Let it be established that taxation is theft. If I were all three branches of government (Puts puppet heads on every finger and toe) I’d finance the government through a naitonal weekly lottery.
Sure, it’s a tax on stupidity, but at least it’s a volunteer-paid tax. And it’s not just stupidity. Yes, I know odds, but I do sometimes buy a lottery ticket. Because I’m buying something real. No, not the chance of winning, or not exactly.
In the most depressed, hopeless times in my life, we bought the lottery fairly often. The trick was to buy it early enough. You see, if I bought early enough I had pretty much a whole week of dreaming. Yeah, I knew how unlikely the odds were, but it was POSSIBLE. Which meant I could look at multimillion dollar houses, I could dream of the perfect library. And it helped me get through the horrible times.
So there is some value in return for the lottery ticket and $2 — or $1 back when we used to buy it — is well worth the dreaming and the mood uplift for a little while.
So, if I were all three branches of government that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d do a national lottery. And then chop the government to the limits of its constitutionally allotted powers, so that I didn’t have to worry about the money shortfall from that.
But darn it, no one has put me in charge of everything. Honestly, they probably shouldn’t. If stress were energy, I’d generate enough just trying to run my regular life, to power all of our great cities and a few of the smaller ones. Having that kind of responsibility on my shoulders would make make me blow up or something.
That said, tariffs are taxation and taxation is theft. And after a while, any form of taxes strangles, and it’s like getting blood from a stone.
So yeah, on principle I’m against tariffs, but I’m against income taxes too.
I’ll preface this saying that I, like everyone else, has no clue what Trump is playing at with tariffs. I do know there is, probably, a tax cut coming for most people. There have been rumors of abolishing income taxes and the man has a tendency to do what he talks about.
So maybe that’s the intent. He puts in tariffs, abolishes taxes. Is this what I want? No. I told you what I wanted up top.
But again, what we get as choices in this world is not cake or death. It’s usually more like a light beating or a serious scratching. So to put it to coin a phrase.
If he puts in tariffs and actually gets rid of the income tax, is this a good thing?
I could argue it is better, relatively. Considering how intrusive, confusing and stifling our tax system has got, tariffs are less intrusive in our lives.
Sure it controls what’s available on your shelves and at what price, but it at lets you NOT be complicit in your own theft. I mean, the current taxation system doesn’t only take our time. If you run any business at all, it requires you to keep records at the expense of time and space. It forces you to file multiple times a year, at more time expense. It forces you to not only hand money and time over to the intrusive government, but to convince them that you’re paying all they think you owe.
The current tax system has the ability to suppress activity and encourage malactivity, it has the ability to make powerful men control who gets to speak and who has to shut up. I’m not convinced that the philosophies of progressivism combined with our tax policy haven’t been shaping economic activity and science for a hundred years. It’s not all as blatant as the Green Nude Heel. Or the fact that for the last decades all scientific funding has come from the government.
But I’m sure there’s been other stuff. The power to tax is the power to destroy. As annoying as tariffs would be I don’t think they can be nearly as bad as the intrusion into every nook and cranny of our lives.
Would I prefer another form of pummeling like, say, national sales tax? Sure, maybe. Provided that it doesn’t turn into a VAT on every step of the process of getting things to the shelf. I’ve seen that “work” in Europe.
Tariffs does have something else to it. If — as likely — they are used to shape foreign diplomacy, they do fall under the purview of the executive. There is a good chance that a president will need to, say, discourage the manufacturing of computer chips abroad. In case of war or disaster, as we found through the covid thing, it can be a serious deal when your medicines, your computers, everything you need is manufactured abroad. This is particularly bad when one of your main suppliers is actually a all-but-declared enemy.
So in that sense the ability to slap tariffs is actually an important power of the executive.
Yes I do realize a tariff war could take down China. Would the country that took down the USSR through economic war with not a shot fired be surprised by that?
As for the EU, poor EU. At this point their falling apart in their attempt at hyper centralization might be the best thing since sliced cake.
As for tariffs? Is this death or slightly less death? I don’t know. And neither do you.
So let us lean back, chill and wait to see what develops.
I don’t expect this to affect the comments, of course. I expect a right donnybrook in the comments, and I hope my assistant can help me with that.
You see, after almost a week of not sleeping due to cough, I dropped onto benadryl, which allows me to sleep but makes me zombie like. Notwithstanding which, heaven forbid it, I’m going to try to continue/finish the deep revision of No Man’s Land this week.
And now release is May with luck, but probably June. If my body wouldn’t fall apart, I’d feel better.
However, one thing I can say: If I have to struggle with health crazy, at least I’m doing it the most interesting time line of them all….
According To Hoyt 
I find myself disagreeing, a bit, with Thomas Sowell, something i do not do lightly because I respect the hell out of him. Free trade benefits everybody, sure. That goes back to Smith and Ricardo. However, if a market is sufficiently large, there is a tariff level that leaves the overall level of “well being” the same but transfers the benefit to the large market. That goes back to Francis Ysidro Edgeworth and continues with Optimal Tariff Theory today. Short answer, the US as the world’s marginal buyer, can set a tariff between 14 and 17% and the exporters would do best of if they eat it.
That leaves aside the fact that we don’t have free trade and won’t have free trade, especially not with Communist China in it. The CCP is the target here and this really puts them in a bind. Perhaps this is the “one good shove” that the Biden regime was imposed on us to prevent.
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We haven’t had free trade in my lifetime at least. I believe Sowell is correct on economic theory (I have enough gall to divide into four parts, but not enough to challenge Sowellon economics…😱😱😱). However, Sowell is not pretending to know what Trump’s intentions are, so he is less optimistic than I am. I think Trump really does intend tariffs to be a temporary diplomatic tool rather than long term economic policy. I might be wrong.
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I tend to agree with you. And with all due respect to Mr. Sowell, I happen to disagree with him on tariffs, especially when used as a tool in specific, limited cases.
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Yes. I too am hoping for the “one good shove” because their phony money is poisoning our society.
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Someone big has been unloading treasuries in size since the Asian open this morning. It’s just possible it’s Japan for liquidity, but much more likely China where the CCP seems to be choosing suicide rather than negotiation. There’s also rumors about their invading Taiwan, imminently. Both are the type of really stupid things that absolute dictators,who have eliminated all the people who might tell them the truth, do.
In the same vein, there’s been a lot of chatter about just how rich the senior CCP people are and, more importantly, where their money is. Lots in the UK and Canada, which might be lost causes, but more is right here in the USA. Arguably laundered too, which makes it seizable. Makes one go hmmm.
I’m praying that it all goes down reasonably peacefully or that the standard Chinese dynasty change, everybody dies trope doesn’t pull the rest of us in.
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Yep, China $50Billion. Absolute suicide for them since they’re destroying their own currency, not ours. Damned fools.
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“Tar Baby! Show me some respect, or I will slap you more!”
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Yeah, I saw some of the ‘reports’ about a Taiwan invasion, and went “I think I have previously been suckered by such hearsay.” I don’t mitigate risk there, so worrying is my worst outcome.
Supposedly, there is a narrow window for doing the sealift, because of weather conditions. Which means weather information and forecasting is a bit relevant, but I’ve not yet gotten my own expertise in such.
If there is a narrow, known, and partly unpredictable window, then some of the fuller periods of uncertainty are probably untrue.
An invasion also has a lot of complexity, so there is also a substantial lead time for a real one. I’m hesitant to suppose that Pooh is both responding to Trump, and started the go, say, last fall.
A non-delusional Pooh model, would perhaps make calculation on big bets during the prior regime, the Biden one. It is maybe kinda stupid to keep a plan in play, after such a surprise, unless they are on a time line to act prior to some sort of intelligence compromise being obsoleted. Dunno.
