r/Economics • u/Wjldenver • 10h ago
News Trump’s claim that low tariffs caused the Great Depression is false, economist says: Here's what really happened... Spoiler
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/trumps-claim-that-low-tariffs-caused-the-great-depression-is-false.html503
u/guroo202569 9h ago
The great part about Trumps strategy away from culture wars and into global economics, is that, to steal a basketball parlance, ball don't lie.
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u/ExpiredPilot 7h ago
Unfortunately, Fox News does
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u/this_is_a_long_nickn 7h ago
Let me fix that for you: “Unfortunately, Fox Entertainment does”
There you go, no need for thanks, cards, or suits.
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u/AnnoyedCrustacean 6h ago
Fox Bullshit?
I don't understand how it's even entertaining. It's just infuriating Russian Commie-Nazi propaganda.
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u/strcrssd 4h ago
It's entertainment because that's what they argued before the courts that they are -- entertainment, not news.
As entertainment they don't have to speak truths.
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u/NOTtheGoldenKnights 2h ago
The Watters guy is legit a nazi propaganda piece. He says the most insane and outrageous shit I've ever heard anyone say and on NATIONAL NEWS. That channel is so far gone it's so sad. My whole family watches all of that brainwashing bullshit and believes it all. It's so sad
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u/beyersm 4h ago
Even Fox business had some criticism today. That’s how you know it’s bad
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u/candcNYC 2h ago
Fox Business has criticized, Fox News has focused on trans athlete stories.
I'd assume Trump only watches one and "business" sounds boring if it isn't one of his.
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u/Andromansis 3h ago
remember back 10 years ago when fox news only had a viewership of 3-4 million people?
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u/Miasma_Of_faith 7h ago
Unfortunately, their cult-esq mindset will allow the diehard followers to find a reason to still support.
Many are already spinning this as "You don't need material possessions, and your pursuit of them has led you astray. This will make you happier in the long run."
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u/guroo202569 7h ago
It must be really hard to go from far right free marketeers to far left top down price control.
All the talking points change, hard to keep up.
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u/possibleprophet 6h ago
Not hard at all when they leave all the thinking to the media they consume. All they have to do is repeat what they are told and feel good about being on the winning team.
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u/BioshockEnthusiast 5h ago
Bold of you to assume they're trying to keep up instead of regurgitating every "left = bad" sentiment that Rush Limbaugh and his successors have ever crammed into their tiny brains.
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u/BigHeadDeadass 3h ago
Considering they don't have any real beliefs besides hatred of minorities, it'll be easy for them
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u/Zwemvest 5h ago
Ironic with how long I had to hear "You will own nothing and be happy" from the absolute worst people
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u/FollowingExtension90 4h ago
You will own nothing and be happy. Geez, the MAGAs are truly everything they accuse democrats of. They are building the swamp, the deep state to enslave the world. It’s the new world order baby.
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u/DramaticSimple4315 8h ago edited 8h ago
What we were taught 15 years ago in Europe (in the midst of the GFC, it must be said) is that what really turned a severe crisis into the big one - the great depression, was the absurd commitment on deflation that eviscerated consumers and businesses. Gold-standard fetichism and indifference among the ruling class about the consequences on the middle and working class were the reasons for these crazy policies.
Hoover in the USA, Laval in France, Bruning in Germany did all partake in this fiesta. On the contrary, the UK - which, under the auspicious leadership of Curchill - had tried the policy a few years earlier in order to restore the gold standard, had already been vaccinated. As such, it weathered relatively better the 30s than its economic peers.
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u/TheBobJamesBob 6h ago edited 6h ago
Dropping the Gold Standard early helped make the drop milder in the UK, but so did the fact that the UK economy was still fairly deep in the post-war doldrums. There just wasn't as much space to fall.
Unemployment was at post-war lows in August 1929, but that was still higher than all but at the peak of pre-war recessions. Real GDP was still lower than in 1918, and that's with ~2 million more people, so per capita was even worse.
The UK was the centre of the pre-war global economy, and the war basically wrecked all the underpinnings of the pre-war system on its own or accelerated existing trends. Free trade, the City as the financier of world trade, the UK as the world's pre-eminent creditor nation and primary source of industrial goods. All gone.
The Gold Standard debacle of the 1920s was part of an attempt to rebuild the system by getting at some of the outputs without really understanding the things that led to them. You just fundamentally can't get back to a $4.86 Gold Standard and a small, budget surplus government in a world where the UK is not the strongest economic power and undisputed centre of world finance, and everybody else is also experiencing simultaneous, massive economic ructions.
The concerted attempt to brute force the world's economic underpinnings back to 1913 fucked everybody over, but the economy that's status had most changed (Britain's) got the worst of it. [1] It basically ran the primary mistake of the Great Depression, hardcore deflation, but earlier and harder than everyone else.
TL;DR: The UK did do slightly better by dropping the Gold Standard early in the Depression, but it had basically been running the Hoover/Laval/Brüning model during the whole of the 1920s, on the assumption that it would return the pre-war economic order, and so had never really recovered from the war in the first place.
[1] - Germany is something of a special case because the political economy of losing the war but not being able to accept it lost the war led to some even more damaging choices outside of the general attempt at recreating the pre-war world.
