RE: the threat of tariffs. Trump should stop threatening and change the message to, "The reasons I can bring jobs and companies back is because I will make American the sweetest place to do business, get rid of business-choking regulations, get rid of taxes that punish business, get rid of government interference at all levels of business. The reason Ford and Carrier and the other producers look outside the United States is because government drives them out."

You are combining two separate issue together and I disagree with your assessment of both. First, tariffs. Tariffs on foreign products do not help the US, neither the industry or the consumer. To illustrate, let's say I am willing to make a product and sell it to you for one half of what it costs me. But, I refuse to buy anything that you make or sell. I may be unpleasant to deal with, but am I really hurting you? Now, let's say the government steps in and puts a 100% tariff on my product. So, now you are paying a reasonable price for my product, which is twice as much as before. Of course, you have just become happier, right? And the extra money that was charged through the tariff has gone to causes, such as welfare so that more people can continue their existence without ever working or producing anything, or has been given to Pakistan or other shitplace in the world. Meanwhile, my uncle Joe, who makes the same product as I, but less efficiently, because he lives in NY State and has to support lots of people on welfare and some frogs that need government intervention in his local pond, which makes half of his industrial area unusable, has no reason to use ncrease his efficiency, since whatever efficiency his competition has become is being erased by the tariff.

The second point- outsourcing. One day, my uncle Joe realizes that much of his effort, time and resources is dedicated to those frogs under government protection. He has lost much of his land, because building a larger warehouse would affect the frogs' natural habitat. He needs to constantly send his employees to sensitivity trading in case they say something offensive about, or God forbid, to the frogs. He needs to pay protection money to environmental groups so that they can give his company a green sticker. And he has to contribute to the frogs's retirement plan, to be managed by the environmental group. Or, my uncle Joe thinkesh, the hell with all that and I'll buy it from China. Of course, he is a greedy, selfish capitalist and the government needs to put a tariff on his imports and an extra 50% tax on his existence. That will make an even playing field, support the middle class, soak the rich and be the right step towards social justice.

A complete economics lesson in two paragraphs. Take from it what you want.

Absolutely

Absolutely. And the free market is needed to handle the transformation in jobs

"I'm against protectionism." Amen! Me, too, CG, in a perfect world. The problem we're experiencing as far as trade is concerned in this world is the US can't maintain a "no protectionism" stance as long as the trading partners (or shall I say adversaries) do not. In fact some foreign countries, like China, are just the opposite as they aggressively pursue protectionist policies that guarantee trade between them and US is a one way street directing wealth to themselves and out of the US. The US can't let this economic bleeding continue. With a foreign trade policy designed to let this continue coupled with a domestic policy that taxes and regulates US businesses into the dirt it should be no mystery as to why businesses (jobs) are leaving the country and the economy isn't showing any decent growth (not to mention the outrageous debt). IMHO, Hillary is clueless (or doesn't give a crap unless it lines her pockets) and DT at least wants to address both of these issues. As of now I'm willing to give DT a shot at fixing these problems as well as others.

Protect ESTABLISHED business. Hence crony capitalism.

That is it in a nutshell. There is no "some" in this regulation crap, they all impact one thing, then another, then another. Domino effect in motion.

There is another way to look at automation and jobs rather than the static automation takes jobs away from those replaced by machines. There can be such a thing as a dynamic economy where labor freed up can be freely hired to do new work. That is why in today's world labor increases, despite the large amount of automation, while standards of living increase along with the automation increase. Without automation removing some labor for other purposes, one would be back at dusk to dawn toil with a near sustenance type of life styles. Every machine which produces more than one can personally produce is an automatic producer of goods, it does not have to be controlled by any more than the human bio-computer to be a way to multiply human production and relieve labor for other purposes.

Yikes! Bet that silliness dissuaded many a good source of city revenue from ever setting up shop.
That not counting a Vegas gambler at heart, I suppose.

I will say the regs are getting written in ways that are more encompassing. For example, here in Las Vegas, you cant start ANY business until you apply for a license and are approved. An application will be denied UNLESS it is listed in the approved list of businesses determined by the City/County. Once approved, you are subject to inspection of your unopened but completely set up business (you have to rent a space and set it up as you would when open). From approval, you cant operate for 45 days, giving them time to complete and evaluate your setup.

