[CPLX]

It's not like I don't understand the argument on the other side of this. I've heard it my entire life. It's been dominant since the late 1970s and 1980s.

It's just that it's wrong.

We need a competent industrial policy and support for skilled labor and policies that encourage domestic production.

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but our country has become fucked, overwhelmed by financialization, scams, monopoly rents and extraction, and all of the wealth accumulating to a handful of people, while we've become less resilient and, at this point, almost certainly have lost our place as the most dominant economy and industrial power in the world.

[ceejayoz]

> We need a competent industrial policy and support for skilled labor and policies that encourage domestic production.

Yes!

But "tariff/ban BYD" is not that.

[CPLX]

Of course it is part of an industrial policy. It is, however, not nearly sufficient, and if it's the only thing we do, it will become increasingly untenable and eventually fail.

But it's an essential first step to prevent our audio industry from just being summarily destroyed. Other steps are also needed to encourage domestic manufacturing and homegrown successes.

Also, I'm not sure why this is even controversial. Why do you think there's BMW and Hyundai plants in the American South? Tariffs are already heavily employed by us and every other industrialized country.

[frm88]

Since 2018 ~400 chinese EV producers were allowed to stop operations. An industry that exists because of subsidies and preferential loans as well as state induced trade barriers is not sustainable.

From 2020 onwards, the Chinese government began phasing out its EV subsidy program. This policy shift came just as the country entered a price war, led by aggressive pricing from giants like BYD and Tesla. The combination of reduced state support and brutal price competition proved fatal for many underfunded startups.

https://evboosters.com/ev-charging-news/400-chinese-ev-compa...

[mindslight]

IMO the problem is that we've been given the excuse of market fundamentalism for the past several decades on the way down, as most everyone lost their middle class jobs, wages stagnated, etc. Now we're supposed to accept some last ditch attempt at protectionism based on directly blocking choices for consumers, when the US manufacturers aren't even really competing? It just seems like open hypocrisy. At this point the reasonable protectionist policy would be based around subsidizing American industry so that they become competitive options, not merely trying to keep the better foreign options out.

[CPLX]

Every single load of bullshit shuffled into our faces has been presented as a benefit to consumers.

Google gives away their search and Gmail for free, don't you know? So it can't possibly be a monopoly.

And so on. It's just propaganda. It's bullshit. That's not the way that you determine whether firms have excess market power, and this fraud (called "the consumer welfare standard") was the deliberate choice of right-wing policymakers who were bent on dismantling antitrust policies and succeeded.

More: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-secret-plot-to-unleas...

[mindslight]

This doesn't imply the opposite though - something that is a detriment to consumers won't necessarily be a good thing.

I feel like you're conflating two things here. The "consumer welfare standard" was indeed a terrible scam, neutralized antitrust enforcement, and basically put us in the current situation where many "choices" we have consist of two megacorps that both suck. Just like the (IIRC) Bush-era FCC declaration that "competition" between DSL and Cable was good enough, and rolled back the CLEC/ILEC dynamic.. We're in full agreement there!

But the original point I was making was about things that actually did benefit consumers. Lower prices and more competition (from foreign companies) DO benefit consumers. The problem is that they harm the part of our economy whereby those consumers get incomes. So they're a race to the bottom.

And my point there is that it's a bit hollow to be racing to the bottom for thirty years, smashing one blue collar industry after another, and then when we finally get to cars it's like oh no, time for some protectionist policy. It might be great for the people still in that industry, but hypocritical to everyone else who saw their industry destroyed but are now prevented from having less expensive cars.

As I said, with things this far gone, the only thing that makes sense to me is directly subsidizing purchases from domestic industry (positive incentive), rather than continuing to prevent competition (negative incentive). The latter reeks of the same monopolistic captive-market consolidation we've seen from the destruction of antitrust in general.