```What I said is less competition is better for smaller buisness when you were making the case protectionism hurts it.```
It's mostly the larger (American) businesses that usually benefit from tariffs - some smaller businesses might, if they are specifically chosen for protection. But every company down the line is going to face higher costs, which will butterfly throughout the economy. A few jobs are saved in one industry at the expense of a larger number in other industries.

```Do you believe Chinese companies are actually "efficient"```
I don't know, but they have managed to produce products at lower costs. One thing I do know is that, at least in certain special zones (Hong Kong, Macau, SEZ's, etc) they've had far less restrictive business environments than ours. Meanwhile the US economy has (for the most part) become more regulated over the years.
But we have an opportunity now - the combination of policy changes (crackdowns on Hong Kong, etc.) and a certain disease have made China a far less attractive place to do business. We could beat them at their own game by replicating and improving on some of the policies that made China an economic powerhouse in the first place - radical decentralization and deregulation. The US could easily establish hundreds of Hong Kongs and create a more attractive business environment than the PRC - or anyone else, for that matter.

```The consequences of instituting tariffs on cars right now would be twofold. Car manufacturing would increase domestically and the cost of cars would increase marginally```
Or domestic companies could just raise prices slightly below the tariffed companies' and gain higher profits without producing more.

```Hell you could even use the revenue from tariffs to justify tax cuts```
That's just replacing one tax with another.

Patchwork + Deregulation >>>>>Tariffs

(Sorry this took so long to type)

It's 5am so I'll respond to this later

Aight

"It's mostly the larger (American) businesses that usually benefit from tariffs". Depends on the tariff and how you look at this. Does a corporation which right now profits immensely from outsourcing benefit from having to relocate to America where it has to pay its employees proper wages? No, obviously not but the industry as a whole grows inside your country.And looking at the alternative, is it easier for a medium sized buisness to compete just with people inside your nation or the entire world especially when your country isn't really that competitive cost wise because of labour costs? Do any large corporations benefit when you haven't even properly established the industry you're trying to create in your country? No how can large companies benefit when they don't even exist yet. Japanese car manufacturers at first were small family buisnesses until they grew to become the titans they are now under protection. Is it true that large corporation always a priori benefit more from tariffs? It really depends on the type of tariff and initiative of entrepreneurs inside your country and considering how most tariffs now are agricultural (which I don't like btw) I'm not sure how they actually advantage larger corporation right now.
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"But every company down the line is going to face higher costs". What exactly is down the line from a car manufaturer? Cars are the final product and do not get used in any further industrial processes.

I realize that a tariff on steel would have ripple effects like this because it's an intermediate good (and the cost is highly driven by labour) which is why I don't like tariffs on intermediate goods if you're a developed country that intends to export anything. I'm familiar with the saving jobs in one industry leading to losses in others argument but it usually gets made in the context of steel, aluminium and the like. Being a protectionist does not mean you want to blindly slap tariffs on everything, at least for most protectionists that's true
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" don't know, but they have managed to produce products at lower costs". Yes Chinese industry uses outdated methods, old equipment but compensates with cheap labour. It's kind of similiar to the old model in Roman antiquitiy where large Latifundia generate profit with slaves which don't have to be paid regardless of whether or not they're strictly more efficient. Unless you want us to have wages similiar to the Chinese you're not going to compete with them just by being more "efficient"
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"One thing I do know is that, at least in certain special zones (Hong Kong, Macau, SEZ's, etc) they've had far less restrictive business environments than ours"
If you can compress America down into a city stat and remove 99% of the population it's a good economic model because similiar to tax havens these places attract foreign capital like moths are attracted by lamplight. If you're an actual country and not a meme it's not a applicable. There is not enough of a financial sector in the entire world to turn America into another Singapore (and Hong Kong etc. are wealthy because of the financial sector unlike Mainland China which is the industrial juggernaut),so unlike current meme tier city states would actually need to attract investment into its industry which simply isn't happening because labour is simply too expensive, which is why capital is moving outside America already. More lax buisness regulations would change nothing about this
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"We could beat them at their own game by replicating and improving on some of the policies that made China an economic powerhouse in the first place". First of all mainland China (the part of China which actually produces things that get shipped to America) is much much more regulated than America. It's not a free market utopia but a socialist state which transitioned to something like fascistic corporatism which is more "free" than Maoism but still a long way off from America. If it was all down to how liberal your economic policies are America would wipe the floor with China but alas economic liberalism isn't a panacea. Secondly to compete with China you do not have to become more liberal but need wages to be lower which obviously would be a bad thing, otherwise industry always will go with the rationale of "I could increase my margins by such and such amount if we cut labour costs to this degree. We should consider moving to a cheaper place".
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"Or domestic companies could just raise prices slightly below the tariffed companies' and gain higher profits without producing more". That's not how the market works. There's still supply and demand and competition on a national level which will keep costs low enough. Price increases from tariffs would be mostly due to production costs being higher as labour costs and maybe secondarily environmental regulations or whatever would be higher than in the third world
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"That's just replacing one tax with another."
Not all taxes are created equal. There would obviously be some benefit in taxing imports rather than the income of your population or having a VAT or high corporate tax.

