Trump Trade War

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milo
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by milo »

El Guapo wrote: Tue Apr 30, 2019 4:28 pm
Kraken wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:35 am
...
It is hardly surprising that the tariffs drove up the price of foreign washers. Perhaps more unexpectedly, they also prompted American manufacturers to raise their prices.

Companies that largely sell imported washers, like Samsung and LG, raised prices to compensate for the tariff costs they had to pay. But domestic manufacturers, like Whirlpool, increased prices, too, largely because they could.
Unexpectedly? That's Econ 101. You are reducing competition by essentially setting a minimum price above the current price for some of the competitors in the market.
Kind of. You have to imagine that all of these companies (foreign and domestic combined) know how many washing machines people will need to buy. They have set up their production lines to make just about that many machines, and set their prices to cover production + distribution + marketing costs. If you force foreign manufacturers to raise prices by adding tariffs, the domestic companies have two choices: 1) they can take advantage of their relatively lower costs to try to increase market share or 2) they can increase prices to increase the profits on their existing share.

The thing is, tariffs are kind of unpredictable. If they decide to increase their market share and Trump removes the tariffs in a year or two, the cost advantage to the US manufacturers will disappear. But by then they will have ramped up production and baked in a lot of fixed capital costs. They will have to defend their increased market share without the cost advantage. Worse, because increasing production facilities takes time, they might have invested capital in advance of sales, just in time for those sales to disappear.

Thus, choosing option 2 and increasing prices and profits is the safer bet.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Trump administration accuses Chinese officials of ‘reneging’ on earlier commitments in trade talks, reaffirms plan to raise tariffs

The latest skirmish between the economic powerhouses began last week when Chinese officials made new demands in ongoing trade talks, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said. Those requests infuriated the president, who announced the new tariffs on Sunday.

Amid harsh rhetoric aimed at their counterparts, administration officials reaffirmed their plan to raise tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods on Friday at 12:01 a.m.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by GreenGoo »

That's interesting. As recently as two days ago everyone was reporting that a new agreement was all but in place, and then the president started talking about tariffs again.

I'm not saying China isn't behaving as is being reported, only that according to everyone things were just fine up until very recently. Now suddenly the Chinese are evil and the president has no choice but to add more tariffs.

Fun stuff.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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And a few years ago Eurasia was the evil empire and Eastasia was our solid ally.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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WaPo
President Trump has shown little interest in removing the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed more than a year ago despite growing evidence Americans are paying a hefty price for these tariffs and increasing pressure from Republicans in Congress to remove them.

U.S. consumers and businesses are paying more than $900,000 a year for every job saved or created by Trump steel tariffs, according to calculations by experts at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The cost is more than 13 times the typical salary of a steelworker, according to Labor Department data, and it is similar to other economists’ estimates that Trump’s tariffs on washing machines are costing consumers $815,000 per job created.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by GreenGoo »

Canada is...I can't remember. I think unwilling to ratify the new NAFTA until the tariffs on steel and aluminum are removed.

Drumpf's fixation on those tariffs in particular has me thinking they are enriching him personally somehow.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Grifman »

GreenGoo wrote: Tue May 07, 2019 7:20 pm Canada is...I can't remember. I think unwilling to ratify the new NAFTA until the tariffs on steel and aluminum are removed.

Drumpf's fixation on those tariffs in particular has me thinking they are enriching him personally somehow.
No, it's just based upon his own personal bias and economic ignorance. Remember, he doesn't realize that consumers pay the tariffs, he thinks the foreign companies do, and has said so publicly multiple times.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Jolor »

JB - Jethro Bodine
BJ - Boy Jenius
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Kraken »

Here's hoping he can be sidelined so the adults can talk again. If not, here's hoping China doesn't cave in to his tantrum. If the world's two biggest economies go all-out against one another, the US will ultimately win; China knows this. Citizens of both countries will pay a steep price first; China knows this, too. Whose people are more likely to grin and bear it? China probably has a good idea.

I doubt it will really come to that; Trump views the stock markets as his scorecard, and they would lose points fast.

I'll bet that Friday's tariff hike doesn't happen.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by GreenGoo »

Grifman wrote: Tue May 07, 2019 10:05 pm
No, it's just based upon his own personal bias and economic ignorance. Remember, he doesn't realize that consumers pay the tariffs, he thinks the foreign companies do, and has said so publicly multiple times.
No, steel and aluminum tariffs are something he's hanging onto for dear life. Even the Republicans are like "wtf dude, we don't want this, cut it out" and he's like "nope, these are super important".