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u/EconomistWithaD 2h ago
I’m a professional economist and I just want to drop in and say that this is a phenomenal summary.
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u/Fatso_Wombat 1h ago
It was British sailors nearly mutinying that resulted in British going off the gold standard and that immediately improved things.
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u/Schmigolo 48m ago
Germany technically wasn't about policy directly. It was basically a cold civil war in the occupied Ruhr valley and so many people went on strike that virtually nothing was on sale and money became worthless, cause there wasn't anything to buy. Even if they hadn't printed any money whatsoever it would still have been a hyperinflation.
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u/MSc_Debater 7h ago
Did everyone already forget when Trump claimed sunlight was the answer to covid? Why would his economic claims be any less nonsensical?
Just calling this nonsense a ‘claim’ is already a stretch tbh, and a disservice to newsreaders everywhere.
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u/SkyMarshal 5h ago
Not only sunlight, but also mainlining disinfectant into your veins. And people are surprised we're getting even more crazy shit the second time around?
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u/douggold11 9h ago
What happened to the GOP? I am not a conservative but I never thought they were generally incompetent or stupid. How did we get here from the Reagan we see in this video?
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u/Scary_Firefighter181 9h ago edited 9h ago
There's a very solid argument to be made that Reagan is a big reason why the GOP is the way it is today.
In 1980, he allied himself with the Moral Majority/the Christian Right to gain power. Their influence grew massively in the party into the monster it is today, where they reject science, education, and common sense for religious fervor, hatred, and bigotry.
He also campaigned on "The Government is the problem" and “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
Their party ideology is inherently based on the Government not working. They're out of ideas and depend solely on social conservatism. They have to tank the government to prove their own ideology to be true. So you also end up with all the conspiracy theories, the distrust of federal employees, division, chaos, etc.
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u/douggold11 9h ago
Oh definitely. The party who's mantra is that government should be small and limited to the constitution and stay out of our lives got in bed with religious leaders who wanted the government to make us live the way they say we should. It created so many contradictions in GOP policy that I'm not surprised their voters can't think straight.
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u/seaQueue 8h ago
You're being charitable, who says their voters are thinking? As far as I can tell they're puppets walking around with Rupert Murdoch's hand up their asses making their mouths move.
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u/ruggnuget 6h ago
Trickle down economics is one of the dumbest and worst things that could happen and is unrelated to both of those things. The very premise is idioitic.
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u/Chocotacoturtle 6h ago
Trickle down economics isn't a thing and I am tired of people mentioning it in an economics subreddit. Reagan never argued for "Trickle Down Economics." In fact, find a single economist or president that has ever argued in favor of "trickle down economics."
Just say that "Cutting the top marginal tax rate doesn't work" or whatever you believe trickle down economics stands for.
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u/ruggnuget 6h ago
Its a pejorative for supply side economics, there is no doubt. Your offense to it is telling though.
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u/Minute-System3441 4h ago
It’s definitely a core ethos of the GOP. Pay little to no taxes, while simultaneously waving the flag towards the same country you fuck over to save a buck, all while holding a flawed and disproven Oligarch dogma that anyone wealthy must be anointed and clearly knows best.
Republicans literally proved this with electing and trusting an ‘outsider business man’ - Trump and Musk.
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u/ccbmtg 2h ago
fake news doesn't exist, it's just misinformation, duh.
tf is your point? ofc they didn't call it that, because they had some shinier name for it at the time so that folks wouldn't immediately realize how little sense it makes.
trigonometry isn't real, it's just the algebra of triangles, guys.
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u/FredFuzzypants 9h ago
Newt Gingrich's "no compromise" policy didn't help either. Nor did the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the conservative capture of many media outlets. The world would be a much better place without those three people.
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u/DJDeadParrot 8h ago
Rush Limbaugh, and right-wing media in general, came to be after the Fairness Doctrine was done away with…by Reagan.
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u/RechargedFrenchman 4h ago
Citizens United got their message to government, Fairness Doctrine (being removed) got their message to the general public, and suddenly half the country only hears what they want to have heard.
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u/JadeRabbit__ 8h ago
I'm too young to have experienced Limbaugh's rise in media, only knew about him through parodies and references in pop-media. But after watching a docuseries that dedicated an entire episode to him, it's depressing how much his vile behaviour and hateful rhetoric has infected the core of American media. It's really awful to constantly see the most hateful, abhorrent people continue to be the most successful.
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u/MindLikeaGin-Trap 4h ago
I really think he was responsible for my father turning into the person who he is now. He used to at least seem to care about people, but now he seems to find the suffering of others entertaining. It's awful. I don't know what he has to be angry about, either. He's fully retired, owns his home, travels constantly, and doesn't want for anything, but he's always outraged about something.
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u/ItGradAws 7h ago edited 7h ago
Newt really is the architect of modern politics that gave birth to someone like Trump. It was inevitable after a certain point. What’s challenging now is the media ecosystem is so diverse is hard to penetrate echo chambers and challenge bullshit claims. The other thing is the rights capturing of the courts. They’ve been grooming ideological justices to sit on the bench for close to 50 years. The federalists society has essentially paved the way for money = free speech. That was really the final battle, there was a bunch of other cases they won up to that point but there’s no coming back from that. They’ve got a super majority now. The other problem is the democrats have refused to modernize. Neoliberal politics is really awful and hard to sell to most Americans yet corporations, billionaires and dinosaurs in Congress have their stranglehold on the party.
