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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

I'm not going to argue with you, but at 50 and having a father who lived through the Great Depression and liked to talk politics, I have never heard of tariffs being *the cause* of the Great Depression until this moment in time. That strikes me as . . . odd.

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TC Marti's avatar

I'd be more willing to say "a cause" as opposed to "the cause." The following article sheds interesting light on this.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/herbert-hoover-enemy-free-markets

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

That was interesting and the opposite of what I've heard, as the article points out.

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Thank you!

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TC Marti's avatar

Very welcome! And yep, I definitely didn’t come across all of Hoover’s interventionism until about late last year.

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The Watchman's avatar

As I watch this tariff drama unfold, I rarely see anyone mention in their condemnation of the tariffs how over valued the market had become over the past 15 years or so. Standard acceptable P/E ratios have been out the window for a long time now. The affect on the market was due regardless. The tariffs just hastened the fact!

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Jon Miltimore's avatar

I was talking to a friend about this earlier today. Valid point, but also one that stems primarily from bad monetary policy.

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Everything Voluntary Jack's avatar

Thanks Jon, excellent article, especially the link to AIER showing Trump’s 22% average effective tariff rate is higher than the Smoot-Hawley Act that arguably pushed the U.S. economy along with many other nations over the edge into a deep depression.

I consider that we who are against coercive tariffs and for free trade should be arguing from the moral position as well as the economic one and point out that "When Goods Do Not Cross Borders, Soldiers Will".

With your Libertarian deep dive interest, Jon, I assume you know Richard Cobden (and John Bright) and their successful activism that achieved the repeal of the Corn Law tariffs that transformed mercantilist England into the freest trade nation in the world from then to now?

I suggest we can substantially add to our free trade argument from that convincing historical example.

I wished you would have joined our Free Friends Forum to discuss this, hopefully you will get there one day?

Free Friends Forum 39: Free Trade For A Peaceful World—Against Coercive Tariffs

When Goods Do Not Cross Borders, Soldiers Will

https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/free-friends-forum-39-free-trade

If you go there, scroll down, you will find my AI article on Cobden and Free Trade England that should be of interest.

Get free, stay free.

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TC Marti's avatar

Yeah, I've been hearing proponents spew the reciprocal argument, too, but I've yet to meet anyone over the past week able to provide sound evidence for them. To me, it seemed more 'faith' than 'logic-based,' or else someone, somewhere, would've shown us a credible chart, graph, or anything, really, to support that argument. Unless I missed something, anyway.

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