Robert Lighthizer saying that tarriffs are the only way to bring back the middle class.

[Raynine]

https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-bob-lighthizer

The elites sold out the middle class to enrich themselves. It isn't hard to see how we got here. Getting back will be hard but Trump is at least looking for a way to bring it back.

 

[1srelluc]

Well, there are some happy workers in NC today after a Hoser furniture company said they will move their remaining operations to NC leaving 150 Hosers with no jobs.

 

[Concerned American]

Well, there are some happy workers in NC today after a Hoser furniture company said they will move their remaining operations to NC leaving 150 Hosers with no jobs.

Too bad Donald H the Canadian duck didn't work for them.

 

[Care4all]

The video is over an hour....

 What's the bottom line??

 

[shockedcanadian]

https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-bob-lighthizer

The elites sold out the middle class to enrich themselves. It isn't hard to see how we got here. Getting back will be hard but Trump is at least looking for a way to bring it back.

It is the only manner because foreign nations are cheating in ways Americans wouldn't understand BEYOND tariffs alone.

Canadians are no exception to this as I had to blow the whistle on. Abusers in Canada felt insulated from any recourse since they have greased palms and purchased plenty of loyalty in the U.S.

Unfortunately, as with the rest of the world; they couldn't prepare for the whirlwind that was Trump. They never expected an outsider would ever become president and now the counter measures of the U.S designed to bring back the working class MUST occur.

If not you will follow so many of the other declining nations that have little innovation but plenty of policing activities against their citizens.

 

[Care4all]

Is the only way to solve this through the higher prices and tariff inflation on the working class's shoulders?

 

[Concerned American]

Is the only way to solve this through the higher prices and tariff inflation on the working class's shoulders?

Buy American and you don't have to worry about tariff inflation. As for the working class' shoulders---Who do you think it already rests on? The working class is who pays the taxes that support debt service 50% of the budget goes to. Pay down the debt and it is amazing what can be done with the $$$ that currently go to debt service.

 

[Care4all]

Buy American and you don't have to worry about tariff inflation. As for the working class' shoulders---Who do you think it already rests on? The working class is who pays the taxes that support debt service 50% of the budget goes to. Pay down the debt and it is amazing what can be done with the $$$ that currently go to debt service.

There are a gazillion things that are no longer made here, in America and there is no choice.

You do know this, no???

So the working class's shoulders .... are adding to their own tax burden to pay down the debt with the higher tariff taxes on the products they buy? What extra is the wealthiest 1% getting hit with in tax burden to pay down the debt?

 

[Concerned American]

So the working class's shoulders .... are adding to their own tax burden to pay down the debt with the higher tariff taxes on the products they buy?

They are adding to the debt by buying foreign goods. When you run up debt in your household, do you expect someone else to pay it down?

 

[Care4all]

They are adding to the debt by buying foreign goods. When you run up debt in your household, do you expect someone else to pay it down?

They are buying foreign goods because American manufacturers moved their manufacturing base, overseas.....

NOT because of the consumer's own doing!!!

 

[multivita-man]

The video is over an hour....

 What's the bottom line??

Haven't watched it, but have read and watched a lot of Lighthizer and other economists familiar with his thinking.

Basically, the rationale for tariffs is that the current US-sponsored system of trade is bad for American workers. We create artificially high levels of debt through a set of policies that encourages outsourcing of production, jobs, and supply to trading partners overseas, who complete transactions, create a supply of US dollars abroad, create more demand for dollars (which we print) through increased trade, and create more jobs abroad. Our trading partners then use US dollars to purchase US assets such as US real estate or shares in US companies.

Asset holders in the US (i.e. people with retirement accounts, real estate, and other possessions) manage to do okay because assets appreciate in value, but for people without assets, their wages stagnate while their living costs increase.

The thinking is that tariffs are needed to shock the global economy out of its current design and into a new system of smaller multilateral trade in which the US can use its levers of power to bring back production to the US and create more jobs and more supply.

 

[Care4all]

Haven't watched it, but have read and watched a lot of Lighthizer and other economists familiar with his thinking.

Basically, the rationale for tariffs is that the current US-sponsored system of trade is bad for American workers. We create artificially high levels of debt through a set of policies that encourages outsourcing of production, jobs, and supply to trading partners overseas, who complete transactions, create a supply of US dollars abroad, create more demand for dollars (which we print) through increased trade, and create more jobs abroad. Our trading partners then use US dollars to purchase US assets such as US real estate or shares in US companies.

Asset holders in the US (i.e. people with retirement accounts, real estate, and other possessions) manage to do okay because assets appreciate in value, but for people without assets, their wages stagnate while their living costs increase.

The thinking is that tariffs are needed to shock the global economy out of its current design and into a new system of smaller multilateral trade in which the US can use its levers of power to bring back production to the US and create more jobs and more supply.

I understand all of this idea.....



-But it will take years and years to work, to fully come in to fruition, if then....moving factories back to the USA is a long term venture, which results in inflationary prices for years, forever really.

By the time it actually works in our favor with higher paid jobs and wages to afford the higher tariff prices incorporated in to the price of our goods, will be a decade or two, depending on the industry and the time needed to fully move back with building the factories and assembly lines....and even then it likely will be automation/or A/I. Then we don't benefit at all with the suffering through our higher prices and tariff taxes paid by us.

I fear that it won't bring the jobs back..... A/I and automation is the future for manufacturing.....

So why does it help us peon citizens in this age?

 

[initforme]

As the factories come back so will unionization which will help.

 

[Care4all]

As the factories come back so will unionization which will help.

