DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus National debt tops $22 trillion for the first time as experts warn of ripple effects

I get where you are coming from, bro. I lean that way, too.

I just get irritated because I truly believe that the elitists keep us down by getting us to fight w/one another. It's a proven political strategy.

The day we unite is the day they all piss themselves. Power to the people, bro!!!!

Their are so many layers/tiers/circumstances it would be impossible to cover here.

Yes, our deficit has gone up, as has our debt (and our debt has been going up since before Trump, before Obama, before Bush, before Clinton......etc)

I sincerely wish you could've been part of a conversation I recently had with a farmer. He's not just a farmer though. He's a high ranking member of the Ohio Ag. Commission. He's also a delegate with the U.S. Ag. commission. He's been to, as a rep. of the u.s., south america, australia, and asia in the last less than a year.

Apparently, with China and the trade deal, property rights and intellectual rights are a big hang up.

Did you hear what China is doing with Tesla cars? Tesla, the company that got how much money from the u.s. gov't? And Elon went and made a factory in China with that money.

Read: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-plummets-china-takes-201859516.html

Now, do you really think China was concerned about labels? Or is it more plausible that China thought "hey, we have these cars here. Let's prevent them from being exported so we can study the technology."

Our deficit has gotten worse, no doubt in part due to the trade war with China.

Some of that - maybe a lot? is because Americans want to buy products for less money. We want to be paid like kings at OUR job, so we can buy Chinese products cheap.


From my understanding, one of the big hangups we have now with China is trump is trying to do something about the agreement/s from the past. Short term pain, for long term gain?

But, again, the biggest issue is us: Pay me more, so I can buy stuff made somewhere else.

Just my 2 cents. Maybe I'm completely wrong.

Tesla knows they have to compete in the Asian market. Nio wants to dominate that market.

China is poised to beat the U.S in electric car technology.

From 60 Minutes: Because domestic vehicles have no import fees, a Nio costs about $60,000—roughly half the price a customer in China would pay for a Tesla.


Interesting story regarding Nio on 60 Minutes recently (videos linked below)...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-china-an-electric-car-lifestyle-60-minutes/

“I alone can fix it”.

Pop quiz, who said that?

Probably TRump.

But, never mind. I was trying to have a serious conversation about just a few of the issues.

You win. No sense talking with you now. You got your talking points. Cool.

It’s midnight. I’ll hit the post up in the morning.

China beats us all day everyday in tech production. They will win the AI war, but we will out innovate the AI applications. And if China ever just stopped making cheap stuff, 1000s of American companies would go belly up.

It's like we're a symbiotic host for their economy because we don't make anything anymore. The US was sold out in the name of profit long ago.

How come Fox News doesn’t have any articles readily seen on the trade deficit or debt? Couldn’t find it on the front page.

there are certainly a ton of layers.

one of those layers often ignored by conservatives is that fact that a trade deficit isn't automatically a bad thing.

for example, china exports a lot of cheap goods to america, but we export a lot of luxury goods to china. so thats less about policy and more to do with consumer culture. the chinese are building a middle class, so that aspect wants more luxury goods. we already have that, and due to a ton of factors, we demand cheaper goods at cheaper prices.

thats a consumer mentality that can NOT be changed by policy, at least not solo. it ESPECIALLY won't be changed by getting into an unnecessary trade war, that only hurts the consumer.

another aspect is that is often ignored by conservatives is the fact that trade deficits historically jump after the passing of tax cuts. reagan and bush are shining examples of that, and now trump is no exception.

as far as your farmer comments, i can only look at the numbers. farmers already are the most subsidize group in the country (some would call that welfare, btw), but we've gone way past the point of short term pain for long term gain.

we have farmers filing bankruptcies in record numbers under trump. they needed a bailout, 12 bill worth, and that increasingly seems like it won't be enough. and now China is under no obligation to purchase soybeans and other crops from US farmers anymore. they are getting in in south america for a cheaper price. there's a real possibility that the US farmer took a permanent loss on this. i hope you understand that: a permanent loss.

as far as the tariff aspect overall, trump is actually right, kind of. and i've said that as much. while the issue is far more complicated than he makes it out to be (pop quiz, who said "Trade wars are good, and easy to win"), overall, there is some disparity between the level of tariffs that are put on american goods around the world compared to foreign goods coming into the country.

but the solution isn't a scorched earth solution. you don't go around trashing our own allies, especially since it takes two to tango. you can't go around calling freaking german cars a national security issue, especially when the largest BMW factory in the world is....

pop quiz, Arch. where's the largest bimmer factory in the world located at?

the smart thing to do is to use existing policies with our allies as a way to negotiate deals.

for example, he could've used the reaffirmation of the NATO budget in 2022/24 as a way to go "while we understand that the 2% goal will be reached at that time, how about we lower the tariffs on american goods being imported into the EU until its reached?"

and then negotiate from there.

but thats just me. i can't speak for anybody else. but what i do know is that when it comes to trade agreements, trashing allies and turning up on twitter isn't exactly the best way to fix the problem.

quick edit: also, we forget that trump is being a bit deceptive when we're talking about manufacturing jobs being lost to china and mexico, as well as other places.

thats somewhat true, but what is ALSO true, and a way bigger problem, is that we lost most of our jobs to automation. robots aren't a race or a country (at least not yet lol), so we're losing jobs left and right to lifeless beings.

and to be fair, thats something NOT being addressed by ANY politician. however, when somebody is this passionate about trade and shovel ready jobs like trump and the republicans are, i expect them to bring up that aspect a hell of a lot more than what they are currently doing, which is basically non-existent.

Thanks for your reply.

I agree with some of what you said.

I disagree with some of what you said.


And at the end of the day, this topic is nearly impossible to discuss on a message board due to all of the underlying issues.

jmo

The thing is we were told the trade war would fix it. That we would import less from China because of it. He kept railing about the "800 billion dollar trade deficit with China" during the election. Since the tariffs have been implemented against China, that trade deficit is almost 900 billion.

And as far as Tesla goes. China will be building more than 1,000,000 electric vehicles this year. Over 140,000 electric cars were sold in November of 2018 alone in China. Elon musk is simply making cars where they're selling. Where the qualified employee are to build them and where his competition is.

Maybe it's time America steps up to the plate.