We can’t let stopping climate change get in the way of capitalism!
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That’s protectionism, not capitalism.
Tomato, tomato. The free market is a myth, there is no part of the economy that goes without manipulation. Anytime business owners can’t directly manipulate the market themselves they bribe governments to do it on their behalf.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that a pure free market exists.
Having a capitalist economy doesn’t mean that you have a pure free market anyway.
Although there are libertarians that would like to have a free market like that, every capitalist economy has regulations in place in an attempt to prevent monopolies and/or businesses having too much power in one area.
That’s no true Scotsman.
No, protectionism exists outside of capitalism and even somewhat goes against the idea of capitalism, especially the free market kind.
That’s theoretical capitalism, in practice there is no free market.
That’s no true Scotsman.
Bait or brain damage. Call it
'preciate it
Ooh, good point.
These go right against our goals to increase use of solar and EVs. ☹️
Really important for world emissions for the US specifically to transition to EVs too, considering it has the highest per capita road emissions in the world.
Most of that is because we truck everything and trains only get used for extreme bulk like coal
We can thank the US oil and auto industries (the same ones dictating these green energy tariffs to their political puppets), for that too.
The big pickup trucks and large SUVs dont help either.
Don’t forget overloading them with hazardous materials, only to eventually inevitably crash and cause another social, economic, and climate disaster!
Interestingly, China and India, who were told are massive polluters, aren’t even on that list.
That graphic is limited to a comparison of emissions from use of roads only.
Of course, not roads only, the USA is still terrible and China and India are still not on the list.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270508/co2-emissions-per-capita-by-country/
Edit, guess I was wrong
Most east Asian countries are fairly low down on the list. They have excellent public transport, the world’s best high-speed rail networks, and a significant number of road vehicles are already electric.
China is mostly building rail to solve its transportation issues, so this is completely unsurprising.
China has a lot of capita. Most of them dont have cars.
Cope lol
EVs are expected to reach 45% marketshare in 2024 in CN. Also I guess you haven’t seen their high speed rail network expand over the last decade (pressuring their car market in general). Then you have a lot of capita. So yes the numbers make sense.
It does sadly. On the flip side, China seems to be trying to capture car manufacturing markets by subsidizing their producers. This would probably be a bad thing in the future if allowed. Hopefully the US government does more work on making it easier to purchase electric cars in the US(specifically the price) while also reducing the need for driving.
What exactly is wrong with a country subsidizing green energy products? Not only that, but making them available cheaply to other countries?
The US Government doesn’t want US automakers to lose market share so that they have plenty of manufacturing capacity that could be retooled to make weapons in case of war.
Makes sense. Also petro-profits.
When a trillion dollars a year doesn’t commit enough warcrimes :(
I’m not precisely sure where I stand on this, but I understand the primary policy arguments for this decision would be something like this:
The problem comes later, when a specific actor has an outsized market share and then exploits their trade advantage for other concessions.
It also prohibits domestic competition for those products, especially in countries with high standards of living and wages. This negates competition and innovation, since most corporations don’t have the ability to compete with an entity with the capacity to eat cost like the Chinese government.
The point of trade decisions, is to import products you don’t have enough domestic production to cover the demand for.
We know that the US auto and oil industries have no sincere desire to build EVs anyway (or any green industry whatsoever), because they did their best to kill their domestic production of EVs in the 90s, and there’s no US industry for solar panels.
This is all just part of the US’s trade war with China, that is prioritizing the profits of its auto and oil industries over the wellbeing of the environment, and the desires of its citizens for electric vehicles.
I can’t say I disagree with anything you’ve said. It really is silly, given the US auto manufacturer industry’s continuous fuck ups, and pulling out of EVs. But hopefully this makes risk taking more likely in other countries’ car industries to move into the US market. Tesla seemed close to really catching on, but then again EVs have always been seen as “elite” here.
But I suppose the question is whether there is that much demand for EVs? This could protect what demand there is, to at least make an even playing field for US or US ally made EVs.
