President Trump

A little more on why the tariffs are total nonsense.

I bet we more or less agree on tariffs and protectionism in general. But I do want to pop off a bit and say that targeted tariffs are often a by-product of the asymmetrical political power given to certain regions by the electoral system. This is (in part) a downside to giving specific areas more say in elections.

That classic attempted steel tariff by bush (make PA ) is being brought up again, where the EU responded with tariff on oranges (make Florida ). But the fact that the incentives were so apparent and manipulable bug me.

(To the bush administration's credit, I've been reading that his former staff is saying the tariff was a mistake and trump shouldn't do it)

While I agree that the electoral college may increase how often something like this happens, it seems to happen pretty regularly for other reasons, too (close votes in Congress necessitating special concessions, party in power trying to pay back some union or interest group), so I assume the effect is marginal. But point taken.

Re: the Bush comparison. Yeah, there are two huge distinctions between what Bush did and what Trump's proposing. First, as you already alluded to, is that we have the benefit of having already tried it and can learn from it, and the people involved now say it was a bad idea (and, indeed, had already concluded that by the following year).

The second is that it was a mix of a concession to political reality and a bargaining chip to secure more free trade in general. Neither is the case here. Trump is not trying to increase free trade, and he's not doing this because he has to. It's totally elective, and completely about restricting trade.

Yeah, agree that it's similar to a special interest group, and that tariffs would still occur regardless of electoral college.

Thanks for the link, that was pretty informative actually. When the example is used in classes on trade it's to highlight the function as a retaliatory gesture and not the domestic political situation (which I don't blame the course for, because that doesn't matter for the example to work). But it didn't provide that context of basically appeasing protectionists for a (possibly) large gain of free trade, appreciated.

See, the only point I see in favor of tariffs is to deliberately punish the international economies of other countries. Why don't we do that to Mexico instead of building a fricken' wall?

Why are we playing best buds with a government which apparently runs their country so ******* poorly that it either A.) drives people to flee across our borders or B.) just lets other countries walk across their lawn to get to ours?

If Mexico is a big enough problem to build a giant ****-off wall, why aren't we holding them to task?

"Solve your immigration problem, and we lift the tariff."

This seems to me to be a very obvious method of getting different countries to coalesce into legal harmony with each other.

__________________
Movie Reviews | Anime Reviews
Top 100 Action Movie Countdown (2015): List | Thread
"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

It punishes us as much or more than the people we're allegedly punishing. Rhetoric about trade deficits seems to forget that all transactions involve two parties: they think "we're punishing foreign steel sellers" but don't think "we're punishing domestic steel buyers."

Or, put another way:

I agree that the imposition of tariffs will be Trump's first yuuuuuge economic mistake.

Not only does this not make economic sense, but maybe both sides of the aisle will finally wake up and realize the executive branch has usurped too much power over the past two decades and reel the imperial presidency in (not holding my breath). Only Congress should have the authority to impose tariffs, not the president.

Yes, yes, yes. Please.

There's a horrible executive overreach arms race going on where, if the other guys engaged in it, it only feels fair that it's our turn now, and somebody needs to break that cycle. And it should be conservatives, and it should be now.

And to my liberal friends, every time you cheered on something Obama did with an executive order, you should know that you were cheering the precedent that's letting Trump do a lot of these things now. When you advocate for a policy or program, start imagining what it might be like when someone you don't agree with has control of it.

Start caring about process and not just results.

Yeah but our policies REALLY matter. If you were smart you would realize that.

__________________
Letterboxd

The executive orders wiki is awesome, i'm going to spend a lot of time here. FDR made 3728 Closest to him was Woodrow with 1803. Even considering the length of his presidency that's insanity, not surprising from the Supreme Court packer though. Obama made less than Clinton and Bush II, that's surprising to me as often as i heard about Obama's executive orders i figured he probably had the most since FDR who i already figured had the most because of course.

That's because the objection isn't really about the number of orders, but whether or not they reach beyond the President's authority. Technically a President could issue just one that oversteps their bounds, and be compared unfavorably to another who issued 20,000 that didn't.

Yes, I'm sure Bush and Clinton did the same, and Trump will follow, but Obama seemed to use executive orders as a way to sidestep legislation when the Democrats lost the majority.

I think my awareness of executive orders being in relation to Obama has more to do with him becoming President when i was 15 meaning he was (now Trump obviously) President pretty much the whole time i was politically aware, i'm sure there was plenty of complaints about Bush's and every President before his use of them, i'm aware of some controversial historical ones as i'm interested in the history of the US Presidency i just wasn't aware of how often it was used since there's a few made a big deal of.

I'll have to read both Obama's and Bush II's executive orders to see if i agree with you, and i'm definitely going to do that like i said the executive orders wiki is awesome.

Obviously if i think one is significant i'll look beyond wiki haha.

That makes a lot of sense, yeah.

I'd never heard of it before, I don't think! Cool. I'll check it out. Thanks.

FWIW, I wasn't arguing that Obama overreached compared to Bush II (I'd probably end up there based on memory, but I'd definitely want to read more before making that kind of claim). Just saying that the scope is the thing to consider when weighing it, rather than the sheer number.

But regardless of which President or party is generally worse, it's definitely something all modern Presidents seem to avail themselves of sometimes, and it needs to stop. It requires conservatives refusing to take their "turn" at it and liberals caring more about precedent than short-term policy or cultural war victories, probably at the same time. Needless to say, I'm not optimistic.

I was just talking about the wikipedia page listing them not some usexecutiveorders.wikia.com haha. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ecutive_orders

Yeah, i know you're always fair and yield to facts on this sort of thing. I think you probably remember i'm not a fan of Obama at all so i'm not entering this biased and i understand overreach is the issue not whether i personally agree with the order or not.

Yeah, it'll never change in any not run by a brutal dictatorship country ever.

So... Trump and Kim Jong Un are now supposed to actually meet!
I hope they sit down and watch Threads (1984) together!

Why not "Hell in the Pacific"?

They need to chum up together and see A Boy and His Dog (1975), even the movie poster is apt.

Yeah, everyone should watch threads.