Tariffs and You (Mongoose edition)

[dragon3r]

It isn't good for us to economically weaken them, so a tariff on their side might be good for us in the long run. I don't know though, it has to be examined, economics is a complex system. At some point one has to run the numbers, and do the math, there are no simple solutions. This dovetails back into the Melian Dialog, we can't just mine our relationships for short term gain without looking at the long term costs. It is penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[Arkathan]

Basically you are saying that it is OK for every other country to apply tariffs to the US, but not for the US to seek equal trade.

 

[dragon3r]

I'm not saying that. Equal trade is a fantasy anyways. Commerce should be fair, and mutually beneficial for both parties. Sort of like when I do horsetrading trucks on the side, people always are talking what the rig might be "worth" as if there is some ultimate value. In reality it is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and that value is almost always dependent on the person's individual finances. My own truck people are always asking to buy it from me, and I say more than you have, because it would take a grip of cash for me to let it go.

PFA, my working man's cadillac, right before getting muddy again:



I was only stopped to take a pic for a minute before out of nowhere comes a guy trying to make me an offer.

 

[Arkathan]

Fair and beneficial... The current trade deficit, has weakened the US to the point that socialist blocs, who are using predatory strategies, are able to hold the increasingly less-free free countries under their thumbs. This is not accidental nor is it coincidental.

 

[Arkathan]

Going further down this rabbit hole is going to lean heavily on politics, so I am going to agree to disagree.

 

[dragon3r]

It isn't, though the UK is not part of it. They seem to be in a bit of a spot too, so it is in our interests to help them out.

 

[Condottiere]

Most countries weren't forced to offshore or sunset their industries, heavy or otherwise, in the past half century.

 

[dragon3r]

Going further down this rabbit hole is going to lean heavily on politics, so I am going to agree to disagree.

Fine. I'll leave this with a vid of another 6.0 2500 mudding, just for a high note:

 

[CordwainerFish]

There's an entire damned Internet to talk about the rights and the wrongs of this stuff. Please go there.

 

[actionman]

I think people prefer a "clean 3I" now; though by the original description, in the old days I had used a byzantine flavor: corrupt, decadent, and mysterious from the Vilani influence. The Marches were a gritty frontier.

And I think that the adventure potential of such an environment is far greater than a "clean" 3I. The 3I has a government of men not laws, and those men are going to find ways to do whatever they want. Over generations the original virtue will crumble before the onslaught of political and economic expedience, and the ancient human drive for greater and greater wealth and power.

And it was Holiday in Cambodia

 

[dragon3r]

And I think that the adventure potential of such an environment is far greater than a "clean" 3I. The 3I has a government of men not laws, and those men are going to find ways to do whatever they want. Over generations the original virtue will crumble before the onslaught of political and economic expedience, and the ancient human drive for greater and greater wealth and power.

And it was Holiday in Cambodia

Whatever laws, or traditions the Imperium has have become labyrithine, sedimentary, contradictory, and even cruel. The Imperium stands as a mighty ruin, waiting for the next great storm to sweep it away. Against the dark background, the player characters can shine, or not, their choice.

 

[Condottiere]

They have to have some form of motivation to explore the galaxy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The original Spinward Marches are an interesting place to adventure. The saccharine big cuddly good guy Imperium - meh.

In the original SM there were subsectors just over the border which were unexplored new territory, in the MgT Third Imperium they are fully mapped, the Imperium is all over them, and it is boring.

 

[actionman]

That's fairly dystopian if you think about it. No matter what a traveller does, no matter how hard he works, no matter how he saves, he's screwed. He'll be mining asteroids in Utoland for the rest of his life. Slavery is officially illegal, so trapping people in a cycle of poverty, keeping them too poor to build up a stake for a low passage, is the next best thing. This could explain those weird little planets where a few hundred people live: demographic collapse caused by economic privation. Children are expensive while birth control is cheap, and women will take up with the next spacer who will give them a cup of Basic and get them to a better world.

Consider the mentality that would create such conditions, and the mentality that such conditions would create. No wonder Bribery and Forgery are skills. Minor officials would most likely be in the grip of such conditions too, and be amenable to bribes and the like. It could be one reason the Solomani hated living under Imperial rule to the point where they were willing to fight a war to get out.

There would most likely be a lot of unrest simmering below the surface on many worlds, because people lives would be hard to the point where they stop caring about the consequences of revolt. Of course the 3I would wash its hands of such "local troubles". It would maintain that split between the 3I and the planetary governments, so Imperial authorities could keep the poors blaming their planetary governments while still collecting its due from worlds' production. Empires have done this; they decolonize or release nations and let the nations have their own governments while the former metropole controls them from behind the scenes (banks, debts, contracts, bribes, providing essential services, etc.).

 

[Condottiere]

Civilization requires energy.

So, it's likely a feature.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I wonder how many of the tariffs imposed by the current administration of the USA are meant to make the non-elites (and the billionaire class are also elites) poorer.
But we do what we can.

 

[dragon3r]

I wonder how many of the tariffs imposed by the current administration of the USA are meant to make the non-elites (and the billionaire class are also elites) poorer.
But we do what we can.

They are just bad altogether. A tariff acts as an end user tax (bad), which makes one pay more sales tax (more bad), and often causes inflation* (triple bad). We have a lot better mechanisms for trade or commerce regulation, like tax rebates; tariffs date back to the 18th-19th centuries, and as a crude mechanism, should probably stay back in those days.

*For example: if new cars price rises, it raises the price of used cars too.

 

[Arkathan]

I wonder how many of the tariffs imposed by the current administration of the USA are meant to make the non-elites (and the billionaire class are also elites) poorer.
But we do what we can.

Considering that the current administration knows it has less than a year to dramatically reduce inflation, reduce the prices of food and energy and increase skilled job prospects, or face a backlash that will cripple it more than judicial overreach can, you can bet the end goal is to make things cheaper well before then. The tariffs are a stick to get people to negotiate.
The only policy that isn't hurting Elon's bottom line is declaring the burning of cars and shooting dealerships by "peaceful protestors" domestic terrorism.

 

[Condottiere]

Probably why starships are constructed in starports.

No tariffs.

 

[actionman]

Probably why starships are constructed in starports.

No tariffs.

Would the Imperium allow tariffs between member worlds? Seems like a barrier to interstellar commerce.