This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us around the theme of global warming: We have too much stuff already. We should think small. Less plastic. Consume less. Lighten your carbon footprint.
The NYT writer, Shawn McCreesh, is offended that ordinary people are asked to do with less by "the billionaire, crypto-salesman, golf-club-operating, Palm Beach-by-way-of-Fifth Avenue president with the golden office and the golden triplex apartment."
Reminds me of how righties would criticize the experts and celebrities for living in mansions and flying halfway around the world in private jets to hobnob at climate change conventions.
पोस्ट्स
५८ टिप्पण्या:
Wasn't it Bernie Sanders who said we had too many brands of toothpaste or deoderant?
How about importing millions of migrants who were living low-carbon lives in their home countries to come live carbon intense American lives, in big, heated and air conditioned homes, driving big cars, eating American beef, etc, etc, etc.
What researchers have found is that when you ask people abstractly about "global warming" they say it's a very important issue, but when you ask them to weigh it against something they care about, like unlimited immigration in order to capture a permanent political majority, well... global warming is not that important after all.
You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.
- Bernie Sanders 2015
dems indulge in behavior, they proscribe other people,
Governing is hard. Campaigning is easy.
I remember the boxes and boxes of cheap, plastic toys from China that we'd give our kids on Christmas. And how it didn't really hurt too much that after a few weeks they weren't played with. They were cheap and Mom got to watch them open the present.
Trump is talking about sacrifice for long-term, national gain.
Outside of war, that rarely works out for a president.
It's a fair cop. And neither side is 100% wrong about it. But I tend to think that "Have fewer or less of things you want" is a freer attitude than "Have none or nothing of things you need."
Of course, in the end, if the tariff negotiations go awry, we may indeed be asked do make do with less of things we actually do need. But the starting point on the Left is "back to dung fires, poor people of Africa!" and that's a much different thing.
If people think a doll with tariff is too expensive, China will have to lower their price if they want to sell many here. I prefer a tax that's avoidable, if the government has to have more money.
Whereas climate stasis Profits offend through deprivation, insecurity, Trump and the righties offer no similar begrudgments of people's Choice... uh, choice. Labor (e.g. slavery) and environmental (e.g. Green blight) arbitrage with "benefits" are a whole different animal.
All's fair in lust and abortion?
In Trade Wars, there are winners.
I question whether or not the Biden tariffs were "well targeted." It looked like old fashioned Democratic party clientelism to me.
The longer term and more pernicious consequence of Trump's economic policies will be to embed inflation into the American economy which will be hard to remove without a disruptive recession. Too few people are talking about this "embed" effect.
The tariffs are not a Green deal, a green deal, a novel conception. Why are they a target of genuflecting now? Pull your head out of your Ass, and stop braying em-pathetically.
so when the supply chains were actually snarled in the fall of '21, what did the vaunted Times say
This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us around the theme of global warming: We have too much stuff already.
Klaus Schwab: "You'll own nothing and love it!"
Jaq writes: “Waltz was a neocon, good riddance to him.”
Were Trumps original appointments good moves or did Biden force them on him?
"Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue"
I'm okay with rich people living like rich people, regardless of their stated ideologies, just as long as they did not accumulate their wealth while employed by the government. That rubs me the wrong way.
"Where ever there is a market, that market will be met." WE are quite literally the worlds largest market. For almost everything. If China is proscribed from providing it you can bet the farm that others will fall all over themselves to provide it. This is only a zero sum game if don't allow yourself other options.
Still haven't lost money on Tesla.
Tariffs do not cause inflation. They may cause some prices to rise, but the reduction in activity is, if anything, deflationary.
kaKAW! kaKAW!
They'll have plenty of American dolls very soon like nobody has ever seen before. Capitalist dolls, not those Marxist Leninist ChiCom dolls made by child slave labor containing lead paint and dioxins. China is trying to poison our children with these cheap dirty dolls. I can't blame China. They do it because the Democrats are stupid and allowed it to happen.
Maybe the children will have two rolls — two dolls that are made in America.
There's a malaise in the land. Time for us to live within our means. Gas too high? Cut back.
That reminds me. If you a saver, like me, and you know Dollar Tree, you better go and stock up before the Trump tariffs tear it all apart, like James Dean said in that movie Rebel without a Country. You'll thank me later.
effinayright said...
@CJinPa: Trump is talking about * temporary* sacrifice for long-term, national gain. FIFY
"It's different when they do it"
Asking people to sacrifice for nothing. Awesome. This is exactly analogous to the climate people.
Trump says too many toys; Biden says "why do we need 50 brands of deodorant". Some things don't change. On the other hand if we had 55 brands of deodorant we might have been able to alleviate the stench of Hunter Biden and Biden corruption. So there is that.
When shortages hit, the Soviets rationed things like toilet paper and bacon. Could the same approach work here?
The rich don't consume anything but a small part of their wealth. Almost all of it goes into investment, directly or indirectly, to buy heavy equipment for ditch diggers.
Side effect: if you tax the rich more, their consumption is unchanged. What falls is their investment. Less heavy equipment for ditch diggers. The poor pay the tax when you tax the rich more.
