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PaperclipPerfector  23d ago (text post)   33338 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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If you are in a position of strength, it can distort the global economy in your favor. Companies may wish to domicile in your country (especially if you have low corporate income tax rates) in order to access your consumers and/or workforce.

Supply chains will become more intra-national, improving national security.

Only if they're consistent and high enough to be worth moving here and the other markets aren't also using high tariffs. You have to be extremely dominant that international corporations will choose you exclusively over the rest of the world combined and you need some way to assure them that it won't be undone anytime soon.

Just imagine a world where all countries want everything done on their own land and they all enact high tariffs. We'll just have a less efficient system where everyone tries to achieve autarky and then we'll wait for another Adam Smith to come around and tell us all that this is stupid and we should just trade with each other.

If you are in a position of strength, it is a useful foreign policy tool.

How so? The only argument I've seen for this is that you can use it to pressure other nations to do things you want. But the only way it would work as a negotiation tool is if you're willing to lower the tariffs in response, which undermines the first two arguments entirely.

If everyone else is doing tariffs except you, then the economy is already distorted; and implementing reciprocal tariffs may "un-distort" the global economy.

That can be true but in this particular case not very relevant because these tariff plans are not reciprocal despite the claims and also importantly it has the same issue where you should be dropping them if the other nation drops theirs which undermines the first two arguments again.

If you want to raise revenue and you don't fear a trade war, tariffs may have less of an impact on GDP as other methods of taxation (eg, income tax).

This contradicts the first two points again! Generally the more "effective" tariffs are at reducing imports, the less revenue they are capable of generating. And if there are things that absolutely must come from out of the country like crops we can't grow or minerals we don't have then you're just making those super expensive for your population for no reason, because they're not going to be done locally anyway.

It's really unconvincing that all the arguments for tariffs I see are so contradictory. It's "Hey we can have our cake and eat it too!". You can't use them as a negotiation tool that gets lowered, a consistent tool to reduce imports and build up local supply chains, and a reliable means of taxation all at the same time.

Sanctions are like extreme "reverse" tariffs; if Russia and Iran are any example energy-rich countries seem to weather sanctions well.

Russia has put in tons of work to bypass the sanctions and has constantly made it a major goal of theirs to get them lowered. If ending trade was so useful then we would expect countries to embrace the sanctions on them, a "Haha all you're doing is bolstering our local economy idiots" response, instead of trying to circumvent those restrictions.

It's really unconvincing that all the arguments for tariffs I see are so contradictory. It's "Hey we can have our cake and eat it too!". You can't use them as a negotiation tool that gets lowered, a consistent tool to reduce imports and build up local supply chains, and a reliable means of taxation all at the same time.

Given I started with a list of dangers to tariffs I'm not sure why you think my post was an unmitigated endorsement for tariffs. I enumerated potential dangers and benefits. Not all outcomes can or will be realized. Tariffs "can" be used to raise revenue. Tariffs "can" be used for statecraft. It is unlikely that they can be used for both, especially long-term.

You have to be extremely dominant that international corporations will choose you exclusively over the rest of the world combined and you need some way to assure them that it won't be undone anytime soon.

The US is rather dominant. The world wants access to our markets.

Just imagine a world where all countries want everything done on their own land and they all enact high tariffs. We'll just have a less efficient system where everyone tries to achieve autarky and then we'll wait for another Adam Smith to come around and tell us all that this is stupid and we should just trade with each other.

And yet most countries already have protectionist policies. If we can use tariffs to push the rest of the world to a more efficient system (by forcing everyone else to give up their protectionist policies in exchange for us dropping tariffs), I'm assuming that would be a good thing in your eyes? (I'm not saying Trump will do this, but it is one way to use tariffs).

Russia has put in tons of work to bypass the sanctions and has constantly made it a major goal of theirs to get them lowered. If ending trade was so useful then we would expect countries to embrace the sanctions on them, a "Haha all you're doing is bolstering our local economy idiots" response, instead of trying to circumvent those restrictions.

If the pro-Russian posters here and the vatniks are to be believed, Russia's economy has in fact been pretty strengthened post-2022. I don't believe them, personally, but that is a claim that is often made.

Russia's economy has in fact been pretty strengthened post-2022.

It's keynes 101. Government procurement have always been a huge boost.

Does it raise the living standard of the ordinary russian - no. Does it grow the GDP - yes.

That's probably the truth of it, yeah.

Average living standards have risen in Russia, this is the most staggering part. Inflation is high, wages growth is higher.

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/05/russia-war-income?lang=en

From even this brief analysis, it’s clear that the main financial beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine (excluding security officials and soldiers) are those whose professions were long considered low paid and low status. Now they enjoy high salaries and a surfeit of attention from both employers struggling to fill job vacancies, and the state as a whole.

More money in their pockets makes these people—who are not accustomed to self-reflection and who do not have easy access to independent sources of information—even more susceptible to propaganda. Putin’s public image provides them with a comforting feeling of stability, and a sense that their leaders are making the right decisions. It’s unsurprising that the level of support for the Russian regime among these groups is only growing.

People realizing that running semi-war economies can boost people's living standards (that are vastly below American one as well) in the short-term, news at eleven.

Well, of course, those that have died in the war don't drag down the average standard of living, being dead.

But if you did still count them, how much would being dead when they otherwise would have been alive move the average?

If I take 100 people, kill 99, and give all their money to the last 1 alive, I suppose I've dramatically increased the average income and the average standard of living, haven't I?

It this is true, then mass deportations should also boost the standard of living.

Actually that sounds about right.

War deaths aren't a significant part of this, Russia hasn't lost even 1% of their population, let alone 99%.

If the Carnegie Foundation of all people is saying that 'the working class in Russia are doing well off the war and that's why they're supporting Putin' when they have every incentive to deny it, then the case in favour must be overwhelming.

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