Comment by silisili
16 days ago
Not at all - I'm not really taking a solid stance one way or another because I'm not an economist.
My only point was that Philco was being used as an unknown crappy Brazilian brand example. It used to be an American company that actually made quality things, and through outsourcing and general 'physical and financial enshittification' is pretty much an unknown to Americans now.
If you're in favor of quality things being made in the US, it's an argument for said policy.
But the examples _just_ given show that the same kind of tariff policy in Brazil caused shitty local options that could never compete with the outside world and cited example after example. The whole "grey" market for un-tariffef foreign goods.
There is nothing that says tariffs cause quality things to be built locally and the examples are counter to that.
Yes I understood the post but the difference is that Brazil didn't have a burgeoning or top tier electronics industry at any point I can remember. The US did and slowly gave it away to cheaper producers. Further, the average American has more disposable income and won't necessarily just grab what's cheapest.
So it's not easy to conclude they are the same in any fashion.
The question is what would happen today if the US ends up in the same situation. Will we go back to producing top tier electronics, or get stuck with crappy brands taking advantage of the situation? It's hard to say. I'd guess a mix of both. Top tier stuff would probably in house what they can, but the low end would get much, much worse. But that's just me guessing.
So if we want electronics manufacturing, economists agree, targeted tariffs can encourage local electronics manufacturing.
The US does targeted tariffs all the time, including 100% on Chinese electric vehicles because otherwise they could undercut the entire US auto industry.
Blanket tariffs have been tried. We can point to examples. They are bad. Economists agree here too. The US and allies have worked long and hard at reducing barriers to trade and we have avocado toast in January to thank for it. The alternative is to suggest the US can and will be the best at everything (or at least at enough things to offset the obvious loss in purchasing power of people).
A bit of an aside: there is this bizarre "anti-global" thing gaining more traction. Global trade ties economies together disincentivizing war. Isolationism promotes war because you need to own more to grow the economic pie. It drives towards taking over other territories, like, say, Greenland or Canada. Trade expands the economic pie.