In that we haven't had a fair or even strategically wise trade policy since Nixon went to China.
In fact, the only country I've seen that has had a strategically wise policy was India- they carefully identified their surpluses, and ONLY trade in those surpluses.
Here's the problem I see with a VAT- it's got the same basic problem as a sales tax. The customer is who will get hit with it, as prices go up to pay the VAT.
Note I'm also coming from the culture of the one state that has defeated any sales tax on the ballot 11 times in the past hundred years, though, so I'm kind of against taxing consumers.
JV, if you do a google search, or just click on this link to a prior diary of mine, you will find out that "Core inflation" is actually a lagging indicator. It takes about a year for food and fuel price changes to feed through into the rest of the economy. So the core PPI is telling us that last spring's surge in commodity prices is feeding through into other prices.
Paradoxically, because "the cure for high prices, is high prices", core inflation also tends - weakly - to be a leading indicator of inflation about 2 - 3 years out. I say, "weakly", because all you can say is that in about 36 months, the headline rate is likely to be closer to today's core rate than today's headline rate.
Whenever I glance at those charts I have that holy shit reaction.
Nice song, the stressed out look on the people's faces.
I noticed the Talking head for The Nation was on Larry King and mentioned that the United States must have a manufacturing strategy and the rest of these people just kind of looked like what?
It's amazing how people don't get how critical this is to the economy.
GM considering bankruptcy. I suspect more like they have no choice.
This is why I can never figure out why the hell we keep saying we'll come to the defense of Taiwan. Why bother? A democracy? Oh please!
This is nothing more than us sacrificing our soldiers to defend a small nation who has been waging economic warfare on us against a supremely much larger nation that has been waging economic warfare on us. It's a lose-lose for us. Say we manage to hold of the ChiComs. Oh great, that means Taiwan Semiconductor gets to make more friggin' electronic stuff for supposedly American tech firms, meanwhile we just lost Los Angels and probably Chicago!
Given the 40 years we've had of screwing it up, I'm no longer sure that trade can be "done right" *at all*.
Better off a country that can actually feed it's population, than one ruled by economists who still buy into David Ricardo's lie of comparative advantage. Unless a country is actually self-sufficient, and can produce, it has no business being in the global market at all. We've had 40 years of proof that international trade for the United States produces nothing but debt, and yet we still claim that "trade, when done right, is a critical feature for the US economy"? Maybe, if the critical feature is to drive the dollar down until it is worth less than sand.
and is also correlated to volume, quantities. Plus all major countries have this except the US so it's going to be hard to challenge in the WTO, which is another advantage.
The US would lose on raw tariffs and well, not that I'm against pulling out of the WTO but odds are that won't happen so a VAT has more possibilities of getting through.
Thank you. There are many ways to skin the cat on getting a fair or strategically wise trade policy.
All of the blogs are realizing that Obama out Billary'd Hillary today. I noticed pieces all over hell and people are grasping at straws say "so and so is a Progressive" when that person, well, really isn't and well, the denial wears off.
I thought the Obama rush would at least last until he was sworn in.
I knew this awhile ago so I am not shocked and I'm also not surprised at these barracuda elites who think they run the world.
I almost forgot about Larry Summer's thinking "ladies" are just so inherently stupid/incapable in math and science due to their sex/hormones. What an added bonus.
VAT bugs me because it seems a bit regressive- and non-targeted to specific industries, as opposed to tariffs.
I also have some skepticism about current international trade theory- is this the same international trade theory based on comparative advantage that said the Chinese would be buying more of our goods than we buy from them by now?
Yeah on CNBC they disable all embedding plus have a lot of stuff which makes the videos hard to get. I can get them but I hesitate due to copyright issues. (If you saw I struggled with this on the Roger & Me thing too)
One thing is to capture the image and then put a link around the image so when users click on it, they go to the site and the video starts.
I don't know why they won't allow embedding. I don't care about a commercial to see the clip.
I'm getting quite tired of this. This site is about using your brain and understanding what specifically is in those trade deals and how trade, when done right is a critical feature for the US economy. I've written details after details on various economists and groups and their policy recommendations as well as Politicians. They are NOT recommending punitive tariffs!
