Itās hard to say if the president truly knows what heās doing. But there is a precedent for the US causing short-term chaos and reaping long-term gain, says economist James Meadway
Yeah, see that all makes perfect sense. Iām all for analyzing how things got to be this way and how the whole thing behaves and where this tariff thing even came from.
What I was taking issue with is saying that it āmight workā if we just stay the course, just like all Reaganās policies worked and fueled an economic boom. That, I strongly disagree with for multiple reasons, to the point that I think it is journalistic malpractice.
The Guardian writes pretty much 99% very informative and sensible articles and then every so often one comes that is totally insane, and every one of the insane ones that Iāve seen has either been pro-Trump or pro-Russia. I have no idea whatās going on there but it seemed worth talking about to me.
Reaganās policies did fuel an economic boom (when measured by traditional economic indicators - thatās its own can of worms). They also resulted in the wholesale destruction of worker compensation, workerās rights, consumer protections, and created a ticking time bomb that lead to almost every bad thing weāre seeing today.
But you canāt just deny a fact because it comes bundled with a bunch of negatives. Reaganās policies - measured solely by the metric of creating huge economic growth for the wealthiest in America - were extraordinarily successful.
This is important to understand because that success is exactly why those policies have proven so enduring. If they werenāt successful, their effects - including all the negative effects - wouldnāt have stuck around.
Nothing in this article is cheerleading for Trump. This āif we stay the courseā angle is entirely in your head. The authorās tone is nothing but scornful towards the White House and Trump. But the worst thing we can do is assume that Trumpās plans (or at least, the plans of the people doing their best to steer him in a particular direction) have no chance of succeeding. Presuming victory is a great way to ensure defeat.
It is important to understand that there really is a chance that Trump might succeed in creating a new world economic order. I donāt think he will, because I think Trumpās personal goals are not as well aligned with those of his advisors as the author of this article assumes. But just because I disagree on the odds, doesnāt mean I have to disagree on the possible outcomes, and acknowledging those possible outcomes is really, really important.
As the author concludes:
There is no guarantee this extraordinary gamble will work, not even for those in the clique around Trump. But it would be a mistake to assume it cannot work ā and however the pieces now land, they will not return to their old places.
(emphasis mine)
Know your enemy. If you donāt you are doomed to failure.
By treating anything that tries to understand that strategies of this administration as propaganda for the administration all youāre doing is damaging our ability to respond effectively to their strategies. Youāre trading reality for comforting lies.
Reaganās policies did fuel an economic boom (when measured by traditional economic indicators - thatās its own can of worms)
Incorrect. By almost any metric you want to pick other than ādid a bunch of assholes on Wall Street get very richā, it was a disaster. Wages, unemployment, federal budget deficit, domestic manufacturingā¦ IDK, what metrics were you thinking? The Dow Jones? The dollar tanked, so the trade deficit improved, but that was pretty temporary as for a variety of reasons all the manufacturing fled the country like it was last call. Unless by ātraditional,ā you mean the ones like GDP or stock prices that are largely just illusory maybe. What metrics do you mean that are accurate when you say it fueled an economic boom?
Nothing in this article is cheerleading for Trump. This āif we stay the courseā angle is entirely in your head.
It says:
There are precedents. In October 1979, Paul Volcker, newly appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve, drove up interest rates to a remarkable 13% in a bid to tackle inflation, later raising them to 17%. Soon the US was in recession. Millions lost their jobs over the next two years, notably in manufacturing, where soaring interest rates had driven up the value of the dollar, making US exports less affordable on the world market. After a light easing of interest rate hell by the Fed, Volcker applied a second dose of the medicine, driving interest rates up to 19% and forcing the economy back into a double-dip recession. Unemployment peaked at around 10% in late 1982.
But by mid-1983, inflation had come down to 2.5%. For the rest of the 1980s, the US economy boomed. The āVolcker shockā appeared to have worked. Volcker is today a folk hero among central bankers: Ben Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 crisis, praised Volckerās āindependenceā and willingness to brazen out the political storm.
Trump is not for turning on what is clearly for him a personal crusade. Already, countries such as Vietnam are promising to cut all their tariffs on US goods ā a clear and brutal demonstration of the USās continuing economic power. The administration has claimed 50 other countries have also asked to open negotiations. By the end of the week, expect Trump to be triumphantly announcing more such concessions from economies in the global south. His real target ā China ā will be a far tougher nut to crack, if it breaks at all.
