FOUND! A free trade pub. amazin', but true!

Part of the reason manufacturing is only 10% of our GDP is it’s so much cheaper to build elsewhere and ship it to us.

Most of the companies in the top 10 are tech companies and rely on semiconductors made elsewhere. China decides Taiwan is theirs and takes it do you think those companies will have an increase or decrease in value.

Do you think we need to have strong vehicle and aerospace manufacturing for National security?

 

Europe relied on cheap Russian natural gas. That didn’t end particularly well.

 

I am really only concerned about this if there is an a national security or crucial economic reliance on that sector. Textiles go from US to China, but then they went to other countries.

Auto and aircraft are interesting cases. China is churning out cheap electric cars. Without tariffs the US electric car industry would probably be almost non existent. In the flip side if we were allowed to have cheap electric cars, Americans would have a lot more electric cars.

Taiwan is kind of a wrench on the whole thing, if china invades Taiwan, and we are reliant on China, our inability to respond economically is non existent.

 

I understand and support the idea of comparative advantage and for the most part support free trade. I just think exceptions can be made in cases like China and Russia.

 

In the US, predatory pricing is illegal. To the extent a foreign country artificially subsidizes an industry and exports to choke out international competition, how is that different?

 

Because there is a non trivial chance we will be at war with them via Taiwan.

I was generally with you when the likes of Russia and China were essentially neutral. But when we are reliant on a country that we may be at war with, steals our technology, steals our intellectual property, actively hacks our government and corporate IT infrastructure and supports illegal call centers that scam Americans out of billions of dollars - can you see where that may lead to problems?

 

Why would he need to have evidence of something he is not claiming?

 

I’m not sure I totally buy this analogy. Lots of problems with it.

1. Some level of college spend is spent by individuals directly
2. Just because something is more costly doesn’t always mean it is better. Take medical care for instance.
3. A lot of college spend is on various subjects that may have debatable impact on overall productivity, not to mention fancy facilities, administration to make sure everyone feels safe and offended, etc

Having said that even if the comparison is valid, I think subsidization of the advancement of your citizens is generally a “good”.

 

I used to know a family that had the largest white pine mill in New England. Family-owned business. Subsidized lumber from Canada put them out of business.

 

Subsidizing education is a very good thing. And it's clearly working as evidenced by your posts showing how dominant the US economy is.