Speaking to your first point: users of Lemmy aside, I don’t think there’s that much demand for pure electric vehicle yet across the US. We so routinely travel such long distances here, and charging infrastructure just isn’t quite there outside of urban corridors to facilitate the easy usage of fully electric vehicles.
So hopefully this can protect domestic or other countries’ industries until the idiots that comprise the US consumer market catch up to global realities.
But I suppose the question is whether there is that much demand for EVs?
Remove the tariffs / open up the market and you’ll find out. I suspect that there wouldn’t be a need for these tariffs if the demand wasn’t there.
it undermines any less subsidized green energy industry which can lead to monopolies in the long run.
They’re oversaturating the market with low-quality products. This can be a significant problem when there are safety implications.
I’m sorry but this argument doesn’t make sense. Don’t you have safety rules in the US? If the Chinese cars aren’t safe to drive nobody should be authorized to drive them in the first place. If they are safe, no need for tariffs then.
This decision has absolutely nothing to do with alleged poor manufacturing quality. It’s protectionism, pure and simple.
Why can’t they just certify cars based on safety and ban unsafe ones instead of blanket ban the entire segment of them. It certainly helps the adoption of EV among masses.
This is what the NHTSA has done since its formation in 1970.
It sounds you’re still stuck in the 1990s. Where do our iPhones and other smartphones and our laptops come from? Where do many of the parts in our cars come from? What country has more high speed rail than every other combined? What country has its own space station?
The Chinese cars are probably much safer on the road then the huge pedestrian killing machines built by US manufacturers.
Truck SUV moment:
Also no US auto-manufacturer is going all in on EVs, they’re all mostly building gas-guzzling oversized trucks and SUVs. US automakers intentionally killed EVs in the 90s, and hoped no other country would start building them.
Also no US auto-manufacturer is going all in on EVs
Tesla? Rivian? Lucid? Faraday? Fisker?
To be clear, yes, of course I understand that those are all luxury brands, but that doesn’t make your statement any less false.
No, the major auto manufacturers aren’t going all-in on EVs, but that are all getting deeper every year. There’s no reason to expect that progress to slow down, as they’re all quite entrenched in the technology at this point.
Average new car cost is $55,821, and average cost of ownership is $12,182.
The American manufacturers do not want lower prices. Dealerships don’t like electrics because there’s less maintenance.
Tesla? Rivian? Lucid? Faraday? Fisker?
To be clear, yes, of course I understand that those are all luxury brands, but that doesn’t make your statement any less false.
I mean, of course the explicitly EV-making startups are going to be all-in on EVs. The distinguishing feature that makes them not count compared to [established] US auto manufacturers isn’t that their stuff is luxury, it’s that they didn’t exist before and have no previous internal-combustion product line to pivot away from.
What companies have gone all in on EV making that isn’t a relatively new company/startup?
While true, the cost differentials go much deeper, and they affect all products & services.
Michael Hudson: America’s Neoliberal Financialization Policy vs. China’s Industrial Socialism
I’d rather we ensure higher standards of safety and quality for our vehicles, which are already terrifying death machines, but the hit to solar is a real step backwards.
That’s a cop out. Cars aren’t getting registered without meeting safety requirements.
also Biden 🤡
I assumed this one was satire, is that a real tweet?
This is the top response on Twitter now.
I’m surprised they haven’t deleted it, but I guess that would be even more embarrassing since it’s already archived.
Trump tariffs were too small.
That’s right, Joe knows how to protect the interests of American oligarchs much better than that charlatan.
That’s not how you ensure America leads the world in them. That’s how you ensure corps feel safe not doing shit to innovate anymore. This is just another form of a bailout.
Didn’t they do the same for Japanese goods back in the day? Not sure it helped the American automotive industry.
Yes- it’s the United States
Doesn’t China subsidize what they export on top of having cheap labor? In that case a free market argument cannot really be made. The innovation in the US or elsewhere would have to be extreme shifts to compete.
