05-25-2021, 11:47 AM
(05-25-2021, 11:13 AM)Au165 Wrote: The short answer is no, tariffs do not really work in bringing back jobs it is more of a political move than an effective tool for job creation. They can be used to fight predatory pricing by other countries looking to destabilize economies but the end result isn't really more jobs. Even beyond just the global nature of today's economy, moving it away from China sounds good but the reality is so many of the rare earth metals and raw materials in a wide variety of the goods we consume come from China as they are simply the world leaders in a lot of those items. Even if you moved the manufacturing of the final products away from them to other countries or even here, in the end, you'd still almost have to play with China to get raw materials at the scale we need.
No, that is a straight pass-through back to consumers. Essentially the tariff cost is getting passed back to consumers by raising the price of the good. The general idea of tariffs is that they raise the price of the foreign product enough that the consumer buys the cheaper, and normally local, alternative. The issue often is that there aren't local options to choose from instead, or the foreign option even after the tariff price increase is still lower than the local option. In both cases, the foreign manufacture simply passes the cost back to the consumer while not "eating" it so they actually take little to no penalty from it but the consumer does.
I agree China is abhorrent in terms of its human rights violations and other issues. The reality though is China's dominant role in a global economy will not be unseated through tariffs. China is about the only thing that can derail China as their geographical advantage in terms of raw materials, along with their state forced slave wages to make them a "necessary evil" to most of the world hence why there has been little actually done about their human rights issues. There is a belief that Africa could potentially provide an alternative but because of the fractured nature of the content with a lot of destabilized governments, it is hard to put too much of your eggs in that basket. Interestingly enough, China recognizing that potential has actually invested a lot in "owning" Africa in an attempt to preemptively cut off future competition.
Well written post.
Do you feel a two pronged approach with both tarrifs and public pressure could help slowly move production?
The public pressure I'm speaking of would be the result of increased discussion leading ultimately to education, and a spotlight being placed on ills of buying "Chinese"?
As I'm writing this I releazing that shifting the mindset of the average consumer is perhaps too much to ask. But there are enough talking points that exist in the debate that I think it would be helpful if we spent more time educating people on them. Namely the treatment of workers, human rights violations, and pollution.
We spend so much time already discussing issues that go hand in hand with these. Ironic isnt even the word to describe the people that are wearing Nikes talking about social issues and the environment.
I'm sure what I'm suggesting is a pipe dream. People want products the cheapest they can get them, and unforunately we have a materialistic society that consumes entirely way too much bs. But it sure would be great if people took a little bit of time thinking about what it is exactly they need, and where their dollars are going.
Just speaking for myself, I'd gladly pay a little more to buy more from Korea, or India, or Vietnam, or Thailand, or Myramar, or Africa, or wherever. It doesn't have to be American. I just don't want it coming from there.
PS I am aware that I'm probably writing this post on a laptop that is largely sources from China. The irony isn't lost on me.
