The speaker is NYT economics reporter Ben Casselman. Context:
There are a lot of economists who reject the very idea that we need to re-industrialize the country in some way, right? They argue that over the decades, free trade has left Americans better off on the whole. That even if it has hurt some people, that on average it has been beneficial. I think most economists would make that point. But there's certainly been a lot of rethinking among at least some economists over the past couple of decades about the way that free trade has played out. Again, complicated subject, but I think the thing that there's pretty broad based agreement about is we can't just turn the clock back. We're not gonna make t-shirts in this country again. We're not gonna make, you know, commodity furniture in this country. And there are plenty of economists who would say, we should be doing things now to preserve the manufacturing jobs that we do have. And especially in some important sectors, right? In robotics, in AI, in green energy in chips, these are areas where there may be real advantages to preserving the American manufacturing industry, but broad based tariffs of the kind that Trump is talking about are just not going to accomplish that....
Why isn't there more demand for ethically manufactured clothing? I remember the "Look for the Union Label" ad campaign of the 1970s.
That ad made me cry!
Posts
184 comments:
Why isn't there more demand for ethically manufactured clothing?
Because the AWFL's who push for such things regularly shop at Forever 21.
Can't help thinking of the Saturday Night Live parody, of the American Dope Growers Union supporting a Bye American campaign. Back in the early 1970s, when marijuana was illegal and scary to a lot of people, that seemed hilarious, cause it was in such tension with reality. Now it sounds kind of ordinary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2CU1cdTlQE
I'm fine with t-shirts being made in Vietnam, but of course it would better for us if America manufactured high-end, sophisticated products like industrial machinery, ships, engines, medical devices, etc.
On average things are better says nothing about the widening income and wealth gap.
Clothing made by what amounts to slave labor in southern asia .
I'm generally opposed to tariffs, and for t-shirts they are silly. But in the case of manufacturing, we have fallen far behind China in our ability to automate production. We innovate, but they have surpassed us on the production side. We simply cannot continue to outsource our productive capacity to our global adversary. I used to be a free trade absolutist, and for pure efficiency it is a good position. But there are other considerations to trade,
People pay extra for cage-free chicken. Why isn't it more of a point of virtue to buy clothes that are not made by oppressed workers?
There is a phrase “go out and touch grass”. The NYT needs to go out and touch America. There is a local furniture store, “Gallery Furniture”, that advertises “Made in America” furniture. Jim McIngvale is quite the successful entrepreneur. Much of that furniture is made in places affected by the hurricane in North Carolina, not that the NYT cares about them.
Mike Rowe advertises for American Giant that makes made in America t-shirts from sourced in America textiles.
Jesus, there is no way to fix this kind of stupid. New York Times economist kind of stupid is about as hopeless as it gets.
Explain why tariffs on clothes made by oppressed workers is not good policy. Clothes can be made cheaper in foreign countries because of actual evil that isn't permitted in the U.S. The tariffs will raise the price and cut the advantage of foreign manufacturing.
A very lefty 70's commercial that if released today in 2025 would be seriously MAGA. As the world turns...
I'd never noticed the term "commodity furniture" before. I looked it up to see if it meant what I inferred it meant. It does. It feels snobby in a really retrograde way. I remember when mass-manufactured, well-designed furniture was considered modern and enlightened.
“Tee shirts” is a throwaway line. the real issue is do and can we make lifesaving drugs in the US? Drugs on which out people depend to stay alive (e.g. synthetic thyroid hormones)? How about materials needed to supply our military? We aren’t a powerful nation, if our supply lines for a military run Through distant lands or even enemies.
We gave most of our car manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and now that we’ve done it, Mexico keeps raising the minimum wage along the border.
I’m in full support of a national industrial policy that looks after our own people. I’m convinced, in many manufacturing jobs, that if Americans are treated right and trained well, they can make the highest quality products in the world at reasonable costs. But it will take good corporate leadership and we struggle with that in the US in a lot of companies. And once the private equity guys take over, forget it - caring and thoughtful leadership is out the window. But I have not lost hope on American leadership. If you want to see a very good vision of the future of leadership, I recommend a book called “Leading Through” by Kim Clark, the former Dean of the Harvard business school. if we were to adopt those principles, we could lead the world again in manufacturing at total costs (with all other factors applied) that would be competitive.
You can buy American made T-Shirts at the Great American T-Shirt Factory. They, along with Walmart, have a great back story too.
I recently took a part time job as a janitor at a public library. Why? Grandkids grew up and no longer needed my custodial care, leaving me with a lot of time on my hands. Also, wanted more income. Sitting hunched over a computer programming for 45 years almost ruined my health. The janitor job is pure physical labor for 12 to 15 hours a week, and I’m loving it. Not a job up for grabs by foreign or cheap labor? Might well be taken over by robots in the future.
"A very lefty 70's commercial that if released today in 2025 would be seriously MAGA. As the world turns..."
Exactly. As I watched it — through tears! — I thought women like that are going to Trump rallies now. Complete flip.
"Explain why tariffs on clothes made by oppressed workers is not good policy."
It is good policy. I remember when Trump was running the first time, in 2016. A fellow said to me, "I know manufacturing ain't coming back but at least Trump wants it to. Hillary don't give a shit."
I heard Paul Krugman making the same argument, so you know it's wrong.
Grok gave me the names of 10 companies currently making t shirts in the US. Said the list was typical and I comete.
IKEA makes commodity furniture in Ohio
So does Sauder
If the author can't get this right, why trust them on anything?
I
Ann Althouse said...
"People pay extra for cage-free chicken. Why isn't it more of a point of virtue to buy clothes that are not made by oppressed workers?"
It's harder to signal virtue when the source isn't obvious. Also, in states like CA, consumers aren't offered the choice wrt cage free eggs. It's cage free or nothing.
Costco (The China Store) exists because of sweatshop manufacturing in other parts of the world. I buy food and drink at Costco. If you can't eat it or drink it, it wasn't made in the USA.
People seek out the old stuff. I stumbled across old, 1980s T shirts still in their original packaging from Sears. I put that garbage on ebay and sold them for $50 for each pack of 3!
I was so proud of myself.
Oppressed workers? Would you prefer they go back to subsistence farming?
We have a tee shirt gap.
Lawnerd said...
Clothing made by what amounts to slave labor in southern asia .
If we don't have slaves, Who will pick our cotton?
If we don't have slaves, Who will make our t-shirts?
Did you Know? that China makes more than TWICE as much cotton as the USA does? and Indian makes Nearly Twice as much as US? I learned this 3 minutes ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton#Production
I bet the guy in Southeast Asia would prefer not to lose his t-shirt-making job.
From the post:
"Why isn't there more demand for ethically manufactured clothing? I remember the "Look for the Union Label" ad campaign of the 1970s."
I worked at a unionized insurance company, and as a manager, when a letter was submitted to me for review, it was required to have the union local at the bottom of the letter. If the writer left it off, I'd return it while humming that tune. I was a member of the union before I moved into management.