I’m skeptical that there will not be a competent invasion. Disruption and cause for concern, more possible.
CCP official stuff being sheltered in the US has long struck me as either desperation, or a very peculiar sort of autism. Contract law is always going to depend somewhat on local peace consensus.
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<i>”Supposedly, there is a narrow window for doing the sealift, because of weather conditions.”</i>
There is also a window with economic conditions, which is narrowing – TSMC is building, IIRC, two nano-level chip plants in the US, and also IIRC, 3 others from different companies are under construction with two more in the planning stages, and I’d bet <i>someone</i> in the Trump administration is talking to people in the industry (and governors in red states) about at least a few more. (There’s no reason a plant or two couldn’t work in Canada except “the Canadian government,” and that could be fixable.Maybe.)
From “committment” to “operating” for semiconductor mfg is minimum four years, and around six+ when new land is involved (location surveys, site surveys, analysis, permits, lining up production tooling, finding qualified employees, line qualification, etc.) so we’re about 12-16 months from volume production on the first and 3 years on the latest. That can be accelerated, but not by a huge amount, and whomever does that really, really needs to know what they’re doing.
When a substantial (not “majority,” just substantial) nano production capacity gets established far from Taiwan China loses a lot of leverage. Not that TSMC volume production in Taiwan will ever be unimportant, but when the eggs become distributed to multiple other baskets the value shifts from “physical facility” to “trained people to operate one.” Look for a small uptick in legal immigration to the U.S. from Taiwan next year.
And remember, worst case, a single MK 82 with 1-second fuzing (or a couple 155 HE rounds) through the roof makes a nano-level fab worthless for long enough it might as well be “forever.”
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In practical terms, if the CCP attack Taiwan, they better make a clean sweep of it, fast, or they are going to get sodomized when USN sinks the majority of their fleet, and enthusiastic partizans vandalize the fabbers. A squad with a case or two of grenades could set the chip tech base there back 10-20 years. A proper demo plan and teams could essentially make that 50. Also, those same USN subs have plenty of “land attack” cruise missiles.
Some of the subs are converted boomers, with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, plus Harpoon antiship missiles. The attack boats also can carry those, although far fewer Tomahawks. And all have some very, very capable Mk48 based torpedoes.
Unless China has had a major breakthrough in sub hunting, they may never even see the nightmare coming to devour their fleet like nachos at a stoner convention. And any search will be complicated by several carriers keeping their fleet busy.
Sure, we are going to take losses. Murphy and the enemy get their due. But the CCP is going to lose, and badly. -That- might induce a panic button push, either to glass Taiwan, or a “From Hells Heart, I stab at thee” in our direction. And you can count on at least a few working ICBMs and they know which , say 5, are high-likely to work. If they -really- thought ahead, there are CCP freighters in or near our ports, right now, with a load of canned sunshine. Or worse.
The CCP has to grab Taiwan with minimal cost, and before we can administer a Navy swirlie. or, they just wreck it and dare us to respond. Maybe dropping hints about pre-positioned excitements for us.
Else they wait for us to elect another sponge-brain sniffs-children and more favorable conditions.
Of course, Trump seems to have other plans besides letting them wait him out. I wonder if he will openly offer their senior cadre asylum, to just walk away? (grin)
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The one criticism I can find with your analysis is this line (emphasis mine):
“And you can count on at least a few working ICBMs and they know which , say 5, are high-likely to work.”
Keeping in mind that this is a Communist government, meaning it’s built on lies from bottom to top, with each level lying about the actual state of (say) the rice harvest in order to not get in trouble with their own superiors… What makes you think they actually know which of their ICBMs are in working condition?
Sure, in planning you often want to take the pessimistic approach when it comes to evaluating what the enemy could do. But it’s also important to evaluate the odds of them being able to do the full potential damage they could do, and not be paralyzed by scenarios with a 0.13% chance of actually happening. Yes, if the enemy has managed to undetectably bug the room we’re having this planning meeting in, they could pre-position their tanks and wipe out our whole advance. But what are the actual odds of that happening?
So while I would never want to be blasé about the CCP’s willingness to turn a major US city or two into Hiroshima 2.0, I don’t think their chances of doing so are realistic. Something you have to take into account in worst-case scenario planning, but not something that needs to be considered in realistic-scenario planning.
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Yep. They don’t know which. And frankly it’s possible none work.
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They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.
Still remember Aleksandr Zinoviev talking about the systematic lying in the USSR, and how everybody thought they knew things but nobody actually knew anything.
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You never know, Gorbachov retired to Florida?
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They are counting on Trump backing down in the face of threats and bad PR
They really don’t understand the guy
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I think tariffs at a rate that limits their badness in terms of coddling inefficient local producers (e.g. the Trump 10%) probably won’t raise enough money to pay for things that the (US federal) government needs to pay for like a military and the interest on the national debt. I’d be happy to be proven wrong on this, but I’m not convinced.
I do agree with the economic mainstream that high tariff barriers (e.g. the ones the US imposed on Japanese vehicles) harm consumers AND allow domestic manufacturers to coast and become ever worse (and they of course then lobby the government to put higher tariffs on the competition when the start losing market share with the current level)
But I strongly agree that the current taxation system in the US (and most of the world) is extremely inefficient and creates incentives for all sorts of bad things as well as costing taxpayers a lot of time and money in compliance costs.
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Last I knew, those tariffs on imported Japanese vehicles are why the Japanese opened factories in the US, and your “Japanese” vehicle is more likely to be entirely manufactured in the US.
Unlike “American” vehicles, which only count as such because they were manufactured somewhere on the American continent from globally sourced parts.
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Saw someone on X complaining about all of the Japanese and European cars he was seeing on the street, and the lack of American cars. I nearly replied with a comment noting that the European and Japanese cars were likely assembled in the US. But IIRC, there were over a thousand replies, and decided against replying.
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Going to try and not trip the multiple link thing, so replying to myself, here’s a few pages that illustrate:
https://www.toyota.com/usa/operations/map
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https://hondainamerica.com/manufacturing/
…
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https://www.nissanmanufacturing.com
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Even BMW:
https://www.bmwgroup-werke.com/spartanburg/en.html/
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And the VW/Audi/etc group, with their plant in Chattanooga:
https://www.volkswagengroupofamerica.com/locations
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All of which to say, each of these companies product mix subject to tariffs is a production decision, as their plants are already in place to build U.S.-assembled vehicles for sale.
And indeed, the stocks of at least two of those, Toyota and Honda, are actually up on the day on this Olga boogaloo Monday, about one percent.
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Olga. Olga Boogaloo. Famous femme fatale and stock trade predictor, known for foreseeing both the crashes of 1929 and 1989, and, of course as is the fate of all successful seers, was roundly condemned, forced to go live on an isolated South Pacific island where she used her profits to build a volcano redoubt.
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I would point out that the whole payroll deduction thing adds a massive paperwork cost to hiring. A cost that is incurred before the first hour of work. This makes taking a chance on someone pricey thus making it harder for the poor to get work. We should get rid of the whole thing.
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I recall hearing a story once upon a time of an economist presenting the then president proof that a proposed tax reduction would actually increase total revenue to the government. That president stopped the economist by saying that while he agreed with the rationale being presented it missed the point. He observed that the true purpose of taxes is not just to gain revenue, but more importantly is to exercise influence and control over the population.
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During the Obama-McCain debate, Obama was asked a question along those lines. IIRC, his response was that “fairness” was more important than revenue.
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Yup. I remember it. One of the many reasons I voted against him. ( “We must all make sacrifices,” was the big one).
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I’ve seen some observations that while the tariffs are a huge problem for China, that might not be the most serious problem. The biggest problem for the Chinese might be the cancellation of “de minimus” shipping for the Chinese.
