General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: America's massive trade deficit: Why BIG tariffs won't hurt the United States [View all]Zalatix
(8,994 posts)"Do you have an opinion on why the republican high tariff bills of 1921 and 1922 did not create a prosperous middle class and equitable distribution of income in the 1920's?"
High tariffs in 1921 and 1922 were more than overwhelmingly countered by de-regulation. Re-regulation won't help. In fact, your compadre in arms "Former-Republican" screams upthread that regulations drive jobs out of the country. Both of you can't be right!
"Before the RTAA was passed the economy was crashing and trade was an increasingly smaller part of the economy. After the RTAA and the lower tariffs that FDR negotiated, trade became a bigger share of the economy which itself recovered quite dramatically."
So you admit there was no correlation between S/H and the lack of a recovery. You have yet to show even correlation between the RTAA and the actual 4-year recovery (which ended in 1937). Trade went up because the economy went up, not vice-versa. Again, dropping S/H didn't affect anything.
Typically, trade goes down very fast when an economy collapses, and roars back when an economy recovers. That's because in the downturn people want to keep their goods at home because everyone's starving. Your propaganda that the RTAA saved us, fails. You don't even get CLOSE to causation. There is also the bust that happened in 1937. I won't troll you and claim it was the RTAA that killed the recovery - it was, in fact, austerity.
BTW absolutely none of your arguments address the fact that China's economy exploded under its protectionist policies of currency devaluation and a 25% tariff against American goods.
If they can do it, so can we.