Trump slaps hefty tariffs on solar panels, washing machines

I do not agree with your simplistic, Rush Limbaugh induced world view Robert. That shpeil has made it possible for the uber rich to keep forcing the ones who really do most of the work and pay most of the bills to subsidize them. Most billionaires never created a thing, but rather used the system to swindle the general public.

 

Have they mastered what you have not mastered? By Bilked, name what Obama did in his 8 years to end it. How can you stop Congress given this could only take place with permission by the Democrats. This would be a long standing system. Democrats since 1933 have had congress for much of the time. Republicans seldom have congress.

The news media is furiously whipping the nation up to put Democrats back in power of the Congress. They know if you control Congress, which the republicans still can't control, you essentially run the nation.

 

I am proud of myself if you see Rush Limbaugh in my comments. See, that is one man I do not listen to nor know what he says.

Principles to be solid, such as mine are, must be simple in nature or they are not understood by Democrats. I think you must understand what you take from one person, when returned to them, is no break, it restores them to their natural state. How would you feel hearing some no taxpayer claim any of your deductions is a break for the rich? They don't define rich as you do. To them, any person paying 28 percent to just the Feds is by definition rich. So what you got, nobody helped you get. No rich man formed the business nor factory for you to work for?

 

What was the swindle of Bill Gates? Oprah Winfrey? Gary Cohn? Warren Buffett? Harvey Firestone? Henry Ford?

 

Seems like it would be better for the environment if the more heavily environmentally regulated US, instead of China, manufactured more of the world's environmentally-friendly products...you know, seeing how China is a filthy polluted shithole that only pays lip service to clean manufacturing practices and toothless agreements. There's some irony there.

 

I would like to introduce Charles Atlas.

Most of you have never heard of him nor care who he is.

I want him used as a metaphor.

He made a lot of money featuring strength of the human body.

China is like Charles Atlas. China comes to us with essential powers we do not have. They own the land. You can't tax government lands. So we tax lands, they do not.

The populace can't change governments. Notice you do not read about election results where the public has a say. They simply have no say so over government.

We are not run by a government such as theirs. When a factory is built in the USA, a deep environmental impact study must first happen. What we do in a year, they take a day.

They control velocity of money far better than we control it in this country. This velocity is why Trump will end up collecting record sums of taxes, not what he did that impacts on China.

 

China sells to the USA primarily for the same reason I sell homes to more affluent people. We have the cash.

 

That is NOT clean energy. Just google China solar panel pollution. There is no way in hell that any reasonably educated person could possibly claim that solar panels produced in China are clean in any way shape or form. They are toxic and are causing massive pollution issues in China and the world as well since much of that stuff gets dumped into the oceans.

 

Wrong again. You said that the tit-for-tat wasn't guaranteed. That's a separate issue from the dead weight loss.

No one said it was.

As it relates to tariffs and other forms of government protectionism, dead weight loss is a form of opportunity cost. Remember how I (and every economist since Adam Smith) said that trade creates wealth? Well, in simple terms, dead weight loss refers to the fact that by interrupting trade, you are interrupting that wealth generation.

When I'm able to buy solar panels at a cheaper price, I'm able to spend that money on other things. That leads to wealth generation. When you raise the prices with tariffs, I'm no longer able to spend that extra money on other things. That's an opportunity cost. You are destroying the wealth that would have been created if you had just let me trade freely. That's dead weight loss as it relates to tariffs and other forms of protectionism. The only way you can have a tariff without this loss is if the tariff doesn't increase my costs . . . which would mean a tariff that doesn't even actually work or accomplish what it set out to. The only way you can have a tariff without dead weight loss would be if you institute a tariff that just HAPPENS to increase the costs by exactly the amount that the free market was about to rise to on its own anyway.

The problem being that tariffs are, in and of themselves, and inefficiency. And this isn't even getting into all of the price signaling problems created when the government tries interfering with market prices through things like tariffs.

