Tractors and (upcoming) tariffs?

[jyoutz]

Computers have gotten better, but the prices haven't gone up for almost 40 years.

When you factor in the value of current technology, computers have decreased in price.

 

[ultrarunner]

In high school lots of talk of the coming population bomb and ice age predictions.

It's easy to understand how some just throw up their hands when it comes to experts.

Live frugally, purchase value and keep what you have in good repair is what my grandparents espoused...

Very simple farmers that lived a great life of hard work and faith...

 

[2manyrocks]

I remember when science magazines were publishing articles about nuclear powered airplanes of the future.

 

[arrow]

I remember when science magazines were publishing articles about nuclear powered airplanes of the future.

One of my favorites was the flying car.
First nuclear powered sub was the Nautilus. I built that model as a kid and in 2004, I went to the inaugural WW II monument opening celebration in D.C.,
I met a sailor that was assigned to that sub. He was 94 years old and in a wheel chair but mind as sharp as a flint broad head.
Quite the thrill and honor to be able to talk w him.

 

[AnotherBueller]

1st amendment.

1st amendment is about public speech, I don't think this is this a public forum. I had to join and agree to the TBN rules.

 

[AnotherBueller]

Have you considered that your taxes may be lower which could offset those increased costs? Part of the reason for collecting tarriffs in the first place is to lower taxes to individuals and corporations.

Most of the time tariff's are to protect the country's business. Of course that also protects, to a small degree, poor practices as well.
IMHO the reason so much manufacturing has moved over seas is because their labor cost are so MUCH lower. Of course their standard of living is much lower as well.

 

[AnotherBueller]

Tariffs do not cause inflation.

Only government spending cause inflation.

Econ

Supply and demand have absolutely no bearing on inflation.

If there is huge demand and no supply, how is there inflation?
If there is huge supply, and no demand, how is there inflation?

Conversely...

If there is huge supply and no demand, how is there inflation?
If there is huge demand and no supply, how is there inflation?

Prices and inflation are mutually exclusive...

If there is huge demand and low supply, prices go up to whatever point it takes so that the price you are willing to pay and the lowest price someone is willing to accept are equal.

 

[AnotherBueller]

Generally speaking, inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few things. Example is homes. We're short something like four million single family homes right now, so homes get sold to the highest bidder. If we had a surplus of homes (rust belt Detroit, for instance) homes can be bought for a dollar. Some places in Italy offer homes for a Euro, everyone has left and the towns are dying.

Another example is the price of used cars recently. Not enough new cars (chip shortages, etc.) so money flowed towards used cars, and the prices rose because of the increased demand. This has abated somewhat, but used car prices are still historically high.

The government can be a cause of "too many dollars" by running the printing presses. (You see how well that worked out in Germany in the 1920s.)

OK, so lets see where we can cut government spending. A big chunk of government spending is "entitlements" such as social security and Medicare. Cut social security and see how quickly that government is gone . . . cut Medicare, ditto.

Then we have defense. Do we want a strong defense? Heck yeah we do, nobody will argue that. Problem is all this stuff is expensive, really, really expensive.

Then we have debt service. People buy US debt obligations (treasuries, savings bonds, etc.) because they KNOW they are going to get paid timely. If Uncle stops paying, nobody will buy these any more (yeah, he's a deadbeat, doesn't pay his bills) and that is the END of funding the government.

The above makes up something like three quarters of the entire federal budget. We still need small details like highways, the FAA, and a blizzard of other alphabet agencies, thousands of government employees, government buildings which need to be heated, cooled, maintained and and and and, so guess what, Uncle Sam is living beyond his means, and like many of the rest of us (see the definition of "peons" a page or so back), he's putting it on credit cards.

OK, how can we fix this? Cut spending significantly - where? Raise taxes - cue screaming. Tell China and Russia we'd like to take a year off on military spending - they'd just LOVE that.

What we need to do is grow our economy. We need more businesses to hire more people and increase our tax BASE, not our tax RATE. We need to operate our existing economy more efficiently, and we need to grow it significantly.

Right now, the National Association of Homebuilders says the average price of a home in America is $400,000, and one quarter of that, $100,000 is paperwork, red tape, regulatory compliance and so on. If we could cut that $100K in half, that house suddenly became more affordable.

Here's another example. I needed a topo survey on a project I'm working on. NASA and NOAA have topo surveys of the entire country, free to download (we paid for them in our taxes). Local county has them too, also free downloaded from NASA/NOAA (we paid for them in our taxes, too.)

Local government won't take them without an engineer's seal (P.E.), NASA, NOAA and the county aren't good enough. Engineer downloads them (free), takes his seal, goes crunch, that'll be $1,000 please. City looks at the seal - not at the survey, just at the seal - checks a box, and nobody will EVER see that piece of paper again even when the sun swallows the earth in four billion years or so.

Multiply that by the 4,000,000 new homes we need to build - I ought to become a P.E. and hire people just to crunch topo surveys at a grand a pop.

This isn't (entirely) the fault of the P.E., it is just a dumb, useless no-added-value requirement which is there because "we've always done it that way".

Want to balance the budget? (Or even show a SURPLUS? As the kids say, OMG!) Grow the economy, increase the tax base but not the tax rate, and get rid of a PILE of useless, outmoded rules and regulations that do nobody any good but waste everyone's time and money.

And do have a happy Thanksgiving - be thankful we are not getting all the government we are paying for ;-)

Best Regards,
Mike/Florida

I could not agree more. Having said that, can anyone see a bureaucrat reducing the size of their kingdom (which reduces their pay check).

 

[AnotherBueller]

You may have any opinion you wish.
You are missing my point however.

I guess I didn't understand the complete point you were trying to make as well. My failure.

 

[AnotherBueller]

The government is NOT the only causative factor of inflation

The statement "The government is NOT the only causative factor of inflation" I believe is correct. How ever the word ONLY should be in caps and highlighted. Such a little word which hides such huge differences.