Florida resident indicted by NY DA

[Phalanx]

Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, wrote an essay last November that I found interesting. Thought I would share for the more studious readers of this thread. It seems like maybe Miran took a few classes in addition to Econ 102.

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/docume ... System.pdf

Note the explanations for basing tariffs on trade deficits. I am just catching up with all of this, but it sounds like everything they have done so far has been mapped out for a number of months. Not sure if that is reassuring or not. Good reading anyway.

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[nogerO]

How about responding with something factual. It's hard to take someone serious when you spew this nonsense.

You can't argue with crazy, but you can talk football with them.

Agreed.

[nogerO]

I haven't looked in on this section in months! Looks as fiery as ever.

Nah man, that's communism! But attacking business leaders publicly, threatening them if they increase product costs, extorting private law firms, throwing out lawsuits against businesses with political donors, awarding contracts to the companies owned by people in government, and putting high taxes on companies as a way of extorting them for favor - definitely not communism!

Hey, don't forget about "giving bailouts to states/industries where you have broad electoral support." In 2019, it was massive taxpayer bailouts to midwest farmers to offset the harm from tariffs.

We will absolutely see more taxpayer-funded bailouts if/when Trump's new trade war wrecks the economy enough. I'm going to call it now though and say only businesses/corporations in red states will get bailouts. Workers & businesses in blue states will be left to rot as punishment for not kissing the ring.

(Totally not communism!)

Anyway, returning now to my offseason walk in the woods.

How about letting 15-20 million illegals in and giving them everything they could need to survive so that they can vote democrat in every future election? Or how about bringing in illegally, on democrat paid for international flights hundreds of thousands of illegals to specific areas where the conservatives have a small advantage in the elections to insure democratic victories? TDS is quite amusing and sad. Tell whoopi and joy hello. Trump, Trump, Trump!

How about responding with something factual. It's hard to take someone serious when you spew this nonsense.

- who's letting in 15-20 illegals? So that they can vote democrat?? Sure. Where is the proof of this massive voting scandal?

- What benefits are illegals entitled to? They aren't lining up to get social security. Oh and they can't vote you do know that, right? Did you know that illegals pay income tax? probably not.

- democrats bringing illegals on a plane?? that's a new one for me. If they were refugees or people seeking asylum and the government was helping Guess what? They aren't illegal.

Nothing more annoying than an angry person that doesn't at least come to a discussion with facts.

What are you going to tell me next - Trump wont the 2020 election or that tariffs are the best thing ever.

Right on both counts. Patience is a virtue.

[Duck07]

Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, wrote an essay last November that I found interesting. Thought I would share for the more studious readers of this thread. It seems like maybe Miran took a few classes in addition to Econ 102.

https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/docume ... System.pdf

Note the explanations for basing tariffs on trade deficits. I am just catching up with all of this, but it sounds like everything they have done so far has been mapped out for a number of months. Not sure if that is reassuring or not. Good reading anyway.

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From the Intro...

President Trump has also discussed adopting substantial changes to dollar policy. Sweeping tariffs and a shift away from strong dollar policy can have some of the broadest ramifications of any policies in decades, fundamentally reshaping the global trade and financial systems. There is a path by which these policies can be implemented without material adverse consequences, but it is narrow, and will require currency offset for tariffs and either gradualism or coordination with allies or the Federal Reserve on the dollar. Potential for unwelcome economic and market volatility is substantial, but there are steps the Administration can take to minimize it.

From a trade perspective, the dollar is persistently overvalued, in large part because dollar assets function as the world’s reserve currency. This overvaluation has weighed heavily on the American manufacturing sector while benefiting financialized sectors of the economy in manners that benefit wealthy Americans. And yet, President Trump has praised the reserve status of the dollar and threatened to punish countries that stop using the dollar for reserve purposes. I expect these tensions will be resolved by a suite of policies designed to increase burden sharing among trading and security partners: rather than attempting to end the use of the dollar as the global reserve currency, the Trump Administration can attempt to find ways to capture back some of the benefits other nations receive from our reserve provision. Reallocation of aggregate demand from other countries to America, an increase in revenue to the U.S. Treasury, or a combination thereof, can help America bear the increasing cost of providing reserve assets for a growing global economy. The Trump Administration is likely to increasingly intertwine trade policy with security policy, viewing the provision of reserve assets and a security umbrella as linked and approaching burden sharing for them together

I don't need to read someone's argument for why we should destroy the value of the dollar and that's essentially what these choices lead to unless you believe the narrow path of actual Mafia behavior on the US's part is the best strategy for us. How else do you force countries to both accept our currency as the Global Reserve Currency AND THEN pay us an additional fee to use it? I don't believe the wisdom in that in any way shape or form.

Here's a much more cogent argument in reply to Miran's post-tariff WH statement but you might consider it merely a re-hashing of my previous arguments.

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[Duck07]

Just a question for all of the conservatives and libertarians on here. Do you believe that the rights granted in the Constitution are inalienable rights granted to everyone at birth, that are meant to protect the individual from the government?

[dd10snoop28]

The Bertrand tweet is full of heavy rhetorical attacks, and misrepresents and/or mischaracterizes many of the positions of the Miran's analysis. A lot of the same stuff as the Sachs video, actually. I'll go into details later.

On another note....I don't know much about Bertrand, but I know Sachs has always been light on criticizing China (i.e. he has great admiration for them) while heavy on attacking America. And now after searching Bertrand, he writes a lot about China in a favorable position as well.

