Simulation Report

I believe that the group representing the American Auto Manufacturers did the best job of arguing their point during the simulation. I primarily believe this due to the simple fact that the AAM were the group to most clearly state their points. They even had a list! Doesn’t get much simpler to digest than that. And it wasn’t just that they had a list – they had a list of clear, well-argued points that appealed not to emotion, but to rationality.
First, they made a strong appeal to the consumers, my own group, by pointing out that the currently existing tariff has no impact on the prices felt by the consumers, as the corporations producing the luxury cars (Toyota, etc.) assume the cost of the tariff, rather than passing the cost of the tariff on to the consumer by means of a price increase. As I was attempting to keep in the mindset of a consumer for the duration of the simulation (not difficult as, as Maggie pointed out, we are all consumers in the end), I found it striking that the cost of the cars, if the corporations did, in fact, pass the cost on to the consumers, would be ~$100,000. The point, then, is that striking down the tariff can only help consumers, as keeping the tariff up would not result in any spike in car costs.
They didn’t just appeal to the consumers, though. If they had done just that, I wouldn’t think that they would have done a particularly good job. What they did that no other group did as well was to point to the practical constraints upon their position, rather than establishing their arguments solely in contrast to the other groups in the simulation, as all others did. Most tellingly, they pointed out the legal boundaries faced by a corporation such as those the AAM represents. They pointed out the simple fact that corporations have to do everything they can to expand their profit margins, that they must seek maximization of shareholder profits.
The AAM group had the best argument because it combined pointed remarks to specific interest groups [i]and[/i] a grounding in objective reality.