But if they are spending the money to build their factories here from scratch, they are going to invest in the newest technology (A/I or automation) for their industry that could bring them more profits long-term vs. the higher costs in hourly pay for American workers (vs. someone like a Chinese worker), and their added payroll tax cost.

I think we are too late....the whole thing could have worked maybe 20 + years ago...today, we humans in America are costly, only because things are really expensive even with the manufacturers using cheap labor overseas and it takes more money just to keep us afloat and head barely above water! And that's with both adults working!

Let alone to have a decent way of life with paying ones way, saving for retirement, taking at least one family vacation a year, help with college for your kids or help with a used car for them so they can get a job....that's simply a middle of the road middle class life, when America was Great!

A/I or automation advances in today's world, are cheaper than we are in the long run and this will drive the manufacturers and businesses to invest in it, and not us.

This is the reality, of today and in our future...sadly!

 

[hadit]

They are buying foreign goods because American manufacturers moved their manufacturing base, overseas.....

NOT because of the consumer's own doing!!!

The manufacturers moved manufacturing overseas because they knew the consumer would NEVER insist on paying higher prices if they kept it here. Had there been a strong movement of American consumers purchasing only higher priced American made products, we'd still be making them here.

 

[initforme]

The wealthy gap is only going to widen. Don't think it matters who's in charge. The problem is those on the bottom don't get to run anything.

 

[Care4all]

The manufacturers moved manufacturing overseas because they knew the consumer would NEVER insist on paying higher prices if they kept it here. Had there been a strong movement of American consumers purchasing only higher priced American made products, we'd still be making them here.

The catalyst was Walmart, nationwide and spreading. Driving American made product stores like mom and pops to go out of business, because they could never reach the container minimum to ship cheaply, like Wal-Mart could so stocking your goods locally made, was the only means to get inventory goods in the smaller quantities you needed...eventually, the cheaper price did win out....but it was a process...other discount chains like target could not compete unless they too manufactured overseas and so on and so forth.

The original betrayal, was Wal-Mart....
Along with our govt for seeking the damn trade agreement, with China... under the guise of it making capitalism a replacement for their communism, which never happened!

 

[Raynine]

I understand all of this idea.....



-But it will take years and years to work, to fully come in to fruition, if then....moving factories back to the USA is a long term venture, which results in inflationary prices for years, forever really.

By the time it actually works in our favor with higher paid jobs and wages to afford the higher tariff prices incorporated in to the price of our goods, will be a decade or two, depending on the industry and the time needed to fully move back with building the factories and assembly lines....and even then it likely will be automation/or A/I. Then we don't benefit at all with the suffering through our higher prices and tariff taxes paid by us.

I fear that it won't bring the jobs back..... A/I and automation is the future for manufacturing.....

So why does it help us peon citizens in this age?

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. We have to go in the right direction. I think it will happen faster than most realize. It's not like it's a new idea that's never been tried. The hard part will be facing headwinds from those who are benefitting from the attack on the middle class that created the tarriff disparity.

 

[bendog]

Lighthizer got his start under Reagan, but was not offered a policy slot by any admin after that. Trump brought him on for Jina. For some that may be a positive, for others maybe a negative. But at any rate....

"
Although they’re not usually cast as such, tariffs aren’t so much a weapon against other countries as they are a signal to domestic business: Lighthizer was telling American companies that investing overseas wouldn’t be the obvious choice it had been in the past.

“If that’s your goal, I think that tariffs have worked their magic,” said James Green, the former USTR staff member in Beijing. “He’s made corporate America think about whether they want to invest their next dollar in China.”

The biggest beneficiary of USTR’s actions so far, on the other hand, may be tech companies: Google, Amazon and Facebook have hired at least a dozen USTR staffers since early in the administration, including high-level intellectual property specialists, and secured broad legal immunity concerning third-party content posted on internet platforms. Lighthizer’s calendar shows 15 phone calls and meetings with Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2018 and 2019, more than any other corporate executive, as the iPhone maker lobbied for tariff exemptions. Some meetings were scheduled on less than a day’s notice, correspondence shows.

Robert Lighthizer Blew Up 60 Years of Trade Policy. Nobody Knows What Happens Next.

Trump’s trade representative joined the administration with one mission: Bring factory jobs back from overseas. The results so far? Endless trade wars, alienated allies, and a manufacturing recession.

www.propublica.org

 

[hadit]

The catalyst was Walmart, nationwide and spreading. Driving American made product stores like mom and pops to go out of business, because they could never reach the container minimum to ship cheaply, like Wal-Mart could so stocking your goods locally made, was the only means to get inventory goods in the smaller quantities you needed...eventually, the cheaper price did win out....but it was a process...other discount chains like target could not compete unless they too manufactured overseas and so on and so forth.

The original betrayal, was Wal-Mart....
Along with our govt for seeking the damn trade agreement, with China... under the guise of it making capitalism a replacement for their communism, which never happened!

Why did Wal-Mart make that move in the first place and why has it been so successful?

Obviously, they knew the American consumer would NEVER insist on paying higher prices just to buy American made. Without the market, they would not have succeeded.

Why were they able to drive out smaller stores? Again, they knew the American consumer would NEVER insist on paying higher prices to buy local. If they had gone into neighborhoods with massive stores and low prices but couldn't drum up the sales to sustain them, what would have happened when they found out that customers insisted on shopping the local stores with their higher prices?

People love to hate on Wal-Mart (you say they were a betrayal), but it is often the only place the poor can afford goods at any level of quality.

The bottom line remains; the customer is ultimately in control. Whatever they are willing to pay for will be supplied.