This is an example of a country that we should trade with?

China has followed a mercantilist trade policy, stealing intellectual property, requiring companies selling to the Chinese to share ownership with often corrupt entities owned by the Peoples Liberation Army and relatives of regime principals.

What is going on with China right now ?
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/62922.html

Like I said, ever since the Louisiana Purchase we apparently have been socialists, unless we distinguish that part of governments purpose is to help in creating the conditions where capitalism can flourish.

It seems you guys object to the word “socialism” and not the thing itself; you’re happy to call it a “utility” or say “owned by the county”. If you don’t have an objection in principle to governments running industries for us, then there’s no point in objecting to Harris’s grocery price proposal as “socialism”.

And the usual superiority complex from Nik regarding “the commenters here” and them being socialists.

We are not worthy.

I think I understand your argument. If the government is going to subsidize and finance infrastructure, they are picking favored areas of the country or economic sectors at the expense of other areas– similar to the government supporting/protecting industries with tariffs at the expense of others.

This is no more persuasive than the other arguments, IMO, because the government supports/subsidizes sectors/industries internally and has for decades/centuries(?). Why is protecting essential industries from foreign predators/competition any less a proper use of government?
We have stable food prices and a plentiful supply because of government support. As a society that benefits all of us– as there is nothing more fundamental than food (maybe water).

The fact that our third largest trading partner is China with whom we also have the worst trade deficit, and is an adversary and has been for decades should make it even more obvious that “free” trade has been anything but.

President Trump’s goal for MAGA is based on refueling the American industrial engine. His administration reached 3% GDP growth only one time in his first term, though he was creating the environment to make that once again the norm. Trump’s policies are an attempt to grow the economy out of our debt crisis. I should add part of the equation is deregulation where it has crippled the economy. The alternative will be to inflate us out– and that will wreak unimaginable chaos.

But back to your socialism charge. We probably need to make a distinction between government payments for consumption and government infrastructure investments. Otherwise we’ve been going down the socialism path since the Louisiana Purchase. We’re all socialists now.

But that’s the topic for another debate.

No tax money or government appropriations were used for construction of Priest Rapids or Wanapum dams.

https://www.grantpud.org/generation

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a federal agency that owns and operates the transmission lines connecting the various energy sources in the PNW and sells the power at wholesale prices to utilities.
But that’s a whole other issue.

No, I’m not. That extra $0.10 in my scenario was income being disposed of on other products. I think you’re saying that everybody was just hiding that $0.10 under their mattress and the tariff will force them to dig it out? Even if that were true, shouldn’t they get to decide if they want to spend it or not?

I’m not sure this is an analogy to international trade, but our local Public Utility District (electric production) owns (operates) two of the dams on the Columbia and the benefit to the local area is relatively cheap power– and an excess that is sold by contract to other parts of the country– but we retained the right to more than we used.

Lol, those dams are literally socialism. It is government ownership of the means of production. And the grid you put that power on is owned and operated by the Federal Government. More literal socialism.

This is what I’m talking about when I say people say they’re against something and later say they are for it. You just made an argument for price controls and government ownership of the means of production and don’t seem to realize you have done so.

You see the big shiny dams (I know those dams well, and am being gently ironic), and you like the cheap power, and you see the big connected people moving in to take advantage of artificially low prices propped up by the taxpayers in states you don’t live in, and the opportunities for your neighbors to labor for them and help them make more money. You’re seeing the winners the government picked and admiring them. What you don’t see is what else people could be doing if the government hadn’t put its fat thumb on the scale. Understandable you feel that way, but your ideas are not based on principles but on feels. We can’t all get ahead through government favor.

Be a socialist if you want, just don’t pretend you’re not one. It’s not like the dams don’t work or the grid doesn’t deliver power, and every socialist thinks everything can be run as well as that if only the Top Men at the government ran things “rationally”. They’re sure it can be done with health care, for example. Medicare for all, make all the hospitals public utilities, the government will set fair prices and make sure that everyone gets their fair share… oh how many times do we hear it, and yet it somehow always seems shiny and new.