The 'I' in ILGWU is for International. The seamstress, spinners, textile workers could go to Vietnam or Indonesia and organize the workers for pay and safety demands. Yeah, doesn't sound realistic to me either. If a tariff can put pressure to improve working conditions and wages why not? I'm flummoxed if I know if tariffs could bring back jobs and mills and light industry to those areas (Howdy Dixie Land and Hello Garment District) in the good ole USA.
Unions are a built-in conflict of interest. Older workers vs new hires, union officials vs workers. They have the effect of exporting jobs.
I remember International Harvester in the late 70s, threatened a strike in Indiana, management said if you strike, we'll close the plant, they struck, the plant closed, and union spokesman claimed a "moral victory."
The legal trouble with unions is that X and Y shouldn't gain more rights against Z by joining forces than they had individually. A rule of law thing. In particular X and Y can't force Z to negotiate with them.
That commercial makes me want to watch Norma Rae.
My late wife was Filipina, so I’ve spent some time in Manila and Cebu. Americans are mightily confused about what’s happening in “third world” countries like the Philippines. The middle class is growing exponentially in the major cities, both because international corps are eager to hire people with the work ethic of Filipinos, and because the diaspora Filipinos send vast remittances back home. The shanty towns still exist, sure, but the real story is the transition to a middle class American lifestyle. Don’t worry. In a short period of time, Filipino labor won’t be cheap. They’ll get lazy and entitled, just like Americans did.
I’ve recently thought that robots may, counterintuitively, save the American industrial worker.
If robots become the norm for manufacturing, then your labor cost becomes the same worldwide. But your transportation costs remain. So the advantage of outsourcing to factories halfway round the world disappears. Might as well build the factory near your customers.
Now those factories won’t have 1950s-style assembly line workers. But they’ll still need robot repairmen, toolmakers, supervisors, etc.
Same logic (pun intended) for software. If you can have AI write everyday donkey code, the armies of foreign coders are superfluous. The higher-order tasks involved with QCing the code might as well be done by people in your own time zone.
Doesn’t completely solve the industrial problem, but gets us a bit closer.
JSM
Tariffs force the other country to remove their tariffs from you. It's a threat and bargaining chip.
I like the kvetching/not-kvetching lyric "we work hard, but who's complaining."
Goods from Asia are cheap not only because of the exploitation of their workers but also because of the exploitation of the environment.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are rich - a much of it is insider trading.
Deport Tee shirt pessimists!
Many south American countries are poor because they lack an manufacturing and an industrial base, and their governments are corrupt and leftwing.
The left have nothing but talk down and sh*t on - what Trump is trying to accomplish.
The left care more about their power and their precious egos -than they do the people.
When cotton bolls rotten
Can’t pick much cotton
In dem ol’ cotton fields in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
I imagine the typical US t-shirt factory has far fewer workers now compared with the 1970s. And those workers are likely to be mechanical/industrial engineers, software engineers, and marketing types -- not union members.
"Why isn't it more of a point of virtue to buy clothes that are not made by oppressed workers?"
Because many people see clothing as cheap and disposable.
Costco and Amazon sell a lot of made in China - no doubt.
Trump is trying to change a little of that around the edges - and the left are losing their minds.
Trump’s obsession with obsolete 18th and 19th century economic theories is bizarre and will lead to poorer nation and less safe nation.
Take Canada for example.
The notion that a trade deficit with a country equals is ignorant on many levels. First, the deficit is entirely due to an imbalance in oil which is then refined in the US. Second, this means that the balance in manufactured goods is in the US’s favor.
Lumber is a major cost of construction in the US. How does raising the cost of building a home in a country where housing is increasingly too expensive for many Americans make any sense? The old adage is still true: if you tax something you get less of it.
One of the things that trade wars do is cause disruptions in unexpected places. Is the US better off losing F35 sales to countries that are now backing out of purchases due to the tariffs and the view that the US is unreliable?
Part of Mercantilism theory is that it is an economic good to expand a country’s footprint to gain access to cheap resources. This is the source of Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state even though it makes no political or economic sense. Although one result is that Canada might join the EU.
Those union label commercials were laughed at, even at the time, as a throwback to Grandpa's Old Left activism of the 1930s. Set aside the fact that they were old, dowdy, and standing in a featureless void; a group of adults singing a song of solidarity was alien to American work culture.
There should be more education on the history of labor in America. It's an incredible, heroic story.
I say that as a guy who's dug my share of ditches and who's never been in a union.
There was a nice Thai loogthung video romance about a woman working in a sewing factory and a man food truck operator that I can't find now. loogthung = country music
Unions used to be useful and purposeful.. Now they are grfting machines for the pyramid scheme left.
You can make more money at a non-union job - simply because your paycheck isn't going to the political union grifters.
Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson anticipated the legitimate issues surrounding free trade now being addressed by the Trump Administration: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0895330042162403
Exploit is wrong from the beginning. The two sides are company profit and consumer consumer-surplus. The profit is how much excess over cost the company gets, the consumer surplus is the excess of what the thing is worth to you over what it costs you. They're the same thing, with one side called a company and the other side called a consumer.
The sum of the profit and the consumer surplus is new wealth added to the country by that trade.
Communist countries sell at a loss, and remarkably no new wealth appears.
Ann Althouse said...
Explain why tariffs on clothes made by oppressed workers is not good policy. Clothes can be made cheaper in foreign countries because of actual evil that isn't permitted in the U.S. The tariffs will raise the price and cut the advantage of foreign manufacturing.
Not all foreign countries exploit their labor. In many countries, $5 an hour isn’t just a livable wage, it’s enough to live quite well. There are indeed other countries that are abusive, such as China. Most of the time, they have tariffs against US made goods, so reciprocal tariffs are, to use a word from the Left’s lexicon, fair.
Peachy said...
Many south American countries are poor because they lack an manufacturing and an industrial base, and their governments are corrupt and leftwing.
3/22/25, 8:28 AM
——————#
It is because their governments are corrupt so there really isn’t a rule of law.
Up until Juan Peron Argentina had the highest standard of living in the Western Hemisphere.
Up until Chavez Venezuela had the highest standard of living south of the Rio Grande.
I couldn't find a specific YouTube video about a Thai romance involving a food truck operator and a sewing factory worker with a loogthung (Thai country music) theme. However, there are many fascinating Thai street food and cultural videos on YouTube that might interest you, such as this one showcasing Thai street food or this one featuring a former Thai top model turned street food chef.
If you have more details or keywords, I can refine the search for you!
AMDG - and what did those corrupt leftist leaders do - they destroyed that standard of living, in part, by killing industry.
We’re gonna party like it’s 1929.
Comparative advantage (not competitive advantage).
How can we compete with workers in countries that pay their workers nothing; vs how can we compete with high tech countries when we have nothing.
Comparative advantage is why the economics department secretary walks papers to the dean's office instead of the economics department head, when the head walks faster than the secretary.
It frees up the head to do something more valuable.
A similar thing happens between countries.
If the workers don't want to do something more valuable, you have a problem. Like the department head saying he doesn't want to do this head shit, he wants to walk papers to the dean's office.
Smoot and Hawley are smiling.
Trump’s tariffs are retarded.
The ad may have brought nostalgic tears to the Professor's eyes, but it's not a very well-made commercial, IMHO.