To put it plainly, this was the policy that allowed outfits like Tenmu to offer free shipping. And also to avoid customs inspections on packages under $800.
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…
This was supposed to be a new thread, and not a reply…
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De Minimus is also alleged to facilitate fentanyl imports.
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Yup, because the packages don’t undergo normal Customs inspections. There are lottery spot checks of the packages. But the vast majority aren’t checked.
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There are two separate things involved here.
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Apparently the changes that Trump has made to the de minimis policy regarding Chinese packages matches our policy up with China’s. So evidently China thinks it’s figured out the answer to these issues.
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“the true purpose…to exercise influence and control”
That is indeed the ‘true purpose’ here of these tariffs – to treat the individual as the PROPERTY of the State, to be disposed of as IT sees fit, to satisfy ITS desires – rather than to leave each individual free to make his OWN choices in regard to his OWN life and his OWN effort.
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Taxation is evil, but unfortunately some sort of taxation, be it sales tax, property tax, income tax, tariff, whatever, is a necessary evil. The challenge is finding the taxation that falls at the intersection of least evil and most efficient.
The other issue is human nature. Once a tax is enacted, the greedy nature of those drawn to government ensures that it never goes away and in fact increases, and it takes exceptional individuals (sadly) to remove them.
My 401(k) took a pasting over the past three days and everybody at work is pooping themselves over the stock dropping 15% but I’m OK with it. The tariffs needed to be done because what we have now is not free trade, unless you’re a multinational corp that has their fingers into both ends of it. Then it balances out. As for the rest of the taxation problem, I am of the opinion to chainsaw government spending to and beyond the bone first, and then that will show us what we actually need to fill the gap. Then, fill the gap, no deficits. Live within your budget.
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Government is a necessary evil. So it follows that funding it would also fall into that category
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We are retired. Thus our 401(k)’s are rollover IRA’s. We are drawing from them to supplement getting bills paid. We know exactly how much we are losing. Hubby tracks different accounts total value. We always know what the overall account values are doing. We’ve always known. Not our first rodeo with downturns in the last 46 1/2 years. Okay, haven’t had money in the stock market entire time, we did start out together with nothing. Takes time and work to get where we are. Still, not our first rodeo with stock downturn. Also not our first time dealing with bad timing on needing money from an account we’d rather wait to pull from (college no tax accounts, and 2008 …) but couldn’t. Markets will come back. Markets will come back even stronger.
We’ve rarely bought lottery tickets. Usually when astronomical values. Also usually go in with a group when we do. Social lottery purchases. Haven’t for awhile now.
What we always do, when someone does win, is say (pouting) “Hey! They bought OUR lottery ticket.” Followed by “Guess we had to buy a ticket …” or “Would have helped if we’d actually bought a ticket!”
Regarding Tariffs. I see Tariffs as voluntary taxes. Not as voluntary as a national lottery would be because one can just not play a national lottery and never pay any taxes. With Tariffs, right now I don’t see a way to eliminate paying no tariffs no matter how small. Might happen, just can’t see it. Goes to 0% tariffs to all countries (won’t happen), then eliminates tariffs as a tax option.
I just don’t see why people are screaming. Well I do. Makes sense for other countries screaming “How dare the US want a level playing field!” Reeeeee Otherwise, those democrats screaming the loudest are because they are in foreign pockets, be it a friend – Canada and UK, etc., socialist/communist enemy – China/Russia, or those who want to eliminate us (Iran). i.e. Traitor.
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The story goes (and I really wish I could recall names….) an early electrical experimenter was showing a local government official something or other and the official asked, “What is this electricity good for?” and the experimenter replied, “I have no idea, but in ten year you’ll be taxing it!”
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I’ve bought lottery tickets, not often, for the same reason. I can dream of what I could do with the winnings, and it’s fun. Spending a few bucks for a week of happy dreaming is worth it.
Recently we’ve been dreaming of seeing the IRS abolished and our government funded by tariffs. I read a comment by datarepublican on X that really resonated with me. She wrote that establishing an income tax changed the relationship of government to the people. It turned the government from a servant to a master, using the people as a commodity instead of serving them. If Trump can get the income tax abolished, I’ll help carve his head into Mount Rushmore.
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I’ll join you, even if i have to claw that sculpture with my fingernails.
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Yep. All of this.
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The problem with a national sales tax is the question of how do businesses pay tax on what they purchase.
If they pay tax on everything they purchase, it encourages monolithic, vertically integrated businesses as they only pay tax once, on the final products rather than having to pay tax many times on the same thing
If they don’t pay tax on what they purchase, creative companies will provide goods and services to employees/owners to bypass the taxes. Remember that company provided health care started out in WWII as a way to bypass regulations limiting how much a person could get paid, so companies added health care as a benefit. I am told that in Europe, many businesses provide a company car (they pick the brand, not you)
Trying to parse how much value was added at each step of the way leads back to the record keeping mess of creative bookkeeping that adds lots of questionable expenses to the ‘costs’ used in the calculation.
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Yep. I’ve thought of that too. And yet, it might still be better than what we have. Only because what we have is so so very bad.
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The problem with a national sales tax is the question of how do businesses pay tax on what they purchase.
If they pay tax on everything they purchase, it encourages monolithic, vertically integrated businesses as they only pay tax once, on the final products rather than having to pay tax many times on the same thing
If they don’t pay tax on what they purchase, creative companies will provide goods and services to employees/owners to bypass the taxes. Remember that company provided health care started out in WWII as a way to bypass regulations limiting how much a person could get paid, so companies added health care as a benefit. I am told that in Europe, many businesses provide a company car (they pick the brand, not you)
Trying to parse how much value was added at each step of the way leads back to the record keeping mess of creative bookkeeping that adds lots of questionable expenses to the ‘costs’ used in the calculation.
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I don’t like taxes either. But even more than income taxes, I hate property tax. It’s basically just a wealth tax.
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Even more than that, it’s an enserfment instrument. You actually own nothing; you’re renting from the squire.
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Agreed. A major dissatisfier to living in New Hampshire.
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Washington State doesn’t have property tax! (…or is it state income tax they don’t have… One of the two.)
… not that living there might be much of an improvement.
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Washington state definitely has property tax. Although Cowlitz county was (is?) much lower than Lane county Oregon. I suspect, just like Oregon, per dollar cost varies by county and city. Washington state does not have income tax. Washington has a sales tax. Including sales tax on property, although private residences sellers do not pay the sales tax until property is sold. I guess it could be *factored into the selling price when sold, but it definitely comes out of the seller’s line item.
(*) IDK we sold on an “emerging” but not recent like flying market.
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The problem I have with Washington State is the infestation of Leftists in the western half of the state. Although a good eruption of Mt Rainier might cure that problem.
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Mt. St. Helens didn’t help much… :-P
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Naw. St Helens was a hiccup.
West side got little to no ash.
Had as about as close of a front row seat on the backside without being actually on the mountain, east of I-5 in the affected river valleys, or in the air.
When we knew the mountain was erupting, we drove up to top of Columbia Heights which I-5 paralleled (ish). Couldn’t see the destruction, but got an excellent view of the bellowing ash cloud and the storm it spawned. Sigh, most the slides we took during this time didn’t survive.
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No doubt about it.
An eruption by Rainer would solve so much of Washington’s problems. Both with greater Seattle but Olympia too.
An eruption by Hood would solve a lot of Oregon’s problems cleaning out a lot of Portland, might get Vancouver and help Washington too. Unfortunately, won’t hit Salem. Flooding sure. Flooding by blocking the Willamette would hit I-5 corridor clear down and past Eugene.