Perhaps the rolling market chaos will become too much. Perhaps the administration will blink first. There is no guarantee this extraordinary gamble will work, not even for those in the clique around Trump.
I get what youāre saying. They may be using a definition of āworkedā that is limited to the leadersā own internal aims (which are horrible), and not cheerleading when they write these things. But I donāt buy it. I highlighted the part where they are explicitly saying that this sort of thing was really good for the US āeconomyā (even at the expense of everyone else).
Again, I get what youāre saying, that if you define āthe economyā as just a handful of bankers and landlords, it makes perfect sense. By almost no other definition does it make sense. So, I say āpropagandaā because this type of clever redefinition of words to mean something other than what they mean is one of the most effective methods. You can sort of implicitly cast the situation in a way where economic destruction is āmedicineā and the looting of the middle class on behalf of Wall Street is ābooming economyā and things like that.
I guess itās possible that this Guardian writer is just super badly confused when he writes that. He may be unintentionally parroting some propaganda framings, while heās trying to make an accurate analysis of where Trumpās tariff ideas even come from, and some historical parallels.
But the worst thing we can do is assume that Trumpās plans (or at least, the plans of the people doing their best to steer him in a particular direction) have no chance of succeeding. Presuming victory is a great way to ensure defeat.
It is important to understand that there really is a chance that Trump might succeed in creating a new world economic order. I donāt think he will, because I think Trumpās personal goals are not as well aligned with those of his advisors as the author of this article assumes. But just because I disagree on the odds, doesnāt mean I have to disagree on the possible outcomes, and acknowledging those possible outcomes is really, really important.
I absolutely do not think that Trump will be ineffective at wreaking destruction or creating a new world economic order. Pretty much my only complaint with the article is that it defines it as āsuccessā for somebody, when to me the more likely outcome is failure for everyone: Trump, Trumpās backers, rich people in the US, poor people in the US, and the rest of the world. And, it ascribes some method to the madness (and thus a āclear-eyedā possibility that it will accomplish goals of some sort for somebody) that I think is very undeserved, however much theoretical backing in some vague sense it has.
By almost any metric you want to pick other than ādid a bunch of assholes on Wall Street get very richā, it was a disaster. Wages, unemployment, federal budget deficit, domestic manufacturing
Yes. Itās almost like I said exactly that same thing in the comment you replied to. If youād actually read it before firing off your reply you might have noticed that I am in fact aware of all those factors. In fact, itās almost like the line immediately after the one you quoted reads:
They also resulted in the wholesale destruction of worker compensation, workerās rights, consumer protections, and created a ticking time bomb that lead to almost every bad thing weāre seeing today.
You canāt debate or discuss anything effectively if your approach is to ignore 90% of what the other person says and then reply to something you made up in your head. In fact in your replies to me Iām starting to see a pattern that also explains how you got the intent of the original article so wrong. Reading comprehension is more than just understanding the words, itās about disentangling your own perception of reality from that of the writer and correctly assessing how their worldview differs from yours, so that you can actually begin to understand their intent, and not just the intent that you read into the words in absentia.
In regard to my comment about Reagan, because itās illustrative of the broader point, youāre not wrong when you define these things as failures by the standards that youāre setting. But youāre failing to see the forest for the trees. You are the one redefining terms. Thatās not actually a bad thing; we do need a mass-scale redefinition of how we define economic success. But you canāt tear-ass away from the mainstream currents of a particular field of study, and then act like everyone else is the weirdo because theyāre not speaking the very specific language that you just made up. When youāre working against the norms, you have to acknowledge that youāre working against the norms, and you have to understand what that means for your argument and how you need to express it. You cannot attack dogma without first learning to understand the dogma. These adjusted definitions seem rational and natural to you, so youāre assuming that they are rational and natural to everyone else, but that reflects a sharp divide between your perspective and the mainstream perspective.