For example, a guy in a pink shirt and bolo tie at the beginning is the first lady's garment worker you meet in that ad. Your first emotional reaction is a feeling there's something very wrong in the brassiere making business and maybe it's not such a bad idea to put some distance between our women folk and dudes who make bras after all.
As long as we don't go back to having to make our own clothes. But then I haven't seen a sewing machine in years. Do they even teach that sort of thing now?
Most people don't understand Economics and don't take the trouble to read it themselves, so they just rely on x-burts, or what they were brainwashed to believe in College.
That's why McCain could get up in 2008, and stupidly say the Smoot-Hawley tarriff caused the great depression, and no one disagreed.
Globalist don't like tarriffs, or more accurately, they don't like American tarriffs. They're happier with foreigners selling their goods here, made by oppressed workers, than the USA workers having jobs and making the same goods here.
To them "free trade", means foreign countries have trade barriers to our goods while we no barriers to their goods. Its a one-way street, and the foreigners like it that way.
reeman Hunt said...
I bet the guy in Southeast Asia would prefer not to lose his t-shirt-making job.
----------
I'm guessing your eldest Toshito Dorito went into filmmaking like his father? And none of the other boy babies you bore chose to enlist in the military? You globalist sympathies are showing, TradWife. Not a tradesman in the pack?
I noticed what Ann did, those are Trump voters in that ad.
All the designer jeans that came in after that commercial were made overseas, ann. The kids wearing Sears Roughskins were not admired. You boomers did this to our country with your cheap beaner cars too. The tears were of guilt. Your parents would likely be ashamed of your lifestyle to date... And where are all the apple products made? And all this "new technology" you're adapting to? Mirror annie. Have a look...
Once Trump got elected, the MSM suddenly noticed the economy was bad and now we endless discussions about Inflation, egg prices, stock market downturns, etc. Its so predictable that the far left MSM would bury bad economic news when a democrat is POTUS, and hype it to hurt to a Republican POTUS.
Unions used to be useful and purposeful.. Now they are grfting machines for the pyramid scheme left.
Part of the history of labor in America that should also be taught.
Our robots will compete for us, our tireless non-union robots, and you can make them any color or gender you want.
Ironically the teacher's union is one of the reasons it isn't taught.
"Explain why tariffs on clothes made by oppressed workers is not good policy."
I would suggest you first ask the followup question, "What would these 'oppressed workers' be doing to survive without a job making shirts?"
I used to like those commericals, until I found out that Garment Union has always been run by Commies. And I mean real-life, True Marxist believers.
Somebody watched Gran Torino again on AMC last night.
There's no such thing as free trade.
The workers making those T-shirts for 10 cents an hour, will find other work. But hey, keep believing you the consumer benefit from cheap foreign labor. Those companies are passing the savings on to you. They're not pocketing the money as profit. They'd never do that. Honest Injun!
I would pay extra for anything made in USA. Quality would matter of course. The free trade is bull shit. It is not free trade they tariff us we do not tariff them. The mega corporations like Nike use slave labor and the advertising to maximize the product. It is the worst side of capitalism.
Grok says there are 292,825 manufacturing plant in the us currently
US mfg output 2000 was $1.53 trillion
In 2024 $2.8 trillion
Adjusted for inflation
John Henry
"What would these 'oppressed workers' be doing to survive without a job making shirts?"
How come nobody asks that about the workers losing their jobs on this end?
Companies set their price to maximize revenue. They don't set their price based on the cost of production, except that that they cant survive if the price is lower than cost. But Hollywood for example, doesn't set ticket prices based on how much a movie costs. People who sell T-shirts don't go "Gosh, it cost me X. I'll allow a 10 percent profit and sell for Y"
They sit down and figure out what price will maximize revenue and sell it for that. People will buy x, x1, x2 number of shirts at y, y1, y2 price.
Tariffs did not cause the Great Depression they just exasperated it.
Taxing a declining economy stifles output at the wrong time.
If the workers don't want to do something more valuable, you have a problem. Like the department head saying he doesn't want to do this head shit, he wants to walk papers to the dean's office
---------
Or law professors, say, focusing their working energies on boosting their own children's careers while taking up a side hustle, rather than focusing on the politics and law taking place (or not) in counties throughout their state (ie/not just Dane.)
A lot of people/women like the paycheck and the prestige, but the work... not so much.
Why did you let the Wisconsin Idea die, ann? Didn't you feel any commitment to Wisconsin as a whole and was was happening during your decades as a state worker? Same thing, just no catchy jingle. You didn't even call your own co-workers out when they were pushing DEI. Just put your head down and brought home the bacon for your own boys. People who cared about the profession, or their state or country, would have fought back more timely...
*hitting the tip jar so you can buy some American-made tissues for those tears of guilt... Whatcha driving these days? The F-150? *wink wink*
Explain why tariffs on clothes made by oppressed workers is not good policy.
Why are you raising a question that has nothing to do with why Trump is proposing tariffs? Trump doesn't give a shit about oppressed workers, either here, but especially in other countries.
@AMDG — Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson would disagree. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0895330042162403
Union propaganda was always bullshit. Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week, the weekend, and the $5 a day wage, to enable workers to buy Fords. Unions didn’t do this. What they did was drive American manufacturing bankrupt and out of the country and enable massive union executive corruption. I had a front row seat, watching this, since both my mother and father were factory workers. My mother foresaw the devastation of unions constantly demanding less work, more perks and more money, and accurately predicted the closing of her plant and its move to Japan. She was already studying to become an LPN in anticipation of it.
baghdadbob said...
I like the kvetching/not-kvetching lyric "we work hard, but who's complaining."
I remember hearing that back in the day and thinking; the Mob guys who run the union, that's who!
"We're not gonna make t-shirts in this country again."
Why not? If we figure out how to make t-shirts again, we may solve some other problems. There is dignity in work.
We have people getting money for nothing. Workfare is better for them, than welfare.
The government people that DOGE fired could make t-shirts instead of regulations. We'd be better off.
With AI and robotics, there could be advances in t-shirt production. Revolutionize the industry.
We are told that so many old folks are living lives of quiet and lonely desperation. Find a way to make t-shirt production a communal activity. Small groups, free coffee, the baseball game on the radio, it might be nice, just don't have meetings or yell at us.
We are a country with a large and diverse population with bountiful resources. We can make anything work if we want to.
The U.S. benefits, to the extent it does, because the Chinese are willing to trade their merchandize for our paper assets. Will this go on forever? I doubt it- I don't see how it can if the U.S. at some point stops letting the Chinese use that paper to buy up non-paper assests inside the U.S. border. In the present configuration, we need the Chinese more than they actually need us.
About 15 years ago I got into an online debate with another commenter at Calculated Risk who created a hypothetical 2-man island economy where the men traded fish and vegetables to benefit from comparative advantage. He argued that if one of the men discovered a working Star Trek replicator washed up on the shore, it would do him no good because the other man would have nothing of value to trade for the food and other goods the replicator could make. I spent two days trying to get him to see the problem with his hypothetical without success.
I remember when Al Gore said his mother used to sing the "Union Label" song to him as a lullaby.
The song was written in 1975, when Gore was 27 years old.