Trying to raise tariffs to "save" manufacturing jobs is as economically "productive" as destroying every ATM to try to save bank teller jobs. Or think of how many carriage driver jobs we could create by setting all of our cars on fire! Outlaw sewing machines and we can create more jobs for hand stitchers!

Trade creates wealth. Wealth creates jobs. You want more jobs here? Don't restrict trade. Yes, you will lose some specific jobs, but the overall number of jobs here will rise. That's the mistake protectionists always make: sacrificing net wealth and job growth in order to try to advantage a specific special interest group -- ending up with less overall wealth and fewer overall jobs by trying to save manufacturing jobs for example.

I'll say again, and you have yet to address this fact, trade creates wealth. Here's an intro to that concept:

 

Bullying is not a smart strategy but it does show off the big balls America has. It is so much idiotic fringe right bullshit. AMERICA AINT THE EVIL FRIGGIN EMPIRE. Alll americans should be jumpin' for sheer joy to know that the Department of Defences is on the friggin case and this russian hoax thing is about to get REAL uncomfortable for the Russians REGARDLESS of the cluelessness of the current CiC.

THE WIELDING OF SOFT POWER is a triad of The president, the Military, the Diplomats. The pres has the voice of america on the world stage. The military commands the battlespace against all foreign adversaries and defense of their threats to the homeland. And then there's, the DIPLOMATS who manage america's international relations which includes TRADE RELATIONS and in support of americans world wide because there are so many american owned multi nationals all around the world reaping the rewards of greatness - go figure.

This alpha male dick swinging is not the smart play. Be Vigilant and deligent, but only pull out the belligerent when its necessary. BUt when you do pull out the belligerent - NOBODY dicks with America and gets away with it. Except if your're the current president of the united states for some strange reason. And this president is in the process of gutting the state department. odd that, wot?

The Russian "lets be friends" as been replaced by the corruption of the kleptocracy. Go figure.

 

Well you posted it so people figured this was going to be another one of your anti-Trump posts.

 

how about we say no tax on the first 100k earned, then a tax on money earned over that? a compromise....

 

I smell price increases not job increases.

 

No I was responding tomapost I did not post that stuff.

 

Yes Inheard about Samsung. Still they are foreign companies.

 

Solar panels manufaured in China come at a high environmental cost.

Solar Energy Isn’t Always as Green as You Think
Do cheaper photovoltaics providing solar energy come with a higher environmental price tag?
Posted 13 Nov 2014 | 16:00 GMT
By DUSTIN MULVANEY

"....profiled a Chinese polysilicon facility owned by Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., located near the Yellow River in the country’s Henan province. This facility supplied polysilicon to Suntech Power Holdings, at the time the world’s largest solar-cell manufacturer, as well as to several other high-profile photovoltaics companies.

The reporters found that the company was dumping silicon tetrachloride waste on neighboring fields instead of investing in equipment that could reprocess it, rendering those fields useless for growing crops and inflaming the eyes and throats of nearby residents. And the article suggested that the company was not alone in this practice."

https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think

https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/chinas-solar-panel-production-comes-at-a-dirty-cost/

http://www.anl.gov/articles/solar-panel-manufacturing-greener-europe-china-study-says

ADD worker safety laws, workmans comp, social security, unemployment insurance, worker's hours limits and overtime pay etc. the 30% sounds necessary for equal trade necessary to protect workers an the environment.

 

If the aim is to crash alternative energy then the tariff would not be good.

 

But if we reverse more of Obama's illegal environmental regulations we will be able to produce the panels cheaper. Who cares about the environment !

 

But cheap solar panels from China will induce more people to buy them, and more people buying them will be good for the environment!

Try as the Utopianists may, there's no such thing as a free lunch. not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

 

This is why heavy taxes on the rich are counter productive.

 

Related in some ways, yes.

 

Wow - so these tariffs are ALL woof and no purpose!!

 

No, Robert - we should not go socialist no mater what you say here.

 

I agree that's a problem.

 

All debts are paid, so if the consumer isn’t paying “full price” then who is? I know, it’s tax payers, which ticks me off personally.