Some larger corporations will suffer the brunt of tariffs. However, in general larger companies with more capital can handle higher prices better than smaller companies can. Those smaller companies will have to downscale more at best, and some will go out of business, reducing the threat of competition to larger firms.

```"But every company down the line is going to face higher costs". What exactly is down the line from a car manufaturer? Cars are the final product and do not get used in any further industrial processes.```

Many companies need cars to conduct business. If those cars (and/or car parts) become more expensive to purchase, a company will have less money to spend on essential items. Therefore, the company will have to produce less proucts/services, lower product quality, or hire fewer employees (or pay them less).

``` Unless you want us to have wages similiar to the Chinese you're not going to compete with them just by being more "efficient"```

Or our companies can automate the process and pay zero wages.

```If you can compress America down into a city stat and remove 99% of the population it's a good economic model because similiar to tax havens these places attract foreign capital like moths are attracted by lamplight. If you're an actual country and not a meme it's not a applicable```

That’s not what I meant. The United States should experiment with giving small areas autonomy (regarding economic policy at least) similar to what china did with its SEZ’s and SAD’s. Though I would also support greater deregulation countrywide.

```First of all mainland China (the part of China which actually produces things that get shipped to America) is much much more regulated than America. It's not a free market utopia but a socialist state which transitioned to something like fascistic corporatism which is more "free" than Maoism but still a long way off from America. If it was all down to how liberal your economic policies are America would wipe the floor with China but alas economic liberalism isn't a panacea.```

I’m aware the majority of China is under socialism/corporatism, but the reason the PRC has managed to be economically successful at all in the first place without completely collapsing is because of its autonomous regions. The communist parts parasitize the relatively free-market areas, some of which are allowed to be economically freer than even the US.

```Secondly to compete with China you do not have to become more liberal but need wages to be lower which obviously would be a bad thing, otherwise industry always will go with the rationale of "I could increase my margins by such and such amount if we cut labour costs to this degree. We should consider moving to a cheaper place".```

Again, automation is an alternative. Combine this with autonomous zones and deregulation and we can beat the chicoms.