(I suspect Mother Gore actually sang Jerome Kern's "Look For the Silver Lining."
RCOCEAN II said...
Companies set their price to maximize revenue. They don't set their price based on the cost of production, except that that they cant survive if the price is lower than cost. But Hollywood for example, doesn't set ticket prices based on how much a movie costs. People who sell T-shirts don't go "Gosh, it cost me X. I'll allow a 10 percent profit and sell for Y"
They sit down and figure out what price will maximize revenue and sell it for that. People will buy x, x1, x2 number of shirts at y, y1, y2 price.
3/22/25, 9:06 AM
——— ———————
Prices are based on what the market will bear.
If the market price cannot provide sufficient margin the product will be discontinued.
Even "American" clothing companies like Carhartt make most of their products in Mexico, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Honduras, and Tunisia.
The goal should be to increase domestic high value added manufacturing. Not easy,.
"Companies set their price to maximize revenue."
No, they also have to discourage new entrants to the market. Big profits means many new entrants.
The theory is that profits always go to standard return on capital, so no industry is an outstanding opportunity for investment. Except of course new ones, if they succeed.
Howard said...
"On average things are better says nothing about the widening income and wealth gap."
And how do we overcome that, exactly?
Barriers to entry are based on a lot of factors, not just "Big profits" attracting someone. Hollywood studios make "big profits" where's the competition? There is almost none in the USA, because Hollywood has made it almost impossible for anyone to set up a film company, produce moves with 100+ million dollars budgets, find a distributor, hire great talent, and get a slate of movies produced and sold.
Similarly, "Great profits" in the auto industry are irrelevant to keeping out competition. Want to produce millions of cars? You'd better have a bank willing to loan you $100 Billion to start up.
Economists always live in a dream world where we all live in some mythical small town and we all run restaurants, and produce and sell small goods.
Freeman Hunt said...
Oppressed workers? Would you prefer they go back to subsistence farming?
Or child sex work?
My father worked in the steel mills in Cleveland from late 1950s to late 1990s. I spent a couple summers there while in college as well. Union member. A few years ago he surprised me when he commented that the union fighting modernization and more productive equipment to maintain jobs was the reason the steel industry was decimated in the US. Never thought I’d hear that from him. Location where he worked now has a shopping center called Steelyard Commons with a Target, WalMart SuperCenter and a number of clothing stores selling imported goods…….
>Why isn't it more of a point of virtue to buy clothes that are not made by oppressed workers?<
I am well-acquainted with this silly trope from my years of living in Panama in a semi-rural expat community. Many Americans would come down there and waste no time annoyingly grousing about how our workers were being underpaid. They of course paid their workers the same going rate: $12/7-hr day for housework and yardwork.
Meanwhile, the workers were in fat city and said so. They were thrilled to have jobs and to be living well. They didn't miss the years before we showed up when they sat around doing nothing other than growing some corn or taro for their subsistence. Americans don't have a clue about the practical economies in these places but they are very skilled at rooting out "oppression."
The other flaw in economic theory is it always assumes people are reasonable actors driven by the desire to make money. That people would accept lower profits to accomplish other goals, like nationalism, ethnic solidarity, etc. is beyond them. Nor do they understand that Corporate owners and Board of Directors may only be interested in their profit not the companies, and also may care more about politics then profit. The whole history of Twitter after dorsey was pushed out is explained by politjcs not the desire to make money. And the banksters in 2008, drove their banks into the ground (cf Washington Mutual) because they personally made money off it.
Old and slow @ 8:00
I'm reminded of a video I saw of a stamping plant in China. They were stamping out body panels for trucks. There were operations on the die, which was massive, that had to be done. These operations were done by hand by people sitting INSIDE the press.
Contrast that with a die operation in Tennessee. A giant press also making body panels. Robots fed the raw steel sheets into the press and took out the finished panels. There was no operator. When the time came to change dies a robot came and dismounted the original die and went to shelves where the dies were stored. It replaced the first die and then chose the next and installed it. No people were involved. The only people were forklift driver that delivered the raw sheets to the press.
AMDG said...
"Tariffs did not cause the Great Depression they just exasperated it.
Taxing a declining economy stifles output at the wrong time."
Taxing anything stifles output.
You nearly had it.
AMG said @ 8:34
What you and others are forgetting is that tariffs are a two way street. The tariffs proposed are in response to our goods that are being unfairly taxed by Canada. You' ll notice it isn't a tax on all thing Canadian. Just specific things where a large imbalance is involved.
I quit shipping used machine tools to Canada even though there is a big market for used lathes and milling machines and parts.
I quit shipping because by the time the end user got them due to shipping and import taxes the price doubled. In some cases tripled.
This is not a one way street.
Ann,
I don't think "commodity furniture" is necessary a term of derision. If an economist is saying it, the term probably means "is bought for practical reasons, is not bought on the basis of brand name or cutting edge fashion, is not expensive, and has very low profit margins--in fact, may not make any profit at all for an American manufacturer."
A commodity is often opposed to something that is "product differentiated". Wheat is a commodity. Thomas's English Muffins is a differentiated product.
Oh, my. Someone's wordy today.
The strange thing is that affluent Americans may be buying American-made t-shirts if they're looking for fashion t-shirts and are willing to pay for them. The packages of three white t-shirts are going to be made overseas, but if you want something to show off, it may be made here. You can even get them custom-made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-vY_d5aZIs
AllAmerican.org
Progress was made through labor, environmental, and monetary arbitrage? Extractive processes. Our liberal democracy is a totem to past progressive values of the leftist kind.
I recently read Stephen Miran’s (Trump’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers) “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”. If anyone is to understand Trump’s approach—this book is a must read.
Who are the beneficiaries of a loose fiscal and a loose monetary policy?
The twin goals are to continue the wealth concentration of the superrich and the monopolization and cartelization of the private sector economy (which further supports wealth concentration). Low tax rates magnify the compounding effect of reinvesting dividends and gains while loose monetary policy guarantees that wealthy clients of the six or seven biggest banks have unlimited access to cheap money while everyone else pays multiples of the policy rate for basic consumer credit. It is a very rigged game! The feedback loop is concentrated political contributions by the superrich.
To reestablish the US as an ascending industrial power would require first-of-all a large commitment to first-class infrastructure since the cost of moving both goods and information is the crucial marginal cost factor in international competitiveness. China is establishing a global lead in infrastructure both in its domestic economy and across the globally trading community of nations that is a huge global influence attracting force.
Productivity improvements would require increasing the educational attainments of the vast middle of the workforce that is grouped on either side of the "median" education standard. The Democratic party has proven inept at improving this metric for over half a century while the Republican party simply wants to privatize education through private delivery channels which in effect puts up barriers to entry to a competitively capable workforce to the majority of families. (Democratic party brahmins all send their children to private schools.)
The game of international comparative advantage is a tough game that requires persistence, resources, and coordinated long-term policies.
The polarized US society is going to see a future of wide swings in public policy each time the national administration changes driven by the deep-seated anger and resentments of an alienated public.
OTOH, Dems should keep burning stuff and talking shite and their numbers will continue to go down. People want safe towns/cities, good schools & roads and will put up with some economic pain - which we haven't had too bad - to have and keep them.