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I think they’ve put Glacier Peak at a higher risk profile than Rainier. That’s a bit northeast of the Seattle area and isn’t highly visible like many of the Cascades.
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Still like the t-shirt that came out right out after St Helens blew. Got one for mom & dad.
Meme would be – caricature of the mountains and volcanoes from Shasta north to Olympia. In the middle St Helens comment: “Okay, boys. I show you how it’s done. 1 …. 2 …. and 3 … Blow!”
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True. I don’t think they’re served by the same magma reservoirs either. But if BOTH blew, imagine massive lahars coming down the Skykomish, White, Puyallup, and Nisqually Rivers.
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And if Yellowstone blew it would do all that and much, much more, probably from the Mississippi to the Pacific and from central Sasketchewan/Alberta almost to the Gulf (now “of America”😉). The moral is, don’t ask geology to solve political problems; it has so much in reserve you don’t want applied.
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Heck, including Yellowstone, there are three super volcanoes within the US boundaries. All 3 are civilian world killers should they go off. At least one of them makes sure Mexico has as bad of a day as the US and Canada. Taking out Canada and the lower 48 and Alaska US starves the rest of the world as well as blocks out the sun for years.
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I don’t like taxes either. But even more than income taxes, I hate property tax. It’s basically just a wealth tax.
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tariffs high enough to replace the income tax are unlikely to be feasible.
I think Trump is looking at several things
fairness in tariff rates (you charge us X while we charge you much less than X
fair trade between peaceful companies is a good thing, giving China Most Favored Nation trade status is insane
fairness in balance of trade
Here he is on shakier ground a trade imbalance can be perfectly fair. Country A sells to Country B who sells to Country C who sells to Country A. each has a severe imbalance of trade with each of their two partners, but overall trade is balanced
The current situation is not that sane and the US has outsourced far too much production
fairness in subsidies (reverse tariffs) instead of charging a tax on inbound goods, give companies money to make and export stuff
The US is guilty of this like everyone else
look at Hollywood and the money they extract from cities and states to base production there
look at the direct tax credits created by the IRA for battery/EV production
fairness in non-tariff barriers
This can be both good and bad.
“you can’t sell your cars in our country because they are not safe” could be a safety issue, or it could be a way to protect domestic car companies. What may start off as a real concern can hit silly nit-picky levels of regulations. See the baby formula mess of a few years ago where domestic production was largely halted (far too centralized) but replacements could not be imported due to labeling issues.
There is a National Security need for some domestic capability (pure protectionist of industries)
A country needs to be able to arm itself without the permission of countries it may be fighting.
I think that most Countries want to be able to sell into the US market badly enough that they will adjust a lot of their policies to restore a lot of the fairness that’s missing, and the mutual Tariff rates will drop quite a bit.
But some of the other fairness issues and the need to be able to produce things domestically will prevent going all the way to zero everywhere.
But I think the discussion can be good once we can break past the current panic (including a claim I saw referenced where a TV outlet claimed that the tariffs had doubled the cost of groceries when they haven’t gone into effect yet)
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that’s not panic, that’s propaganda.
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Propaganda from the news network inspires panic in their listeners. They are not mutually exclusive.
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Oh, no doubt. But if panic is to be countered, propaganda must be identified and neutralized.
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The thing that needs to be kept in mind with Trump (and its something I may have pointed out early in his first term), is that unlike the bulk of the political class, Trump is a poker player, and has a poker player mentality in negotiations. This has always been true in his business dealings before he became President, and is true as President. This is why his approach tends to baffle the pundit class. They simply “don’t get” the method of thinking.
Poker players are not just evaluating their own hand, they are evaluating the strength of their opponents hands, the amount of chips everyone has in front of them, the odds, etc. Projecting strength and sensing weakness of others is one aspect of this.
From what I have seen, Trump’s actions on tariffs are consistent with this way of thinking.
There is also the aspect that even a temporary bear market will lower the yield of Treasury bonds, making the 9 TRILLION DOLLARS in national debt that must be refinanced by mid-summer cheaper to do so, saving hundreds of billions of dollars in interest each year. To me, if that occurs, is worth a shorter term stock market drop.
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Trump stated the conditions and made the opening bid. Argentina and a few other places have already agreed to certain things, and have low or no tariffs. Now it is the turn of other places to negotiate or deal with the results. Since that was the goal of this, it seems to be working.
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Vietnam has reportedly offered to zero out all of its tariffs on American goods in exchange for Trump doing the same with his “Retaliatory Tariffs” against that country. Apparently Trump said “No”. So he evidently wants something more from them, though as of yet I don’t know what.
Vietnam desperately wants US military assurances (not likely without a very good reason) against a potential China threat. So it wants to stay on the good side of the US. And up until Trump’s tariffs, it looked like a lot of the US manufacturing that was moving out of China was going to relocate to Vietnam and make Vietnam lots of money. Trump likely wants that manufacturing back in the US. Can the two sides negotiate a compromise? I guess we’ll see.
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This is more than just the tariff rate in the other country, there is VAT tax and other regulations that can be (ab)used to limit imports.
Israel has gone a step further than Vietnam and has pledged to drop these other barriers as well (and in addition, work to balance trade, which with the high-tech weapons Israel unfortunately has to spend so much money on, would not be a hard thing to do)
Vietnam has only offered to drop the explicit Tariff rate
The EU has only offered to drop the explicit tariff rate on “industrial goods”
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Yes, there’s a theory circulating right now that Trump’s actions right now are meant to drive interest rates lower, which will make refinancing the bonds much more affordable.
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I note Erick Erickson (who does not and never has liked Trump but is pretty good about saying when he thinks Trump has a point) is suddenly better with the tarrif situation and wants to see lots of spending cuts. Now. Mind you, this is,partly because he expects the Republicans to,lose the House next year but it’s still a notable change.
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The TWO highest bills, other than housing, for the majority are food and energy (gas, heat, electric). Those are the ones that will go DOWN under Trumpian policy (lower energy costs, lower agricultural input costs and regulation).
Housing is somewhat iffy – depends on interest rates (rents are also affected by those, not just mortgages). However, there, yields are dropping at this time, putting more pressure on the Fed to drop theirs, too.
At the start of this year, I plugged in a 4.5% inflation rate for the family budget. If things keep going the way they are, I’m going to be reducing that at least for the third quarter – TrueFlation just reported a real rate of 1.22%.
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In some parts of the country, just getting the illegals out will likely drive down housing costs…
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many parts of the country (and not just the big cities, when the last administration adds 1/3 to the population of a small town, what do you think happens to housing costs there?
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I keep hoping that the whole tariff matter is Trump’s attempt to break us out of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. (Pause for the reader to look it up as a reminder.) We have been loyal to free trade for a very long time, and it has gotten us exploited continuously. (I am myself a very firm advocate of free trade, but only now is it being shown to me how little the system we had/have reflects that idea.) Now the rest of the world is yelping because we’re doing unto them as they have long done unto us. I would have preferred that negotiation and logic could have brought them to a better policy, but it seems they need persuasion by cattle prod. I’m less averse to this than I used to be.
One of the problems is that this isn’t a pure Prisoner’s Dilemma. The case of both sides betraying/raising tariffs is actually worse for both sides than if one betrays and the other is loyal. I give you Smoot-Hawley of 1930 and the global reaction to it, which turned the Panic of 1929 into the Depression. (It took FDR in America to turn the Depression into the Great Depression, but that’s a topic for another time.) If our trading partners don’t come to a low-tariff or no-tariff accommodation with us, and pretty quickly, Donald Trump could well go down in history as a second Herbert Hoover, with political effects I do not wish to contemplate.
And yes, this means no high long-term tariff revenues, and no abolition of the income tax. One economic miracle at a time.
Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.
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The Reader notes that Milton Friedman had a somewhat different opinion of the causes of the Depression.
“Friedman and Schwartz argued that all this was due to the Fed’s failure to carry out its assigned role as the lender of last resort. Rather than providing liquidity through loans, the Fed just watched as banks dropped like flies, seemingly oblivious to the effect this would have on the money supply. The Fed could have offset the decrease created by bank failures by engaging in bond purchases, but it did not. As Milton and Rose Friedman wrote in Free to Choose:
The [Federal Reserve] System could have provided a far better solution by engaging in large-scale open market purchases of government bonds. That would have provided banks with additional cash to meet the demands of their depositors. That would have ended—or at least sharply reduced—the stream of bank failures and have prevented the public’s attempted conversion of deposits into currency from reducing the quantity of money. Unfortunately, the Fed’s actions were hesitant and small. In the main, it stood idly by and let the crisis take its course—a pattern of behavior that was to be repeated again and again during the next two years.” https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/
Also the Reader notes that the Smoot Hawley tariffs were far higher than what Trump has done and there was no effort to negotiate a mutual reduction with other countries.
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The big question is whether there are going to be negotiations for mutual reductions of tariffs, and successful negotiations. Trump has talked up his tariffs as a good in and of themselves, spending a lot of rhetorical capital to support that position. If he’s serious, the tariffs aren’t going away, and we are in it deep. If it’s a negotiating stance (which seems likely but is not certain), it would still be portrayed as a significant loss of face to bargain them away, for a politician who does not accept loss of face easily.
Of course, Trump has done enough deals to learn the value of being cagey about what one’s true intentions are. If you’re obvious about them, your negotiating partner/adversary will know how to stick you up. If his real aim is getting everyone’s tariffs eliminated or seriously reduced (perhaps with the revenue from high American tariffs as a tolerable consolation prize if the primary aim falls through), that is definitely a worthwhile goal. The hitch is that he’s got more than a board of directors looking over his shoulder: he’s got a third of a billion Americans, a BASE-jumping stock market, and a media complex that’s ecstatic to sell panic in order to ruin him. He may not have the maneuvering room he’s used to having.
I hope it’s still enough.
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Lots of people anticipated the 1929 market correction – professionals with experience in the market, that was. The people gambling on the market were a little different. And then it got crazy, and the Fed didn’t, well, Fed.
Sounds familiar, na ja?
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I would have preferred that negotiation and logic could have brought them to a better policy, but it seems they need persuasion by cattle prod.
In order to communicate, one must do so in a manner one’s interlocutor understands.
For some, that is words. For some, it is a big stick, applied with force.
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I see China’s retaliated against DJT’s 34% tariff with their own 34%. In response, POTUS will kick the China tariff up to 50%. I don’t eat much popcorn, but…
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As many have noted, it’s a panic response by Beijing. And given that the US is China’s biggest trading partner, and China relies heavily on it’s exports to the US, likely a *huge* mistake on the part of China.
Less mentioned is that China’s also pissed off over the loss of de minimus shipping practices for all the cheap crap that Tenmu and similar Chinese vendors send to the US.
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not up to 50%. He’s promising to add an additional 50% tariff, taking it to 84% (in addition to other tariffs that were imposed earlier)
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When you need to get a mule’s attention, a 2×4 across the snout will sometimes work.
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So two things that the other country establishments (with exceptions) have got themselves implicated in.
One is that they are clearly collaborating with the PRC to a degree in promoting human trafficking and fentanyl trafficking within the USA. The prior regime in the US was for that free trade, and by supporting it, even if not being coerced directly by the PRC, the establishments have clarified that.
Two, the international socialists have been saying over and over that international socialism and national socialism are distinct, and that the criteria are nationalism, and also racism. Critical theory necessarily is a theory that establishes the ideas of racism. So that epicycle to a garbage theory of modern periods also means that Starmer, Trudeau, etc., are Nazis by their own definitions.
The Starmerites might say that free trade must only be good, and therefore their positions are good.
I do not beleave that people die in job lots being transported across a border, to be sold into an illegal prostitution industry, for the sake of their own happiness and long life. I think free trade in human trafficking is not a good thing.
Free trade in fentanyl trafficking is also not a good thing. Whatever your yearly death rate is, you have the opportunity cost of the food sales over their otherwise remaining life. You would need to make a lot on the one sale, or the one series of sales, to offset that.
We are not making that, the PRC is obtaining a lot of the income from that trade. So probable net loss for US, and PRC gets income.
Beyond that, endorsing Ham Ass hagiography decolonization theory is equivelant to saying that 90%, 95%, or maybe even 99%+ of Americans should be killed.
Much of the US economy was shut down for a winter cold, on strength of not interdicting movement of persons from biowarfare vector states.
At the same time, there was a lot of economic destruction done for a seperate program of blaming a fentanyl death on the grand racist conspiracy that exists mainly in academia and the Democratic Party.
Even if you could contort the accounting to suggest that sex slavery is not a net harm to the economy, we clearly have significant fentanyl costs, thanks to the idiocy and malice of the Democrats.
Tariffs are a perfectly rational response to the fact that the other nations of the world refuse to meet us intellectually at a place where we actually are, and think that responding to internal stresses is about them.
Repeating Operation Anthropoid against Starmer is obviously excessive and probably unnecessary, but tariffs may be the way to denazify the United Kingdom.
What would Churchill do? What would Arthur Harris do?
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C4C
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I lean toward not favoring tariffs; I still think Ricardo’s and Bastiat’s arguments are valid. But I’m not sure. Income tax is economically destructive too. And going back to much larger excise taxes, in the style of the French ancien régime, perhaps, while economically efficient, seems unfair. (Though it was recognized that you can tax salt, or tobacco, or alcohol, and people will go on buying them, so you raise revenue rather than destroying industries, long before there was economic analysis. Hmm, on that argument, maybe we should have heavy excise taxes on medical services?)
But in one case I think restrictions on trade are justified: It’s okay to block trade with slave holding nations. In our case, to start with, China. I don’t think we have a natural right to buy the products of slave labor.
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However, those revenue generators are sketchy. Because once the tax gets too high, the bIack market pops up. (I just finished reading “Salt: a world history” by Kurlanski, which details the course of the French salt taxes.)
Did you know that some variety of tobacco will grow almost anywhere in the lower 48? Just sayin’.
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Indeed one of the main cash crops in the State I grew up in (Connecticut) had (and may still have) tobacco. It was grown in large plastic covered greenhouses. It grew slowly and the leaves were of excellent quality so it was favored as wrapper for cigars especially some of the famous Cuban ones until the Cuban revolution.
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They still grow fields and fields of tobacco in Connecticut. Used to drive by a couple of tobacco farms on our way to my wife’s cousin’s home east of Hartford.
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Modern variety? Weed/MaryJane in states where legal (is it illegal anywhere other than federal anymore?) Or gambling.
Oregon, while somewhat decreased, as the bigger illegal grows went legal, there are still illegal growers to avoid the tax burden.
Gambling. One of the reasons Sheri’s restaurant died was the huge Oregon Lottery tax bill they were in arrears on. Busy place. Just people weren’t eating. The lottery areas weren’t paying enough to carry the restaurant alone. Difference with the little lottery stores are they are lottery stores that just happen to sell sandwiches (usually).
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It’s not the season for illegal outdoor MJ grows, but Flyover County has had a bunch, frequently a few dozen greenhouses worth. One big one was at the end of a 2-3 mile gravel road (royal pain; we looked at a property near the highway on that road and gave it a serious nope–winter plowing would be spendy). Another one was off a major side road.
A major characteristic of the illegal grows here is that they use up a hell of a lot of water. The two above were doing a number on the neighboring agricultural and residential wells. Really not good in a multiyear drought.
