Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
That is not an example of subsidies leading to lower prices in the US.
No. That is the market working. The Chinese worker is willing to work for less. He or she still made the decision to work in the factory over other possibilities. That is individual choice not slavery.
If consumer's really cared about where shoes were made they would be willing to pay the premium for made in the USA shoes. But we don't.
Market competition between areas of higher or lower labor rates is one of the ways prices are reduced. It may make life in the US more difficult but that isn't an excuse for government's to tell companies where to make their goods or to tax a good based on where is was produced. Again, all that does is hurt American consumers.
Like I said before, get rid of income, sales, payroll, and corporate taxes and I would be agreeable to tariffs. That would be a real way to reduce cost of living to Americans and providing a level of protection to American businesses. I would vote for someone who proposed that.
Legitimate prices are determined by what consumers are willing to pay. Prices as they exist today have been determined by millions and sometimes billions of people making decisions about how much they are willing to spend on an item.
We will see. Economic changes take time to move through an economy. We already know that the Chinese tariffs on American agriculture have harmed them. We have also seen some of the Chinese tariff removed because the lack of American agriculture harmed Chinese consumers.
We are also seeing the Fed lowering their rate which means they don't think the fundamentals of the economy are very strong. They are preparing for something and only time will tell. The GDP growth rate wasn't good in 2019 by the way.