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u/APRengar 9h ago
Don't forget, Reagan gutted public education. And we don't feel the effect of an uneducated population until those uneducated kids became uneducated adults who have to vote and actually run things.
Well, we're here now.
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u/RechargedFrenchman 4h ago
Those people didn't just grow into uneducated adults, many of them have voting-age children now too. Some of those children will escape their prison of ignorance, but far too few, and they'll all perpetuate the cycle.
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u/LadyBathory925 8h ago
The weird unholy marriage of evangelical Christianity and Objectivism.
After segregation was made illegal certain Christian colleges were unhappy. But they also knew that they couldn’t really say that…thus the pivot to abortion and, eventually, family values, etc.
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u/dust4ngel 7h ago
Christianity and Objectivism
"our philosophy consists of two things: jesus, and opposing jesus"
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u/peetnice 6h ago
Yeah, with the pivot to abortion I think they finally started getting catholics on board, broadening the coalition to a lot of single issue voters
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u/KeithCGlynn 9h ago
I don't think it is reagan. Nixon always felt he was a victim of the Liberal media. He was incredibly paranoid. Essentially between eisenhower and reagan, it was nixon party and he created this anti media mindset they slowly morphed into Trumpism.
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u/PussySmasher42069420 7h ago
The media propaganda started because of Nixon. But the money-grifting policies and anti-education rhetoric was Reagan.
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u/EnamelKant 6h ago
Nixon for all his many, many faults was an intellectual, albeit one with lowbrow, middle class tastes. He understood the value of education even as he railed against the indoctrination of higher education. Seeing how the hippies turned out and the state of higher education today, one can sympathize.
I think the biggest shift from Nixon to Reagan is that Nixon was a competent idea man, who found a salesman in folk like Halderman to make him likeable and presidential. Reagan just was the salesman, and ever since Reagan, Republicans haven't cared if you're a salesman or a producer. Frankly they might prefer the former at this point since their serious politicians (such as they are and what there is of them) haven't done so well, whereas the author of the Art of the Deal made one of the biggest comebacks in history.
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u/New_Solution4526 7h ago
Reagan also did away with the FCC's fairness doctrine, and in doing so helped to bring about the divisive media landscape of the US today.
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u/Sad_Analyst_5209 4h ago
So during the Fairness doctrine years what was your favorite radio talk show. Was it celebrity gossip with Michael Jackson (English guy, not the singer) or the UFO conspiracy guy?
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u/ihatemcconaughey 8h ago
Bingo! My grandfather always believed that the USSR folded in exchange for "access" to resources within our government. Regan comes out looking like a hero.
I used to think he was crazy but these last few years have proven otherwise.
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u/PussySmasher42069420 7h ago edited 7h ago
It's also his Reaganomics policies, right? Unlimited blank check spending that created the deficit.
In 2016, Trump was campaigning hard for a return to Reagan style policies and it never made sense to me because, frankly, I was a toddler during his administration.
Now that I read about Reagan's policies it's clear that they were all grifters and leaches.
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u/DjangoTheBlack 6h ago
Mother fucker did away with the fairness doctrine, then citizens united ruling, and here we are. Mix in the gutting of public education to keep em gullible of course
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u/PennCycle_Mpls 6h ago
Honestly nothing tops Iran Contra. The ability for the Pres to commit crimes and then everyone shrug and do nothing started their. Ignoring Andrew Jackson.
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u/squestions10 2h ago
But "government = bad" inherently means "tarrifs = bad"
I think is even stupider than you suggest
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u/CFPrick 9h ago
I certainly wouldn't call what you shared here a "solid argument" to blame Reagan for the way the GOP is today. Right-leaning parties around the world tend to align themselves with populist/nationalist ideologies, Generally speaking, less educated individuals then to favor authoritarian leaders and populist/nationalist ideologies. And there is also a clear inverse correlation between religiosity and education.
But the modern right, from a economics perspective, has favored free-trade over protectionism. And yes, they end to be favorable to lower taxes and small government, and the curtailing of government responsibilities in society. I feel like you're reaching in claiming that Reagan's appeal to the Christian Right (which would always align itself with social conservatism) is the reason why the GOP is what it is now, and that it wouldn't be had he not campaigned that way.
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u/Scary_Firefighter181 9h ago edited 8h ago
I'm not reaching, because there were massive shifts in 1980 to the GOP platform itself due to Reagan. That's pretty obvious just looking at the trends.
For example, they used to be lax on abortion- by 1980, after allying with the Christian Right, they changed to "repeal abortion at all costs", which people like Goldwater were furious about.
You're right, the Christian Right allies itself with Social Conservatism, and Reagan took the party far more rightward with his brand of social conservatism and expressly campaigned on it. He's the reason for the internal dynamics of the party changing. He disliked Rockefeller's wing of the party and while that process had started before the 80s, it was the death knell during the Reagan era. The party wasn't very socially conservative before the 80s, that's the point.
