000 in today's dollars. It took 2,600 hours of work to pay for my house in full (not counting my carpentry labor). I performed all the labor other than the licensed subcontractors (electrical, plumbing, cesspool excavation, carpet installation, etc.).

Can an owner-builder construct the equivalent house today for 2,600 hours of work? At $30/hour, that's $78,000. Good luck building a middle-class house turnkey (all appliances, flooring, etc.) for $78,000, even if you do all the carpentry yourself. That might cover the materials--but maybe not.

Around this same time (1983) I built numerous modest starter homes as a fully licensed and insured contractor for under $35,000, which equates to $110,000 in today's dollars. Compare this to today, where you need a construction loan of $400,000 to build a nothing-special middle-class house.

Are the houses "better" today? In terms of the quality and durability of materials and appliances, they're worse. The materials today are low quality, as are the appliances. 30 or 40 years ago, you could buy a fridge, washer, stove/oven, etc. and it would last decades. Now, all I hear are accounts of costly appliances failing in a few years--and that's been my experience. Today's lumber is lower quality, too, as is the hardware. Standard (i.e. not fancy-expensive) locksets in 50-year old houses are still untarnished and working fine. Modern hardware is--sorry to be blunt--mostly rubbish.

Meanwhile, as the costs in hours needed to pay for essentials have soared, we're told by apologists and propaganda pundits that cheap TVs and clothing have offset the the collapse of our purchasing power. Does anyone else find this ceaseless spew of lies irksomely misleading?

The collapse of quality has stripped away the purchasing power of earnings. Two generations ago, you could buy just about anything you needed used for a low cost, and that product would last for years or decades. My Mom bought a "vintage" dining set in 1970 that supposedly came around the Horn. Given the square nails and other indicators, I would estimate it was 100 years old at that time. I still use it today, so it's 150 years old. I've reglued some of the chairs, but other than that, they've been zero-cost for 50 years.

Are the chairs being bought today at Ikea going to last 150 years? I've repaired many that fell apart in the first year. The same can be said of almost everything being manufactured today. This collapse of quality has dramatically reduced the purchasing power of wages in fundamental ways.

Then there's this chart: wages' share of the economy, which has dropped from 51.6% in 1975 to 43% today. Given that the U.S. GDP is $29 trillion, each point of that decline translates into major money. 8% of $29 trillion is $2.3 trillion. Now there are various ways to measure this, but you get the point: wage earners are receiving a smaller share of the economy's output.



How many hours of work does it take to buy essential products and services now, and how long do the products last? By this measure, we're poorer, much poorer. After paying for essentials, we have less disposable income available to save or spend on non-essential stuff.

In the mid-1970s, I was having lunch with two older buddies. One was a public school teacher (he taught science) who'd served in West Africa in the Peace Corps, the other was an ex-Marine officer who'd served boots on the ground in Vietnam. Both agreed that if anyone was serious about achieving anything that required money, they had to save 40% to 50% of their net pay. Anything less indicated they weren't actually serious.

With even an average measure of frugality, this was entirely possible. It was well within reach. How many wage earners today save 40% - 50% of their net pay? Sure, some do, but how many do so without help from the family, special discounts or subsidies, or earnings in the top 10%? Not many. And this is proof-positive we're not just poorer now than we were 40 years ago, we're much, much poorer.

If we refuse to accept reality, what are the chances we'll be able to fix what's broken? Delusion and wishful thinking are not successful survival strategies.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...ere-better-now