After WWII we were about the only developed country that hadn’t had the crapbombed out of our infrastructure. And we were trying to win the Cold War. So we basically bribed Europe and much of Asia. If they sided with us against the Russkis and ChiComs, we would give them favorable access to our markets so they could rebuild their economies, and our navy would defend their trade routes so they didn’t have to spend so much on defense. Trade policy was more about defense than about economics. This is a big reason why we spend so much on defense. We are the only country with a legitimate worldwide power projection mission or capability.

It worked, perhaps too well. We won the Cold War. Problem is that we stayed in that mode because we never figured out what to do next. The rest of the world replaced their bombed out pre-WWII infrastructure and introduced consumption taxes that shifted tax and employee benefit burdens away from businesses, and provided some trade protection. Ross Perot said something in 1992 that I had long thought, “In the post-Cold War era, economic power will be more important than military power.” A number of other countries are now better equipped to compete in that arena than we are.

We need a rethink things. I think Trump’s trade war mentality is the wrong approach. I do think a consumption tax would be a major step to level the playing field with respect to protection, with the revenues applied to fund Bismarck universal private health care/insurance, and balance the budget, and lower and flatten and broaden income taxes to world competitive standards or better. Pushing our allies to spend more on defense is probably the only way we can reduce our defense spending without leaving a power void to be exploited by rogue nations and/or terrorists. I think we should applaud Macron’s European army proposal. I also think we should consider interoperability with allied forces in future doctrine, training, and procurement decisions. The recent deployment of a French naval air squadron on a US carrier would be a positive step in that direction.

(06-01-2018 08:48 AM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Its very difficult at the moment to locate qualified talent for some openings we've had. A lot of that had to do with people changing careers after '06, when the democrats took over and businesses feared the tax credits would expire. (Like Pelosi said they would) The past 8 years of millennials going to 4 year college to major in gender studies hasnt helped either.

That's been going on for a lot more than 8 years. We have 20+ years of unskilled and unqualified college graduates in the market.

MORE WINNING: Costco Raising Hourly Wages For Over 130,000 Employees

Quote:On Thursday, Costco announced it would raise the hourly wage for 130,000 of its American employees. CEO Richard Galanti, while discussing the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings, said that starting wages for employees would be raised $1 an hour to $14.50 an hour while other hourly wages would be hiked 25 to 50 cents an hour.

Galanti added that the new wage increases would be probably be added to the company’s regular wage hikes. He acknowledged that the tax cuts would garner Costco an added $300 million each year.

Keep reading here

(06-01-2018 06:48 PM)cb4029 Wrote:  

(06-01-2018 06:16 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-01-2018 04:10 PM)cb4029 Wrote:  . Define winning a trade war. What does it look like? You said nothing about higher costing goods. How is that a win for me?

Define losing one.

I think we all lose the second it starts. It's all very complicated, especially when the other countries have the power to fight back. This has the potential for a very radical ending. We should be targeting someone, not everyone. I just don't have a good feeling.

So what do we do in response to them starting them? China dumping steel etc?

What do you call European VAT, which is little more than a tax on imported goods and a subsidy on exports?

Obviously the EU doesn't believe that trade wars are a lose:lose. If they did, they would have replaced vat a generation ago. They're not stupid and they have had the benefit of being able to start essentially from square one with currency etc etc etc in the past 30 years or so as opposed to 250

(06-01-2018 10:19 AM)cb4029 Wrote:  Small tax cuts + high gas prices + high cost of goods due to trade war = net negative