Are tariffs worthy of our retirement and overall economic security risky? – Retirement Research Center

Roaring debate illuminates strategic tariff cases for defense cases, but it is difficult to defend global tariff wars.

In a recent blog, I pointed out that President Trump’s policies undermine retirement security in three ways: undermining the ability of Social Security to provide services; reducing the value of 401(k) assets; and increasing layoffs and prices.

Putting aside social security, all mentioned economic risks are related to tariffs. The question is whether economic and market tanks are worth it? Tariffs are not my field, but I recently received an education on the “all” podcast.

This episode is certainly the funniest episode in town, with clever, rich, pro-Trump hosts (Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg) on ​​the other side, Larry Summers and Ezra Klein on the other side. They joined them along with former “All” co-host David Sacks and are currently lending the Trump administration “White House AI & Crypto Tsar.” It was an unwelcome exchange, and among the very well-informed people, they all believed in their own views and no one went out. This country needs more of this.

The consistent area seems to be that we are too dependent on China because it is crucial to our defense. As Trump's National Economic Commission director Kevin Hassett said recently, it's hard to attack an opponent when we rely on our opponents to supply our cannon balls (assuming China, if they're going to invade Taiwan).

In this regard, everyone is focused on three main areas: 1) we need to control the chip supply and environment around artificial intelligence; 2) we don’t have enough energy to meet our needs; 3) we rely entirely on China’s key earth minerals and magnets, which are crucial for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles.

While Summers and Klein may have agreed with the issues, they are very suspicious that the moves so far will help achieve these goals and are very worried that Trump’s tariffs will put markets into chaos and the economy into recession.

OK, I got the defense stuff, maybe need some strategic tariffs. What I don't understand is, “they have deprived decades of time,” as far as the global tariff war is concerned. If we have indeed been the world’s punching bags for the past few decades, then we should be bleeding and beating. Everyone else should be really rich, we should be really hurt.

But this is not the data. The latest IMF statistics are second among countries with the largest economy in terms of GDP per capita; Switzerland is #1. (If the sample is not limited to the largest economies, countries like Luxembourg will also lead the United States) The United States is 50% richer, 50% of Canada, twice as rich as Italy, twice as rich as Italy, and six times higher than Mexico and China. In short, we won the total number of each citizen.

Of course, who can get these things. Because we failed in two dimensions. First, the government has hardly mitigated the transition to communities. North Carolina pecans, like many other U.S. regions, rely heavily on labor-intensive manufacturing, resulting in significant unemployment due to open international trade. Other countries across the country have obtained through access to cheap Chinese furniture, and we could have shared these benefits with affected communities. Second, a lot of our stuff is handed over to millionaires and billionaires, and the real wages of ordinary male workers are barely increasing. This skewed distribution of income and wealth both prevented half of the population from sharing in the prosperity of the country and took political power into the hands of a few.

None of these problems can be resolved through tariffs.