• How Tariffs Can Help America (or not)

    From ltlee1@21:1/5 to All on Tue Dec 31 18:44:55 2024
    "Tariffs are neither a panacea nor necessarily injurious. Their
    effectiveness, like that of any economic policy intervention, depends on
    the circum-stances under which they are implemented. Smoot-Hawley was a
    failure at its time, but its failure tells analysts very little about
    the effect that tariffs would have on the United States today. That is
    because now, unlike then, the United States is not producing far more
    than it can consume. Ironically, the history of Smoot-Hawley says a lot
    more about how tariffs today would affect a country such as China, whose
    excess production resembles more closely the United States of the 1920s
    than does the United States of now." https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-tariffs-can-help-america


    May be the author has simplified the situation too much. The relative
    effect of tariffs would depend on a nation’s overall economic growth
    outlook before the tariffs are becoming widespread.

    In reality, “the U.S. economy was actually revving up during the 1930s,
    and setting up a post-Depression era of dizzying growth.

    Underneath the misery of the Great Depression, the United States economy
    was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s. Television and
    nylon stockings were invented. Refrigerators and washing machines turned
    into mass-market products. Railroads became faster and roads smoother
    and wider....”

    https://theweek.com/articles/481125/why-better-great-depression

    Question:
    Which nation, China or the US, is more productive and grows at faster
    rate at present?

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