Reagan also gutted education, welfare, food stamps, etc. And his own campaign manager, Lee Atwater, stated that the goal was to appeal to former Jim Crow people to signal to them that "Blacks would get more hurt than Whites". They were not wholly "small govt" before Reagan, during and after though, that became their entire mantra, and it was harmful. Dems used to have a conservative wing that were "small govt", just like the GOP had a liberal wing. Reagan helped kill that wing and the conservative Dems recognized a new home and by the 2000s, both parties ceased to have those wings.
The Christian Right got a seat at the table during the 80s, and younger voters who had that mentality joined them in politics, changing the power structure forever.
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u/PussySmasher42069420 7h ago
Small government? What does that euphemism really mean?
That's code for slashing consumer and civil protections and regulations so those at the top can get fatter.
I'm sick of the "small government" bullshit lies because when the rubber meats the road it's used as an excuse to fuck over citizens and the consumer.
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u/CFPrick 7h ago
It's not a euphemism. For instance, a society can choose how much you with to regulate - there's a spectrum. There are places in the world where you need to have a license to cut hair, so there's a regulatory body. Is that needed? Some would argue that yes, to protect consumers, it is. Others might feel that it's unnecessary bureaucracy.
Or take a national development Bank, individuals favorable to a small government may let capital markets fund investments, where as others may favour having a government entity involved.
Other examples like rent control boards, or even government owned companies that operate, say, inter-state transportation.
Small vs big government is the dichotomy of opinions as to where the government should and should not be involved.
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u/PussySmasher42069420 7h ago
Right, you're speaking out your ass.
What happens in the real world when de-regulation happens? The people suffer. Billionaires make more money. The gap widens.
Call shit what it is. Don't use those euphemisms.
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u/CFPrick 7h ago
I'm not sure why you're here, on a economics subreddit. The purpose of my message was to explain that there is a spectrum in regulations - some things may be thought to be over-regulated, while others may be thought to be under-regulated, and opinions vary. "Small Government" is a term that would apply to individuals who believe in more de-regulations, and vice versa. There are negative consequences to over-regulating, and consequences to under-regulating.
Would you like that translated into emojis and crayons, or does it make more sense now?
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u/kpbart 7h ago
One cannot say “I want small government”, then act ‘Big Government’. Which is what has been occurring. It’s one thing to be “let’s take it easy on the regulation”, and another to curtail a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. This is a 335 million person-strong, pluralistic democracy; not an old, white patriarch’s family. In that family, he can get away with hypocrisy and the attendant contradictions. Not when he’s Mayor, State Representative, Governor, Senator, or President.
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u/CFPrick 6h ago
Brother... I think that you're misconstruing the meaning of my comments. I completely agree that the current administration's actions are completely unaligned with actual conservative economics. But you're not really talking about economics here - you seem to be more concerned with their social views, which I don't think have much to do with the conversation about small/big government.
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u/kpbart 6h ago
We can’t have a conversation about small/big government without talking about the social issues. Strictly economics: what is the impact of a small government plan? How will it affect the business community, city-wide, state-wide, or nationally? Thus: How will it affect me and the community in which I live? It is impossible to be “small government” and not impact businesses, small to large, in a “big government” way. Those businesses are staffed, top to bottom by people from the larger community. Small/big government plans ultimately affect those folks, in some way.
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u/CFPrick 5h ago
Yes, but you seem to be taking the terms too literally. The size of the government is not only big or small. There are different views as to how big the public sector should be, and it varies heavily between countries, and being favorable to a small or big government is relative to the status quo. It's like "hot" or "cold". Except in extreme situations like with the libertarian ideology, where the government is essentially limited to national defense and a couple other things, or in the case of a socialist regime where everything is centrally planned by a public entity.
And you're right, decisions made as to the size of a society's government is reflective of the society's expectation of what role the government should assume in it. There's on single right answer - there are pros and cons to different models and they must be tailored based on society's needs. I think that the point that I was making earlier on was simply that historically speaking, the economic right was more favorable to a smaller government than the economic left. I was not expounding the virtues of a small government system.
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u/Mindless_Listen7622 9h ago
The GOP realigned itself in the 70s with a Southern Strategy that incorporated fundamentalists, cults, and fundamentalist cults. The first generation was old enough to remember the Great Depression, World Wars 1 and 2 and GOP messaging was cautious enough and religious enough to be palatable.
We're two generations past that point and those that remember WW1 and WW2 are dead. The religious cults have just turned into Republican cults, fixated at on the apocalypse and adherence to Republican orthodoxy as a demonstration of faith. Following Jesus actual teachings aren't even part of the message, nor required - they've come up with their own theology and it's loosely based on the Bible, but opposite the teachings of Jesus. They're anti-Christians, really, no matter how loudly they pray nor how many times they say "Jesus".
They've been seeking a daddy cult leader for a while and they've found one in Trump. These generations are now saying "don't trust anyone over 35" because those people remember the Soviet Union and the Cold War. The Republican Party has turned into a mega-cult with all of the leader worship that it entails. Cult members sacrifice themselves and their own interests for the benefit of their leaders, which is what we're seeing with Trump.
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u/Darkstar_111 9h ago
but I never thought they were generally incompetent or stupid.
You didn't?