I have to stay out of this one…
Obviously, the US companies should be paying these workers a much higher wage. When your defense of child labor and exploitation is it "Hey, at least they have a job"- you got nothing. I guess US Slavery was OK, since at least we gave them jobs. LOL!
Conversely, if their sweat shop factories close, they can do something else. Maybe their Governments, will actually think of getting foreign investment and setting up factories to produce goods for the local markets at a higher wage.
It took about 2 minutes to find 6 companies that make T-shirts in America. Belle+ Canvas shirts made in alabama's news location is one example. The price of them sold my Jiffy - $ 5.00 to $12.00. But they are plain with no "cool" words. Here in Texas a company called Home Zone makes all their furniture in Texas. Oh yea and they have stores all over the state. Not a union shop BTW.
Casselman has a point. The big but in that and in all of this is government corruption. Had the good economy maintained lower taxes and more social opportunities then the Ds would be in power. But government corruption of all kinds, made it so taxes got higher and society has less and less to show for it. California is a great example. Just build a train and people would be mollified. But corruption became more and more blatant. The Chicago and NJ ways took over the nation. And his statement is disengenuous. Our economy, includingass immigration they support, is built on oppressing of peoples around the world for cheap Tshirts. They only care about the wealth of oppressors and alleviating proximate guilt. It's the peace of Roman emperors not a genuine deep and prospering peace we hope all for
One thing the "free traders" never address is the fact what the USA is almost the only one practicing (sic) free trade. The Canadian don't, the Asians don't, and the EU doesnt. They have barriers to our goods, and we let them run up huge trade surpluses against us. Usually, all the "Free traders" can say is "Oh, them furriners sure are stupid", as if the EU and chinese can't understand how great it would be to get rid of tarriffs!
"Tariffs did not cause the Great Depression they just exasperated it." Nothing much worse than a petulant depression.
And one final point. There is no "Free Market" in international Trade. Its all run by Governments (yeah, the hated Gubmint) making deals with each other. And a lot of these Gubmint's aren't democracies. Your right to buy goods from all over the world without a tarriff, isn't "The free market", because your right to EXPORT to other countries is controlled by those countries aka their Gubmint.
Because the AWFL's who push for such things regularly shop at Forever 21.
Not for long!
People convince themselves that foreign-made clothing and other products are cheaper because the cost of living is cheaper there. If they examine this closely, they may have to admit that their iPhone is also not made under ideal circumstances for the workers.
If COVID taught us one thing, it should have been that we rely too much on goods that are produced in other countries. We learned nothing.
He argued that if one of the men discovered a working Star Trek replicator washed up on the shore, it would do him no good because the other man would have nothing of value to trade for the food and other goods the replicator could make.
What did he think would happen? I would assume the end result would be one man with a replicator and a slave.
Trump’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Milan is said to be proposing that foreign holders be 'persuaded' to convert their holdings into perpetual dollar bonds, thereby turning short-term borrowing into super-long term borrowing. However, no one is discussing the possibility that investors will face significant valuation losses. If forced to exchange their bonds for 100-year zero-coupon bonds, investors are likely to suffer valuation losses in excess of 80%. The question is whether the so called 'Mar-a-Lago Accord' is really worth it for foreign governments and private investors.
"They argue that over the decades, free trade has left Americans better off on the whole. That even if it has hurt some people, that on average it has been beneficial. I think most economists would make that point."
That's Kaldor-Hicks "Hypothetical Compensation" principle in welfare economics, a second-best solution to Pareto Optimality requirement that no one gets hurt.
Aside from shunting the "losers" aside, however, are all the "social costs" of trade policy change included in economists' calculations?
Many of these same economists who argue for "Pigouvian" externality taxes to account for trendy issues, like the social cost of atmospheric carbon emissions, seem loathe to ascribe social costs to the effects of trade policy, largely because the convention is to frame the outcome as merely distribution of income rather than the efficient allocation of resources.
The Pareto optimal principle, a key concept in welfare economics, states that a change in the allocation of resources is considered an improvement if at least one person is made better off without anyone else being made worse off, and ideally, everyone is at least as well off.
Pareto Improvement: A change in resource allocation is a Pareto improvement if it benefits at least one person without harming anyone else.
Pareto Efficiency/Optimality: A state of resource allocation is considered Pareto efficient (or Pareto optimal) when no further Pareto improvements are possible; it's impossible to make one person better off without making someone else worse off.
The Pareto compensation principle, also known as the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, suggests that a policy change is beneficial if the gainers could hypothetically compensate the losers and still be better off, even if compensation doesn't actually occur.
Core Idea: The principle focuses on the potential for improvement, not necessarily the actual outcome.
Hypothetical Compensation: It posits that if the beneficiaries of a policy change could, in theory, compensate those who are made worse off, the change is considered a net improvement.
Kaldor-Hicks Improvement: This is a key concept related to the Pareto compensation principle, where a change is deemed an improvement if the gainers could compensate the losers and still be better off.
Pareto Improvement: While every Pareto improvement is a Kaldor-Hicks improvement, not every Kaldor-Hicks improvement is a Pareto improvement. Pareto improvements require making everyone better off or at least no one worse off.
Example: Imagine a project that benefits some people but harms others. If the gainers could compensate the losers for their losses and still be better off, the project is considered a Kaldor-Hicks improvement, even if compensation doesn't actually happen.
Distinction from Pareto Efficiency: Pareto efficiency requires that no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. The Kaldor-Hicks criterion is a broader concept, allowing for potential improvements even if some individuals are made worse off.
Applications: This principle is used in welfare economics to evaluate policy changes and assess whether they are beneficial to society as a whole, even if some individuals experience negative impacts.
We're not going to make T-shirts in this country again, but can we at least make the machines used to make T-shirts here?
The difference between "commodity furniture" and the old mass-produced modernist furniture is that commodity furniture is made from particle board.
"People pay extra for cage-free chicken."
That was all that was left in the cooler last time I went shopping, so I bought two dozen. They were actually better eggs, that surprised me. They had thicker shells and the whites were less watery, great for fried eggs.
Bird-flu = another man-made laboratory death concoction to help with the left's destruction.
I went to college with a guy who was there on an ILGWU scholarship. I was jealous.
Well, if the speaker is a NYT Economics expert, I guess we should believe him absolutely.
We will when other nations have a progressive demand for imported goods but retain other motives (e.g. real-estate purchases, democratic influence).
What did he think would happen?
The debate arose in exactly the context of the U.S. trade deficit with countries like Germany, Japan, and China. He argued that the Chinese needed the U.S. consumer to buy the products their factories were turning out and I argued that they really didn't need the U.S. consumer if all we were giving the Chinese was bonds and interest payments paid with even more bonds for all those goods. In reply, he offered exactly the hypothetical described above- that if the guy with the replicator couldn't sell any of the goods from the replicator to the other guy, then the replicator could't be profitable to own (i.e. like China's industrial base absent the U.S. consumer.)
"I would assume the end result would be one man with a replicator and a slave."
Why would the guy with the replicator need a slave?
