How is he supposed to make the election about the climate after quadrupling the tariff on Chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels?
this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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Because he kicked off a renewable energy boom as Americans are trying to displace Chinese manufacturing of a lot of the components of these.
If you cut off the cheap stuff, causing a boom in the over-priced stuff, that's a net loss for everyone except the share-holders.
And the people making it — and like it or not, we don't really have an alternative to organized labor when it comes to building a winning coalition in the US
There's better ways to get money to the workers than trickle-down economics. We've seen over and over that just giving companies shittons of money doesn't result in better conditions for the workers, since it just gives them more ability to lobby for weaker worker regulations.
Also what battery producers are unionized? Tesla certainly isn't.
We've also seen over and over they won't just fix things themselves if you rely on "competition". They'll just buy each other until there's no competition, or they'll collude to just not provide anything worthwhile in the first place.
Can't buy up or collude with Chinese competition, since they're producing it for their own use rather than profit.
... you don't actually believe that, do you? Cause they can 100% go all in on Chinese corporations if it means they get that cashola.
And if you think Chinese companies aren't in it for the money themselves... I'd love to meet your dealer cause you must be on some fantastic shit.
Cause they can 100% go all in on Chinese corporations if it means they get that cashola.
What does this even mean? They can't form an oligopoly with them, signalling to them to raise prices/cut production to collectively increase profits in the American market like American corporations do.
And if you think Chinese companies aren’t in it for the money themselves
I mean they are, but the big companies also have quotas they have to meet, defined in the 5 year plans, and the gov't is more than willing to shake down the owners/executives if they're too profitable or not productive enough.
Real answer? Because those tariffs will have barely any meaningful effect one way or the other. They're pure politics and no one deep in the field really cares that much. The solar tariffs are fairly annoying, but solar is by far the cheapest form of energy production even if material costs blast up a full 50% -- especially since those cost increases have no effect on the far more important cost center of trade labor. If Biden has a legacy other than supporting genocide in Gaza, it will be as the climate president.
The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest suite of climate subsidies the world has ever seen. It's an industrial policy so huge that it would make Stalin sweat. Except... it's working. Clean energy industry in the US was doing OK before and is just exploding now. Legitimately hard to overstate how huge it is, and even countries you think of as having intense green energy programs are looking at the US with some envy. And the design of the bill is such that it spins up virtuous cycles. As industries and slow money move in to take advantage of the bill, they become part of the constituency to keep it alive and continue to build up more and more of the same investment. If it can just survive a few more years, it'll be almost as impossible to repeal as medicare.
And none of that seems to matter. Because no matter what they do it'll never be good enough for the loud voices on the left. If you aren't achieving global socialist revolution that means any progress you do achieve is a waste of time and no different than the actual allies of global apocalypse. There's always some stupid little "just one problem!" nitpick that people on places like the fediverse think reduces an entire policy to ashes even though it just isn't even particularly important.
By further giving tax breaks and subsidies to American manufacturers. While being a political move, the banning and taxing of chinese products is also a safety issue. Want to make America electric? Make em cheap.
While being a political move, the banning and taxing of chinese products is also a safety issue.
We have regulations products need to meet to be sold in the US, that has nothing to do with tariffs.
Want to make America electric? Make em cheap.
The only way to do that is competition. The ideal company under capitalism produces nothing and charges infinity dollars. You can't just give the companies endless tax breaks and subsidies, you also need to force them to actually sell the product at a cheaper price, and you can't just expect them to compete without any external force because it's most profitable if they all keep prices high.
Competition is a race to the bottom in capitalism. Government intervention has nothing to do with their race to bilk people of as much money as possible, except with regulatory capture.
Leaving them to their wiles just gets you even worse products for higher prices. The problem won't solve itself, especially with such a high barrier to entry.
If we have the chinese companies selling solar panels at X, it provides a ceiling that American companies must beat to be competitive. If Biden doubles that via tariffs, well then the American companies can double prices.
"No." -- Democratic Party corporate donors
One of the things which made it happen in 2020 was that a ton of people showed up outside the fundraisers of every Democratic candidate, and tried to ask them about climate on their way in or out of the event.