Tarrifying
Talking Feds
Harry Litman
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2024
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The next in our series of subject-specific episodes to prepare for Trump’s return. Our regular economics panel–the fantastic trio of Dean Baker, Paul Kruman, and Stephanie Ruhle–assesses the latest reports & the disconnect between people’s views of the economy & its actual robust state. The panel talks at length about Trump’s economic centerpiece of large tariffs on our biggest trade partners before moving onto the economic implications of other campaign promises, especially mass deportations.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Talking Fed's, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm Harry Littman. We continue with our series of subject-specific |
| 0:25.2 | episodes to steal ourselves for Trump 2.0. Talking Fed's followers already know that every six months or so, |
| 0:34.3 | we convene the same fantastic roundtable to analyze the state of play in economic |
| 0:41.6 | policy and national economic performance, and that's our focus today. But it has additional |
| 0:48.7 | dimensions in light of the recent election and Trump's professed economic plans. |
| 0:55.0 | For many people, the election played as a referendum on the economy, |
| 1:00.0 | which Trump's supporters were somehow persuaded was in the dumps, |
| 1:05.0 | despite most economists agreeing it's humming along remarkably well. |
| 1:10.0 | Even so, it's both startling and disconcerting that millions |
| 1:15.3 | of Americans seem more concerned about the price of milk than with the existential threats to |
| 1:22.0 | democracy that Trump represents, and that he already is moving ahead with before even taking office. |
| 1:29.4 | That, of course, sets the stage for a classic expectations game and political tug of war |
| 1:35.7 | as Trump makes his return. |
| 1:38.3 | We can expect him to lay blame, even for things that are not blameworthy, at Biden's feet, reflexively claiming credit for |
| 1:47.1 | any positive developments deserved or not. The main plank in Trump's economic proposals is |
| 1:53.7 | flat tariffs between 10 and 25 percent on our biggest trading partners. There's been a chorus of voices among economists warning that this |
| 2:03.9 | level of tariffs amounts to a significant sales tax on American consumers that could wreck the economy. |
| 2:12.1 | Trump has asserted, without any basis, that the cost of the tariffs will be balanced out with, you guessed it, |
| 2:19.5 | tax cuts. While tariffs are the centerpiece of Trump's economic plans, several of his proposals |
| 2:25.8 | also have significant economic implications. The most prominent is his call for widespread deportations, which would be both hugely expensive |
| 2:37.0 | for the government to fund and hugely consequential for industries that depend on immigrant |
... |
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