I was tipped off here where you can see other BE users discuss this.

This will be my submission in attempt to gain Q4 2016 shitposting privileges. Note I have never taken an international econ course so feel free to brush up on my weak points.

The offending comment in question which will be the subject of this R1 by /u/boardmonkey

As /u/3pick3raser wrote: "Wow that was an enjoyable read" which is only true if you are an intellectual cuckold like myself and others on this sub who get off on having their field of study disgraced badly with an undeserving author actually getting applauded for it.

Let's skip right to the bad econ conclusion and show its completely contradictory with what economists think:

If one of these companies manufactured in the US then there would be a clear choice (As to which purchase would benefit the US economy more)

As you can see in this representative poll of economists this is not "clear". In fact if anything it concludes the opposite, that buying american does made goods does not help the american economy or at least employment.

Board monkey starts his argument with a bold claim:

Right off the bat I'm gonna tell you there is no way to calculate which phone purchase would most benefit the US economy.

Unfortunately, he is hopelessly unaware of basic welfare economics (or many other basic economic concepts as we will find). Defining benefit as "total welfare accrued to US producers and consumers" combined, the economic welfare gain from buying the cheaper foreign good will always outweigh the american good by the nature or supply and demand. The reason is the increase in domestic consumer surplus will be necessarily always outweigh the loss in domestic producer surplus.

For a graphical illustration and explanation, there is a pdf if you Google "consumer & producer surplus widener university" and go to slide ~65.

It is not necessary to analyze all these little things empirically to determine which is best for the US economy as board monkey asserts.

In order for money to remain in the United States economy, it has many ways to be cycled back in, but I will focus on [irrelevant garbage]

Literally fucking mercantilism

"Money" will always find its way back into the united states as not only as implied by literally basic accounting identities but also by the basic fact that US dollars are more or less only use able in the united States.

There is a shocking ignorance displayed by board monkey in his complete absence of the importance of capital flows and exchange rates in this discussion which even intro students should at least be aware of.

When a US citizen imports something, this will necessarily lead to the following outcomes:

1. The income to the foreigner will be reinvested in the US economy
2. Net exports will increase via exchange rate effect "canceling out" the increased imports

Both ways money is cycled back into the US economy in a way that is beneficial to the US. Note, even though the consumer originally neglected the US company in favor of the foreign good, the second result means the money will eventually find its way back to some US producer anyway if exports increase. In the first result, investment will boost US productivity and wages. Note also, the cost savings the consumer saved by buying the foreign good will also be used to buy other US made goods.

The fact that this garbage got top comment should remove all doubts as to how /r/asksocialscience is a shit sub that doesn't even understand social science. How can a sub that is supposed to be a source for education on the subject understand the material so poorly? In addition, what makes board monkey so arrogant as to think he knows enough to answer this question, which he clearly does not