I agree completely with what you wrote. I was trying to say, "if we need gov't to protect willing buyers and sellers acting in good faith from each other, then we need gov't to protect us from everything." I'm against protectionism.

I think DT is playing a negotiating tactic. China would NOT want tariffs, so might stop playing with their currency and let our products compete in china. He would NEVER get that thru Congress with all the lobbyists from major corporations that buy stuff from china and resell it here at ridiculous profits.

I think the root what what China gets away with is the lack of a gold standard. If we were on that, I think our money would depreciate and the chinese stuff would cost more in US dollar terms. Things somehow would balance out. With the chinese hoarding dollars that we are printing up (worthless?), its one crazy system and this is the unintended consequence !!

If ANYTHING will correct things for the consumer, its free COMPETITION. Governments just cant fix things and most of the time make them worse and screw over the very consumers they are telling us they are protecting.

Businesses like the freedom to compete, but they hate the actual competitors- interesting paradox ! As competition comes in, prices drop, existing business has to work harder to innovate and be more efficient. As a consumer, I welcome competition always- I get more of what I want at a cheaper price.
A lot of the regulations are designed to stifle competition actually and protect business, which is bad for me the consumer.

Yep, that's how regs grow and grow.
Me dino now thinks of weeds for some reason.

Politicians are over enthusiastic about their subjects simply knuckling under peacefully to their regulations. The very creativity that sparks innovation ALSO sparks the finding of ways around the regulations- I suppose thats the source of "unintended consequences" that defeat the regulations themselves and then require a continual stream of additional regulations.

I understand what you are saying, CG, but I'd like to mention that the Chinese wages aren't as low as one would think when the purchasing power of those wages is understood. Not discussing employment benefits to keep it simple, lets say a US technician gets paid $28.8k (US) per year and a Chinese tech doing the same thing gets paid $3.6k (US) per year. Wow, that Chinese guy must be starving, or so some folks would like you to think. However, if the currency and buying power of the wages are taken into account you'll see the two workers are the same well off. At the rate of 8 yuan per dollar the Chinese worker is making Y28.8k (Chinese) per year. Now consider a loaf of bread cost the US tech $2 per loaf and loaf of bread cost the Chinese worker Y2 per loaf. Not much difference. Please keep in mind my numbers are close to illustrate the point, but not exact.

Good points about the regs & possible lawsuits, but as far as tariffs I think DT wants to simply level the trade playing field with countries that are slapping us around by slapping back.

China is still a totalitarian regime, but its economic system has been becoming more free market (yes capitalistic) over the the past several decades. They know socialism/communism doesn't work and are getting out from under it as the US is getting deeper into it. That's the first reason their economy is growing and ours is not. The next reason is, as DT pointed out, is the currency exchange is being manipulated by the Chinese. Lets say they peg their currency as 8 Yuan per Dollar at their border. That means every dollar coming into China becomes 8 Yuan and every Yuan leaving China becomes 12.5 cents (US). In many cases (like European countries) that would be a big "so what" because the commodity costs balance out in the currency reasonably close. Not so with China because the commodity cost to the consumer between the two countries has a wide gap when you compare the artificial currency exchange. For example, when I lived in China a loaf of bread cost about 2 Yuan and a loaf of bread about the same size in the US cost about 2 dollars. That is a worker in China paid 20 Yuan an hour can buy 10 loaves of made in China bread and a worker in the US can buy 10 loaves of made in US bread. OK, fine, now the countries trade bread. When China ships a 2 Yuan loaf of bread to the US it costs the US consumer 25 cents US after currency exchange, when the US ships a 2 dollar loaf of bread to China it costs the Chinese consumer 16 Yuan! Why on earth would a Chinese worker pay 16 Yuan for a loaf of bread made in the USA when they can buy the same thing made in China for 2 Yuan. The ONLY difference is the artificially manipulated currency exchange by the Chinese government. Right now the US government does nothing about this and DT wants to end this crap!