I do not find it hard to buy clothes made in America. Step 1 is to avoid CostCo as noted above. Today when buying groceries, I passed on the mushrooms from Ontario, and bought some from Pennsylvania instead. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't do this.
Why would the guy with the replicator need a slave?
To operate, maintain the replicator. As a taster? A model?
Whenever a country runs a net trade surplus with the US, it has to invest in the US. Otherwise dollars pile up and go unused. They're trading goods for pictures of Presidents. The usual investment is Treasury bonds and notes. Exchanging dollars for interest-paying dollars that they can't spend.
$38,000,000,000,000 in debt trumps all issues.
Whatever it takes to get a handle on it. do it.
First stop - The American tax payer is not the world's piggy bank.
Here is a list of clothing brands made in the US. Current as of the end of February '25.
https://toddshelton.com/blog/about-todd-shelton/made-in-america/american-made-clothing-brands
Just for fun I asked Grok how many actual human hours were used in the assembly of a typical automobile today.
The answer: 30
Down from 100 a few decades ago.
Peachy said...
$38,000,000,000,000 in debt trumps all issues.
Yes, exactly. I believe Trump, Musk, and others understand this point.
If we need to look out for ourselves, then let's do it.
Unless something is done, the debt will ruin America.
The thing about "oppressed workers" is the alternative. Is it oppressed unemployed person?
I'd never noticed the term "commodity furniture" before. I looked it up to see if it meant what I inferred it meant. It does. It feels snobby in a really retrograde way.
Years ago the wife and I were replacing our well-constructed-but-salvaged-from-a-trash-pile dining room pieces and a furniture salesman at an upscale brand's store told us that whereas one used to look for brands of well-made, solid wood furniture made in North Carolina, these days the wood is harvested in North Carolina and shipped to Asia, where it is formed into Queen Anne or Chippendale or some other classical styled wood furniture and shipped back. We thought he was kidding because surely the furniture manufacturers could not ship wood from the east coast of America and finished furniture back to the east coast of America and still have a profit after all the shipping costs, but apparently salaries in Asia are so low that someone crunching the numbers figured out how to make that work.
Crazy
Meanwhile the American automobile manufacturers seem bound and determined to force me to buy foreign if I have to replace either of our cars. Why? Because we like sedans and in 2025 that means buying a Cadillac, buying used, or buying foreign. Apparently so many people are buying SUVs that Ford, GM, and Chrysler (Stellantis) have stopped making sedans and convertibles.
I have a vivid memory of a liberal acquaintance, years ago, expounding on the need for all of us to buy products built by American union labor. Then I asked her which of us drove a Buick and which of us drove a Volvo. She got really red in the face.
Good time, good times.
OT:
Fauci was pardoned back to 2014.
No, they also have to discourage new entrants to the market. Big profits means many new entrants.
And attracts predators. Before state governments went after them in earnest, cigarette profits were YUGE. I remember in the 80s, American Brands reported $400 million earnings on $1.4 billion sales in the US. They sold several times more in the UK but made less money there. With higher state taxes and massive lawsuits, US buyers shifted to cheaper brands.
“ No, they also have to discourage new entrants to the market. Big profits means many new entrants.
The theory is that profits always go to standard return on capital”
Yes, that is why barriers to market entry are golden. Barriers can be raw material or intellectual/ patent. If you have the only source of a raw material that is great. If you are the only place that has certain smart people, like Taiwan and Holland for semi conductors, or patents in Denmark for Ozympic, or methods to make quality cars like Japan you win even at a supposed leveling effect.
We actually do make t-shirts in the United States. Someone needs to learn how to use a search engine.
https://www.google.com/search?q=t-shirts+made+in+the+united+states&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1072US1073&oq=t-shirts+made+in+the+united+states&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyCggDEAAYgAQYogQyBwgEEAAY7wXSAQk5NTA2ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBaU9IqqIJyfQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Do you think it's smart to rely on china for 95% of pharmaceuticals, prof?
"What would these 'oppressed workers' be doing to survive without a job making shirts?"
The whole question here is, are unemployed workers in Ohio going to get benefits or are poor people in China going to get it.
After ww2 the greatest global prize is free access to the rich US market, initially this was given out by the US to rebuild Europe and Japan. Then given by Nixon to China as a bribe to balance Russia. And given to others like Mexico and Canada just to be pals. This rebuilding was complete in the 80’s and the US lost jobs due to globalism.
So now we say, how can we give US poor people jobs and at the same time give jobs to every starving person overseas. Well, general welfare needs/ability is the realm of communism and does not work due to incentives.
Giving money and jobs away breaks the system. The receiving countries will give up on working their way up from agriculture to an Industrial revolution and will say, gimme what you got. The poor in Ohio say, what am I chopped liver?
There is no answer except destroying the need for human labor by automation. Then we have to deal with a welfare class of hedonists vs a class that still values achievement and power. Pretty ugly.
Well, there is another way to go, an Asimov world where the world population drops to 1 billion people who live on large automated estates and live intellectual lives as craftsmen, artists, and scientists.
Big Mike said...
Meanwhile the American automobile manufacturers seem bound and determined to force me to buy foreign if I have to replace either of our cars. Why? Because we like sedans and in 2025 that means buying a Cadillac, buying used, or buying foreign. Apparently so many people are buying SUVs that Ford, GM, and Chrysler (Stellantis) have stopped making sedans and convertibles.
I have a vivid memory of a liberal acquaintance, years ago, expounding on the need for all of us to buy products built by American union labor. Then I asked her which of us drove a Buick and which of us drove a Volvo. She got really red in the face.
Good time, good times.
3/22/25, 1:15 PM
———————————
The biggest mistake the American auto industry made was ceding the small car market to the Japanese.
I was a valet at parking garage in 1980. The one thing that I clearly remember is that the dominant Japanese cars (Honda Accord - it was small then, the Toyota Corolla, and whatever the Datsun car was) were significantly better than their American counterparts (Pinto, Chevette, Horizon) in terms quality, driveability, features, and performance. The people who bought those cars now drive Lexus, Infinity, or Acura instead of a Lincoln or a Cadillac.
The American companies focused on selling cars to the greatest generation and as they died off the market shrank.
With a fixed-term bond the lender gets the money back that they paid at the end of the term, in addition to the interest payments over time.
Perpetual bonds? They never get their initial outlay back, just the interest. OK, they get compensated for the full amount in the end if they hang around long enough but they could have bought other fixed-term bonds in the meantime with the cash they no longer get back. Borrowers typically compensate for that by paying higher interest rates. This seems unlikely with the Trump administration. So, it's basically a planned default.
I think that's the bit that's not clear. Plan a recession or just sleepwalk into it? Musk was banging on about pain late last year, so I'd guess it is the plan but you can't rule out the "horse in a hospital" aspect of this administration.
There's a good chance they wind up actually sleepwalking into stagflation by trying to push the Fed into firing up the money machine again. Which, to quote Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters "would be bad".