We're talking about the NA steel and aluminum tariffs specifically, not the current or threatened tariffs on China. Something is going on here, for sure.

In 10 or 20 years when the truth finally becomes common knowledge, remember this conversation. :wink:
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Isgrimnur »

Reuters
China said on Monday it will adjust tariffs on a revised target list of $60 billion worth of U.S. imports, with additional rates of 20% to 25% in retaliation for a U.S. tariff hike on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

A total of 5,140 U.S. products will be subject to various tariff rates starting June 1, the finance ministry said in a statement.

An additional tariff of 25% will be levied against 2,493 goods including liquefied natural gas, the ministry said, and an additional tariff of 20% will be imposed on 1,078 products.

Beijing previously set additional rates of 5% and 10% on 5,207 U.S. products worth $60 billion in September, and warned at the time that it would counter any higher tariffs imposed by Washington on Chinese products.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Hey, he's playing 4d chess. Just be patient.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by pr0ner »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 10:16 am Hey, he's playing 4d chess. Just be patient.
The stock markets don't like it, so one wonders how long it'll be before Trump capitulates, or if he's so set on tariffs that he'll keep this game going for a while.

Though he's tweeting out stuff like this, so who knows what's going on in his orange head today.



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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by LordMortis »

The economy would have crashed? Evidence?

As an aside, last week Monday, I was up over 11% year over year with the bulk of retirements savings. Today I'm up under 4%. Crazy, many crazy. I wonder if now would be a good time to increase my with holdings if I had money to increase or if the worst is yet to come. Turbulence, turbulence, turbulence. If he has a circle who know what he's going to tweet and when he's going to 180 or spin in circles, they are making an absolute killing in these last two plus years.

I guess disruption is king. The millennials must love it.

Edit:

SPY 2913 to 2821 in a week. Down only 3%. Wow, I'm much more turbulent then the market and 40% of my retirement is in SPY. I need to see what some of these other things made available to my 401k are doing, as they must have completely shit the bed.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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Don't worry. President shitposter will not be here forever.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by pr0ner »

LordMortis wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 10:29 am The economy would have crashed? Evidence?
That was a common Trump refrain from early in his presidency - how the stock market wouldn't be nearly as high as it is without him in office, etc.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by LawBeefaroni »

LordMortis wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 10:29 am If he has a circle who know what he's going to tweet and when he's going to 180 or spin in circles, they are making an absolute killing in these last two plus years.

There is no if. They are trading the fuck out of this.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Kraken »

As long as Trump is under the delusion (or peddling the lie, if he recognizes it as such) that tariffs help the economy, the outcome of the trade war will depend on which plays better politically: being tough on China, or signing a mediocre deal that he can call a historic achievement. I'm leaning toward the latter. Economists are saying that a prolonged, all-out trade war will shave 0.25-0.35 points off GDP, or more if it leads to a stock market rout. Trump regards the markets as his scorecard, and that's where he and his cronies make all their money.

China doesn't play fair in trade, and toughness will pay off in the long run if it changes that. I do not trust Trump's ham-handed bullying to get us there, though. I have zero confidence that he knows what he's doing. Ever.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Alefroth »

I'm not even sure what victory in this trade war looks like. What are we trying to get out of China?
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Re: Trump Trade War

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More trademarks for Trump businesses?
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Trump doesn't believe that a deal can benefit both sides. He needs to "beat" the other side. So we are probably looking for something that looks like a perpetual trade surplus (because that's how he measures international trade). Really all you need to give him is the illusion of winning, he doesn't have to actually win.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Alefroth »

Too bad for him that a strong economy usually causes trade deficits to widen. Short of tanking the economy or keeping the tariffs permanent, I don't see how he can change the deficit.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Pyperkub »

Alefroth wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 3:51 pm I'm not even sure what victory in this trade war looks like. What are we trying to get out of China?
Some details:
S. President Donald Trump's administration has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods to press demands for an end to policies - including industrial subsidies - that Washington says hurt U.S. companies competing with Chinese firms. China responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods.

