| 02:50 | mats | it’s not really clear to me that there is a serious plan other than just using tariffs as a cudgel |
| 02:52 | mats | there is a kind of very limited effort to reshore some manufacturing, which is aided by the innovations in fracking and horizontal drilling resulting in USA becoming again a net oil and lng exporter and in fact the largest exporter of both worldwide |
| 02:55 | mats | but nobody cancelled the trilemma and this poses a problem for manufacturers that want to export their products |
| 02:57 | mats | there are some proposals by the vance camp to take measures to reduce usd as a reserve currency by, I think hassett has proposed this, taxing foreign purchases of us assets incl treasuries |
| 02:57 | mats | and other possible measures incl more extreme sanctions like stealing central bank reserves of countries in addition to afg, ru |
| 03:00 | mats | the claims he makes in support of tariffs is not exactly how they actually work in reality |
| 03:02 | mats | there has to actually be private interest in replacing the goods that are affected and in many cases the margins are just not good enough to bother considering the friction of capital spending |
| 03:06 | mats | where the supply chains are geographically located right now is important, if there are new tariffs on china that’s not going to result in new jobs in usa but manufacturing shifted to se asia |
| 03:08 | mats | anyway to really understand the academic basis for some of this policy you should read michael pettis because that’s what drives admin officials |
| 03:14 | mats | a significant problem of tariffs is reducing competition when it is most necessary to spur domestic innovation |
| 03:15 | mats | china went to great lengths to make it possible for tesla to build a factory in country and it arguably helped drive the already cutthroat competition in ev mfg to even greater heights of excellence |
| 03:16 | mats | protecting american auto manufacturers from chinese ev is not doing american consumers or even American manufacturers any favours |
| 03:18 | mats | american evs are dog shit and more than twice as expensive as their chinese equivalent |
| 03:21 | mats | the national security claims are utter garbage and you can work that out pretty easily because the chinese are extraordinarily paranoid, and they still allow an american businessman to operate in their country. that man has us defence contracts, a us security clearance, and gets his knob slobbed for nickels once a week by potus |
| 03:25 | mats | is it possible the americans are so incompetent they can’t take the same measures as chinamen to ensure foreign evs laden with sensors aren’t a national security threat or is someone full of shit |
| 03:26 | mats | most fleet electric buses in usa are byd already |
| 03:29 | mats | putting blanket tariffs on mx and ca is fucking retarded if the plan is to boost domestic production when us autos are manufactured or assembled in enormous numbers there anyway |
| 03:32 | mats | I think pettis is just a dumbass who gained political favour for writing stuff that stupid people wanted to use as justification for shit they were going to do anyway |
| 03:34 | mats | which is not to say tariffs are always bad but it’s obvious there’s no detailed plan to grow domestic production in forty different areas and trumps threats are galaxy brain strategy to execute on all these fronts |