WAS ‘FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF’ A FORESHADOWING?

Contributors: Wikipedia, Foxnews.com
“In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?…The Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone?  The tariff bill?  The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act?  Which, …Anyone?  Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, In an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government.  Did it work?  Anyone?  Anyone know the effects?  It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.  Today we have a similar debate over this.  Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone?  Anyone?  Anyone seen this before?  The Laffer Curve.  Anyone know what this says?  Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something………..-d-o-o economics.  “Voodoo” economics.  The Laffer Curve is a theory developed by supplyside
economist Arthur Laffer to show the relationship between tax rates and the amount of tax revenue collected by governments. The curve is used to illustrate Laffer’s main premise that the more an activity such as production is taxed, the less of it is generated.  Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, formally United States Tariff Act of 1930, also called Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, U.S. legislation (June 17, 1930) that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative
Willis Hawley of Oregon, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It was the last legislation under which the U.S. Congress set actual tariff rates.  Smoot-Hawley contributed to the early loss of confidence on Wall Street and signaled U.S. isolationism.  By raising the average tariff by some 20 percent, it also prompted retaliation from foreign governments, and many overseas banks began to fail.
Within two years some two dozen countries adopted similar “beggar-thy-neighbor” duties, making worse an already beleaguered world economy and reducing global trade. U.S. imports from and exports to Europe fell by some two-thirds between 1929 and 1932, while overall
global trade declined by similar levels in the four years that the legislation was in effect.  Today, countries tend to be more deliberate when it comes to tariffs.  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a broad swipe at imports but most tariffs, like the current proposal, are more measured.
However, a tariff on steel and aluminum isn’t the first of its kind from the White House: In January of this year, President Trump announced the imposition of tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines, primarily aimed at China, South Korea, and Mexico.  Tariffs are meant to give Americanmade products a price advantage by making their foreign competition more expensive. They have had a disreputable image since the United States’ Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 disrupted trade during the Great Depression.  Economist Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, has argued that tariffs aren’t necessarily flawed policy. At times when inflation is too low — as it’s been in the United States and Europe since the Great Recession began in 2007 — tariffs can raise prices and encourage consumers to spend to avoid paying more later.  Such spending helps drive economic growth. Higher inflation can also make it easier for consumers and businesses to repay loans.  Still, even Eichengreen cautions that there are more effective ways than tariffs to lift prices — notably oldfashioned stimulus through tax cuts and stepped-up government spending, both of which Trump is also proposing.  Many analysts say the United States should also develop more efficient ways to help American workers who lose jobs to foreign competition — in part through
expanded training programs — rather than punishing foreign competitors.