The issue of industrial subsidies is thorny because they are intertwined with the Chinese government's industrial policy. Beijing grants subsidies and tax breaks to state-owned firms and to sectors seen as strategic for long-term development. Chinese President Xi Jinping has strengthened the state's role in parts of the economy.

In the push to secure a deal in the next month or so, U.S. negotiators have become resigned to securing less than they would like on curbing those subsidies and are focused instead on other areas where they consider demands are more achievable, the sources said.

Those include ending forced technology transfers, improving intellectual property protection and widening access to China's markets, the sources said. China has already given ground on those issues.

"It's not that there won't be some language on it, but it is not going to be very detailed or specific," one source familiar with the talks said in reference to the subsidies issue.
IMHO, this is the biggest thing Trump cares about (reducing the trade surplus):
The role of the state firms may benefit the United States in another part of the trade deal. The Trump administration wants China to make big-ticket purchases of over a trillion dollars of U.S. goods in the next six years to reduce its trade surplus. The companies likely to make the purchases are the state-run firms, both sources said.
And reducing the trade surplus is one of the things economists actually care the least about. IMHO, for the most part, the US economy is far more about services and IP than manufactured goods, and I don't see manufacturing EVER driving jobs in the US like it did for 80 or so years ever again. Even if manufacturing comes back to the US, it will be so automated as to not have a large effect on jobs here.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Zarathud »

I'm getting a little worried about how the tarriffs are going to impact the kickstarters waiting to be delivered.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Smoove_B »

Zarathud wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 2:01 am I'm getting a little worried about how the tarriffs are going to impact the kickstarters waiting to be delivered.
Indeed. Shit's about to get real:
Board games and dice are included under the subheading: 9504.90.60. “Chess, checkers, backgammon, darts and o/table and parlor games played on boards of a special design and parts thereof; poker chips and dice.”

...

Public hearings on the proposal will start June 17. During this time companies and individuals can provide input on tariff levels to be imposed. Requests to exclude specific subheading will also be taken. The tariffs could be implemented any time after June 24.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by hepcat »

I was thinking about the effect this would have on numerous kickstarters that are assembled and shipped from China this morning. :cry:

But I will say that I do agree that something needs to be done about sanctioned IP theft when American corporations choose to do business in China. That needs to stop...or at least be considered a crime by the Chinese. One which they'll ignore, of course. But I would hope it would give us better footing in international courts, at least.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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I know of companies that still do manufacturing in the States because of how fast the trade secrets would be stolen if they moved the processes to Asia. If they start enforcing IP law, I could see that changing. Unintended consequences and all that jazz.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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stessier wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:16 am I know of companies that still do manufacturing in the States because of how fast the trade secrets would be stolen if they moved the processes to Asia. If they start enforcing IP law, I could see that changing. Unintended consequences and all that jazz.
Trade secrets aren't protected by traditional IP law though, right? That's why they are trade secrets rather than patents or whatever else.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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If only someone had done something about it:
President Obama pressed the issue of cyberthefts in his first meeting with President Xi in 2013, only to be met with more denials.
...
A few days later, on September 25, 2015, Barack Obama and Xi Jinping met privately. As Obama recapped the meeting to the press, he said he had “raised once again our very serious concerns about growing cyberthreats to American companies and American citizens. I indicated that it has to stop. The United States government does not engage in cyber-economic espionage for commercial gain.” Then the president made an announcement in the Rose Garden that many US leaders had never thought they’d hear: “Today, I can announce that our two countries have reached a common understanding on the way forward. We’ve agreed that neither the US or the Chinese government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage. In addition, we’ll work together, and with other nations, to promote international rules of the road for appropriate conduct in cyberspace.” The breakthrough was later endorsed by the G-20, the rough equivalent of the first arms-control agreement ever reached in cyberspace.