Idea of free market is that it’s better than a manage market. If there’s room for innovation, the free market will find it. Central planning leads to being risk adverse and exploiting inefficiencies to soak up government money. So if free market is your religion, you shouldn’t be bothered that China tries to plan their production instead. Cheap labour also doesn’t hold since the USA has historically been happy to have their companies contract labour from cheaper countries. So if you’re losing due to Chinese salaries, just hire Chinese people.
Also, China doesn’t subsidise any of these exports. Then they’d lose money, and they’re exporting to earn money. They subsidise R&D and domestic sales of things that’ll make domestic companies more productive and competitive.
Cheap labour also doesn’t hold since the USA has historically been happy to have their companies contract labour from cheaper countries.
There’s also all of our prison slaves (inb4 they’re not slaves because they get paid a few cents per hour).
Wow, does that mean we are ramping up domestic production for these? No? Oh…
be funny if China put an export tariff on the production materials
US EV companies are canceling production
Classic Ronco politics
these actions already admit defeat
Are iphones tariffed as well? It’s also from China
Technically. However, the end product is sold by a US company, so from the gov. POV it is fine.
Banning chinese manufactured products would mean banning a huge portion of the domestic market.
So US companies will buy things those from China, slap a logo on it and sell American Made goods at a h huge markup
Technically yes. However, most of the time, they just outsource manufacturing. Research and developement is still usually done in house. Apple for example, wrote the software and designed the hardware for the iPhone but assembles it in China because of cost.
Interesting word choice. China wants to “dominate”, the US wants to “lead”.
You can’t say the quiet part out loud.
I mean, of course there’s loaded language in all this. Are you also surprised at the language and rhetoric used by Chinese government and media sources when they talk about the US?
I don’t tend to see that stuff, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
The rest of the world will get cheaper solar panels and EVs, that’s quite nice.
Cheap panels are tanking European competitors, but it’s probably too late to intervene at this point. Can’t compete with work camps and cheap slave labor.
you seriously think the ONLY possible explanation for cheap solar panels is “cheap slave labor?”
not the fact that the chinese government has heavily subsidized these industries? your only explanation is work camps? where are the pictures of these work camps, the stories from all of those people who came to the US from China, they must have something to say about all of the slavery and work camps!
get fucking real and stop living in lib fantasyland
Correct… using work camps and cheap slave labour was only acceptable when US companies shipped production to China and pocketed the profits… now that China is doing it directly, it’s certainly a problem we all care about
It’s certainly a problem the US government cares about when dealing with a hostile nation (from the US perspective).
Can’t compete with work camps and cheap slave labor.
There are parts of the world not EU and US. They would all benefit from cheap panels.
But EU and US are not really important: https://www.statista.com/statistics/668749/regional-distribution-of-solar-pv-module-manufacturing/ they account only for few percent of solar photovoltaic module production.
Also medical supplies, including masks, because COVID is Joever.
Edit to add: There is necessarily a lag between tariff imposition and indigenous production, and we’re left to fill that gap with our own wallets individually. Worse, the prices will almost definitely never come back down as they might in theory, because this is late-stage capitalism.
It’d be really funny if those raw milk drinkers started a bird flu pandemic during a medical PPE shortage 😂
China is unfairly SUBSIDIZING green energy products. They must be stopped or DEMOCRACY will fall.
Pretty sure you’re being sarcastic, but just to be safe:
America massively subsidizes too… the difference between China and America is when China subsidizes an industry, prices for the good go down, and their market share expands. When America subsidizes an industry, prices go up and board members get richer.
The American business owners are salty that China is beating them at capitalism. And Biden has a strong track record of oppressing the people and standing up for the tyrants.
Chinese auto workers average less than $3 an hour. When an entire country pays everyone 10% of what US workers make, it gets really hard to compete.
However; fuck the 1 percenters. Bring back 1950’s taxes.
BYD assembly line workers make $40k US on average, where are you getting your numbers? And $40k in China is literally like having over $100k in the US in terms of buying power.
You can buy and have delivered fresh made food for $3 US. You can rent a studio in a large city for $250/mo including Internet (250mbps) and utilities. How do I know? My wife lives and works in China, in a 20m person city center, and pays exactly that.