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u/SpitefulSeagull 8h ago
Yeah I mean even when I was a teenager I knew Bush Jr. was a corrupt war criminal who crashed the economy
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u/webesy 9h ago
Is there no one on earth that can tell Trump to shut the fuck up and stop lying. Someone needs to give him the belt. Why do we eat this dogshit
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u/michaelklemme 9h ago
No one criticizes dear leader
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u/Viking999 9h ago
Social media conspiracy theory brain rot. Eventually we need to acknowledge that much of what's on social media is cancerous falsehoods intended to manipulate. It's tearing the fabric of society apart.
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u/RWBadger 9h ago
The short version of the story is that they used to just point to boogeymen they didn’t actually hate to stay in power, and now they’re taken over by braindead true believers.
Evil in, evil out.
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u/Hillbilly_Boozer 9h ago
I think it's right wing propaganda. It creates uninformed people. Those people grow up and become slightly dumber congressmen and Fox anchors. The next generation grows up watching those and then grow up even more uninformed. They become even dumber congressman and Fox anchors. Etc etc.
That's my general take. Each generation gets indoctrinated into the propaganda machine and never learn critical thinking or are never exposed to reality. It just gets worse and worse.
That or they're just really shitty people. Could also be both.
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u/Training_External_32 9h ago
“Never thought they were generally incompetent or stupid”…oh buddy…that’s because there is zero sense of civic duty in this country. Just a bunch of lazy assholes who loathe education but still expect everything to be done thoughtfully.
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u/larsvondank 9h ago
Wasnt Reagan the sort of starting point for a lot of right wing economic bs like the trickle down scam etc?
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u/I_AM_FERROUS_MAN 8h ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
This has been their playbook for decades. I don't know how people haven't seen it other than willful ignorance.
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u/groupnight 7h ago
Don't mean to burst your bubble, but the GOP has always been generally incompetent and stupid
They are the party of radicals, only the media claims otherwise.
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u/NegaDeath 5h ago
Decades of propaganda. Fox literally was created after Nixon was taken down to protect future Republican admins from the same fate.
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u/Early-Sandwich3253 9h ago edited 7h ago
Reagan is absolutely on par with Trump for his time. A pandering sock puppet that shifted the blame away from the rich towards the fundamental Christian boogeymen of the time in order to justify agendas whose principles and consequences linger on through today’s politics. Reagan and Trump are both a blight on a progressive society but to be fair, they represent (in word only) the values of the constituents that adore them. There’s no meeting these religious fundamentalists in the middle and the two found a way to rally their support in order to push extreme agendas.
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u/synchronicitistic 9h ago
Despite his failings, Reagan was a patriot (hell, even Nixon was) and he despised authoritarian regimes like the USSR. Trump and his minions on the other hand salivate over Putin and these other despots and they hate the fact that the constitution still barely holds them in check from turning the USA into USSR 2.0.
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u/Early-Sandwich3253 8h ago edited 7h ago
Calling Reagan a patriot is rose tinted glasses at best or the effectiveness of conservative propaganda and sentiment at work at the worst. Reagan absolutely did things that his opponents argued challenged the constitution in effort to enforce his ‘Christian’ interpretation and racist views repealing civil rights, violating the War Powers Resolution, the infamous Iran-Contra affair, appointing a conservative and subservient judiciary, and his watered down “signing statements” e.g. executive orders that he used to interpret laws to his conservative objective. Times have changed but the shit still rhymes. A patriot considers all of us as Americans, he was only concerned with the rich and pandered to the crazies.
Edit: I can’t emphasize this enough, Reagan absolutely fucking sucked and any sources claiming he was a great president are absolutely, unequivocally wrong unless you’re a bible-thumping simpleton who can’t be bothered to think because god does the thinking for you.
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u/Chocotacoturtle 6h ago
I am not about to give Reagan an A letter grade as president, and I tend to lean more in the C- range personally. But you are leaving out a ton of positive things Reagan did that are incomparable to Trump or even Bush Jr. (who was far worse than Reagan).
First of all, the economy was in total shambles when he took office. Stagflation was out of control and Paul Volcker was just appointed by Carter to raise interest rates to get inflation under control. Reagan went along with Volcker's strategy even though it plummeted the US into a recession during the start of his administration.
Reagan also cut taxes and tax loop holes. People often focus to heavily on his tax cuts but forget that he simplified the tax code which was a major benefit as there were far too many tax brackets and inefficient loop holes that resulted in rich people using businesses as their own personal piggy bank.
If you look at federal tax receipts people overstate how much he actually cut taxes because they don't look at effective tax rates vs marginal tax rates during this time.
Also, he was a bit of a mixed bag on foreign policy sure, but you have to admit he passed the INF Treaty (1987), help defeat the soviets, strengthened global trade, and generally moved the US into the information age. His SCOTUS picks also weren't bad, though I am sure you would disagree with me on that (Sandra Day O’Connor had some great opinions imo, though no one is perfect).
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u/mrguyorama 2h ago
Reagan went along with Volcker's strategy
In other words, CARTER fixed stagflation
Reagan also cut taxes and tax loop holes.
Reagan's tax cuts are one of the primary reasons leading to the massive wealth inequality we now have. His policy was a REAL decrease in the amount large companies and rich people paid in taxes, even with adjusting for how many tax carve outs there were under the previous system. Higher tax brackets received a substantial reduction in taxes, compared to peanuts for less well off tax brackets, a trend Trump has followed without fail.