Therefore, it's not surprising that Sachs/Bertrand take the views that they do. It seems like their arguments are bourne out of a defense in the status quo that benefits China greatly, because the economic arguments are unconvincing.

I mean, the first 20 minutes of Sachs video is him and the host mocking the Trump administration for not understanding what a trade deficit! This suggests extreme bias on their behalf and that they don't bother to understand what the other side is actually saying. Instead, take a snippet and mock for 15 minutes.

[Duck07]

The Bertrand tweet is full of heavy rhetorical attacks, and misrepresents and/or mischaracterizes many of the positions of the Miran's analysis. A lot of the same stuff as the Sachs video, actually. I'll go into details later.

On another note....I don't know much about Bertrand, but I know Sachs has always been light on criticizing China (i.e. he has great admiration for them) while heavy on attacking America. And now after searching Bertrand, he writes a lot about China in a favorable position as well.

Therefore, it's not surprising that Sachs/Bertrand take the views that they do. It seems like their arguments are bourne out of a defense in the status quo that benefits China greatly, because the economic arguments are unconvincing.

I mean, the first 20 minutes of Sachs video is him and the host mocking the Trump administration for not understanding what a trade deficit! This suggests extreme bias on their behalf and that they don't bother to understand what the other side is actually saying. Instead, take a snippet and mock for 15 minutes.

We're the ones who benefit most from the Status Quo though. This focus on "American Manufacturing" is truly a canard. You can bring manufacturing back but if you don't bring back livable wages what have you accomplished? We're also reaching a technological level that says the future manufacturing jobs are going to require an Engineering degree in order to maintain the vast robotics systems doing the majority of the work.

Nothing about livable wages is the result of running trade deficits with a country by itself which is also why the majority of these "tariffs" are exempting the majority of products we require, not just want. So again, this whole tariff nonsense hasn't done anything to protect the status of the USD going forward and has only put it at risk.

What's the benefit to losing our Reserve Currency Status?

[dd10snoop28]

The Bertrand tweet is full of heavy rhetorical attacks, and misrepresents and/or mischaracterizes many of the positions of the Miran's analysis. A lot of the same stuff as the Sachs video, actually. I'll go into details later.

On another note....I don't know much about Bertrand, but I know Sachs has always been light on criticizing China (i.e. he has great admiration for them) while heavy on attacking America. And now after searching Bertrand, he writes a lot about China in a favorable position as well.

Therefore, it's not surprising that Sachs/Bertrand take the views that they do. It seems like their arguments are bourne out of a defense in the status quo that benefits China greatly, because the economic arguments are unconvincing.

I mean, the first 20 minutes of Sachs video is him and the host mocking the Trump administration for not understanding what a trade deficit! This suggests extreme bias on their behalf and that they don't bother to understand what the other side is actually saying. Instead, take a snippet and mock for 15 minutes.

We're the ones who benefit most from the Status Quo though. This focus on "American Manufacturing" is truly a canard. You can bring manufacturing back but if you don't bring back livable wages what have you accomplished? We're also reaching a technological level that says the future manufacturing jobs are going to require an Engineering degree in order to maintain the vast robotics systems doing the majority of the work.

Nothing about livable wages is the result of running trade deficits with a country by itself which is also why the majority of these "tariffs" are exempting the majority of products we require, not just want. So again, this whole tariff nonsense hasn't done anything to protect the status of the USD going forward and has only put it at risk.

What's the benefit to losing our Reserve Currency Status?

This is the danger of the global reserve currency. The status quo has been to over-leverage the USD and over-spend domestically, along with stunted economic growth (GDP).... these are the same patterns demonstrated by the Dutch in the 1700s and the Brits post-WW2 before the collapse of their currency status. So no, the status quo has lead to the current position we are in which is that we are as close to the collapse of the USD as ever before in history. It's not a coincidence that we see the rise in BRICS/China, and the transitioning away from the petro dollar in recent years. That's the "status quo" for you.

The rest of the livable wages commentary is all interrelated to overleveraging of the USD, the hyper-financialization of the US economy (because of global reserve currency status)....these trends move the $ out of the hands of the working people to Wal-street. And over-reliance on reserve status creates a sense of invincibility that we can run $40trillion of deficits without fear of default.....however, that's a moot point if those deficits are killing the living wages due to inflation and shifting of dollars to the non-productive sectors of our economy (financial).

I'm open to suggestions, but saying the status quo is benefitting the US over the long-term is indefensible.

[dd10snoop28]

Lastly, it seems as more time passes by that the strategy of the tariffs is mainly aimed at China and forcing the hand of our trade partners to pick between ourselves and China. That's the more important discussion at this point.

The EU is going to visit Beijing in the summer to discuss economic relations. Another extremely unwise move by a continent that seems to have lost its collective marbles in the last 15 years. We are getting to the point where Europe resembles almost none of the values that it fought for in WW2 so it's not entirely surprising that they are projecting a willingness to work with Xi and the regime, in repudiation to the US. Not that America hasn't moved away from these same ideals, but Europe is far ahead of us.

[Duck07]

So the danger of being the Global Reserve Currency is losing the GRC? What valuable insight.

[dd10snoop28]

You've incorrectly interpreted the status quo as maintaining the GRC status. Rather, the "status quo" is the economic/trade/fiscal/monetary policies positions that we've taken that have put our GRC status at risk.

And no, that is not what I said....what I did say is that there are inherent dangers of holding the GRC status....like inflation of USD, financialization of economy (outsourcing manufacturing) , excess spending, exorbitant debt.... all of these things have gone out of control in the 20 years because of your "status quo" policies.