Min wage varies across provinces, but on average it’s about ¥30/hr, or about $4.15/hr. So no, electric car workers aren’t making $3/hr. They’re making more than my wife, and she’s making more than that. She also has guaranteed sick time built in on a federal level, triple overtime for working on holidays(which they have more of than we do), and they just passed a law mandating workers democracy in all public and private companies that will be implemented soon. I hate when people talk out their ass about things they have no idea about.
While I agree that worker wages and safety protections are shit in China, one thing nobody mentions when they compare wages is the fact that Chinese people are given free healthcare and affordable housing.
93 percent of Chinese citizens own their house. They also have a low retirement age. So there are some things that kind of make up for the shit wages and toxic workplace in China.
I still think its pretty terrible to be lower class over there, but I don’t think its really any more terrible than it is to be lower class in America, honestly.
Have you not seen where and how the iPhone factory workers live? We got prisons that look more homely.
Have you not seen where and how the iPhone factory workers live? We got prisons that look more homely.
A very burger comment straight delivered out of CIA ovens
Have you not heard of american prison labor?
Are you talking about the Foxconn factory with the suicide nets in Taiwan (which I predict you consider an independent country from the mainland)?
That’s 3 dollars an hour with all social services and human needs met.
American auto workers might make 20 dollars an hour, but life costs 22 dollars an hour, and if you aren’t in the auto union, you’re fucked.
Agreed, Tax the rich, limit C Suite income, regulate rent/property prices, limit profit margins on food, lower interest rates, give actual universal Healthcare, and watch America stomp China in the industry.
Do none of that and stagnate the spread of green technology to make the riches even richer and you are DC.
Complaining about Chinese people being guaranteed food, shelter, and Healthcare, and that system yielding cheap green technology is counter productive.
You want Amerikkka to lead maybe subsidize EVs as well?
Why can’t we all win? (Ide rather bus/rail and walkable cities)
The US government does subsidize EVs (it’s the only reason Tesla can exist, for instance), the problem is that all their subsidies just get used for stock buybacks. Why would a privately-owned company actually create more factories? That’s just not profitable.
The most rational system.
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The government does subsidize EVs.
Additionally even used EVs are subsidized.
Between federal and state tax credits, as well as utility company rebates, my folks just got over 5k back for a used Nissan leaf. They were able to trade in their old clunker, netting a profit of a few hundred dollars to upgrade to a practical used EV.
Well, we have targeted a few industries, particularly clean energy, electric vehicles, batteries, renewables, where we’re not trying to dominate the globe and be the only country in the world that supplies these goods.
Janet Yellen
I’m determined to ensure that america leads the world in them
Joe Biden
make up your mind ghouls
This is basically a self imposed embargo that will ensure that we are outside observers to a world that is rapidly transitioning to renewable energy.
It will also be part of financial handouts to underperforming US tech companies
A tariff on imported goods to USA doesn’t affect global market of other countries importing Chinese goods you absolute genius.
It reduces competition for Chinese goods, making them cheaper and more accessible to less rich countries.
All those cars and solar panels that Chinese companies counted on selling in the US must go somewhere. Every other country in the world (excluding the EU, although to a lesser extent than the US) isn’t hell-bent on sanctioning China, their production will be just redirected elsewhere.
And since the US, biggest net importer in the world, just stopped… importing, there will be more goods sought after by less money, AKA more supply (old supply + goods that can’t profitably be sold in the US anymore) but less demand (since the US just passed these new tariffs) and as you know, this is gonna make prices fall, maybe not a drastic fall but still.
Repeatedly stomping on my collection of rakes to own the commies
America can’t compete with China and American corps cried for daddy.
The free market in action.
The free market inaction
FTFY
The innovation will be bred any minute now
Oh we could but then the executive class would have to forgo their 8th Yacht.
so u cant because the “executive class” (capitalist they are called capitalist) control everything, u theoretically COULD if u had a revolution but u CANT.
Their “determined to dominate”
Our “determined to ensure we lead the world”