```". That's not how the market works. There's still supply and demand and competition on a national level which will keep costs low enough. Price increases from tariffs would be mostly due to production costs being higher as labour costs and maybe secondarily environmental regulations or whatever would be higher than in the third world```
America’s current economy is extremely corrupt and overregulated, almost as much as mainland China at this point. The same people own everything - there is almost no competition anymore.

```Not all taxes are created equal. There would obviously be some benefit in taxing imports rather than the income of your population or having a VAT or high corporate tax.```
I’ll concede this point for now.

(Sorry this took so long to write, stuff got in the way)
Thanks for discussing this subject, I genuinely enjoy hearing other people's perspectives on this subject.

"in general larger companies with more capital can handle higher prices better than smaller companies can"
You are making it sound like higher prices are a problem for corporations. How exactly are higher prices for cars a problem for the corporations that make them? If anything lower prices drive out smaller corporations which simply don't have the economies of scale to compete nor can access cheap labour from overseas. Unless you're meaning higher costs for steel which again having tariffs on intermediate goods and raw materials that get processed in your country is a bad idea.

"Many companies need cars to conduct business"
Mostly the tertiary sector which could mean it's marginally more expensive to acquire a taxi or trucks (as a stand in for any transport vehicle). I only care about the example of trucks because taxis are just pushing around money which has been created in the "real economy". So are the trucks themselves the main cost of logistics? No it's the truck driver and fuel. That's beside the point that trucks are one of the most inefficient ways to transport good.

"Or our companies can automate the process and pay zero wages".
Actually no you can't because automation is capital intensive and in its early stages. If there was no alternative like China with cheap wages there would be more of an icentive to automate. Right now when people want to cut down on labour costs they don't automate but outsource. The few examples where there are serious attempts is in the tertiary sector aka services with examples like self driving trucks, self serving cash registers or automated burger flippers and even then burger flippers need to uncercut minimum wages whilst costing a lot of capital to install and have maintenance done on them.
But in principle this would lead to wages similiar to China because you would devalue labour and "new jobs will magically pop up" is not at all guaranteed, even less so for unskilled people.

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"The United States should experiment with giving small areas autonomy".
It ended up being better for China to just open up the market entirely so now foreign investment can flow into the country in an unrestricted manner (which is due to lower labour costs not less regulations). Hong Kong and Macau thrive on being a financial center and the one place in China where you can legally gamble, not industry so it's not applicable to the American context.
Why were SEZs successfull during the beginning? Because China is an attractive place for investment and they were the only places where you could invest at the time

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"I’m aware the majority of China is under socialism/corporatism, but the reason the PRC has managed to be economically successful at all in the first place without completely collapsing is because of its autonomous regions. The communist parts parasitize the relatively free-market areas, some of which are allowed to be economically freer than even the US."
Completely untrue. China came out of Maoism under Deng Xiaoping who put in place a few SEZs that were corporatist with access to foreign investment, not free market. Then later corporatism got extended to the rest of China. China was never as economically free as America and isn't right now. The reason people invest in China isn't lax regulations or lower taxes but lower labour costs

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"Again, automation is an alternative. Combine this with autonomous zones and deregulation and we can beat the chicoms."
Automation isn't happening under free trade and there can only be so many Singapores which is the only thing you could possibly create with deregulation in a SEZ in America and even then America is already more free economically (to the detriment of America) than any part of China - Hong Kong.

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"America’s current economy is extremely corrupt and overregulated, almost as much as mainland China at this point. The same people own everything - there is almost no competition anymore"
America is way way way less corrupt than China. One of the consequences of free trade is the lack of competition because large corporations get to outsource and scale up globally which few people can hope to go up against and when they try they usually get gobbled up. Doing away with free trade would level the playing field in regards to regulations, labour costs etc.

And it would actively incentivize RnD into automation in manufacturing sicn elarge corporations would be heavily incentivized to reduce labour costs somehow without moving outside the country

Anybody got good books on Salazar?

@Big Boomer

@Tome_Enthusiast Thanks

God bless Dollfuss one of the greatest leaders we had. We need him back today.

YES!

@Felix the Monarchist have you seen catos new vid?

The one from 2 days ago?

Ok so you did

Are you actually from Austria or why do you have the emperor as your pfp? @Felix the Monarchist

Yes I am actually from Austria.

Na so was aber auch 😄

Darf ich mal wegen deines Profilbildes annehmen, dass du auch aus Österreich kommst?

Ja diese Annahme wäre richtig

Gibts noch ein paar weitere von uns hier?

Immer diese fake Deutschen

immer diese Lolberts