The main reason, IMHO, DT wants tariffs is two fold: 1) force countries that manipulate their currencies into balance and 2) even the field with countries that straight out tariff our goods but we do not do the same. Some countries, like China, do both! I'll leave you with this to think about (I've mentioned this in the Gulch before, but it's worth saying again): When I was in Beijing I discovered a Harley Davidson that sold for $16k (US) in Upstate New York sold for $40k (US) in Beijing. Do you think the difference in cost was shipping?

Exactly. The more they build the "world economy" the more they screw it up, because there is no way to level the ground. China is cheap because they have a huge peasant workforce that works for nothing, vs the US "eagalitarian" system of unions and laws. Some business proves that they cannot treat their employees fairly but the Ford model proved it does, and other businesses today follow. The material manufacturing side is the hardest to survive because you have so many fingers raping the supply chain that it gets prohibitive to get raw materials. The only solution is removal of all restrictions and regulations and hold companies accountable for any damages they do (pollution etc). Even then, it is very hard to make this work, as responsible companies will try to do the right thing, then we have idiot companies like CBS/Paramount, who want to impose their will on everyone and screw us all. Very complicated, and subject to way too much political manipulation.

You are correct. They do not. In fact, they usually erase them through inept laws, regressive taxes and regulations. The more they touch, the worse it gets. Protectionism has been proven over and over again to cause failure. The issue they keep wanting to address is usually one of the other guy "protecting", and that should be easy enough, "Don't do business with them". Either way.

Good points. +1, in fact.
As for getting rid of stuff, how about those "incredible regulations?"
That's falls under what DT is speaking of when he complains about stupid politicians and stupid deals.

My favorite irony of all is a "Union Proud" sticker in a Walmart parking lot!

I cant figure out all this macroeconomic stuff, but I know what happens in our small business. We manufacture LED lighting items. We buy 75% of our raw materials and subassemblies from china IN ORDER TO BE COMPETITIVE and keep from hiring US workers. We also hire so called illegal aliens because they work better and faster than US citizens and are willing to work for more competitive wages. Call me politically incorrect.

Add tariffs to imported items, and automation looks better and we move along that path. There is still no desire to actually create jobs for american workers.

Prevent the hiring of non-american workers and we look to actually move to Mexico. Make tariffs on goods made in mexico, and then we probably close the business and shrug.

That puts the 10 workers we do have now out on the street, along with their families.

Cut the corporate taxation and other "fees" that have been imposed, stop even talking about $15 an hour wages, or maternity leave, maybe even get rid of the current minimum wages to leave more money available to pay more highly trained american workers build the business faster.

What Trump could do is make government "get out of the way"

Automation costs jobs, but gets things done cheaper and faster than humans. Therefore the toaster you want is super cheap, the strawberries picked by machine are cheaper than if picked by humans. The end game is less time that we all have to work for the same standard of living. Automation and competition means there isnt a NEED for us to work a full 40 hours a week on menial tasks. The tasks that arent effectively done by automation or competition from underdeveloped countries would pay more per hour.

The only way to settle all this is to let the market operate freely. A truly free society finds a way to balance the needs of the population with the work that the people can do. No politician will ever figure that out.

What should U.S. policy be regarding trade with countries whose exports are created using actual slave labor. Impose tariffs? Prohibit all trade with that country? Allow unrestricted trade with slaveholders in that country? I don't think there is a simple answer.

Actually I dont think DT would ever get significantly higher tariffs through congress. So much of our current economy is based on cheap chinese imported goods that it would cause so much disruption (start with Walmart, which buys from china whenever it can), it would just never happen.

Incredible regulations and employee restrictions are the cause of a flight to china. Get rid of minimum wages, give work permits to the illegals, get USA entitled workers to understand there is cheap competition out there, and stop these employee giveaways and "entitlements" if you want to see jobs come back here.

Why would I want to hire women if they are going to have babies and I am forced to pay them maternity leave ?? Why hire blacks or other minorities when it means an increased possibility of one of them filing some sort of discrimmination lawsuit against me?? In fact, why hire ANY humans if a robotic or automation solution is possible and practical??