“We did see the behavior of the Chinese change. I had been cynical about the agreement, but I was wrong,” Carlin recalls. “China, at least in a narrowly defined box, had agreed to a new cyber norm. Consistent with their agreement, they largely ceased state-sponsored hacking that targeted a private US company for the direct economic benefit of a Chinese competitor.”
...
Donald Trump’s trade war against China has largely been couched as a way to punish China for its years of rampant intellectual property theft. And the official documents that make a case for that war have made scant mention of the progress that the Obama administration made. “After years of unsuccessful US-China dialogs, the United States is taking action to confront China,” wrote the US Trade Representative’s office, disregarding the quite successful dialog that took place at the Omni Shoreham hotel in 2015. If the US isn’t going to acknowledge that things ever got better, what incentive does China have to keep on good behavior?
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Re: Trump Trade War

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:52 am
stessier wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:16 am I know of companies that still do manufacturing in the States because of how fast the trade secrets would be stolen if they moved the processes to Asia. If they start enforcing IP law, I could see that changing. Unintended consequences and all that jazz.
Trade secrets aren't protected by traditional IP law though, right? That's why they are trade secrets rather than patents or whatever else.
I don't know what is considered traditional IP law. Through our IP training, I know that if you treat trade secrets correctly within the company, there are protections against other companies stealing and using them.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Isgrimnur »

World Intellectual Property Organization
Contrary to patents, trade secrets are protected without registration, that is, trade secrets are protected without any procedural formalities. Consequently, a trade secret can be protected for an unlimited period of time. For these reasons, the protection of trade secrets may appear to be particularly attractive for SMEs. There are, however, some conditions for the information to be considered a trade secret. Compliance with such conditions may turn out to be more difficult and costly than it would appear at first glance. While these conditions vary from country to country, some general standards exist which are referred to in Art. 39 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement):
  • The information must be secret (i.e. it is not generally known among, or readily accessible to, circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question).
  • It must have commercial value because it is a secret.
  • It must have been subject to reasonable steps by the rightful holder of the information to keep it secret (e.g., through confidentiality agreements).
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Re: Trump Trade War

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But you can legally reverse engineer trade secrets. And as soon as it is no longer secret, it is no longer protected (unless whoever reverse engineered it claims their process as a trade secret too).
In most circumstances, there is nothing wrong with reverse engineering. The recently-enacted Defend Trade Secrets Act declares that it cannot be an “improper means” of acquiring information. (In fact, if you properly reverse engineer a product, the information you discover can be held by you as your own trade secret.) The reason behind the rule is apparent when you consider the limits of trade secret protection: selling a product that reveals the design and method of its manufacture means the secret is imperiled. If it is very easy to discern, then the secret is lost immediately. If it might take some time to figure out, then that’s called reverse engineering, and anyone is allowed to do it.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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WaPo
White House officials are scrambling to come up with a new bailout plan to placate furious farmers after President Trump’s initial idea of donating unused crops to poor countries came under scrutiny, people briefed on the planning said.

Amid intense political pressure from Senate Republicans, White House officials are eyeing different ways to advance funds to agriculture companies that have complained they are being caught in the middle of the escalating trade battle with China.
...
Trump already directed that the department pay out $12 billion to farmers last year who said they were rapidly losing funds because of new import penalties from China. But China signaled Monday that it plans to dramatically increase its restrictions in retaliation for tariffs that Trump has imposed on Beijing.
...
Hoeven said there was a chance that White House officials could attempt to purchase U.S. farm products and then give them to poor countries. A similar program was established under the Food for Peace Act.

But government officials have found that these programs are very difficult to administer, in part because it can be hard to move crops on a large scale to poor countries efficiently. There are also concerns that dumping large amounts of crops can disrupt the local farming infrastructure, and some poor countries do not need certain crops that could be in abundance in the United States, such as soybeans.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 10:30 am But you can legally reverse engineer trade secrets. And as soon as it is no longer secret, it is no longer protected (unless whoever reverse engineered it claims their process as a trade secret too).
In most circumstances, there is nothing wrong with reverse engineering. The recently-enacted Defend Trade Secrets Act declares that it cannot be an “improper means” of acquiring information. (In fact, if you properly reverse engineer a product, the information you discover can be held by you as your own trade secret.) The reason behind the rule is apparent when you consider the limits of trade secret protection: selling a product that reveals the design and method of its manufacture means the secret is imperiled. If it is very easy to discern, then the secret is lost immediately. If it might take some time to figure out, then that’s called reverse engineering, and anyone is allowed to do it.
Ok, but also good luck.

In the meantime, prosecute people who steal trade secrets.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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Isgrimnur wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 11:08 am WaPo
White House officials are scrambling to come up with a new bailout plan to placate furious farmers after President Trump’s initial idea of donating unused crops to poor countries came under scrutiny, people briefed on the planning said.

