No Stupid Questions

The problem is you appear to have an IQ greater than that of 6 and so you're probably not a MAGA supporter. Trying to apply logic to these idiots is a waste of time.

Why would you move to the u.s, and have to pay tariffs to every other country, except for just one?

MAGA Morons are fantasizing that all these new high-paying manufacturing jobs will be coming back, but thats not the plan.

The new factories will be sweat shops without safety/ health/ environmental regulations, paying minimum wage (or less, if they can end it). They will primarily rely on teenage child labor, using young people who are desperate for jobs after all the fast food jobs have been automated.

Thats the Sociopathic Oligarchs' dream.

only the trumpers think so, and no its not, its actually more expensive, you have to build up your own factories, manufacturing plants which cost billions and years to build, and luring TALENt, is going to be very difficult

Shawn Fain is the president of the United Auto Workers union. He successfully negotiated higher wages and better benefits for his member in 2023 after calling for and receiving authorization for a strike. He continues his efforts to unionize more shops and floated the idea that other unions have their contract expire in 2028 when the UAW contract expires.

He was on Meet the Nation this past week and when asked "Let's start very simply on the question of tariffs on autos and auto parts. Fundamentally, and quite simply, why do you believe those are helpful for your membership?" This is what he said:

[A]ll you have to do is look at the history of the United States, especially in auto manufacturing in the last 30 years, with the inception of NAFTA and unfair trade laws. We've seen over 90,000 manufacturing facilities leave the United States. We've seen- in the Big Three alone, in the last 20 plus years, 65 plants have closed. You know- And so look, tariffs aren't the total solution. Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox to get these companies to do the right thing, and- and the intent behind it is to bring jobs back here. And, you know, invest in the American workers. The American working class people have been left behind for decades, and they're sick of it. You know, it's a massive struggle. People are struggling just to get- to survive right now, to get by. And so, you know- you know- you know, there's two parts to the tariffs though. I mean, the tariffs are a motivator. We have to fix the broken trade laws. And the other thing to me is, you know, these can't just be just, you know, as with the Biden administration, when they did the stuff for battery work and EV work, we had to come in and say, no, these can't just be union jobs or- or jobs. They got to be good paying union jobs that set standards. So the big part of this that gets left out a lot of times is, if they're going to bring jobs back here, you know, they need to be life sustaining jobs where people can make a good wage, a living wage, have adequate health care and have a retirement security and not have to work seven days a week or multiple jobs, just a scrape to get by, paycheck to paycheck.

He goes on to agree with "Peter Navarro, a top adviser to the president on trade, says currently, automobile manufacturing plants are at about 60% capacity. He argues that there's lots of untapped capacity, meaning jobs could be created relatively easy, and you didn't have to need- you wouldn't need to spend two or three or maybe five years building new factories."

So I'm glad to hear that the UAW and their membership may be well positioned, but the increase in prices will result in inflation and that's bad for all people including his members. Guess what we don't buy when we aren't sure how much groceries or everyday items will be ... Cars? Yep. Cars.

Trumpers are actually dumb enough to believe that factories and jobs pop from the ground overnight and without any costs.

I work in a Canadian manufacturing company that is owned by a large American conglomerate. When Trump started all these shenanigans, there were rumors floating around that head office was going to move the shop to the US to save money.

Apparently they did a cost/benefit analysis and determined that it would cost them far more than they stood to lose, by moving the operation South, and the returns wouldn't even begin to come in for at least a decade. They decided that raising their prices to absorb the tariffs, was by far the better option. Even the projected losses were manageable compared to the cost of disrupting their supply chains.

All these tariffs are going to do, is make everything.ore expensive. Nothing else is likely to change.

Do people really think...

Imma stop u there

If Nike shoes go from $200 to $300 from tariffs, there is a big opportunity for crossborder shopping in Canada or Mexico, where in Canada they would be $226. And then more opportunity to smuggle them with volume discounts for US ebay listings. A peer to peer smuggling network takes away from "backbone of retail economy", and then lowers value of US official market such that making $300 shoes inside the US costs a big investment, and still loses to smuggling.

Apparel industry jobs tend not to be as glamourous as Boeing, Catterpillar, Deere jobs which are pretty much only US manufacturing export sector than defense. Losing export markets from hatred of US, doesn't get replaced with good jobs in apparel, or exports of expensive US apparel.

There's also a good chance that competing global brands take massive market share from US aligned companies, and less scale will mean less marketing budget.

It is a simple solution to a complicated problem. For a segment of society, it sounds good enough.

You can solve our issues with investment, like Democrats do. Our economy does better under Democrats than Republicans.

Republicans seem to think this is how things work and that may explain the consistent economic downturns you see under most Republican admin's.

Until the American people figure this out, things will suck.

Democrats may not be your cup of tea, but it's undeniable the country does better when Republicans are not in charge over the past century or so.

I’m smart enough to understand that setting up domestic manufacturing is much more complicated and expensive than I could guess. I also know that getting a project like this from concept to steady, reliable, marketable production takes years.

I also know that the people who think this is quick and easy will proudly wear their MAGA hats today.

I think the supply-chain issue is often forgotten about. Sure, we can open manufacturing businesses here to make whatever, but where do people think the materials will come from? Do they think we've had all the materials we need to manufacture goods here in America all along and we just haven't been because everything is cheaper to make overseas? Just look at this list of major exports by country. Does the US have SOME of this stuff? Sure, but enough to make enough goods for US consumers on a regular, as-needed basis? No way. We will need raw materials, and there won't be enough to go around.

do people really think

Gonna stop you right there. No. The answer is that no, they don't think.

I agree, this is bad logic. That said, that's not what I hear from the current regime when I hear them talking about tariffs. What I hear is them thinking this will force countries to lower barriers to Americans doing business abroad. Once those barriers are lowered, tariffs are reduced or go away altogether. For the record, I do not think this is good policy, but the intent of the policy (at lease as I read it) isn't to suddenly move all manufacturing back to the United States.

"But you just like... screw stuff together, right? Cut the basic materials to make the parts, put it together, box it up, ship it out, right?"

• Someone I legitimately spoke to once. We were talking about assembling TVs.

I find that people who've never assembled anything more complex than Ikea furniture or something more technical than changed a pipe or switch in their home, tend to think production exists in exactly two levels: Low-tech, hand-tools-at-most labor which can be easily spun up because "anyone can do it", and ultra-high-tech stuff like computer chips which need highly specialized factories, but where a few factories can mostly satisfy nationwide demand.

Maybe dumb people who bought the Trump line on tariffs think that, but most people know it's not true.

All the talk about bringing back manufacturing is just a smoke screen to cover the fact they're intentionally tanking the economy so the oligarchs can buy the dip and get even richer when the economy recovers. That's all it is.

And we haven't even addressed the whole reason manufacturing left in the first place. It's so much cheaper to do it overseas, even accounting for shipping. It will cost America much more to produce items internally--and who is going to buy these extra-expensive items? America is a service economy and most people are working at Walmart or McDonald's. These people can barely afford the cheap Chinese version, much less the expensive American version.

So I guess they're hoping wages will increase more than the extra expensive incurred by making our own items? Not going to happen, not in a million years.