On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:10:35 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, April 19, 2021 at 1:58:46 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 14:24:51 +0100, Bod
wrote:

On 19/04/2021 14:04, trader_4 wrote:
Lumber has skyrocketed over the last two years, most common lumber
doubling, or tripling in price. Among the reasons? Trump's tariffs on
Canada substantially reduced Canadian imports, while raising prices.
I hope the Trumpets are happy.

Yup, here's more info:

'Fed study finds Trump tariffs backfired'

https://www.marke****ch.com/story/fe...red-2019-12-27
The use of "backfire" in this headline makes the implicit assumption
that the goal of the tariffs was to make life better for a large number
of Americans.

People of all types, reporters, columnists, pundits, politicians,
"average Americans", and foreigners make this mistake all the time. The
people I just listed here still don't recognize that trump is a
sociopath or they don't understand all that that means. They think it
means someone who spits on the sidewalk or is rude. They don't imagine
someone who conjures up imaginative ways to hurt as many people as
possible.

In fact, the goal of the tariffs was to make life worse for all but
those selling lumber from USA sources, and it did that. The tariffs
were a success.

But don't imagine that the main goal was increased profit for American
lumber suppliers. That was a side benefit**. The main goal was to make
housing unaffordable for poor people, for the lower middle class, and to
force the middle class into smaller houses.

As much as I despise Trump, even I think the above is nuts. Trump himself
doesn't benefit by screwing the middle class, forcing them into smaller
houses? WTF?

Trump was under the mistaken belief that if we made imported goods
more expensive we would start making things here and Americans would
happily pay more to buy American but if that was the case, we wouldn't
have sent our manufacturing off to the 3d world in the first place.

IBM figured that out during the Clinton administration and went from
"6 Sigma" to "Market Driven Quality". Basically "Think like Walmart"
(Sam Walton's business model was even part of the pitch)
The cheap *******s don't want real quality, they just want a cheap
price.
They laid off half the company in the next 5 years.



Do you find it hard to believe that this would be the *main* goal?

Yes, because it makes no sense. I think Trump did his tariffs because he
figured he was going to help all American workers, help our economy,
that we've had unfair competition from foreign countries for too long.
The problem is he directed that everywhere, not where it belonged, eg China.
And instead of having a coordinated strategy with our allies against China,
Trump attacked them, levied tariffs on them too. He's stupid, he doesn't
understand economics or trade, but there is no evidence he did it to screw
American workers. And mostly he didn't screw them, we reached record
low unemployment, real income increased substantially and taxes were
lowered. Some in certain industries hurt by tariffs did get screwed.

I hadn't really been paying attention but it looks like Biden is not
happy about Canada dumping government subsidized lumber here either. I
wondered why he hasn't said **** about dropping the tariffs.
OTOH a large part of his caucus is against logging anyway so they
don't mind this. I guess they think we will build houses out of
recycled milk jugs or something.