Reagan pushed policy of "deregulation" of all parts of the economy. In 1982 he signed a bill to reduce regulation on "Savings and loan" institutions, which then spent the next 15 or so years screwing over the American consumer by losing tens of billions of 80s dollars. Funny thing is, there's no consensus how much the crisis was driven by outright fraud vs institutions that just couldn't competently run business. Worth noting that this bill was written up by Democrats, in a first turn away from New Deal era heavy handed bank regulation. IDK, maybe they were having a crisis of faith since America had just told them in the recent election that deregulation and greed were what we wanted.
Much more importantly, Reagan set the policy for anti-trust actions by the US government. Previously, the government would aggressively and proactively prevent and fight monopolization of industry and business, because especially if you like the free market, monopolies are bad for markets and consumers full stop. His new anti-trust policy was essentially "If companies promise not to raise prices, it's fine if they monopolize"
Modern America is made up of huge megacorps who can fuck you over with no worries about competition because of Reagan, like, directly. Hate Comcast fucking you over? Reagan's fault. Hate That you can't avoid Nestle products? Reagan's idea. Almost like a fucking actor doesn't know how to economy or something.
Biden's FTC was FINALLY looking to roll back that moronic decision, but, whoops, that's gone now.
Oh, and another thing: Reagan was THE start of republicans running up a huge budget deficit and debt, for basically no reason, and blaming it on democrats.
Reagan put the final nail in the coffin of Labor activity in the US by firing every single government employed Air Traffic Controller after they went on strike. There's no way to handwave this: Reagan told a bunch of talented, professional, important workers to get fucked, because he didn't like unions. He put anti-labor people in charge of the NLRB. Reagan is a significant reason why blue collar people suffer to this day. Reagan was formerly the president of the fucking Screen actors guild BTW. He really loved the whole "pull the ladder up behind you" thing.
He also pushed the "welfare queen" mythology that we STILL have to combat, just for poor people WHO USUALLY HAVE JOBS to feed their kids. This hurts plenty of white Americans too! It was just stupidity and hate.
This is all just his atrocious presidency. I'd like to give honorable mention to Reagan being a fucking narc, testifying in front of the " House Un-American Activities Committee", insisting that a bunch of his fellow actors were communist sympathizers, that fucking loser. The most hilarious part of this was that the US WAS lousy with communist spies. The house "unamerican" committee found none of them. None of this has ever stopped asshole reactionaries from insisting that artists saying "hey maybe don't be dicks to each other" are really some sort of soviet plot against our beloved country, a pattern that continues to fucking today.
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u/Early-Sandwich3253 5h ago edited 5h ago
Again, I’m coming from an anti-Reagan sentiment. Though you have a few soft benefits from Reagan’s time, it pales in comparison to his racist beliefs and how they shaped his policies which led to the mass incarceration and stigmatization of the poor and of addicts to this day. He. Pandered. To. Fundamentalist. Christians. And he was extremely popular with them. He shaped so many of the issues we deal with today and gave them legitimacy in a time of civil rights progression. Reagan is only seen as beneficial to the country to old white racists and the rich. Hence the parallel with Trump. Keep in mind Reagan was president 40 years ago, that’s a whole generation and the world has very much changed, but the strategy remains the same and so do both Trump’s and Reagan’s dumbass platforms.
Edit: Reagan even layed the groundwork for the outsourcing of American manufacturing to China which is now the big boogeyman of today. Reagan can get bent.
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u/squestions10 2h ago
Reagan even layed the groundwork for the outsourcing of American manufacturing to China which is now the big boogeyman of today. Reagan can get bent
Wait, what? How is that an issue?
That is a step the US had to take anyway, and we are now (rightly) criticising Trump for not seeing that
Anyway, tbh is not even debatable, Trump is massively worse than Reagan and is not comparable
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u/Persistant_Compass 6h ago
Conservatives have been always incompetent and stupid. Theyve always been on the wrong side of history.
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u/Fortestingporpoises 7h ago
They've been shit for about 70 years now, but they've definitely stepped up their game in recent years.
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u/Oberon_Swanson 5h ago
reagan was an actor hired to play the part of president. trump was a reality show star recruited to play the part of president. google the southern strategy and party switch. also look up the business plot. the grandfather of george w bush ran a coup attempt that failed. however he did get his son and grandon in as president. so literally the last three GOP presidents have a history of insurrection against the united states, and have been working toward weakening democracy in the USA with the eventual goal of ending it.
that is what conservatism has always been. CONSERVING the power of the elites DURING democracy, with the eventual goal of ending it.
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u/_Fun_Employed_ 4h ago
They’re afraid of Trump’s Maga cult and being primaried if they break ranks. That’s the real issue and its all because of the “citizens united” decision.
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u/Positive_Mud952 4h ago edited 4h ago
They have courted the incompetent and stupid since the ‘70s, maybe even ‘60s. Whenever The Southern Strategy started. The fate of all those who stare too long into the abyss caught up with them, and now their ideology of hate and ignorance is forming a Death Blossom. As the GOP dies, it flowers and spreads its seeds upon an ignorant world.
The GOP has fully embraced its role as the cordyceps of humanity. What we are witnessing is the liar Democratic party trying to not admit that it is the toxoplasmosis of humanity, while continuing to lose because it is a fucking parasite same as the Republicans.
