Trump to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum

Is this why the market dropped 400+ points today?

Scott Linicomb of the Cato Institute is against it.





https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/969322665109573632?s=19

https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/969340188068544512?s=19

https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/969340190216146945?s=19



https://twitter.com/scottlincicome/status/969341138695057409?s=19

BoiseBYU wrote:

Is this why the market dropped 400+ points today?

Yup. That's why the market is down today. Protectionism is stupid policy. Yes, you can "protect" a few blue collar jobs here and there but it doesn't matter because it makes everything more expensive and hurts far more than it can ever help. This will be the one thing that will peel away Trump's base of support, IMO, when it slows down the economy, depending on how much "protectionism" he tries to employ, which according to his rhetoric in the past is probably quite a lot. The economy is good right now. Why mess with it?

hawkwing wrote:

Scott Linicomb of the Cato Institute is against it.

He and everyone else who ever took an economics class or has even a basic knowledge of how supply and demand works. "Protectionism" doesn't work. It made the Great Depression "great" when it only should have been a recession.

Wait....it's Friday?

Scott Lincicome

"But, hey, at least it's Friday."

snoscythe wrote:

Wait....it's Friday?

Yes it is - tomorrow.

:whistle:

BlueK wrote:

Scott Linicomb of the Cato Institute is against it.

He and everyone else who ever took an economics class or has even a basic knowledge of how supply and demand works. "Protectionism" doesn't work. It made the Great Depression "great" when it only should have been a recession.

Actually the "New Deal" made the depression "great". Unemployment was already down to 6% months after Black Tuesday but then FDR rode in and salvaged the depression with all his socialist/fascist ideas. Was it any surprise that the world leaders he most admired were Mussolini and Hitler?



Protectionism is bad but so is unpaid labor like in China and government subsidized products being dumped costing millions of Americans jobs. This is a shot across the bow of of the world to tell them to "play fair". Trump will correct this once other countries understand he knows what's going on and they take corrective actions. Also the tariffs are very focused, they are not broad based.



Here is something funny unrelated to the tariffs. NY has "blocked" and/or stopped all significant pipelines of the last few years that they now import a significant amount of liquid NG from Russia. And the other NE states are being forced or will be forced to follow suit because of NY blocking all the pipelines. What I don't understand is why they don't import from other US states but from Russia.

These tariffs may be focused on two items, but the effects aren't so easy to keep from becoming broad-based when you consider that the industries that use steel and aluminum are much larger than the ones that produce them. Now they have to use more expensive steel. Also, Trump is still talking like he's nowhere near finished and is planning to push in this protectionist direction a lot further.

imuakahuku wrote:
Actually the "New Deal" made the depression "great". Unemployment was already down to 6% months after Black Tuesday.

Not a New Deal proponent in the least, but you can't look at 6% unemployment in an agrarian economy the same way we look at it today with minimum wage and the New Deal programs backing it up.

snoscythe wrote:

Actually the "New Deal" made the depression "great". Unemployment was already down to 6% months after Black Tuesday.

Not a New Deal proponent in the least, but you can't look at 6% unemployment in an agrarian economy the same way we look at it today with minimum wage and the New Deal programs backing it up.

Apples to apples. After the New Deal was implemented unemployment surpassed the previous high to jump from 6% to around 20%. That is a huge jump and it stayed high until it was abandoned during the war.

I don't know where you are getting your numbers from, but here's what I can find:



When FDR took office, the unemployment rate was right around 24%. It ticked up 1% in the first year of his presidency, and then dropped to 14.3% before he reined back on the New Deal spending. It was between 17 and 14% before the draft, and was around 10% before we were pulled into the war by Pearl Harbor.



Year Unemployment Rate (What Happened)

1929 3.2% Market crash

1930 8.7%

1931 15.9% Dust Bowl

1932 23.6% Hoover's tax hikes

1933 24.9% FDR becomes president with his New Deal

1934 21.7%

1935 20.1%

1936 16.9%

1937 14.3% Spending cuts

1938 19.0% FLSA starts min wage

1939 17.2% Drought ended

1940 14.6% U.S. draft

1941 9.9% Pearl Harbor

1942 4.7% Defense tripled

1943 1.9% Germany surrendered

1944 1.2%

1945 1.9% War ends. Min wage $.40



I still disagree that we can compare Great Depression unemployment to the measure we currently use (they keep changing how it is measured and reported, for one), but beyond that, you have oversimplified the history and scope of the Great Depression and FDR's influence on unemployment.



The numbers bear out that during his administration the numbers were headed down after Hoover's failed policies. There's a reason they called the tenement camps "Hoovervilles" and not "Rooseveltvilles".

There are no good global trade wars.

hawkwing wrote:

There are no good global trade wars.

So you are saying we should avoid land wars in Asia AND global trade wars? ;)

BoiseBYU wrote:

There are no good global trade wars.

So you are saying we should avoid land wars in Asia AND global trade wars? ;)

Inconceivable!

hawkwing wrote:

hawkwing wrote:

There are no good global trade wars.

So you are saying we should avoid land wars in Asia AND global trade wars? ;)

Inconceivable!

And let’s not forget interstellar trade wars. It cost the empire three Death Stars!

Cohn resigned from the White House. Dow futures overnight are down 330 points.

Take heart, the market opened about 20 min ago and the Dow is down 150 points. A lot better than 330 eh? The market will survive Cohn's resignation I suspect.

scott715 wrote:

Cohn resigned from the White House. Dow futures overnight are down 330 points.

Dow now down 325 points. Not Death Star worthy yet, but the day is young. Where’s Obii Wan when we need him?

Sorry to disappoint all you Trump haters wishing for the worst.

The market clawed back and the Dow closed down .33%, -83 points.

The S&P 500 closed down .05%, -1.32 points.

The NASDAQ was up 24 points, +.33%.