US Politics - A Society in Meltdown

Trump is going to start a trade war with Europe
:popcorn:

TBF he’s right in a way. Ze Germans have a huge (and I mean giant) competitive advantage with the Euro.

Good old US of A home of capitalists and protectionism cc @anon7035031

US starting trade wars
Russia boasting of its arsenal
China just declares President for life

We do live in interesting times tbf. Let’s hope we get through it without any kind of apocalypse.

It’s a very foolish move to start a trade war with Europe, and I suspect Trump will back off this approach.

The problem (and it is not a new one) is China, which has paid zero attention to the concepts of free trade for decades. You cannot have free trade when one side constantly steals intellectual property and produces copycat products, pays no attention to health and safety, manipulates its currency to 25% below its true value, and dumps product at below cost prices when and wherever it feels like it. The problem Europe has with steel is if the US restricts cheap steel imports from China, they will be dumped on Europe instead.

The US passively accepted this situation for decades, driven by lobbying by large corporations who wanted to avail of free labor in China, and politicians and economists blindly supporting “free trade” which was anything but. In the decade from 2001 to 2010, something like 33 million jobs were lost between manufacturing and jobs depending on manufacturing.

Economic myth number one. Free trade makes everyone richer

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The genie is out of the bottle now with China.

Free trade is by far the biggest factor in the development of peaceful societies and the reduction of poverty. Look at the economic records of countries that embraced capitalism and free trade versus those that didn’t, the per capita GDP difference is about X10.

Free trade is by far the biggest factor in the development of peaceful societies and the reduction of poverty? By far? Could anything else at all have been a factor I wonder?

https://youtu.be/xSVqLHghLpw

I didn’t say there weren’t other factors, democracy, scientific discovery, etc.

Free trade between nations is the biggest economic growth factor by far in history. If you think something else is, then fire it up and defend it.

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Hold on now a minute, have you figured out what it is you’re trying to say yet?

Yes, free trade is by far the biggest factor in economic growth, the development of peaceful societies and the reduction in poverty.

Is this too complicated for you?

Those are not all the same thing. Your two posts are completely different, you didn’t seem to realise that, which suggests to me you haven’t a fucking clue what you’re trying to say.

Where did I say they are the same thing? You are very thick, extremely so in fact for someone who self classifies as a top 5 poster.

They are all related. Free trade leads to economic growth and reduction in poverty, nations that rely on each other for trade tend not to go to war (the opposite being protectionism which leads to war).

You have him stumped, mate.

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You made an assertion, I asked you a question about it, you responded with a different assertion.

Have a read back there. Let me know when you’ve figured it out.

Trumps White House in a newscrawl

image

Hard to disagree with any of this.

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Julian knows.

Fairly sure EU already has anti-dumping measures in place for Chinese steel

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There’s no point in even engaging him, at least Sidney can post a coherent argument together on occasion.

Things are about to get Stormy for David Dennison, I mean Donald Trump.

Not only has Ms. Huckabee Sanders effectively admitted that Trump had an affair with the porn star, but it now appears the Trump campaign committed election fraud by using campaign funds to pay her off.

No wonder Melania hates him.