Not sure how many states have legalized weed, though I haven’t seen OSP doing busts of people smuggling weed out of state in a few years.
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–
Because not bothering? Or because neighboring states are all legal and shipping out of Oregon via vehicle doesn’t pay? Or both?
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When Oregon first went legal but others were not, my weekly marketing trips frequently featured roadside entertainment courtesy OSP and somedood in a rental box truck hauling weed eastward. (SR140, with non-interstate access to all the Left Coast states as well as the next tier eastward.)
It was busy for a couple of years, then stopped. Still see OSP (140 is my normal route to/from town), but a) not as often and b) almost never busting rental trucks. Pretty much the normal mix of traffic getting busted. (And yeah, there are fewer OSP patrols out than before the Summer of St. Floyd of Fentanyl.)
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You’d think that would be something that could be used to shut them down – the violation other people’s water rights.
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Difficult when un-monitored source. The only ones to turn them in, which happens, is other out of the same well water source. Metered water usage gets flagged. That or electric excess. Which is what irritated me the most when the dang Sequoias (I have said before “Love/Hate relationship” with those dang trees) took out the water line between the meter and the house (i.e. our problem). Took seeing standing water where there shouldn’t have been standing water, since I hadn’t been looking at the usage on the bill (stupid, I know. I do better now.) Went from 4 Kgal to 40 kgal, for 4 months! Bet your last dollar they’d have turned in any suspected grow. We never heard a peep.
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The sequoia water line problem happened in the mid-’90s. Now with smart meter we’d get an email to look for water leaks. Meter tattles. Which as far as we’re concerned is good. Others MMV.
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Yeah, when it’s on an agricultural well, there’s not going to be any easy flags that say a lot of water is getting used. In drought years, the first tell would be the neighbor’s wells going dry. (If the illegal grow is near residences. One of those two I mentioned was, the other not.)
Legal grows would follow the water rules for the area. OTOH, we have a rancher nearby who regularly thumbs his nose at the watermaster. (He’s a member of the Tribes, which means a hell of a lot in water regulation enforcement. Sigh.) OTOH, there aren’t that many large legal grows in our area. There was one Westside that got shut down. Not sure why.
There have been some selective enforcement actions about illegal grows. Got into a chat with a rancher who was watching a takedown, and he was told that the closer the illegal grows were to the city, the more rigorous the enforcement was. Not necessarily corruption, either. It’s a big county, and the easiest way to find a suspicious grow is to find a boatload of new greenhouses going up. (Local climate says outdoor grows won’t do well. True here, as well as west of the Cascades at much lower elevation. 4000+ feet for us, 1200 feet Westside. Latitude…) I can see having AI eyeballs looking at satellite imagery every year or so looking for greenhouse complexes. Not sure how much satellite time would cost, though.
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Don’t need greenhouses as the illegal tucked into the USFS/BLM lands west side show. Less a problem on private lands, although there is a reason why private land gate off roads. There is a reason why some foresters, private or governmental, pack protection and have for the last 50 years or so. East side it is harder to hide the grows in the pine and juniper forests. With it going legal in Oregon (voted no, FWIW) hoped at least that problem went away. Unfortunately not.
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Pretty darn close to free. A lot of this country is satellite photographed daily, by mining exploration, agriculture monitoring, forestry, etc., in addition to various law enforcement activities. ARCGIS has sets available for a nominal cost. Oracle’s Spatial database comes with a few free sets.
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I’ve saved seed for so many years I have honestly forgotten which variety of tabac we mailordered seeds of.
I have to wonder how much the bIackmarket grows can possibly be making. Just the other day I went into a recreational shop (I live in WA), and the types they had on SALE (not regular prices) were around thirty dollars an ounce, all taxes included. And bud/ leaf being a light and fluffy substance, an ounce is a LOT. In order to undersell thirty an ounce, you have to have seriously cheap labor (since I understand cultivating actual quality bud isn’t easy).
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A dispensary chain in Michigan (Skymint, Camden — Hillsdale County) is consistently selling “shake” — loose leaf and bud that falls out during packaging for around $20 an ounce. They also sell a package of 28 1g pre-rolls for around $50, which is still pretty cheap. Ohio is a couple years behind. Prices here are still up there. I wonder if cannabis tourism would be considered smuggling, especially when purchasing WAY more than personal weight — which both states are pitching VERY low. Like 2.5 oz or something like that.
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I think it would depend on whether it was for resale vs personal use. Certainly tobacco tourism is; NYC has actually managed to make tobacco smuggling from VA to NYC profitable. See “loosies”.
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California hasn’t learned that lesson with their legalized pot shops. The regulations/taxes are so high, the legal shops are getting clobbered by the black market dopesters. Haven’t seen any indication of TPTB learning anything from it, though.
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Any attempt by We the People to force the government to stay in their lane is almost always pitched as a potential revenue source. Shouldn’t be; should be solely an issue of personal liberty. But the greedy hand of government is always in the people’s pockets — without even a reacharound.
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Everyone – including the news media and the government – knows that the taxes are the problem here in California.
They’re still not reducing them, though.
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People do not think of Wisconsin as a tobacco growing state, but it is a crop there. A small one, to be sure, but even so.
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Yes. I am becoming convinced there should be no free trade with slave states. It doesn’t free the slaves, only corrupts everyone.
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So Sarah said – “I don’t expect this to affect the comments, of course. I expect a right donnybrook in the comments, and I hope my assistant can help me with that.”
And as I read the current comments it really strikes me that they are intelligent, on topic, thoughtful and in tone, respectful. Outstanding!
This is why I come here and read the ideas, comments and thoughts – It gives you more perspective and information to work with while developing and presenting your own. With that, I will mull over the whole tariff/tax thing for awhile and wait a bit to see what happens.
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Occasionally two, or more commenters, can provide short term amusement as they start “arguing” past each other arguing for the same side. What gets called “Violent Agreement”. Granted goes on too long and it gets irritating. But short term … FYI, someone usually calls them on it.
“why I come here and read the ideas, comments and thoughts – It gives you more perspective and information to work with while developing and presenting your own.”
I do that too, somewhat. Not real good about putting my perspective into words, written or verbal. But coming here to read comments and others perspective, helps with that.
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Since no one else has done it, hugs. We all need one.
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Oy. Thank you. After several days of getting better, I spent the night coughing. GAH.
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Between pollen and assorted forms of crud it’s amazing we aren’t all wheezing.
If I knew how to save it I would: saw a meme that went, “The pollen’s gotten so bad I coughed up two daffodils and a pine cone.”
At least the possible wall cloud (I have never seen it rain that hard here before) washed some of it out for a few days.
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April showers are keeping down the pollen here.
Not looking forward to June when the local evergreens decide to spread their pollen wealth and little to no rain.
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Cringe. I’m sorry. Coughing not only disrupts your sleep but everyone, including the cats, in the house too. Coughing hurts. Coughing can’t be stopped. Ugh.
Hugs.
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Yep. Dan left Havey’s hydration fluids with the tap ON. We’re done most of a new pack. Sigh. Will have to explain to vet.
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*Hugs* The crud it is. Been down over 2 weeks, still not up to snuff.
But planning to get back to edits, hopefully soon!
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I have, often enough, voiced my dislike of tariffs. Even when the other side has tariffs, they are almost always a bad idea economically. They do not, as some have said, “level the playing field.” A tariff “harms” the side it’s imposed on by reducing markets for their goods. However, they also “harm” the side imposing them by increasing the cost of goods to their own consumers. Harm to both sides. A “reciprocal tariff”, does, in a way, even things, but only in the since that now both sides are getting both harms.
