Unfortunately the feedback loop in nations is much slower than in bodies.
You would expect the US industry to silently absorb his trade policies and only break decades after he leaves. Somehow, they aren't healthy enough for that.
Everyone has been optimizing to increase profits for decades. A 1950's US economy would have taken a lot longer to collapse.
Protecting workers from that kind of competition seems fair. Tariffs aren't bad in itself. They are just a tool.
Unfortunately fools wielding a tool like this can cause a lot of damage, but that's true for any tool.
Given the timing and the metaphor of blood being sent to and from a limb, this is almost surely a reference to the tariff threats against Canada.
This is a bit peculiar, because it ignores the whole "the money we are spending is being exchanged for goods that come back to the US" part of the trade. I.e. I don't have a trade deficit with the grocery store, I just buy my groceries.
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/trump-brag...
In, say, China a worker doing 996 will make 720 items. Te average working hours in the Netherlands are 36 hours or so per week. Making 360 items.
As long as there is free trade the Chinese factory will simply outproduce the Dutch one since they utilise their capex better.
Obviously European workers can't be reasonably asked to compete in an open market when labour laws, salary, health inspection etc... in China are at a 1920 Dutch level.
If your factory workers spend twice as long working, it's likely that more widgets will get made. I'm not certain you can generalize too far from that, though.
Tariffs aren't inherently bad, they're a tool.
At second approximation, the Dutch factory there make a larger number of items per hour because the workers are more alert and concentrated and make less mistakes. So the dutch factory and the chinese factory might actually be producing the same number of items.
Of course then there's more steps to this, and you need to start actually looking at systems and what you're optimizing for etc etc.
Not everything is factories. For instance, if your operator is operating a large crane that's lifting a 100 ton oil platform, maybe you'd prefer them to be wide awake and on the ball, regardless.
Does the same hold for going from 5 days to 7 days or 8 hours to 16 hours?
A reasonable person should agree at some point adding more time will make people less productive due to lack of breaks, rest, etc.
Is it obvious where the line is? if so, where?
It seems I've 'stung the wasps nest' on HN by not denouncing them outright it seems.
ot•1h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belly_and_the_Members