It would be very helpful if you would read the many policy recommendations I certainly have written about and how a VAT is a much superior tool to tariffs.
Tariffs are the last thing in the tool box to look at as have been shown by international trade theory and other policy recommendations.
Does indeed mean tariffs- they're just avoiding the word to be politically correct.
And what's wrong with huge tariffs? China has been using them for decades now, as you say. As for the WTO, I just consider them a bunch of traitors at this point, the United States has no business being in the WTO when we can't even keep enough food at home to feed our own people. Maybe someday when we've got SURPLUS goods to trade instead of being a net importer, we should venture out into the world to sell our wares, but until then, what has access to these emerging economies gotten us? Just more debt.
We're already in a trade war, one that we've been losing for the last 40 years. Tariffs are a huge part of it- tariffs on the other side. So why is reciprocal fair trade, which would include tariffs because both India and China are allowed to have tariffs, be a bad thing?
Avoiding tariffs to avoid a trade war we're already in is like invading Iraq with sharpened mangos instead of machine guns. The WTO is the deadly enemy of every working American already- and those corporate pundits who claim different are nothing more than traitors who deserve to be executed for their treason.
Merkley has never suggested huge tariffs as the answer, not any policy position, speech or sound byte I have seen. but he is looking highly promising to be wanting to renegotiate, revamp trade policy.
I've said this now dozens of times, to renegotiate trade policy there are a host of tools to use, a VAT being one, you don't need huge tariffs to get a fair trade policy, there are many other factors causing the US trade deficit and loss of manufacturing.
As an example, remove China from Emerging Economy status. They clearly are not emerging and that status gives a country special tariff privileges via the WTO, which China as assuredly abused.
In that we haven't had a fair or even strategically wise trade policy since Nixon went to China.
In fact, the only country I've seen that has had a strategically wise policy was India- they carefully identified their surpluses, and ONLY trade in those surpluses.
Here's the problem I see with a VAT- it's got the same basic problem as a sales tax. The customer is who will get hit with it, as prices go up to pay the VAT.
Note I'm also coming from the culture of the one state that has defeated any sales tax on the ballot 11 times in the past hundred years, though, so I'm kind of against taxing consumers.
I said so.
JV, if you do a google search, or just click on this link to a prior diary of mine, you will find out that "Core inflation" is actually a lagging indicator. It takes about a year for food and fuel price changes to feed through into the rest of the economy. So the core PPI is telling us that last spring's surge in commodity prices is feeding through into other prices.
Paradoxically, because "the cure for high prices, is high prices", core inflation also tends - weakly - to be a leading indicator of inflation about 2 - 3 years out. I say, "weakly", because all you can say is that in about 36 months, the headline rate is likely to be closer to today's core rate than today's headline rate.
Story in the New York Times showing how Rubin is dictating Obama economic policy as if this is good and somehow Rubin is all magic.
Uh, I don't think so!
Whenever I glance at those charts I have that holy shit reaction.
Nice song, the stressed out look on the people's faces.
I noticed the Talking head for The Nation was on Larry King and mentioned that the United States must have a manufacturing strategy and the rest of these people just kind of looked like what?
It's amazing how people don't get how critical this is to the economy.
GM considering bankruptcy. I suspect more like they have no choice.
This is why I can never figure out why the hell we keep saying we'll come to the defense of Taiwan. Why bother? A democracy? Oh please!
This is nothing more than us sacrificing our soldiers to defend a small nation who has been waging economic warfare on us against a supremely much larger nation that has been waging economic warfare on us. It's a lose-lose for us. Say we manage to hold of the ChiComs. Oh great, that means Taiwan Semiconductor gets to make more friggin' electronic stuff for supposedly American tech firms, meanwhile we just lost Los Angels and probably Chicago!
Given the 40 years we've had of screwing it up, I'm no longer sure that trade can be "done right" *at all*.
