I don't think this is good policy at all.

I have a fairly robust education in economics, but I'm certainly not an expert. I've tried to keep thinking, "There are some very smart people behind these moves," but this is all making me uneasy. And I think what bothers me the most is that I get the sense I'm not being told the truth. Not necessarily "lied to," not yet at least, but it's like they don't think the masses are smart enough to understand what their reasoning is. So they trot out bullshit stats to justify what they're doing, which people on the right side of the bell curve can easily see through.

Src

Only reason the U.S. economy grew at all the past five years was because of trillions in new government spending and an associated growth in personal debt powered by new ways to get into debt.

It's all a mirage and I am as guilty as anyone of pretending it was real. But no more.

All the people angriest about Trump's policies are all the people who directly benefited the most from that spending boom that comes at a big cost to future generations.

Src

/u/One_Fix5763 I hope you go broke, lose your trailer, and spend the rest of your life working for minimum wage in Dipschitz American-Made Widget factory.

Because I'm already stretched thin, and the promise of taxes going down doesn't mean shit until it's passed. As of right now, the company I work for just sent out an email to everyone in the company telling us that because we have a 46% tariff from Vietnam, if it doesn't get dropped that they are going to do even MORE layoffs after they laid off 200+ people not even 3 months ago. They explicitly said that paying the tariffs is STILL cheaper than moving everything back into the US, and I would really prefer not to lose my job when I'm about to get married, buy a house, and have kids.

I feel for you. Hopefully this isn't long term. I wonder if its all for bargaining agreement. Only time will tell.

Src

Because apparently the only country that isn't allowed to use tarrifs is the United States.

Src

makes an incredibly strong basis for fiscal policy

They're "unfair" because everyone else has gotten so utterly used to playing on an uneven field for so long that when it suddenly isn't that way anymore it feels unfair to them.

Their ideologies and the egos tied up therein simply won't allow them accept the idea that we've been competing with them with one hand tied behind our back this whole time.

Src

This one calls himself a classical liberal.

Trump critics (particularly the ones who, if he found a cure for cancer would just complain about him single handedly ruining the pharmaceutical industry) claim that tariffs will only alienate us from allies and cause them to seek other partners, and the cost will just get passed down to the consumer.

They don't get, or conveniently ignore, that the U.S. economy is not dependent upon other countries and that we can outlast them in a trade standoff. As for the "cost passed down" argument, they don't seem to understand that tariffs are temporary and are a means to end to get other countries to do what we want. Yes, it may require us to crack open our wallets a little bit wider for a time, but I think that's preferential to the decline we were on before. This is an attempt to fix things that have been long broken.

Yes, it may make allies mad, but turnabout is fair play. If they're doing it to us, we have every right to return the favor. We can't be subsidizing other countries at this rate while our own debt is already at such a high level.

Src