The analogy is the farmer and the seed corn he sets aside for next year. He has much more corn that he can eat while others are skrimping. But if you tax his seed corn, there's no corn next year.
"Maybe the CHILDREN will have 2 dolls..."
The article focuses on economic pain instead of celebrating Trump's gender fluid statement.
effinayright said...
@CJinPa: Trump is talking about * temporary* sacrifice for long-term, national gain. FIFY
---
That's true. Not sure what "temporary" will mean and whether folks are still sacrificing by the midterm elections.
"The longer term and more pernicious consequence of Trump's economic policies will be to embed inflation into the American economy which will be hard to remove without a disruptive recession."
You mean the inflation that Biden caused with his trillions in spending of borrowed money? Like the sarcastically named "Inflation Reduction Act"?
I hate to say it, Rich, but maybe a lot of people have seen their retirement savings hammered by inflation, their paychecks and pensions trimmed by inflation. My pension is capped at 3% a year adjustment for inflation, which means that under Biden, it began to shrink.
But oy vey! when it comes to the wealthiest among us who own the vast majority of the stock, and they get hammered, now it matters to Rich.
"Asking people to sacrifice for nothing. Awesome."
Of course it's for something. Something important; national security and employment. Whether or not it works…
Asking people to sacrifice for nothing. Awesome.
Poo on everyone making the mistake of focusing only on the economist explanation of the consequences of tariffs....and a hearty hooray for Ann and others who recognized early Trump is utilizing them as a tool of coercion, an (dis)incentive to make new deals. If Trump was (still) on their team the left would be congratulating him on the 'Nudge' and somewhere Cass Sunstein would be shit-eating grinning....
The tariffs are aimed primarily at China. They have an economy based on exporting manufactured goods. Japan, S Korea, etc were there, but then transitioned to consumer economies. The centralized Chinese government has rejected that, and instead is doubling down on exporting manufactured goods. Which makes them esp vulnerable to our tariffs. They are facing potentially a hundred million or more people unemployed, if they can’t sell their manufactured goods to other countries. And we are their biggest export market. And they absolutely cannot afford to lose very much of our business. They face revolts by those millions of laid off workers.
The normal way of dealing with the Chinese doesn’t work. They just up the number of people being bribed. Dems, in particular, seem especially vulnerable to this, at least since Clinton. Here, the Bidens took millions from the Chinese, and the Chinese made billions as a result of that. By the last election, it was obvious that they were engaged in a massive spying and influence buying operation in this country.
Hence the tariffs on esp Chinese goods. They probably have more foreign policy ramifications than threatening them with nuclear weapons, or helping their neighbors stand up to their bullying.
Sick for Toys
This girl I know she's sick for toys, sick for toys.
She needs a new toy, a brand new toy,
She's tired of her old toy's.
She's got a big house
Full of old toys
What can she do?
She needs a new toy.
Sick sick sick for toys,
Sick sick sick for toys.
She's sick, sick for toys
She disposes of her old toys
She ... needs a new toy
And in a small garden she finds a small boy.
She smiles, she's happy she found her new toy a small boy.
She's sick for toy, she needs a new toy,
To watch her comb her hair, comb all of her hair,
She's sick, sick for toys
She's really sick for toys
This girl I know found a new toy,
A boy she used him to watch her comb hair
Day in day out, night in night out,
She really was sick for toy,
In the end she fell asleep
The boy cut off her hair, all of her hair,
She was bald, she might not now be sick for toys
I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. -- Barack Obama
Except that Normals all understand that Trump is talking about the flood of cheap plastic junk from China. For 10 years I've been saying "I, personally, am willing to pay more for my crappy plastic lawn furniture if it means that my neighbors aren't on unemployment and my town doesn't turn into Methville." Not one person has failed to understand. Not one person has disagreed with the sentiment.
(For supply chain reasons, if for nothing else, it will almost certainly turn out that there is stuff that will go up in price that is both necessary and expensive--though we'll see how many actual NECESSITIES are going to go up in price. By the way, this would all be FAR less painful if the Biden administration hadn't run the money printers at ludicrous speed for the previous 4 years, causing ruinous inflation (which is STILL being lied about), and that purchased us . . . nothing.
It's not obvious how tariffs are inflationary in actual economic sense of the word. The reason inflation both can happen and is to pernicious is that it hits EVERYTHING. It's changing the size of the measuring stick, and you can't escape it because it is universal. But tariffs aren't universal, which means that rather than every price rising, as in inflationary conditions of the growth in money outpacing the growth in stuff, only some prices will rise, and people and firms can adjust their behavior accordingly (that's kind of the point).
So to say that tariffs embed inflation into the American economy is not just wrong, but stupid.
Possibly related: All the worry is about the danger of a LLM "AI" getting smart enough to be confused for a human. Why don't we also worry about the converse: humans getting so stupid they are confused with LLM "AIs"?
Classic. Who "needs" that many dolls? Who "needs" that many guns? Who "needs" a gas stove? Who really "needs" to read literature with out of date racial language?
Nobody needs ANY of this stuff. Get rid of it all!
