https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... il/564605/
“Trade wars are good and easy to win,” Trump has said. Let’s consider those adjectives, one at a time. First, trade wars aren’t “good” in any meaningful sense of the word. The damage from Trump’s tariffs has been widely reported. Harley-Davidson announced that it will move some production overseas to offset European Union tariffs. Banks have postponed investments in new American factories for fear that they’ll be caught in the crossfire. Whiskey distilleries are worried that new tariffs will dry up exports to Asia and Europe. Maybe none of these fears will materialize and, in six months, the effects of these tariffs will be barely perceptible. Or maybe Trump will look up to see the ball in the back of his own net: Of the 30 congressional districts hit hardest by China's retaliatory tariffs, 25 voted for Trump.
Second, a trade war is indeed “easy to win”—if you’re taxing imports from, say, a tiny island led by a weak government going into an uncertain election with no means of bailing out its weakened industries. China has none of those distinctions. It is a massive socialist market economy, led by an undemocratic leadership facing no electoral pressure, which spends oodles of money subsidizing its domestic businesses, all the time. As film buffs know, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia” refers to one of history’s classic blunders; only slightly less well-known is “Never go in against a socialist market economy when midterms are on the line.”
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Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late
Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...