Yeah well, much as I'd like to be nostalgic, all the unions screwed themselves and became just one more group of grifters ripping off the workers. In Georgia, I was forced to join the ILGPNWU, which had been Union #1 in NYC when they still made buggywhips. I was young and eager to participate. They took $200 out of my paltry trade show checks, and when I began investigating them, I learned they were scorching factory workers across the South to rake in our money in conjunction with Clinton's union advisor. There were no meetings or votes: the Georgia president had been dead a while. I spent my lunchtimes walking to the NLRB offices and filing charges. One Christmas, heading north, I went to their NYC offices, and President Dominic DiPaolo tried to bribe me with a no-show job. I was also in law school at night. My employment law professor was on their side. He thought unions were so cool. Moron. My car tires were slashed, and I was blacklisted. So I washed dishes in restaurants to pay my mortgage. Rep. Cynthia McKinney and her boy-toy Stuart Acuff (now a high-ranking Soros employee) came after me. I was about 23.
I loved that job. I loved loading trucks and building metal convention booths. I quit law school with passing grades because my professors were naive and predatory. I still organized. The Teamsters were too corrupt; the Carpenters would have taken all our jobs. I settled on Georgia IATSE, which needed help because their business manager had snorted up all the health and retirement money and disappeared. I was (should still be) the first signatory on their new local, now huge.
A few years later, I tried to get some hours with them. They had "lost my seniority documents," and though I made three appeals, they never responded. I testified in federal court against Dominic DiPaolo. He died in prison.
Then I did something really stupid: I went to grad school.
Good points, Ann. My husband's Sears undershirts from the early 1970s were made with such heavy cotton fabric that I'm still using them for cleaning rags. Today's fast fashion clothing is made to be disposable and much of it--and a lot of other consumer goods--ends up in landfills within a few years. When textiles decompose, they release greenhouse gases which are far more potent than carbon dioxide and contribute significantly to global warming. Manufacturing textiles consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels and water, as well. It takes 713 gallons of water to produce one t-shirt.
If we end up buying less from foreign countries, tariffs will be good for the planet. (And I didn't know until just now that F. Scott Fitzgerald gave the cotton pullover the name T-shirt in his book This Side of Paradise?)
In any event, pretty soon no humans anywhere are going to be making t-shirts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXFUqCijkUs
Shouting Thomas and WK make points to contemplate. I support tariffs, by the way. It may sound contradictory, but we need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Without unions. Combined with getting rid of illegal aliens, bad schooling, and welfare fraud, we can create a healthier working class. Ignore the libertarian bullshit about needing H1B workers, and the middle class can stop bleeding. First, outlaw government unions. That's 96% of that fight.
None of this is easy. But if we don't start ignoring the "educated classes" and pay attention to reality instead, we are doomed.
"Clothes can be made cheaper in foreign countries because of actual evil that isn't permitted in the U.S."
I'm old enough to remember when that was a leftist talking point!
But we were all going to get better jobs. We would all become knowledge workers!!!
Speaking of furniture not being made in the us:
CLOSURE: Major furniture brand closes Canadian plant, shifts operations to the U.S.
By Suzanna Dutt
Published March 22, 2025 at 11:07 am
A Canadian furniture manufacturer that supplies major retailers across North America is shutting down its original facility and relocating to the United States.
Prepac, known for its ready-to-assemble furniture sold at retailers including Walmart, Target, Amazon, Home Depot and Lowe’s, ceased manufacturing at its Delta facility in British Columbia on March 14 and is winding down remaining operations.
https://www.insauga.com/closure-major-furniture-brand-closes-canadian-plant-shifts-operations-to-the-u-s/
John Henry
those one handed economists, truman was warning us about,
"Who are the beneficiaries of a loose fiscal and a loose monetary policy?"
I think that you only had to look at Biden and Harris mega donors to give you a pretty good first pass look.
I like to recall that the US won WWII through success in logistics, with manufacturing capacity available to make enough of everything that we supplied the Russians and English, too. When China can make and send 10000 drones for a single swarm against a target, we better hope we can shoot them all down should need arise. And work toward making that need never arise. As to tariffs, they have many purposes, and upsetting leftists is one of the best.
MaxedOutMama -- that's a useful list. Thanks!
Do you want quality goods? The uniform answer when asked is "Yes!"
Are you willing to pay more for quality goods? The uniform answer is "Yes!"
Are you willing to pay more for quality goods? The near uniform actual behavior is "Hell, no!"
I saw that behavior back in CFL bulb days before LEDs took over the market. A rep from Philips went around to big boxes giving lessons on bulb making. A Philips CFL cost a buck more then a Chinesium bulb. And lasted longer in all tests. And when you saw the cutaways, you could see why. All the hidden electronics- little tiny components in the base, were visibly better made.
Same thing is true if you substitute "American made" for "quality" in the above questions. Maytag was the last manufacturer to make OTR microwaves in the USA- with tags on all the display models "Made in the USA", with a flag on the tag. Their OTR sales tanked because their OTRs were $10-$20 more than the competition.
And as a by the way, all of this international trade that makes everything cheaper from overseas manufacturing is brought to you courtesy of Malcolm McLean, father of containerization. Which revolutionized shipping and reduced shipping costs by at least one order of magnitude. And cut loss rates for things such as wine from 20% of cargo to whatever was in the container when it was sealed and shipped better be in there when it arrives.
The major American auto companies lost market share because they got out of the automobile business and into the benefits business and some of them still are.
Their OTR sales tanked because their OTRs were $10-$20 more than the competition.''
I've noticed that same thing on Amazon, price makes a major difference in the popularity of similar items.
John Marzan said...
"Do you think it's smart to rely on china for 95% of pharmaceuticals, prof?"
*************
That's a bogus stat. Here are the facts:
https://prosperousamerica.org/surge-in-pharmaceutical-imports-threatens-u-s-national-security-as-india-china-dominance-grows/
"Table 1 shows America’s top ten sources of pharmaceutical products last year by weight. China led the rankings, with 217.2 million kilograms (kg) or 477.8 million lbs of pharmaceutical imports. India came second with almost 180 million kg or 395.8 million lbs. Together these two countries accounted for 57.6% of U.S. pharmaceutical imports."
Note further that these stats are skewed toward generics and APIs, (Active Pharmaceutial Ingredient), esentially the raw materials essential to chemical compound that treat, prevent, or diagnose a disease or condition. These compounds are then formulated with other APIs or inactive ingredients in the US. The complex stuff is still mostly invented and made here. Ireland leads the list of countries importing such complex meds to the US.. Chian and India are well down the list.
But yes, we are vulnerable, and yes, we need to do something about it. On of the problems is that many generics are so cheap to make that it makes little sense from a business POV to build plants here. Somehow that's gotta change.
I would love a comprehensive list of the tariffs other countries place on US goods coming into their country.
"Are you willing to pay more for quality goods? The near uniform actual behavior is "Hell, no!""
I am happy to pay more for quality. The rub is determining what's of better quality. I usually buy the more expansive product believing/hoping price is indicative of quality, but there's frequently no way to know.
And to add to the turmoil, Trump is likely to start raising the pressure on the Fed to cut US rates sharply -- after having set the inflationary fires through the tariffs route.
And there is no good outcome when this happens -- either the Fed wilts and delivers the rate cuts and enrages the bond market or it gets into a conflict with the President that will escalate rapidly and scare the living daylights out of the markets.