Better off a country that can actually feed it's population, than one ruled by economists who still buy into David Ricardo's lie of comparative advantage. Unless a country is actually self-sufficient, and can produce, it has no business being in the global market at all. We've had 40 years of proof that international trade for the United States produces nothing but debt, and yet we still claim that "trade, when done right, is a critical feature for the US economy"? Maybe, if the critical feature is to drive the dollar down until it is worth less than sand.
and is also correlated to volume, quantities. Plus all major countries have this except the US so it's going to be hard to challenge in the WTO, which is another advantage.
The US would lose on raw tariffs and well, not that I'm against pulling out of the WTO but odds are that won't happen so a VAT has more possibilities of getting through.
Thank you. There are many ways to skin the cat on getting a fair or strategically wise trade policy.
All of the blogs are realizing that Obama out Billary'd Hillary today. I noticed pieces all over hell and people are grasping at straws say "so and so is a Progressive" when that person, well, really isn't and well, the denial wears off.
I thought the Obama rush would at least last until he was sworn in.
I knew this awhile ago so I am not shocked and I'm also not surprised at these barracuda elites who think they run the world.
I almost forgot about Larry Summer's thinking "ladies" are just so inherently stupid/incapable in math and science due to their sex/hormones. What an added bonus.
VAT bugs me because it seems a bit regressive- and non-targeted to specific industries, as opposed to tariffs.
I also have some skepticism about current international trade theory- is this the same international trade theory based on comparative advantage that said the Chinese would be buying more of our goods than we buy from them by now?
Yeah on CNBC they disable all embedding plus have a lot of stuff which makes the videos hard to get. I can get them but I hesitate due to copyright issues. (If you saw I struggled with this on the Roger & Me thing too)
One thing is to capture the image and then put a link around the image so when users click on it, they go to the site and the video starts.
I don't know why they won't allow embedding. I don't care about a commercial to see the clip.
I'm getting quite tired of this. This site is about using your brain and understanding what specifically is in those trade deals and how trade, when done right is a critical feature for the US economy. I've written details after details on various economists and groups and their policy recommendations as well as Politicians. They are NOT recommending punitive tariffs!
It would be very helpful if you would read the many policy recommendations I certainly have written about and how a VAT is a much superior tool to tariffs.
Tariffs are the last thing in the tool box to look at as have been shown by international trade theory and other policy recommendations.
Until we realize that the WTO is nothing more than the Anti-American world government that it is- and needs to be DESTROYED.
Does indeed mean tariffs- they're just avoiding the word to be politically correct.
And what's wrong with huge tariffs? China has been using them for decades now, as you say. As for the WTO, I just consider them a bunch of traitors at this point, the United States has no business being in the WTO when we can't even keep enough food at home to feed our own people. Maybe someday when we've got SURPLUS goods to trade instead of being a net importer, we should venture out into the world to sell our wares, but until then, what has access to these emerging economies gotten us? Just more debt.
We're already in a trade war, one that we've been losing for the last 40 years. Tariffs are a huge part of it- tariffs on the other side. So why is reciprocal fair trade, which would include tariffs because both India and China are allowed to have tariffs, be a bad thing?
Avoiding tariffs to avoid a trade war we're already in is like invading Iraq with sharpened mangos instead of machine guns. The WTO is the deadly enemy of every working American already- and those corporate pundits who claim different are nothing more than traitors who deserve to be executed for their treason.
Which, as you say, is only a little bit longer than the US Government has been creating money out of thin air.
Obama Throws No Bones to Progressive Base
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx111908.html
Left Out [at the Nation]
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/385427/left_out?rel=sidebox
This nonsense that Obama is about "Change" is belied by DLC-type corporatists he has chosen to implement the program of his administration.
All I can say is, it won't be a good scenario when the US government starts creating money out of thin of air.
Merkley has never suggested huge tariffs as the answer, not any policy position, speech or sound byte I have seen. but he is looking highly promising to be wanting to renegotiate, revamp trade policy.
I've said this now dozens of times, to renegotiate trade policy there are a host of tools to use, a VAT being one, you don't need huge tariffs to get a fair trade policy, there are many other factors causing the US trade deficit and loss of manufacturing.
As an example, remove China from Emerging Economy status. They clearly are not emerging and that status gives a country special tariff privileges via the WTO, which China as assuredly abused.
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