FreeWits
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2018
- Messages
- 1,920
- Reaction score
- 279
- Location
- USA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Slightly Liberal
<Bergs Words>
I don't mind you cutting my post like I did to you, and which I am doing again, because it's just necessary to do with the character limit. I don't agree with you talking about military casualty rates of Denmark when I was talking about the European Union as a whole backstabbing the USA economically. That just doesn't make any sense. As for a trade war leading to an us vs them, it is an us vs them. These tariffs aren't being put on because they are good for us, they are being put on because they are worse for them than they are bad for us. And in a trade WAR, not recognizing that one is in economic battle with the other side is dangerous. I don't understand why you call it a danger. As for GDP growth, go tell our unemployed workers and disappeared manufacturing, a key industry for economic health, that global trade policies have been good for them. There are competing interests within each country, and if one is preferred over the other to such a great extent, that harms all parties eventually.
On steel, the amount other products will go up is quite negligible, unless it's a major buy like a new car. Keep in mind that this will employ more people in the USA, so we'll pay less in social safety nets. Furthermore, steel is key to fighting wars, and so bringing steel production back to the USA is key to national security. We should never take for granted the peace we have, as war can always break out at any time, and it's rarely foreseeable. I'll pay the extra penny on canned goods I buy, and the canning company can keep the change.
About unemployment, what you and I were referring to were slightly different, although both about unemployment benefits. As your link states, max unemployment benefits vary by state. So the people of Mississippi have chosen to vote in leaders that have created a max weekly unemployment payment of $235/week, which is around $940/month. That is plenty to live on, especially in Mississippi, which has by far the lowest cost of living. https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/ In Massachusetts, a state with more money and a higher cost of living, they pay $783/week, which is around $3,132/month. Again, plenty to live on. More is not necessarily better as there are opportunity costs of what that money could be used on, and there is philosophy about people getting comfortable on unemployment where they will actually refuse jobs to collect money. If someone doesn't make enough from unemployment, other welfare programs will kick in to help them out.
As for Sweden being one of the world's most competitive economies, the USA is #1. Sweden has it's own problems, too. Sweden is also less than 10M people and about 2/3rds the size of Texas. If Sweden had 325M people and 3.8M square miles, things would be a little different. Scaling is always an issue, and nobody has scaled better than the USA. From my perspective, it's an absolute joke for you to try to compare policies from a country smaller than Texas to policies of the USA. Sweden spends around $5.5B/year on military (https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/military-expenditure), while the USA spends around $600B/year (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/military-expenditure). Sweden couldn't even fend off Russia, and the USA could not spend such a little amount on military. Sweden depends on American military might for protection, while Americans rely on nobody else.
I don't mind you cutting my post like I did to you, and which I am doing again, because it's just necessary to do with the character limit. I don't agree with you talking about military casualty rates of Denmark when I was talking about the European Union as a whole backstabbing the USA economically. That just doesn't make any sense. As for a trade war leading to an us vs them, it is an us vs them. These tariffs aren't being put on because they are good for us, they are being put on because they are worse for them than they are bad for us. And in a trade WAR, not recognizing that one is in economic battle with the other side is dangerous. I don't understand why you call it a danger. As for GDP growth, go tell our unemployed workers and disappeared manufacturing, a key industry for economic health, that global trade policies have been good for them. There are competing interests within each country, and if one is preferred over the other to such a great extent, that harms all parties eventually.
On steel, the amount other products will go up is quite negligible, unless it's a major buy like a new car. Keep in mind that this will employ more people in the USA, so we'll pay less in social safety nets. Furthermore, steel is key to fighting wars, and so bringing steel production back to the USA is key to national security. We should never take for granted the peace we have, as war can always break out at any time, and it's rarely foreseeable. I'll pay the extra penny on canned goods I buy, and the canning company can keep the change.
About unemployment, what you and I were referring to were slightly different, although both about unemployment benefits. As your link states, max unemployment benefits vary by state. So the people of Mississippi have chosen to vote in leaders that have created a max weekly unemployment payment of $235/week, which is around $940/month. That is plenty to live on, especially in Mississippi, which has by far the lowest cost of living. https://www.missourieconomy.org/indicators/cost_of_living/ In Massachusetts, a state with more money and a higher cost of living, they pay $783/week, which is around $3,132/month. Again, plenty to live on. More is not necessarily better as there are opportunity costs of what that money could be used on, and there is philosophy about people getting comfortable on unemployment where they will actually refuse jobs to collect money. If someone doesn't make enough from unemployment, other welfare programs will kick in to help them out.
As for Sweden being one of the world's most competitive economies, the USA is #1. Sweden has it's own problems, too. Sweden is also less than 10M people and about 2/3rds the size of Texas. If Sweden had 325M people and 3.8M square miles, things would be a little different. Scaling is always an issue, and nobody has scaled better than the USA. From my perspective, it's an absolute joke for you to try to compare policies from a country smaller than Texas to policies of the USA. Sweden spends around $5.5B/year on military (https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/military-expenditure), while the USA spends around $600B/year (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/military-expenditure). Sweden couldn't even fend off Russia, and the USA could not spend such a little amount on military. Sweden depends on American military might for protection, while Americans rely on nobody else.