> How much of a price hike can actually being more assembly jobs back to North America? Or are they already brought back?
And at what cost even if they did/do.
Washing machine tariffs resulted in a pass through cost greater than 100%. The employment effect (1800-2000 jobs) but the cost to the public of those jobs was $800,000+ each:
Looking at it from the "national security" perspective, they aren't exactly wrong:
> Democratic countries’ economies are mainly set up as free market economies with redistribution, because this is what maximizes living standards in peacetime. In a free market economy, if a foreign country wants to sell you cheap cars, you let them do it, and you allocate your own productive resources to something more profitable instead. If China is willing to sell you brand-new electric vehicles for $10,000, why should you turn them down? Just make B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps, sell them for a high profit margin, and drive a Chinese car.
> Except then a war comes, and suddenly you find that B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps aren’t very useful for defending your freedoms. Oops! The right time to worry about manufacturing would have been years before the war, except you weren’t able to anticipate and prepare for the future. Manufacturing doesn’t just support war — in a very real way, it’s a war in and of itself.
There's the old saying about WW2: The Allies won [against the Nazis] from British intelligence, Russian blood, and American steel. The silliness of the current situation is that American can't go it alone anymore, but allies are now being alienated.
So bringing back manufacturing jobs wouldn't be a bad thing, but what do you have to do to accomplish it? If China is designated as a 'country of concern' ("enemy"), perhaps target them, but why 'go after' your nominal friends?
And at what cost even if they did/do.
Washing machine tariffs resulted in a pass through cost greater than 100%. The employment effect (1800-2000 jobs) but the cost to the public of those jobs was $800,000+ each:
* https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20190611
Prosperous America, a partisan think tank, thought this was generally positive:
* https://prosperousamerica.org/economic-view-tariff-jumping-i...
Looking at it from the "national security" perspective, they aren't exactly wrong:
> Democratic countries’ economies are mainly set up as free market economies with redistribution, because this is what maximizes living standards in peacetime. In a free market economy, if a foreign country wants to sell you cheap cars, you let them do it, and you allocate your own productive resources to something more profitable instead. If China is willing to sell you brand-new electric vehicles for $10,000, why should you turn them down? Just make B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps, sell them for a high profit margin, and drive a Chinese car.
> Except then a war comes, and suddenly you find that B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps aren’t very useful for defending your freedoms. Oops! The right time to worry about manufacturing would have been years before the war, except you weren’t able to anticipate and prepare for the future. Manufacturing doesn’t just support war — in a very real way, it’s a war in and of itself.
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/manufacturing-is-a-war-now
There's the old saying about WW2: The Allies won [against the Nazis] from British intelligence, Russian blood, and American steel. The silliness of the current situation is that American can't go it alone anymore, but allies are now being alienated.
So bringing back manufacturing jobs wouldn't be a bad thing, but what do you have to do to accomplish it? If China is designated as a 'country of concern' ("enemy"), perhaps target them, but why 'go after' your nominal friends?