Most people, however, don’t really get the economics so they only see one side and, thus, can be popular politically. Thomas Sowell gives many instances of things being bad economically while being totally rational politically.
That said, as I saw in Trump’s first term, the threat of tariffs can be a very useful tool to win concessions and the imposition of tariffs can be used as a powerful diplomatic lever. The question is who’s more vulnerable to the economic harms and who will likely blink first. Given the size and strength of relative economies, I’m inclined to believe the US is far less vulnerable that way than our economic competitors and I’m near certain that Trump believes so.
That said, all that stuff up at the top that I said about the harm of tariffs? That actually applies to all taxes. My knowledge of economics (real economics, not Marxist ideology masquerading as economics) is not up to gauging whether tariffs are better or worse than income taxes, or sales taxes, or Luna City air fees, or whatever. I’m willing to consider the possibility that they may be, but cannot declare with confidence.
Make of that what you will.
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I’ve come to see them as a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Free Trade is great if both sides practice it. And if one side screws the other, the only viable reaction is to screw them back. With periodic options for forgiveness of they decide mutual jabbing kind of sucks.
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This, pretty much. I was thinking of it in terms of “it takes two to fight but it only takes one to start a war.” (Same principle as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, seemingly.) The target doesn’t get to just opt out of the war. You’re participating no matter what, and the only question is whether you fight or just let the aggressors do whatever they want. If the aggressor can’t actually hurt you, it’s a different scenario; but not participating in this economic war has been hugely damaging. I figure it’s high time we punched back.
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This is of course more precisely the iterated prisoners dilemma, i.e. it is ongoing not just one action. The Free Trade strategy is Unconditional Cooperator (aka patsy), there is no penalty (i.e. tariff in this case) no matter what your opponent does. In that case the optimal strategy for the opponent is Unconditional Defector aka screw your buddy. The best strategy overall in Prisoners Dilemma is Tit for Tat (and there are many subtle variants to TFT) which is whatever they did to you last time you do to them this time. Overall outcome for everyone sucks, but sooner or later a rational opponent will change strategy and the system improves.
Mr Sowell is correct concerning overall economic outcome, but for realpolitik reasons, sometimes a quick knee to your opponent’s family jewels is the correct action.
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Heh. Like the way you think Treg.
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Trump uses TitForTat. Notice how he’ll bad mouth anyone who bad mouths him. But bends over backward to not start it. And praises those who praise him or who have not said anything about him.
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And yet people who are allegedly analysts of politics — they don’t get it. So basic, even I can recognize it.
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Most people, however, don’t really get the economics
Most economists do really get economics (Paul Krugman to the white courtesy phone please)
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I’m talking about actual economics, not the Marxist ideology that pretends to be economics even among many “economists”.
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Even with that limitation, too many economists forget that “efficiency” Is just one of the “unlimited wants” The economist should be attempting to maximize.
I was a hardcore free-trader back in the’90s. I was wrong. (Shrug) Maybe it would have worked if our politicians weren’t feckless (and/or corrupt). But the fact is, that it didn’t.
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Same on hardcore free trader in hte 90s
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About 50 years ago we began moving our manufacturing overseas because it was cheaper.
The problem is that a lot of jobs went overseas as well and after all this time it went so far that we rely on rivals for necessary products.
Tariffs on China hurt China and, in the short term, us as well. But they’ll also bring manufacturing back here to avoid the tariffs. Eli Lilly started investing in manufacturing back in the U.S. when they saw the Covid supply chain interruptions.
And this isn’t just about the tariffs. It’s also about the debt. 37 trillion in debt and spending 1 trillion annually on the interest. A lot of it is coming due for refinancing. This stock market correction might let us do so at lower rates, since much of the money that leaves the market goes directly or indirectly into Treasury notes. Demand for those sends their price higher and the interest rate down.
I don’t think the President will get everything he’s trying to accomplish done – but I’m quite willing to give him benefit of the doubt here. This was never going to be easy. If Kamala had won I was expecting either hyperinflation or default on at least some of the debt. An overdue market correction and trade rebalancing is a whole lot easier to take than what could have been…
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I’m so old I remember when NAFTA was going to wonderful things for consumers and bring prosperity and plenty to the country.
And how is that working out for us?
Of course NAFTA was not about putting American workers first. This new tariff policy is.
An idea so crazy it might even work. I guess we will see.
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one can hope!
i know NAFTA destroyed agricultural producers across the south, then the illegal immigration started ramping up too
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On tariffs, I just don’t know. I do know my reactions to some of the arguments. Some of them seem pretty condescending: ” Now, let me explain why this is bad in simple terms you can understand.”
But I don’t care for the, “I don’t care about Wall Street, the billionaires can “%$& themselves,” variety of comment, either. I really do appreciate the discussion here, blessedly free of both.
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as a Wall Streeter myself, though no billionaire, I appreciate the sentiment. It’s been a truly wild couple of days. Today especially is why I learned options. Down big, fake news, short cover, up big, down again … signifying nothing. Wall Street is down because the market was just too damned expensive and inflation generally was too high. Expensive markets, expensive commodities, expensive Real Estate, any damned thing, crash.
This too shall pass.
as for tariffs, the US is Costco in A world of mom and pop shops. Why we never made use of that market power to extract value is something some of the current billionaires might want to answer. The fact that the US dollar was set up for a Soros short comes to mind. he broke the Bank of England, what a coup it would have been for Dr. Evil to break the US Dollar.
Back to the coal face, though all I’m doing is watching the carnage because my bets are all I. Place and there’s nothing to do until this plays out.
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My beloved is with you and Imaginos. He doesn’t do options (yet), but he’s calm about the losses we’ve taken. He is slightly sad he didn’t wait longer to buy, but we’re holding on.
He’s operating on a Buffet quote: When the market is greedy, sell. When the market is panicking, buy.”
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options are fun. They’re the riskiest and safest instruments all at the same time. If he decides to dip a toe, let me know and I’ll give you a few books that really MUST be read and understood to avoid ruin.
for myself, the vast majority of what I do is hedging and tax management. I prefer not to sell and get hit with capital gains tax and properly structuring options within the law is a way to do that. I think of it as insurance and I. Very cold blooded about it. The other 10% is speculation where knowing exactly my maximum loss allows me to be fairly aggressive every once in a great while. It usually pays off, but again I’m very cold blooded about it.
right now I’m Looking to fade the first rally, if and when that rally forms and starts to stall. That’s speculation, not insurance.
for the rest, this too shall pass and anyone who ignored cheap bonds in favor of expensive stocks hasn’t thought through the cycle to completion. I feel bad for them, but not too bad because bulls make money and bears make money but pigs don’t make money.
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I knew I was going to take a hit with my investments. Still needed to be done. The only question is whether the sacrifice pays off with this gamble; but that’s reality.
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The dollar was becoming ripe for a Soros type short.
But it got there as part of a scheme to export our inflation. We can blame shortsighted politicos and bureaucrats much more than farsighted supervillains.
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I’m no billionaire, but I’ve ‘lost’ over $100,000 in the last week.
Am I panicking? Nope. I still own all the same stocks. I wasn’t planning to sell any of them any time soon. I’m sitting on a fair pile of cash, which can now buy more stocks at these lower prices.
Will the prices go even lower? Probably. I’d like to buy at the bottom, of course, but you never know where that is until you’re way past it.
——————————
Q: How do you get a million dollars day-trading?
A: Start with 2 million.
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Dang that “start with 2 million” is common.
Q: How do you make a million raising horses?
A: Start with two million.
Hubby sells covered calls. In this market on one stock, he sold covered call for $2k, bought back the options for $400. Resell the covered call. Repeat and rinse. Option forces stock to sell. Buy another stock and start over. History has him selling the options for a year. Lately he has been doing shorter time periods. Note, most of this is our IRA and Roth accounts. The non-tax deferred account we end up paying capital gains on when the covered call closes (option ends or stock sells).