If youād taken the time to read my previous comment properly youād have seen that I defined Reaganās policies as a success by traditional economic indicators. Itās literally right there in the quote at the top of your comment. If you have no idea what those traditional economic indicators are, you might not be equipped to be having this conversation yet. But yes, the Dow is one, as are GDP and employment. These are deeply flawed indicators that we should have abandoned a long time ago, but they none-the-less are the guiding lights or mainstream economic thought, and as a result anything that does well by those indicators becomes remarkably difficult to upend. Thatās why itās important to understand them, and to know how to gauge specific actions and effects against them. No matter how much damage Trump does to the average worker, to wages, to consumer protections, etc, if he can succeed by those traditional indicators he will be lauded for it, and he may well be able to hoodwink enough people into continuing to support his madness as a result. Thatās the danger weāre discussing here, and thatās why we cannot simply dismiss those indicators just because we understand their flaws. They are fictions, but fictions that a powerful effect on reality.
And in the same way, we cannot dismiss the potential this tariff scheme has to succeed, because it does not have to succeed by what we define as success. It only has to succeed by the rules of a rigged game. That will be enough for these people to get what they want, at least in the short term.
Great stuff. Iāll construct my reply in the form of some questions.
You canāt debate or discuss anything effectively if your approach is to ignore 90% of what the other person says and then reply to something you made up in your head. In fact in your replies to me Iām starting to see a pattern that also explains how you got the intent of the original article so wrong. Reading comprehension is more than just understanding the words, itās about disentangling your own perception of reality from that of the writer and correctly assessing how their worldview differs from yours, so that you can actually begin to understand their intent, and not just the intent that you read into the words in absentia.
How many times did I attempt to restate back to you what I understood your argument to be (āI get what youāre sayingā)? Was my summary of your argument pretty much in agreement with what you were trying to say?
To me, it sounds like weāre saying the same thing with different terminology, as you said. And, Iām acknowledging that itās an issue of terminology and definitions, and then proceeding from there to address the underlying issue as well. Right? And youāre yelling at me that Iām speaking in bad faith just because I like to use more accurate definitions, and call out someone who is using the formerly-mainstream wait wait Iām getting ahead of myself.
You are the one redefining terms. Thatās not actually a bad thing; we do need a mass-scale redefinition of how we define economic success. But you canāt tear-ass away from the mainstream currents of a particular field of study, and then act like everyone else is the weirdo because theyāre not speaking the very specific language that you just made up.
How has mainstream economic thought changed since the 1980s? Is it still considered an āeconomic boomā when inflation is low and unemployment is high? In mainstream economic thought?
Did I address how these terms being defined in the specific way that they are can lead to harmful outcomes, and explicitly why I didnāt use the (formerly-mainstream) definitions for them? Where and how?
(As a hint to help you with answering this question, imagine that someoneās going on Lemmy and describing pro-Palestinian protestors as āpro-Hamasā and describing what Israel is doing in Gaza as ācounterterrorism.ā Would you proceed to use that mainstream terminology, and then get upset if someone wanted to use some different terminology because it wasnāt mainstream?)
Oh, also, since youāre saying that Reagan produced an economic boom by the traditional metric of unemployment, what was the average unemployment level during the 1980s? How does it compare with the unemployment level coming out of Covid that was considered an economic apocalypse at the time? Higher or lower?
Again, this is all just missing the forest for the trees. Youāve gotten so caught up in sophistry that you canāt begin to comprehend why youāre failing to express your ideas, and why your statements come off as completely detached from reality.
Iām not going to bother completing the coursework you so desparately want to assign me. I have better things to do with my time. If you donāt get it by now, Iām not the person to get you there.
Great stuff. You have it backwards. I read what you wrote, asked some questions to clarify and explicitly acknowledged some of the things you lectured me about (the main issue being a difference of definitions, and then going beyond that to address the substance as well, since I also think you and The Guardian are wrong on the substance whatever definitions you choose to use). We have some differences in terms of the way we see it, which generally is fine, but your message managed to miss literally about 90% of what I said.
But sure, if you just wanted to drop a lecture-bomb and flee, mission accomplished. Have a good day.
Yeah, see that all makes perfect sense. Iām all for analyzing how things got to be this way and how the whole thing behaves and where this tariff thing even came from.
What I was taking issue with is saying that it āmight workā if we just stay the course, just like all Reaganās policies worked and fueled an economic boom. That, I strongly disagree with for multiple reasons, to the point that I think it is journalistic malpractice.