The great optimism with which the markets clambered aboard the "Trump trade" bandwagon in November is therefore due to be sorely tested, especially the stock market and the FX market.
There is always the theoretical possibility that Trump might be forced into a quick U-turn and a face-saving way out, but now that prize a second presidential term is not on the table, he is more likely to dig-in his heels rather than negotiate quickly.
"I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping." ~ P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest
campy said...
“I remember when Al Gore said his mother used to sing the "Union Label" song to him as a lullaby. The song was written in 1975, when Gore was 27 years old.”
Al “Buster Bluth” Gore.
If we did make T-shirts here, our workers would be oppressed too, because the the unions would tell us they were.
"Al “Buster Bluth” Gore."
And then, there's Kamala, who "has shared her memories of celebrating Kwanzaa with her family during her childhood. She recalled that Kwanzaa was a special time in her home, where her family would gather across multiple generations to light candles and discuss the seven principles of Kwanzaa."
Kamala is older than Kwanzaa.
@OriginalMike, Here you go:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/wcBluEVbhtecZ9iLHKu7AG6AB
bagoh20 said...
“Our robots will compete for us, our tireless non-union robots, and you can make them any color or gender you want.”
Our robots will all be Bender Rodriguez.
A true Progressive would be outraged that 3rd world labor is being exploited to make cheaply priced goods for the masses in America, who are also exploited because they don't belong to a Union or have Universal Healthcare.
That's great, Meade. Thanks!
We do make clothing in this country...
There was a science fiction story that combined humanoid robots with economics. Every citizen was guaranteed ownership of a robot, one robot. Companies couldn't own any robots on their own- unless all the robots owned by citizens were rented out. IIRC this led to an explosion of self proclaimed artists and musicians. And still some lived in squalor.
"Whenever a country runs a net trade surplus with the US, it has to invest in the US. Otherwise dollars pile up and go unused. They're trading goods for pictures of Presidents. "
What are you talking about? The dollar is used all over the world. They don't have to sit on dollars.
And they can use their dollars to buy American Companies and real estate, farm land, and natural resources. How does that benefit the USA or the average American? Again, you're doing what Free traders always do, assuming Foreigners are stupid. If only they'd talk to you, they could smarten up. LOL.
If running a trade surplus against the USA was harmful, they wouldn't do it. Instead they are fighting like Hell against Trump to keep their trade advantage.
"What are you talking about? The dollar is used all over the world. They don't have to sit on dollars."
hardin gets these ideas in his head…
"Why are you raising a question that has nothing to do with why Trump is proposing tariffs?"
Why are you tying me to Trump and expecting me to explain what he's doing and why?
You don't seem too familiar with what I do on this blog. I raise issues I think are being overlooked. I do lateral thinking and question things from different edges.
"Trump doesn't give a shit about oppressed workers, either here, but especially in other countries."
I raised the issue because *I* cared about it.
Why are you disrespecting me?
If you wanted to remind everyone of additional things about Trump, why didn't you do that directly and plainly without putting me in the path of the abuse you thought Trump deserved.
Do better.
"...rethinking among at least some economists over the past couple of decades about the way that free trade has played out..."? This article misses the 800 pound gorilla about "..free trade...". There is no "...free trade...". Every country which does business with the USA has tariffs on US goods which compete with a country's favorite domestic industry. So the entire 'economic profession' is selling propoganda. No such thing as "...free trade...".
Chuck said...
"People pay extra for cage-free chicken."
"...That was all that was left in the cooler last time I went shopping, so I bought two dozen. They were actually better eggs, that surprised me. They had thicker shells and the whites were less watery, great for fried eggs..."
That's just a marketing term "...cage free..." It just means not crammed into 1 small cage, but crammed by the thousands into a barn. Try "Pasture Raised" which means raised outside where chickens eat bugs, worms, etc., and contain more nutrients healthy for humans. Their natural food vs. "cage free" fed mostly by grains. You can tell the difference by the color of the Yolk. "cage free" is yellowish while "Pasture Raised" is golden.
3/22/25, 11:13 AM
I don’t get the point about “oppressed workers.” In China, and Southeast Asia, and South Asia, there are hundreds of millions of workers who think they’ve died and gone to heaven because they can work in a factory for a cash wage rather than working seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, on a subsistence level farm.
I live near the decommissioned coal power plant that allowed Anderson, South Carolina to be one of the first ELECTRIC cities in the upper Southeast. It is the place where USA MODERN INDUSTRIAL cotton textile mills began and finally died in the 1980's. Cotton lung; brutal noise; heavy tooling; using poor, desperate people at grinding, mind-numbing work. But, now....they all walk or bike to get beer after their 5th DWI or addiction takes the family car. Not well educated, hard-working but without opportunity tend toward self-destructive idleness. Some work that our Nation needs done would be welcome for them to do.
Think about the Sally Field UNION scene in Norma Rae.......
noise of the belt run machinery shutting down, the Southern heat, the misters keeping the hot air wet so the cotton dust settles fast, shifts enforced with a prison fence, gates and air horns; the mill houses owned by the mill, mill script, mill store, mill credit.....everybody over 40 deaf from the racket; all with men walking around with a stopwatch....watch that film again and try to FEEL nostalgic for end state of hard fight between labor and mill.
That textile/clothing ad was already making compromises about UNION LABEL meaning — maybe no USA textile, but USA sewn....Became less and less USA....til screen printing a cotton T from china in USA makes it UNION made (assuming a Union screenprinting shop)
Catchy Tune: The theme for the "Look for the Union Label" ad was composed by Malcolm Dodds. He was an experienced vocalist and arranger who served as the chorus director for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). The lyrics were written by Paula Green, a notable advertising executive who also directed the campaign. The jingle premiered in 1975 and became widely recognized through the ILGWU's television and radio advertisements.
Why are you tying me to Trump and expecting me to explain what he's doing and why?
Because I read the quote from the NYT that you cited: "but broad based tariffs of the kind that Trump is talking about are just not going to accomplish that". I doubt you (or the NYT) would be talking about tariffs at all if Trump hadn't made it one of the central planks of his platform.
They aren't broad based tariffs, Freder. See the link that Meade provided and quit believing everything you read in the NYT.
Choirboy626 said...
Said someone who has never walked through a foundry or a screw machine shop.
The fastest mechanical devices in the world are textile machines.
We are very good, in this country at automating things. We should do more of it. Where I worked I replaced four people with pick and place robots.
A couple of big problems. First, free trade has to be free trade. And it has to be free in a meaningful way. Take what should be the easiest case to make for free trade, NAFTA and its successor, USMCA. In the 90s, we all naively believed that free trade between 3 countries, with the economy of one of them dwarfing the other two, that the result would be three US equivalent economies. That Canada would easily climb to US standards of living, and that over 20 or so years Mexico would as well. Instead, Canada went socialist, and in Mexico, the rich got richer, while deliberately keeping labor costs low and the poor got no richer at all. Reality got in the way of our pretty little theories about free trade. And do not even get me started on China and even Japan. We do not have even a semblance of free access to markets in almost the entire world. And the other thing about free trade is, you are supposed to be the lowest cost at something. If other nations keep their costs down by oppression, then a truly free country will never have the lowest cost at anything.
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