Trump, E.U. announce deal to avert escalation of trade tensions

[Hedgology]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. My condolences to you.

You've been here for more than 5 years...

 

[iguanaman]

So their tariffs are diplomatic and trumps are bullying is what your believe

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It really doesn't matter what I believe does it? It's what our allies and trading partners believe and that is all that matters. Trump called Canada an adversary and tweeted silly names at it's Prime Minister while kissing Putin's ring. Surely you are not s far gone that you can't see that something is wrong....very wrong.

 

[trouble13]

It really doesn't matter what I believe does it? It's what our allies and trading partners believe and that is all that matters. Trump called Canada an adversary and tweeted silly names at it's Prime Minister while kissing Putin's ring. Surely you are not s far gone that you can't see that something is wrong....very wrong.

So their opinion matters but not trumps. Seems you letting your own prejudices cloud your opinions on this

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[Plus Ultra]

This is what you get with a deal maker rather than a statesman as president. A statesman expects his every utterance will be historical, he is sparse with his pronouncements, very diplomatic, completely politically correct. A deal maker is flexible with the truth, he's trying to make a sale, everything is exaggeration, a final offer, the best, finest and of the highest quality you can get. Trump's critics need to appreciate this difference, you're not going to make Trump into a statesman.

As far as trade is concerned this discussion of cutting off trade and going for self-sufficiency is ridiculous. Although it is conceivable the US could achieve a substantial level of self-sufficiency, this doesn't make economic sense since domestic production of most imports is more expensive. Regulatory roll backs will cheapen domestic production, but a higher standard of living simply makes it impossible to produce most imports for less. Tariffs can make those imports more expensive and thereby their domestic production economically competitive, but ultimately the product is more expensive.

Vis-a-vis the EU labor and regulatory costs are comparable, there really shouldn't be a trade war, but Trump is pushing against some grievance, maybe its the GMO soybeans or preference for Russian natural gas, we need to know more about what Trump is complaining about and figure out better whether this is a problem with the EU or individual members.

In 2016 30% of the US' $1.32 trillion exports went to Canada and Mexico, Germany was market for just 4.6%, all the EU about 20%, China a bit more than 9%. Imports that year were $791 billion higher, 27% came from Canada and Mexico, 5.4% from Germany, about 24% from all the EU and 21% from China. Evidently the real problem is with China, no market access and lots of imports, Canada, Mexico and the EU seem to be fairly balanced.

 

[iguanaman]

So their opinion matters but not trumps. Seems you letting your own prejudices cloud your opinions on this

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LOL Why would any of our allies listen to Putin's puppet? Putin has vowed to destroy us all and Trump is helping him. Sooner or later you will need to make a choice. Putin or the USA. Why are you waiting? Is that so difficult a choice?

 

[JasperL]

Except you haven't proven it. The economy will be larger without trade by simply calculating aggregate demand. If you'd like to show how the economy would collapse without trade, that is up to you to solve.

That's too dumb for anyone to believe. Clothing stores that now buy roughly all their products from overseas suppliers will sell what in this new economy with no trade? We don't make TVs anymore, or lots of other electronics so how long till those products are made here? In the meantime, the stores go dark. So they pay their rent? If not what fills those stores? What happens to the malls and mall owners? What's the ripple effect of 100s of thousands of businesses shuttering until the supply chains get rebuilt here?

I only clipped the part that was irrelevant. I am referring to how economist includes the effects of auto-retooling in their economic models, which you said would be difficult.

Building new plants and shutting down all assembly lines until their complete isn't a retooling, it's starting from scratch on 100s of plants, thousands of products.

Economist also knows which data in the economy is noisy and which parts are not. We also know which factors in the economy are subject to seasonality and which factors are not. And maybe everything would be "new, novel, and unprecedented." However, just because something is new or difficult doesn't prevent statisticians from doing it. We simply roll up our sleeves and do it.

Economists do, you don't. You said your economists could roll up their sleeves and model in a day this new world. Actual economists aren't that dumb.

Economic model is merely a mathematical representation of an economic relationship. The equations used in the mathematical representation are usually either stochastic or identities. If you can understand the econometrics in the models, you can understand the model in general, but most people just use the DRI model...

What data are you going to use in this model? Oh, yeah, there is no data about a U.S. economy with no trade.