Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the trade wars ........ yep, there's more than one (The EU and China - the main ones) and this has become a clear theme of Trump's MAGA.

You don't read much that casts a positive light on this. It's mostly gloom and doom and some numbers indicate that there are, not insignificant, economic costs around the globe. I guess what you have to ask yourself are the trade advantages enjoyed by other countries as injurious to US trade as the Trump administration declares they are and, therefore, the alleged inequities justify the approach Trump is taking?

I haven't seen a definitive answer to that question. I don't believe anything that comes out of the lips of anyone representing the WH or the broader administration. I do think we suffer a news bias, superficiality of reporting and not much more believability of the reporting than the pronouncements of the current administration. It takes a lot of digging to get the facts in this matter straight.

The article linked below does flesh out a bit more today than was announced yesterday about the targets of the additional 10% tariffs the president announced yesterday. The targets are phones, apparel and China exports intended for retail sale. They do not target steel, auto parts or the broader sector of electronics. Tariffs on those three sectors would be extremely painful, both to the Chinese and the global market place, if steeper tariffs were imposed.

Kudlow was asked today about specifics of the latest tariffs and he named those three sectors but when pressed about impact he was less definitive saying they won't have much of an impact at home and we have figures to support that position. He didn't provide them. The commerce department did release a list of tariff targets prepared in May so, there is some visibility as to which products imported from China could be tariffed.

I hold to the premise that the latest tariffs are window dressing intended to send the message that Trump isn't going to back down on insisting that China needs to fix the macro and structural aspects of their economy that creates trade imbalances with the US. I mentioned these in a post up thread - the unresolved question of whether China is or is not a NME and the disadvantages to US companies who want to do business in China posed by the typical Communist state subsidization and controls of specific industry production.

I also believe that there is a strategic and concurrent plan to weaken the WTO. The purpose would be to get China to end it's reliance on the alleged do-nothing posture of the WTO when it comes to its declaration that it is NOT a NME. This declaration affects not just the US but a host of other nations trading with China. Allegations involving these unfair trade practices in the steel, energy and banking sectors have been brought before the WTO long ago and remain unresolved and in legal limbo.

This gets talked about all the time but the more I read the less important technology transfer disputes are in the bigger picture. These are micro issues compared to the much more impactful macro and structural issues involved with the NME question. As well, the impact of SOEs on anti-competitiveness concerns that SOEs present to foreign countries that want to do business within China markets are a major source of conflict between the US and China. When Chinese trade authorities make public statements that stipulate their country will not be intimidated by threats or forced to make changes to how they govern as Communists with the attendant centralized control of the means of production, it means fuck capitalism. We'll only allow it to permeate our model of governance to the extent that we will rigorously control that and on our terms not on the those of that the US is demanding.

TBH, I'm not sure Trump can win that battle but it is a good one when it is defined as I read it. That reality brings to the fore this question: Has President Deals bit off more than he can chew here? As for me, I don't think he has but getting China to reform it's economy at the macro and structural level is a hard row to hoe. It does appear that the Trump administration is demanding these kinds of changes as the price for China's admission to the world of free global traders. Demanding that China adapt a fully functioning market economy is going to take a while, if it will happen at all and I have my doubts, and be painful.

I'll add, I really don't think Trump being replaced by a D president is going to mean squat with respect to the China-US trade dispute. The same issues were being raised during the Obama administration over the entirety of it's years in DC. The D's during the Obama administration just didn't push China as hard as Trump has nor did they define the dispute as having strategic implications.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...-china-1632801

[Dr. Strangelove]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/gop-senator-held-up-trump-nominee-demanding-to-see-border-wall-contracts-after-army-corps-panned-construction-firm-he-prefers/2019/08/02/b185a76a-b566-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html

[Ghengis Jon]

Oh, those crafty Ohio criminals....