The Guardian writes pretty much 99% very informative and sensible articles and then every so often one comes that is totally insane, and every one of the insane ones that Iāve seen has either been pro-Trump or pro-Russia. I have no idea whatās going on there but it seemed worth talking about to me.
Reaganās policies did fuel an economic boom (when measured by traditional economic indicators - thatās its own can of worms). They also resulted in the wholesale destruction of worker compensation, workerās rights, consumer protections, and created a ticking time bomb that lead to almost every bad thing weāre seeing today.
But you canāt just deny a fact because it comes bundled with a bunch of negatives. Reaganās policies - measured solely by the metric of creating huge economic growth for the wealthiest in America - were extraordinarily successful.
This is important to understand because that success is exactly why those policies have proven so enduring. If they werenāt successful, their effects - including all the negative effects - wouldnāt have stuck around.
Nothing in this article is cheerleading for Trump. This āif we stay the courseā angle is entirely in your head. The authorās tone is nothing but scornful towards the White House and Trump. But the worst thing we can do is assume that Trumpās plans (or at least, the plans of the people doing their best to steer him in a particular direction) have no chance of succeeding. Presuming victory is a great way to ensure defeat.
It is important to understand that there really is a chance that Trump might succeed in creating a new world economic order. I donāt think he will, because I think Trumpās personal goals are not as well aligned with those of his advisors as the author of this article assumes. But just because I disagree on the odds, doesnāt mean I have to disagree on the possible outcomes, and acknowledging those possible outcomes is really, really important.
As the author concludes:
(emphasis mine)
Know your enemy. If you donāt you are doomed to failure.
By treating anything that tries to understand that strategies of this administration as propaganda for the administration all youāre doing is damaging our ability to respond effectively to their strategies. Youāre trading reality for comforting lies.
Incorrect. By almost any metric you want to pick other than ādid a bunch of assholes on Wall Street get very richā, it was a disaster. Wages, unemployment, federal budget deficit, domestic manufacturingā¦ IDK, what metrics were you thinking? The Dow Jones? The dollar tanked, so the trade deficit improved, but that was pretty temporary as for a variety of reasons all the manufacturing fled the country like it was last call. Unless by ātraditional,ā you mean the ones like GDP or stock prices that are largely just illusory maybe. What metrics do you mean that are accurate when you say it fueled an economic boom?
It says:
I get what youāre saying. They may be using a definition of āworkedā that is limited to the leadersā own internal aims (which are horrible), and not cheerleading when they write these things. But I donāt buy it. I highlighted the part where they are explicitly saying that this sort of thing was really good for the US āeconomyā (even at the expense of everyone else).
Again, I get what youāre saying, that if you define āthe economyā as just a handful of bankers and landlords, it makes perfect sense. By almost no other definition does it make sense. So, I say āpropagandaā because this type of clever redefinition of words to mean something other than what they mean is one of the most effective methods. You can sort of implicitly cast the situation in a way where economic destruction is āmedicineā and the looting of the middle class on behalf of Wall Street is ābooming economyā and things like that.
I guess itās possible that this Guardian writer is just super badly confused when he writes that. He may be unintentionally parroting some propaganda framings, while heās trying to make an accurate analysis of where Trumpās tariff ideas even come from, and some historical parallels.
I absolutely do not think that Trump will be ineffective at wreaking destruction or creating a new world economic order. Pretty much my only complaint with the article is that it defines it as āsuccessā for somebody, when to me the more likely outcome is failure for everyone: Trump, Trumpās backers, rich people in the US, poor people in the US, and the rest of the world. And, it ascribes some method to the madness (and thus a āclear-eyedā possibility that it will accomplish goals of some sort for somebody) that I think is very undeserved, however much theoretical backing in some vague sense it has.
Yes. Itās almost like I said exactly that same thing in the comment you replied to. If youād actually read it before firing off your reply you might have noticed that I am in fact aware of all those factors. In fact, itās almost like the line immediately after the one you quoted reads:
You canāt debate or discuss anything effectively if your approach is to ignore 90% of what the other person says and then reply to something you made up in your head. In fact in your replies to me Iām starting to see a pattern that also explains how you got the intent of the original article so wrong. Reading comprehension is more than just understanding the words, itās about disentangling your own perception of reality from that of the writer and correctly assessing how their worldview differs from yours, so that you can actually begin to understand their intent, and not just the intent that you read into the words in absentia.