Amid intense political pressure from Senate Republicans, White House officials are eyeing different ways to advance funds to agriculture companies that have complained they are being caught in the middle of the escalating trade battle with China.
...
Trump already directed that the department pay out $12 billion to farmers last year who said they were rapidly losing funds because of new import penalties from China. But China signaled Monday that it plans to dramatically increase its restrictions in retaliation for tariffs that Trump has imposed on Beijing.
...
Hoeven said there was a chance that White House officials could attempt to purchase U.S. farm products and then give them to poor countries. A similar program was established under the Food for Peace Act.

But government officials have found that these programs are very difficult to administer, in part because it can be hard to move crops on a large scale to poor countries efficiently. There are also concerns that dumping large amounts of crops can disrupt the local farming infrastructure, and some poor countries do not need certain crops that could be in abundance in the United States, such as soybeans.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 10:30 am But you can legally reverse engineer trade secrets. And as soon as it is no longer secret, it is no longer protected (unless whoever reverse engineered it claims their process as a trade secret too).
In most circumstances, there is nothing wrong with reverse engineering. The recently-enacted Defend Trade Secrets Act declares that it cannot be an “improper means” of acquiring information. (In fact, if you properly reverse engineer a product, the information you discover can be held by you as your own trade secret.) The reason behind the rule is apparent when you consider the limits of trade secret protection: selling a product that reveals the design and method of its manufacture means the secret is imperiled. If it is very easy to discern, then the secret is lost immediately. If it might take some time to figure out, then that’s called reverse engineering, and anyone is allowed to do it.
That's really the choice of the IP owner - seek formal protection (like a patent) and get it locked down for the patent term (but disclose it all to the world), or maintain it as a trade secret. They are both protected under IP law, just protected differently.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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The government shouldn't be involved in picking winners and losers, the GOP said. Until they found the worst conman and grifter to do the picking.
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Re: Trump Trade War

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Isgrimnur wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 9:54 am If only someone had done something about it:

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Covfefe!
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Re: Trump Trade War

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Isgrimnur wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 11:08 am WaPo
White House officials are scrambling to come up with a new bailout plan to placate furious farmers after President Trump’s initial idea of donating unused crops to poor countries came under scrutiny, people briefed on the planning said.

Amid intense political pressure from Senate Republicans, White House officials are eyeing different ways to advance funds to agriculture companies that have complained they are being caught in the middle of the escalating trade battle with China.
...
Trump already directed that the department pay out $12 billion to farmers last year who said they were rapidly losing funds because of new import penalties from China. But China signaled Monday that it plans to dramatically increase its restrictions in retaliation for tariffs that Trump has imposed on Beijing.
...
Hoeven said there was a chance that White House officials could attempt to purchase U.S. farm products and then give them to poor countries. A similar program was established under the Food for Peace Act.

But government officials have found that these programs are very difficult to administer, in part because it can be hard to move crops on a large scale to poor countries efficiently. There are also concerns that dumping large amounts of crops can disrupt the local farming infrastructure, and some poor countries do not need certain crops that could be in abundance in the United States, such as soybeans.
It's goddam fucking amateur hour all day, every day up in there.
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Re: Trump Trade War

Post by Enough »

Wait, though, at least we're saving MAGA America steel still right?

Erm....
Yet nearly a year after Trump slapped tariffs on imported steel, the U.S. steel industry is not thriving. It is reeling. Steel prices have fallen back to pre-tariff levels. Employment is stagnant. The clearest sign that tariffs are not working, however, is the stock market.
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So why has the market soured on American steel? One reason is that Trump’s tariffs, overall, hurt the industry far more than they help. Here is how we know.

For the first half of 2018, steel-producer stocks followed broad market performance, even after steel tariffs took effect. Then, while the S&P index kept rising, steel stocks took two dives—in mid-June and early August, as the graphic highlights—before re-tracking the market.

What happened in June and August? Just before each drop, Trump released lists of imports covered by tranches of his first $50 billion in China tariffs. Since 95 percent of these imports were intermediate goods, purchased by American firms, markets anticipated that the tariffs would push up their prices, reduce their output, and hurt their sales. Tariffs would, in turn, drive down their purchases of domestic inputs, like steel.

That tariffs are hurting American steel, the very industry they were imposed to help, shows just how misguided they are.
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