Quite a spin, spin doctor.
Bob Kasprak==========================
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Russell <ericprussell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, Jul 9, 2021 11:20 am
Subject: [uupretirees] Re: Fwd: The trade war and why it is a mistake
#yiv9462477665 P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}No, I did not miss the point.
Our largest export to China has been air for many years, along with empty cargo
containers. One of the reasons for this balance advantaging China is that we
have been "sharing" [read: giving away] our trade and manufacturing secrets as
part of our global trade agreements. Yes, both Republicans and Democrats have
helped this along.The bean counters have long understood that it is cheaper to
offshore American jobs than to allow our labor costs and safety regulations
here to have an effect on our manufacturing. On the other hand, the EU, Japan
and Korea seem to understand that it makes sense to have true partnerships and
make things here.Unemployed people don't purchase large ticket items. Neither
do checkout kiosks or EZ Pass readers. A service economy, even though it does
not produce anything, keeps people employed. Our population needs to be more
than clerks and service people, though.We were the leaders in technology and
innovation, as well as manufacturing. We can be again, even without putting up
walls. We need investment in infrastructure at all levels to become
competitive again. Infrastructure is more than roads, sewers and bridges.I
spoke with my Congressman on Tuesday. The next infrastructure bill will
include subsidies and loans for charging stations for electric
vehicles--including trucks. Yes, everything is interconnected. In order to
move forward, we have to invest in the future.EricFrom:
uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of hils. <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 9, 2021 10:40 AM
To: uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [uupretirees] Re: Fwd: The trade war and why it is a mistake You seem
to miss the point that they used to be filled with goods from his country this
country under Trump.
Bob Kasprak==================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Russell <ericprussell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; crinum
<crinum@xxxxxxxx>; Simons, William <William.Simons@xxxxxxxxxxx>; Bill
Scheuerman <bscheuerm@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Jul 8, 2021 9:17 pm
Subject: [uupretirees] Re: Fwd: The trade war and why it is a mistake
If you have taken the NJ Turnpike past Port Newark, you have seen piles to
empty containers. It does not generally pay to ship empty containers from the
East Coast back to China. There have been quite a few reports over the years
that the largest export from the US to China by volume has been cargo
containers of air.Eric
From: uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of hils. <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 8, 2021 8:28 PM
To: uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <uupretirees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [uupretirees] Fwd: The trade war and why it is a mistake I have heard
from friends in San Francisco that when Trump was President container ships
went back to China with loaded containers yet since Biden has been President
they are going back to China empty?
The US-China Trade War Is Still Happening – The Diplomat
Bon Kasprak
======================================
Increasing tariffs on things producers send to us simply means that the people
pay more for the same products. Telling manufacturers to make things at home
to compete with embargoed products means that we produce less. Computer chips
anyone? Have some dip with that. Eric
OPINIONPAUL KRUGMAN
The Trumpian Roots of the Chip Crisis
July 8, 2021, 7:00 p.m. ETCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
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By Paul KrugmanOpinion ColumnistWhat’s the current state of the U.S. economy? A
quick summary might be “booming with bottlenecks.”And some of those bottlenecks
reflect the mess created by Donald Trump’s trade policy.Where we are now:
Employment is growing at a rate we haven’t seen since 1984. So, probably, is
gross domestic product, although we don’t yet have an official estimate for the
second quarter. We are, however, suffering from shortages of many items, which
are crimping production in some areas and leading to sharp price increases in
others.Some of these shortages are getting resolved. For example, two months
ago, lumber cost almost four times as much as it did before the Covid-19
pandemic; since then, its price has fallen more than 50 percent. Other
bottlenecks, however, seem more persistent. World trade is being held back by
an inadequate supply of standard-size shipping containers — the ubiquitous
boxes that carry almost everything, because they can be lifted directly from
the decks of ships onto railroad cars and truck beds — and experts expect the
shortage to last at least until late this year.And there’s another bottleneck
that may be an even bigger deal than the container shortage: a global shortage
of semiconductor chips.ADVERTISEMENTContinue reading the main storyYou see,
these days almost everything contains silicon chips. So an insufficient supply
of chips is a problem not just for producers of computers and smartphones;
there are chips in just about all durable goods, including household appliances
and, crucially, cars.As a result, the chip shortage has had large and perhaps
unexpected ramifications. Lack of chips is limiting production of automobiles,
leading some people to buy used cars instead. And soaring used-car prices are a
surprisingly big contributor to inflation — in fact, they accounted for about a
third of May’s total rise in consumer prices.So why are we facing a
semiconductor shortage? Part of the answer is that the pandemic created a weird
business cycle. People couldn’t go out to eat, so they remodeled their
kitchens, and they couldn’t go to the gym, so they bought Pelotons. So demand
for services is still depressed, while demand for goods has soared. And as I
said, practically every physical good now has a chip in it.But as Chad Bown of
the Peterson Institute for International Economics documents in an important
new article, the Trump administration’s trade policy made the situation much
worse.When Trump took us into a trade war with China, there was clearly a lot
he and his advisers failed to understand about modern world trade. Among other
things, they didn’t seem to grasp that modern trade consists not of simple
exchanges of goods — they sell us cars, we sell them aircraft — but of complex
supply chains, in which the production of a given item often involves
activities spread across the globe.
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Continue reading the main storyADVERTISEMENTContinue reading the main
storyGiven this reality, the structure of the Trump tariffs was, well, stupid:
They focused mainly on intermediate inputs like semiconductors and capital
equipment, which American companies need to compete in the world market. As a
result, multiple studies have found, the tariffs actually reduced U.S.
manufacturing employment.But Trump’s trade policy wasn’t just poorly conceived.
It was also erratic. Nobody knew which products might face new tariffs or
whether the tariffs he had imposed would remain in place. And in high
technology, especially semiconductors, Trump began imposing export
restrictions, again in an erratic fashion (and with an apparent lack of
awareness that, in many cases, China could simply turn to other suppliers).Paul
Krugman’s Newsletter Get a better understanding of the economy — and an even
deeper look at what’s on Paul’s mind. Get it.As I wrote at the time, the
problem was less that Trump was a self-proclaimed Tariff Man than that he was a
capricious, unpredictable Tariff Man. And this messed up business planning,
especially in semiconductors.Consider foreign producers selling into the U.S.
market. Such producers had little incentive to add capacity, because for all
they knew, they might suddenly face high tariffs. But U.S. producers also had
little incentive to invest, because for all they knew, the tariff protection
they were relying on might go away overnight — or they might abruptly find
themselves barred from selling into foreign markets.Basically, international
supply chains don’t work very well when the policies of one of the world’s key
economies are governed by the whims of a leader who gets his ideas from cable
TV.Notice that I’m not being a free-trade purist here. There’s a good case for
interventionist government policy to ensure reliable supply chains — and the
Biden administration is moving in that direction. It’s important, however, that
this policy be designed by people who understand the issues and that the rules
of the game be clear enough to let businesses plan.ADVERTISEMENTContinue
reading the main storyIn other words, we need a policymaking style that’s the
opposite of what we had in the previous administration.For what it’s worth, I
don’t think bad policy is the main cause of the bottlenecks we’re experiencing,
nor do I believe that these bottlenecks will prevent a rapid economic recovery.
But Trump’s tantrum-based trade policy did real damage, and we’re still paying
the price.
