Actually you, like most of us, have a trade deficit with the grocery store and the movie theater, and a trade surplus with your employer. Which one is more enjoyable to have?

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kemayo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The experience of the trade deficit with the grocery store and the movie theater is more enjoyable, overall. I get films and ice cream and a good time out of it. From my employer I get a lot of sitting in meetings -- they have to pay me to make me put up with that!

My point is that reducing it entirely to "did I gain or receive cash-money from this?" isn't a particularly useful framing.

	▲	jimkleiber 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think it's what can happen when we shift more towards an exchange orientation and away from a communal orientation. Or in other words, as we see the world more win-lose and less win-win.

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edgyquant an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I dislike this analogy because a nation is not a person grocery shopping and anyway if a single grocery store was the only way to get food that would put me in a very lopsided relationship with them and the power dynamics in such a case are obviously bad for the person.

Nations have interests and there’s a real conversation to be had that a country should ensure it has strategic industries so its existence is never at the whims of another.

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andruby an hour ago | parent [-]

> a real conversation to be had that a country should ensure it has strategic industries

Then let that be the reason for tariffs rather than the bullshit argument of trade deficit = taking money.

	▲	edgyquant an hour ago \| parent [-]
		In academic and think tank circles it is. Too many people treat political theatre and, frankly, entertainment pieces as reflective of the actual policy debates when they are mass media designed to get clicks.

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tshaddox 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s a silly question, since (short of a major life change or economic system change) you need the grocery store and the job to have decent quality of life.

You need to trade your labor for money, and you need to trade your money for food. I would argue that there isn’t a huge difference in the fundamental nature of those two trades. Framing them in terms of “trade deficits” is pointing out which direction money is moving in each instance, but fundamentally they’re both just trades.

	▲	Gangway0829 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed that is true, which is the point of both OP(or at least my takeaway). Attaching a moral value to trade deficits or surpluses, as the current administration seems to be in favor of doing, is fairly nonsensical.