Unneeded!
(It's shocking how proggy the Trumpers sound. I heard one retarded Trump march out the whole "Constitution isn't a suicide pact" argument. The Trumpers are the new proggies.)
Children truly don't need store-bought toys. They are plenty happy with skipping river stones, or turning a random stick into a gun, truck, or baby doll. They are ecstatic when playing with kitchen pots and pans too. They are thrilled by closets full of old clothes.
Parents love "cute" and let their kids watch cartoons with commercials. Then, they must buy, buy, buy to make them shut up.
You don't really need anything, My toys tend to be more expensive. I don't need another 3D printer. I don't need a tabletop laser cutter. I don't need a compact waterjet. I like to build stuff and these things come in handy. I could make anything with a hacksaw and some files, but I prefer not to.
Will there be shortages on some things? Yes. Will other avenues appear to supply those shortages? They always have. Is there a shortage of eggs? No. Is there a shortage of dolls? No. Will there be a shortage of dolls? Doubtful.
If Trump was (still) on their team the left would be congratulating him on the 'Nudge' and somewhere Cass Sunstein would be shit-eating grinning....
Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore would be turning handsprings.
How's that for a visual?
It's just acknowledging a reasonable expectation. The likely truth. Sometimes a short cigar is just a short cigar. Do people really expect this trade battle to be painless? The fear of sacrifice is how we got into this mess of not being able to supply our own needs. I'm willing to lose it all to save the greatest experiment in human history. What am I going to do with all the extra dolls anyway?
When shortages hit, the Soviets rationed things like toilet paper and bacon. Could the same approach work here?
"Bread Line Bernie" Sanders certainly thinks so, and applauded the bread lines of the old Soviet Union, and has stated his desire to see all all necessities of life in this country distributed at the whim of government functionaries instead of the free market.
I'm okay with rich people living like rich people, regardless of their stated ideologies, just as long as they did not accumulate their wealth while employed by the government. That rubs me the wrong way.
Well, yes, but what about the cronies in their orbit who aren't employed by the government but grow fat on government grants and sweetheart contracts? Spare a Jacobin thought for them too.
The rich don't consume anything but a small part of their wealth. Almost all of it goes into investment, directly or indirectly, to buy heavy equipment for ditch diggers.
You are casting pearls before swine. Leftists are convinced that rich people turn their wealth into gold coins and jewels and $100 bills, fill up a swimming pool with it, and dive in like Scrooge McDuck.
> Parents ... let their kids watch cartoons with commercials.
Like hell they do.
> Then, they must buy, buy, buy to make them shut up.
Like hell they do.
We’re gonna party like it’s 1929.
The point of the tariffs is to alter supply chains for reasons related to our domestic social structure, and national defense. Disruption is inevitable. If the supply chain status quo is great, or disruption is so harmful, someone should make that case in a persuasive way. I'll listen.
Every change in macro Economic policy will have winners and losers. The NYT's refuses (except in a tepid feeble way) to ever report all the "losers" due to Globalism and Mass Immigration. It will however report endlessly how someone is being hurt by immigration restriction, illegal aliens, or Tarriffs.
This is sort of "Joe cant buy a doll for his daughter because of Trump's tarriffs" is just the sort of sentimental dishonest propaganda you'd expect.
Supposedly, 500,000 Iraqis died because of sanctions on Sadam. However stories did the NYT's run about that?
Are "Brown babies" still in "Cages"?
If Heather can make do with two mommies she can get by with two dolls.
Prof. M. Drout said...
"Except that Normals all understand that Trump is talking about the flood of cheap plastic junk from China. "
***************
What a load.
Per AI Claude:
"China's exports to the United States are actually quite diverse and include many high-value products beyond the stereotype of "cheap plastic junk." Here's a breakdown of major categories based on trade data available through my knowledge cutoff:
Top categories of Chinese imports to the US (by value):
Electronics and electrical equipment - Approximately 25-30% of total imports
Computers, smartphones, televisions, circuit boards
This represents the largest category by far
Machinery - About 15-20%
Industrial equipment, appliances, specialized tools
Furniture and household items - Around 10%
Including both high-end and budget options
Textiles and apparel - Approximately 8-10%
Clothing, fabrics, shoes
Toys, games and sports equipment - About 5-7%
This category does include many plastic items, but also sophisticated electronic toys"
**************
Dispute these stats if you will.
Lego is only partially made in China (not sure how much). It is cheap - relatively. Most made in Europe, Mexico and I believe soon to be made in the USA.
Americans are addicted to disposable cheap crap.
However, there is a hidden cost to the Chinese tariffs which increase the price, but no5 significantly. Chemicals. We buy certain chemicals that are part of a final assemble product or component. It adds maybe 2-4%. We buy those chemicals from China because they have no environmental regs, and it is cost prohibitive to meet the regs over in the US.
Hassayamper said... @ 4:29
This is known as the "Scrooge McDuck Fallacy" . It plays well with those that make up the peasant class.
Rocean, you didnt bother to actually google your claim about the NYTimes not running that story. Maybe try that first before making an easily debunked claim.
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