Depressing 1930s chart shows what happened the last time we had Trump-like trade policy
In his efforts to capitalize on voter discontent, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cranked up his anti-trade rhetoric to appeal to workers who have seen their jobs move overseas.
Among other things, Trump has proposed imposing a steep tariff on products made in China and Mexico.
Unfortunately, there are many more things wrong with tariffs than there are right. To begin with it isn't exactly obvious if imposing tariffs on China and Mexico would bring jobs to the US. Rather, companies seeking these manufacturing cost advantages are like to just move production to one of the many other low-cost countries in the developing world.
Whatever the case, such a protectionist trade policy would cause the cost of production to go up, which means the prices for finished goods would most likely go up for consumers. In other words, no one really wins with tariffs.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-trade-protectionism-tariffs-1930-smoot-hawley-tariff-act-stocks-182046081.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
In this piece, there are many examples of journalistic malfeasance:
First, the sole measure of something being "good" being used by this writer seems to be the stock market, which has been in a fantasy bubble for almost ten years now. Stocks are already way overpriced, and that helps the parasite class increase their tax-free income since most of their compensation is now in stock options. If stock prices fall, it won't be because of adopting fair trade policies.
Second, the graphs in the piece cover periods when there were some other things going on that might play a role, like a world war and the after effects of the crash of '29 which, not coincidentally, was the result of another stock price bubble.
Third, the entire commentary simply regurgitates the conservative mantra that labor is bad and the only future is a race to the bottom with no controls of any kind be they tariffs or anything else.
Amusingly, in the last couple of paragraphs, he does halfheartedly admit that fair trade really plays little or no role in what is shown in any of his "charts" or, for that matter, anything he is talking about.
What's missing, of course, are the charts that matter, and those show quite clearly that properly-implemented import tariffs (i.e., real "fair trade" policies"
along with fair tax policies that make the parasite class pay their fair share of taxes perfectly coincides with the industrial, economic and general health of the country.