Trump and foreign trade

From Yahoo! Finance: 2019-01-04
AAPL
CNBC Videos • Fri 1:57 PM
Trump: China is paying us tremendous tariffs

AAPL
Fox Business Videos • Fri 1:59 PM
Trump: I want Apple to make their products in the US

AAPL
CNBC • Fri 2:53 PM
Trump says he's not concerned about Apple because it builds products in China

Who is paying the “tremendous tariffs?  It is not the Chinese.  They just pass those tariffs on to the U.S. customers.

But the complexity gets worse.  Do U.S. manufacturers cut their costs by manufacturing in other countries.  If they cut their costs, do they pass those savings on to their customers or do they just add them to their profits.

If the savings are passed on, the customers benefit.  If the savings are considered profits, do those at the top get bigger bonuses or do the share-owners get bigger dividends or bigger profits when they sell their stock.

Advice for the Democrats

Kevin Baker wrote an interesting opinion for the New York Times: “Delusions of the Democrats” subtitled “Demographics will not save them”.

He asserts that more female voters and more non-white voters will not help the Democrats in future election.  He asserts that past successes were built on bottom-up ideas rather than top-down pronouncements.

My own take on the Democrats is that they have too many who focus on identity politics and not enough on issues that affect larger groups of people.  Which is a larger group?  Gay marriage proponents or people looking for good jobs?

His closing remark sums it up:

“Invite us to dream a little. You don’t build an enduring coalition out of who Americans are. You do it out of what we can be.”