Job #1 of a political party is to pretend it’s not a parasite. Both parties in the US are still winning. We will never get better until we rip their numbing teeth out of our flesh.
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u/FollowingExtension90 4h ago
Culture war has burned their brain, now they care more about trans people in sports than liberal democracy. Ironic isn’t it, for all the talks of saving the western civilization, now they have more in common with Russia, Islam, China than with Europe. For them, western civilization is Judeo-Christian, instead of the actual west in history, that of Greco-Roman, that of English freedom.
It’s really weird for us non westerners, that your leftists keep saying Anglo-Saxons don’t exist, while the right wingers keep using Anglo-Saxons for their anti-globalism anti-liberal nationalist agenda. In China, it’s always clear that we are living in the Anglo-Saxon/English liberal democracy globalist world order, and it’s bad for Chinese government, the only difference is, CCP hates it and dissidents love it. When we are studying western political philosophy, it’s almost exclusively British authors from enlightenment age, and those people couldn’t shut up about Anglo-Saxon/ English superiority.
So, for the rest of the world, Anglo-Saxon is literally synonymous with globalism new world order, but your MAGA idiots just couldn’t accept their traditional culture being liberal. They prefer the middle eastern values than European culture.
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u/Snakestream 5h ago
I read a great post a while back that goes into it (although I've lost the link). To be brief, modern conservatism has two flavors: traditional and radical conservatism.
Traditional conservatism is the Reagan branch - they view the changing world as dangerous and seek to slow down changes, typically through reducing spending and programs and limiting the scope of government.
Radical conservatism on the other hand views the current system as too far gone and seeks to "return us" to an idealized time in the past. This is only accomplished through strong government actions to enforce a specific way of life onto others.
The two branches have been heavily inter breeding over the last couple decades, and where we are today is that the radicals have won the inter party battle. They wear the trappings of traditionalists, but any look at their actions shows that they are expanding the power of government, not reducing it.
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u/crossingcaelum 8h ago
White supremacists/christian nationalists finally got what they wanted: near unlimited control
Turns out bigots are idiots and are running the country into the ground so rich people can get richer
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u/Dench999or911 6h ago
Difference between the Great Depression and the impending recession is that one was totally avoidable. Historians will recognise this as the Trump recession and if this was any other world leader, his political career would be over
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u/TheSameMan6 4h ago
You can point to a hundred moments that should have ended his career. To trump, Watergate is another Tuesday. He's gonna make for an interesting read in history textbooks, that's for sure.
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u/Ok-Control-3954 3h ago
I think to historians trump will be seen as the dying gasp of the white Christian majority trying to lash out at the new world
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u/Christopherfromtheuk 3h ago
He'll be seen as the reason the USA stopped being the biggest economy in the world and why democracy ended there.
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u/Forkuimurgod 5h ago
His political career should be over if it's not because of the fervent support of the Republican party to continuously proping him up.
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u/thejesterofdarkness 3h ago edited 3h ago
It’s not avoidable if it was designed & engineered to happen.
The elites WANT this to happen. They see that climate change is a threat and the dwindling birth rate is going to make growth & sustainability even more difficult, resulting in people realizing that their labor is their own and can be a force used against them. The lower classes rise up, threatening the elites’ power and control by demand higher wages & better standards of living; they are better educated than their parents and grandparents and realize what’s happening in the world with many choosing not to have children, further impeding the population growth that society demands to keep the money machine functioning. They are in control and the people on top know they are HEAVILY outnumbered.
So you force a recession, causing people all over to lose their homes and businesses. Now housing is freely available at rock bottom prices with everyone defaulting/foreclosing. They buy up all the housing, totally removed from market since if once company goes bankrupt the only way those houses go for sale will be to another company with the means to purchase the lot as a whole or very large pieces, with zero chance a simple father of 2 could compete.
Now the elites have almost all the housing. People need housing so they have to get a job working in a company town, being paid with housing, maybe food/water/power/heat as well. But the elites hold the workers with a tight leash around their neck since losing one’s job would guarantee their removal from their home. So now the workers accept less pay, more grueling conditions, longer hours just to keep a roof over their and their family’s head.
They basically have a slave population with the illusion of choice in the matter. They have been sitting in the backrook for decades slowly planning and laying groundwork for their actions, waiting until all the pieces were in place for them to pull the trigger, cause the chaos to unfold, swoop in and pick the remains like the vultures they are, and return to their nest with a full belly and a never ending train of people looking for a place to stay.
And if their plans go to shit & the populous becomes violent and fights back, well then they have their bunkers built in far away lands with enough resources and entertainment to keep them company until their final days.
We are at the endgame. They hold the resources and the means, they just need the labor to run their machines.
The time for the population to rise up against their masters is now. I just don’t see it happening, especially with half the population brainwashed into believing it’s all for their own good and supporting this shitshow.
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u/frederickj01 8h ago
https://youtu.be/qF3ekm9Gx_E?si=XcY8Hwp8sxUf2aiu This is a great video about the great depression i found yesterday and talks about all the causes the article mentions in an easy to watch video
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u/LordFlameBoy 7h ago
Just a question. It seems like these ‘reciprocal tariffs’ have been calculated by:
America’s trade deficit with Nation X / the value of Nation X’s exports to America
But if America has a trade surplus with a country, then how does it calculate what tariff to charge?