In regard to my comment about Reagan, because itās illustrative of the broader point, youāre not wrong when you define these things as failures by the standards that youāre setting. But youāre failing to see the forest for the trees. You are the one redefining terms. Thatās not actually a bad thing; we do need a mass-scale redefinition of how we define economic success. But you canāt tear-ass away from the mainstream currents of a particular field of study, and then act like everyone else is the weirdo because theyāre not speaking the very specific language that you just made up. When youāre working against the norms, you have to acknowledge that youāre working against the norms, and you have to understand what that means for your argument and how you need to express it. You cannot attack dogma without first learning to understand the dogma. These adjusted definitions seem rational and natural to you, so youāre assuming that they are rational and natural to everyone else, but that reflects a sharp divide between your perspective and the mainstream perspective.
If youād taken the time to read my previous comment properly youād have seen that I defined Reaganās policies as a success by traditional economic indicators. Itās literally right there in the quote at the top of your comment. If you have no idea what those traditional economic indicators are, you might not be equipped to be having this conversation yet. But yes, the Dow is one, as are GDP and employment. These are deeply flawed indicators that we should have abandoned a long time ago, but they none-the-less are the guiding lights or mainstream economic thought, and as a result anything that does well by those indicators becomes remarkably difficult to upend. Thatās why itās important to understand them, and to know how to gauge specific actions and effects against them. No matter how much damage Trump does to the average worker, to wages, to consumer protections, etc, if he can succeed by those traditional indicators he will be lauded for it, and he may well be able to hoodwink enough people into continuing to support his madness as a result. Thatās the danger weāre discussing here, and thatās why we cannot simply dismiss those indicators just because we understand their flaws. They are fictions, but fictions that a powerful effect on reality.
And in the same way, we cannot dismiss the potential this tariff scheme has to succeed, because it does not have to succeed by what we define as success. It only has to succeed by the rules of a rigged game. That will be enough for these people to get what they want, at least in the short term.
Great stuff. Iāll construct my reply in the form of some questions.
How many times did I attempt to restate back to you what I understood your argument to be (āI get what youāre sayingā)? Was my summary of your argument pretty much in agreement with what you were trying to say?
To me, it sounds like weāre saying the same thing with different terminology, as you said. And, Iām acknowledging that itās an issue of terminology and definitions, and then proceeding from there to address the underlying issue as well. Right? And youāre yelling at me that Iām speaking in bad faith just because I like to use more accurate definitions, and call out someone who is using the formerly-mainstream wait wait Iām getting ahead of myself.
How has mainstream economic thought changed since the 1980s? Is it still considered an āeconomic boomā when inflation is low and unemployment is high? In mainstream economic thought?
Did I address how these terms being defined in the specific way that they are can lead to harmful outcomes, and explicitly why I didnāt use the (formerly-mainstream) definitions for them? Where and how?
(As a hint to help you with answering this question, imagine that someoneās going on Lemmy and describing pro-Palestinian protestors as āpro-Hamasā and describing what Israel is doing in Gaza as ācounterterrorism.ā Would you proceed to use that mainstream terminology, and then get upset if someone wanted to use some different terminology because it wasnāt mainstream?)
Oh, also, since youāre saying that Reagan produced an economic boom by the traditional metric of unemployment, what was the average unemployment level during the 1980s? How does it compare with the unemployment level coming out of Covid that was considered an economic apocalypse at the time? Higher or lower?
Again, this is all just missing the forest for the trees. Youāve gotten so caught up in sophistry that you canāt begin to comprehend why youāre failing to express your ideas, and why your statements come off as completely detached from reality.
Iām not going to bother completing the coursework you so desparately want to assign me. I have better things to do with my time. If you donāt get it by now, Iām not the person to get you there.
Great stuff. You have it backwards. I read what you wrote, asked some questions to clarify and explicitly acknowledged some of the things you lectured me about (the main issue being a difference of definitions, and then going beyond that to address the substance as well, since I also think you and The Guardian are wrong on the substance whatever definitions you choose to use). We have some differences in terms of the way we see it, which generally is fine, but your message managed to miss literally about 90% of what I said.
But sure, if you just wanted to drop a lecture-bomb and flee, mission accomplished. Have a good day.