this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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Today I Learned

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cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5566633

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MechCADdie on 2025-04-04 08:19:11+00:00.

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 103 points 22 hours ago (22 children)

Someone has either never seen “Ferris Buller’s Day Off,” can’t remember it very well, or didn’t pay attention. This was covered in class!

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

A hero of the right, Ronald Reagan, actually gave a speech condemning tariffs. Yup, I'm actually on Reagan's side here.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Mj6N-WBPrVw

[–] [email protected] 15 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

I think there's room for reasonable tariff policy, but unfortunately the US is a nuance-free land full of extremists so Trump's terrible implementation will make tariffs radioactive for another generation if there's a large public backlash.

It doesn't need to be absolutely free trade with slavers or tariff man hell. We could raise the standard of living by allowing free trade but imposing tariffs -- or even outright bans on imports -- from places legalizing slave labor and other close to slave labor conditions. But obviously none of that fits into Trump's dumbass worldview.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Tariffs in my opinion can be a way to protect a given national industry against price dumping, especially when subsidies are involved, or if you have a specific capability in mind that you want to build nationally, but then I think subsidies are a better way, maybe in combination. But putting blanket tariffs against countries is in most cases not the best idea

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (9 children)

There is some nuance here. Smoot-Hawley didn't cause the great depression, and there a lot of economists who say it didn't have that much of an effect at all.

Tarriffs can have some useful effects when used for protectionism, diplomatic coercion, or trade barrier reduction coercion. However, Trump's tariffs are way dumber than anything that came before, because he's trying to do all three of these at once. All of these have conflicting effects on each other, and it is literally impossible to design a tariff strategy that can accomplish all three, since raising a tariff for one purpose means that you need to lower tariffs for other purposes. All he's doing by raising across the board is causing instability in the economy and convincing all partners to ditch the US.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 20 hours ago

All he's doing is exactly what Putin wants. Systematically isolating and weakening America while weakening the West at large and any other competing countries to his power and new accumulation of wealth.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 18 hours ago (9 children)

and there a lot of economists who say it didn’t have that much of an effect at all.

Source? To my knowledge Smoot-Hawley is pretty widely regarded as the worst possible move at the worst possible time. Protectionism doesn't work when domestic purchasing power is already collapsing. Agreed on the rest though.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

There is good economic theory that Smoot Hawley actually was responsible for the initial bank failures that led to the Great Depression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvWS_xzRbc

Can skip to about 15 minutes into if ya want.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Second largest senate seat loss, I say hopefully.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 18 hours ago

If we don't get these paid actors out of Congress we're going to lose in ways most people really don't want to believe

[–] [email protected] 35 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Smoot-Hawley 2: Electric Boogaloo

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

People came for the Smoot but they stayed for the Hawley.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I have a feeling they learned, and then said “what a great idea to crash the economy. It’s so easy, let’s do it.”

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

Maybe it is a good idea to get rid of senate seats with new people. 50 years the same people might be a bit too long

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

They also didn't have fox news at that time :/

[–] [email protected] 19 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

They had newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who pretty much invented the "yellow press". And whose story is eerily similar to Musk's, including a sudden swing from progressivism to far right nationalism.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

This time when we stomp down the corporatists we need to make it illegal for corporate interests to be considered when making policy.

And collective ownership

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