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/01/us/bank-robber-note-name-cleveland-bmv/index.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Atlantic's Graem Wood wrote a piece today, "Ideology Kills. How Do You Police It?" It has some good lines in it but rather flames out in the end.

alleged manifestogloating

I do think the article is instructive as it pertains to the admonition that you can't make sense out of these monstrous acts nor are there enough straight jackets to secure the public safety. It's a punt for sure but while Americans can't normalize this sort of violence, based on ideology or not, it sure as hell is hard to stop it in a society that values freedom of thought and action.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...eology/595426/

[Ghengis Jon]

It would be a good start not to be such a victim or entitlement culture and dial back the inflammatory rhetoric. Seems to me that nut jobs are acting out the mob mentality generated by social media. Perhaps the internet should have an age requirement of 21 so that formative minds easily warped have less access to protected (but destructive) speech.

[CGVT]

Or maybe, just maybe, Der Fuhrer should stop radicalizing these fucking terrorists.

Jesus.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I've spent most of my life around sail boats and dipped my toe in the water of Ocean Racing in the mid-70s. The boats we raced were governed by different rules and bound by the technology and naval architecture of the day. We could do 12 knots, maybe hit 15 for a second or two on a big wave but 33 knots? Never.

The technology and equipment available today to hit these speeds and then sustain them, or close to them, for typical 8 leg, 5000 mile races in these incredible ocean sailing craft is astounding. These days it's a contact sport as physically demanding as any.

Another lesson here. Technology and the human spirit to develop it can solve an increasing number of challenges the current and future inhabitants of the earth face now and will face going forward.

[froot loops]

It certainly must be the video games and not the white supremacists invasion rhetoric the GOP deploys.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here is the Trump administration's position on China trade in a nut-shell.



Hmmmm, I think I said this in my post yesterday or damn close to it. The "dumping" problem involves the unresolved macro question before the WTO: is China an NME or is it not. If it's not, China isn't dumping. If it is, it's dumping. The US asserts China is an NME. Can anyone tell me why China, a unabashed communist country with state controls of the means of production, is NOT an NME?

The issue of state subsidies afforded select enterprises by China is the other big macro elephant in the room and also unresolved before the WTO. It presents huge disadvantages for US companies that want to do business inside China.

The other issues raised are micro issues but nonetheless important in the dispute.

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/456092-top-aide-names-seven-deadly-sins-china-must-end-to-stop-trade-war

Here's the entire interview with the one communist Fox has hired, Chris Wallace. TBF, it's a spirited interview. Both Wallace and Navarro scored some points - I thought Navarro withstood the handsy Wallace press man coverage well:

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6067883892001/#sp=show-clips

[Dr. Strangelove]

Chris Wallace, "the communist", was arguing the free market standpoint and Peter Navarro, liberty-lover, demands tight government control over the economy. Just pointing that out. Navarro, in fact, attempted to push Trump into currency manipulation but Trump shot him down.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It certainly must be the video games and not the white supremacists invasion rhetoric the GOP deploys.

There's no such thing as racism or white nationalism. There is only "mental illness" brought on by Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto

[iam416]

The Republicans are too blame. Strangewoke has spoken.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Wallace is woke-lite nonetheless. TBF, he's an excellent interviewer and is well respected as a journalist.

Wallace arguing free market views? I thought he laser focused on the unsupportable claims by Trump in particular that US consumers aren't paying for the tariffs. Of course they are in higher prices and Wallace had data to support that claim. I thought Navarro's response was weak sauce - something about the same institutions saying the same thing a year ago. Whatever.

But the central issue, at least as I see it and Navarro was very clear on this, is how much are Americans willing to pay to get the Chinese to trade fairly with the rest of the world? I think this first assumes Trump can arm twist them into making the structural changes needed to achieve that. I'm not sure he can with the inscrutable Chinese..... never mind they are Communists and we're demanding that they become something close to capitalists by not controlling and subsidizing Chinese enterprise. Hard thing to do, IMO.

Still, I liked the Peterson Institute for International Economics briefing I linked to. A lot to get through but it was definitely a glass half full document as far as realistic compromises on both sides needed to get a trade deal done and the huge bi-lateral benefits to, in a larger degree, China than the US.