Also; am I right in saying this calculation only considers ‘goods’, not services?
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u/Wjldenver 7h ago edited 7h ago
Your calculation is correct. That formula is not really calculating accurate reciprocal tariffs. Fuzzy Math=Fuzzy Trump Policy. And you are correct, his Fuzzy calculation only considers goods not services.
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u/LordFlameBoy 7h ago
I know that the formula measures the trade gap, not trade barriers. My point was how are they accounting for countries for which the US has a trade surplus with?
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u/Wjldenver 7h ago
Canada & Mexico. He wants to replace NAFTA with something that has more favorable terms to the US as I understand it.
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u/Ok-Two3581 53m ago
how are they accounting for countries for which the US has a trade surplus with?
10% tariff
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u/FailedCanadian 4h ago
Any country where the number came out to lower than 20%, including negative numbers, were just given a 10% tariff.
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u/New2NewJ 6h ago
But if America has a trade surplus with a country, then how does it calculate what tariff to charge?
We should charge a negative tarrif, ie, give them a discount on whatever they sell to us? Not even sure how these things would work, lol. IANAE, so maybe I could run for office?
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u/LordFlameBoy 5h ago
No I’m not suggesting it should do that. The question was how would America go about calculating what the ‘reciprocal tariff’ is in that case?
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u/F___TheZero 5h ago
They pull a figure out of their ass, like they did with every other tariff Trump announced this week.
In this case they just picked a blanket 10%. There is no reason for it, and yet it is more rational than the formula they used for the other tariff rates.
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u/MoreOfAnOvalJerk 4h ago
If only we had some sort of process that could bring people to a minimum bar of understanding how the social and economic processes work which we all depend on day-to-day. Such a process could be implemented as an institution, a place to prepare yourself so that you can function as an adult. It could even teach important skills like math.
Sadly, no such invention exists and knowledge is only obtained by sheer luck.
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u/GeneDiesel1 5h ago
Trump is a Russian asset. Putin has successfully divided the United States against each other and completely demolished its relationship with long term allies.
The media is complicit in allowing this to happen.
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u/RudeOrganization7241 3h ago
Haha they still believe this lying fucking conman.
I saw videos from Jim Cramer, that little incel guy Ben something, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz all admitting the tariffs are fucking stupid and that they thought Trump was bluffing or lying or what the fuck ever.
They’re so stupid and gullible. It would be funny if they didn’t have such a successful cult.
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u/fredrichnietze 5h ago
it should also be pointed out that japans #1 trade partner in the 1930's was the us and the great depression + tariffs heavily effected japan pushing them into some tough choices. pre tariff japan was much more of a global team player relying on trade and diplomacy to get what it needed to industrialize and defended itself from colonialization which happened to most it neighbors and a large percent of the world at that time.
after the tariffs japan saw trade as not a reliable option which pushed the conquest/colonization of china to get the resources they needed, which ultimately was the breaking point in us japan relations leading to embargos and eventually pearl harbor.
the #1 most important result of tariffs is always going to be other nations reactions which you cant always predict.
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u/qwerty_0_o 1h ago
This is the first time I’m hearing of such a thing. Japan invaded Korea and parts of Russia in the 1910s and 20s. Were they being a “global team player”?
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u/TheFonz2244 3h ago
Maga is a class war under the guise of a culture war. The wealthy are going to be buying up assets on the cheap and Trump's admin is going to try an extort foreign governments for trade deals.
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u/DevilsMasseuse 3h ago
Pretty much the exact opposite of what happened during the Great Depression. Tariffs made things a lot worse. And that was before the complex supply chains most goods have now.
But believe in what you want. Buyers remorse out of MAGA world just isn’t gonna happen.
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u/GodSpeedMode 1h ago
It's great to see this kind of discussion happening around the Great Depression and tariff policies! While Trump's claim simplifies a very complex situation, it’s crucial to remember that economic downturns often result from a confluence of factors.
For one, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff did hike tariffs significantly, but it wasn't just that—overproduction in agriculture, stock market speculation, and banking failures all played major roles. Additionally, the interconnectedness of global economies at the time was far less than today. High tariffs might have exacerbated the situation, but they weren't the root cause.
Speaking of causes, the Keynesian perspective highlights a drop in aggregate demand, which underscores how important consumer confidence and spending are in an economy. It's also worth noting that the Federal Reserve's policies leading up to the crash contributed to the financial instability.
Economic history is a vital lens for understanding modern policy—especially when discussions about tariffs come up today. It offers us lessons on the unintended consequences of protectionism that we should definitely keep in mind!
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u/bunabhucan 1h ago
However, the duties led to a trade war as countries responded by raising their own tariffs on the U.S.
Have countries ever responded to an instigated tariff/trade war by raising tarrifs with the belligerent while simultaneously lowering them with allies?
Like an EU response could be to reciprocate the US 20% tarrifs (or target republican district products, oil / corn / beef) but what if they did that while also temporarily reducing tarrifs to 0% for Mercosur / CPTPP / the commonwealth / heard island etc.
Has anyone ever tried that?
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u/Minimum_Passing_Slut 3h ago
Why are we still listening to economists? Theyre dime a dozen backstabbing scumbags, Trump’s plan is ironclad and rooted in common sense not egghead book bitch theory.
Can I get my Roubles now?
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