It's the economy, stupid.

[Vrede too]

Why aren't more people - even trumper repugs - saying widespread tariffs are a bad stupid idea? The purpose of a tariff is to protect vital industries, not to raise prices on everything that crosses the border. If you've got a "backbone" industry, like steel and cars used to be, and you want to give it an advantage over international competitors, you can enact a tariff. But - big but - if you don't have that industry, you've got nothing to protect and you're stepping on your own dick to arbitrarily raise the prices for consumers. The US used to have a booming textile industry, and now it doesn't. It doesn't have one not because of international competition per se, but because American companies moved their production elsewhere. Tariffs wouldn't have helped in that case. What possible value comes from charging a tariff on international goods that you don't even make here anyway? Let's say the San Diego Zoo wants Pandas, which it did. They can't order one up from Kansas somewhere - Pandas are only in China. So if you want a Panda, you have to get a Chinese Panda and you have to pretty much agree to whatever terms are offered because you need that Panda more than China needs to let you have it. And it's somehow of value to anyone for the US government to tag an additional 50-100-whatever percent tariff on the Panda just because it came from China? OK, so I made up the Panda tariff part because we had our Pandas before Trump had the chance to tariff them, but the principle is the same. Unless you've got a compelling reason to protect a vital industry from real competitive risk, tariffs are crazy.

Not saying that I agree, but TACO's rationale is that these tariffs are a response to trade deficits, not about protecting particular industries.

[O Really]

Not saying that I agree, but TACO's rationale is that these tariffs are a response to trade deficits, not about protecting particular industries.

Well he may say that, but that doesn't mean it works or is a reasonable solution, or even that "trade deficit" is even inherently bad.

[Vrede too]

Not saying that I agree, but TACO's rationale is that these tariffs are a response to trade deficits, not about protecting particular industries.

Well he may say that, but that doesn't mean it works or is a reasonable solution, or even that "trade deficit" is even inherently bad.

All true.

Remember Nixon? Remember Watergate? Remember Agnew? Remember the endless bombing of Vietnam? Remember the Arab oil embargo? Ah, good times. Now we can relive those feelings:

The U.S. dollar has fallen at the fastest clip since 1973. Here's what that means.

... Over the past six months, the dollar has declined more than 10% compared with a basket of currencies from the U.S.’ major trading partners — something it has not done since 1973. Today, it sits at a three-year low.

The simplest explanation for the decline is that global investors now expect the U.S. economy to no longer outperform the rest of the world as a result of Trump’s tariffs and worsening fiscal issues. Even with U.S. stocks returning to record highs, the return on other countries’ equities has been even stronger. Meanwhile the return on lending to the U.S. is expected to decline as growth here slows.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Many, including members of Trump’s own Cabinet, assumed his tariffs strategy would strengthen the value of the dollar relative to foreign currencies. The thinking behind it was that as American consumers began to purchase fewer foreign goods, those other countries’ currencies would weaken relative to the dollar.

Instead, the opposite has occurred. U.S. growth prospects have weakened — in part because of Trump’s tariffs. That has made U.S. debt relatively less attractive for foreign investors, especially compared with the returns on lending to other countries, like Germany and Japan, that are now expected to experience higher growth.

We already know that Trump’s own Cabinet are idiots.

... At home, a bigger concern is inflation, and lost purchasing power for U.S. consumers and businesses, who still remain heavily reliant on imports. Until America is able to sustainably produce more goods on its own at higher volumes, purchasing power will decline as it becomes relatively more expensive to import goods from abroad.

... A weaker dollar, he said, could weigh on foreign investors’ willingness to buy U.S. financial assets, “which are so critical to supporting U.S. household balance sheets.”

“An emerging theme in asset management is the rotation out of US assets into Europe as investors seek non-US exposure,” Bank of America’s Hubert Lam and Christiane Holstein said in a late June note. “Sentiment toward US markets has turned negative due to mounting concerns over protectionist trade measures, abrupt policy shifts, a rising deficit, and a proposal for taxes targeting foreign investors in the US.”

“As such, investors are starting to diversify out of the US in both public and private markets,” they said.

... But assuming U.S. growth does weaken, the Federal Reserve will likely start cutting interest rates, further making U.S. financial assets less attractive to outside investors. That will cause the value of the dollar to decline even further, making it even more expensive to buy goods from abroad.

“It’s a doom loop,” said Danny Dayan, an investor and former hedge fund manager....

Thanks, MAGAts.

[O Really]

Not saying that I agree, but TACO's rationale is that these tariffs are a response to trade deficits, not about protecting particular industries.

Well he may say that, but that doesn't mean it works or is a reasonable solution, or even that "trade deficit" is even inherently bad.

All true.

Remember Nixon? Remember Watergate? Remember Agnew? Remember the endless bombing of Vietnam? Remember the Arab oil embargo? Ah, good times. Now we can relive those feelings:

Yeah, I remember all that. I also see that even the worst of any "high crimes and misdemeanors" or just plain corruption in the past pales in comparison to any garden variety day in Trumpland.

[GoCubsGo]

Monday.

[GoCubsGo]

Monday.

Apparently he sent out a bunch more of these letters today.