I Need to Vent

Oh my god. I can't stand some of the people I work with. I live in a very republican area so I have to deal with some of their views no matter what. That's okay, I guess.
But this one kid I work with is just over the top pro-Trump. "Yeah I'm worried about the impending trade war with China much more than getting into a war with North Korea."
Okay great. But then he goes on to say that he's not at all wirried about the economic consequences of a trade war because it will bring more jobs to the US.
Wait what? What the f is he even talking about?

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

Here's the logic.

"We have too much trade with China. Because we buy stuff from them cheap, it is cheaper to make stuff over there than it is to make it here. So they do work we should be doing. If we have a trade war, prices go up, and it will be cheaper to make it here."

The problem is that in order to actually compete with China you need to reduce salaries and labour conditions to the point where you just have the sweat shops on US soil.

Also it makes shit a LOT more expensive, and many people can barely afford to get by as is. It's not like wages are going to go up as a result of a trade war.

This is 'drunk idiot in a bar' politics. Reality is more complicated.

boklenholley7 · F

@CountScrofula yes I'm aware, I've studied economics enough to understand that much. I was just astounded by the fact he was worried about it but then proceeded to go on about how it's going to help us because trump is so great and all. -_-

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@boklenholley7 lol, well you probably know more than me ;) I was going off of the "What the f is he talking about?" because the ideas are so stupid I spent time trying to figure out the logic.

boklenholley7 · F

@CountScrofula oh sorry lol. No, I get the underlying economic principals behind what would actually happen. Even tried to explain it to him.
I think I told him that because Trump was going to put tariffs on Chinese goods, it would cost them more to sell it to us, so they'd jack up their prices. This would then cause the prices to nearly double for retailers in the usa making the customers here suffer since the retailers would have to keep making about the same profits. So customers would be paying about double to keep the retaiker in business.
But our wages aren't going to go up with the prices of these goods.. This is why everytime the usa has entered into a trade war we've also entered into recession.
People can't afford to buy as much so the retailers aren't making as much even after jacking up their prices, so they have to hire less help to sell these goods, etc etc. It trickles down into pretty much everything.
Sure, we could tax the shit out of chinese goods, but we went to china for a reason. Labor can be seen as any other raw material. We're not going to buy the bandaids that cost $10 when the same product costs $5 from a different brand. Same with labor.
As you said, our labor costs so much that if the goods that we get from china were made here, they'd cost way way more. Sure, having factories here would increase jobs, but that doesn't much matter when the people working in those factories wouldn't even be able to buy the product they were producing.
Economics is super interesting, sorry. Nobody wants to talk to me about it and I don't know that much.

CountScrofula · 41-45, M

@boklenholley7 Don't be sorry! It is super interesting stuff.

None of these guys care about the actual idea of labour and wages and buying power. IF all the goods are expensive and all the wages are suppressed because of the lack of unions you get a crisis of consumption - everyone makes goods they can't consume themselves and the economy falls apart.