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The problem is when you guess wrong and you sell a covered call for $2k and the price goes up to $10k, you are required to pay it (or you bail when it hits $3k and are only $1k in the hole, but can’t benefit if the price then drops to $100)
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Not what hubby is doing.
The downside is if he sells a $100/share stock for $200/share and the stock goes to $300/share, the person purchasing the call gets to buy the stock at $200/share. The return on the stock to us is the $100/share increase, plus the call money. But we miss out on the extra $100 the stock went up. If the stock goes down, the stock call can still be purchased, but still at the $200/share. Or they can choose to not exercise the call. We still get to keep the payment for selling the call. The odds of someone exercising a call when the cost goes down below the call price is rare. Possible. Especially if a stock is issuing a huge dividend. The other downside which can happen is the stock goes down and you can’t buy back the call. But you also can’t sell the stock if you need to bail on it. Haven’t seen the last, yet.
Worse has been the example that started the conversation. Sell a call for $2000k, buy back the call at $400. Net cash to us $1600. One way to prevent not being able to bail is sell short one week to one month calls. Do not get as much money short term and risk having stock called away. A lot more work.
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“As for tariffs? Is this death or slightly less death? I don’t know. And neither do you.”
That’s true, I don’t know. Tell you one thing I do know, Canada makes NOTHING these days. And the reason is that if we make an awesome thing for $800, the Chicoms are offering it for $200. RETAIL, $200, not wholesale. Free delivery.
My example: https://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/2024/04/heres-whats-wrong-with-canada-i-know.html
Now, the reasons for this 4X difference are manifold, but they come down to basically three things. Taxes, taxes on taxes, and regulations.
The guy in the example makes computers. High-skill environment, he’s got to be paying his guys $30/hr. But they cost him $55/hr because taxes/regulations. His electricity costs are -insane- (because windmills and solar and taxes and labor cost and regulations on the power companies. I would guesstimate it costs Ontario Hydro $200 to send a linesman up a pole and back down again, between vehicles and labor costs and taxestaxestaxes.) His shipping costs are -insane-. His factory lease is -insane-. His material costs are uncompetetive, because he doesn’t move that much product.
And he doesn’t make any money after all the insane costs are paid unless he hits it really, really lucky. He’s literally making a better return on investment keeping his money in a T-Bill.
But the Chicoms are his competition, and they are blowing the stuff out the door at 1/4 his cost, they pay -zero- taxes, and they have -zero- regulations slowing them down, they make 4000X the volume of stuff our Canadian guy does, they have no development costs BECAUSE THEY STEAL HIS DESIGNS and they don’t pay any royalties, and they basically get their investment money for free because they are a branch of the Chicom government. No interest on their “loan” you know. Oh, and they pay their guys a buck an hour. When they pay them at all.
Now multiply that by everything you buy from cars to toilet paper.
So if you want that “level playing field” everybody always talks about, and your government already screwed your economy with windmills and a million other IDIOT complications that cost money and don’t work, tariffs are about your only alternative.
Because while taxation certainly is theft, and a tariff certainly is a tax, at least the tariff does some good for businesses inside your country instead of shipping money to your sworn enemies overseas.
And really, it’s the only thing you can do because as we’ve seen since January, The Swamp is not going to let you cut those taxestaxestaxes and regulations without a fight to the death. #Elon found unbelievable corruption in US-AID, and what do we hear about? We hear that #Elon caused an earthquake in Myanmar and killed a bunch of people, because he cut US-AID.
So I’m not surprised #OrangeManBad slapped a big fat tariff on the Chicoms. It’s the punch in the face they’ve been begging for since the 90’s, and it was the only thing he could get accomplished without two years in court.
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By the way, tariff update the first: https://x.com/TPostMillennial/status/1909247264461054105
EUROPE proposes zero-for-zero tariffs. Yep. They blinked. Because they know they’re f-ed if #OrangeManBad does to them what they’ve been doing to y’all. For 30 years.
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30 years? WWII has been over a lot longer than that.
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The current Chicom putsch to destroy Western industry (because that’s what they’re doing) didn’t really get going until BILL CLINTON let them join the WTO. Which suddenly gave them the ability to unload the billion warehouses full of cheap consumer crap that they’d built up in the previous 5-10 years with massive over-building on factories and etc.
Thanks, Bill.
Previous to that they were still trying to climb out of the hole they’d dug for themselves in the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. You can’t starve/murder 10% of your population in famines and purges and keep a proper economy going, right? Doesn’t work that way. As I understand it the cities are all “new!” and “modern!” until you get 5 miles out of town, and then the countryside is dirt roads and busted villages.
I also understand that the “1.4 billion Chinese!!!” population number is a communist fantasy, and the real number is probably half that or less. Still a lot, but not “the most populous nation on Earth!!!” India is bigger. (There’s people on the internet saying China is missing 400 million people since 2020, but I strongly doubt that’s true. 400 million dead of Covid? No way.)
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Well, the death toll might be correct if you add all the non-Chinese they’ve been exterminating in their version of genocide.
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Or even their own people, “removed” for whatever purposes.
COVID likely let them cover up a lot of disappearances. Especially as tracked by cell phone registrations.
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There are a lot of beautifully-shot and popular videos that come out of China about people doing things like making paper and ink by hand, or building furniture out of bamboo, or a whole bunch of subsistence-level processes. And the comments on them are all about how beautiful and wonderful they are, and I think of two things: 1. These are the videos they are letting the content creators make, because they seem positive, and 2. That is a LOT of hard work those people are doing.
They’re not fat, either. This is real labor work that they’re doing.
I mean, great that they can monetize subsistence work beyond the simple level of survival, but I would not be surprised to find out that there are a lot less photogenic folk out there who actually have to live like that out in the countryside in China.
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A lot of those “new!” and “modern!” cities in China are also largely uninhabited (the infamous “ghost cities”), and crumbling already. The China Show had a quick segment this past weekend showing a bridge that was crumbling and falling apart. They showed the concrete guard rail along the side of the bridge to keep pedestrians from falling off the edge. One concrete post in the guard rail had crumbled to the point where the rebar was visible. The smaller decorative posts (with no rebar) in many spots had completely crumbled away.
And a placard proudly celebrated the bridge’s construction in 2018.
This sort of shoddy construction is very common.
Speaking of which… that high-rise that was under construction in Thailand that was the only building that collapsed? It was effectively done, as they interior had been completed, and the builders were installing the glass cladding on the side of the building.
It was made by a Chinese company (iirc as part of Belt and Road), and an article (now disappeared) had recently been posted on-line playing up its ability to withstand an earthquake.
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So, they mix rice starch and sand and call it concrete?
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They mix in some cement. Maybe 1/4 as much as there’s supposed to be, but then nobody important to the Chinese communist regime will be killed if it collapses, so who cares?
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Probably some of this with regards to the composition of the concrete, and likely load-bearing pillars in new construction buildings that aren’t as big as they’re supposed to be.
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That’s not concrete… that’s… rat poison? Maybe?
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Chinese version of the old Mouse Trap game, only more lethal?
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The EU blinked because they saw that Poland and Hungary and such would happily make side deals to get out of the way of the U.S. punishing Germany and to a lesser degree France, thus effectively blowing up the EU.
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Industrial tariffs only. They still very badly want to ban most agricultural imports. (Which is effectively a tariff of infinity.)
Not to mention they want to regulate our tech companies, and claim universal jurisdiction with their whackadoodle environmental obsessions. (Which somehow don’t apply to China or India, but are aimed straight at us.)
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zero-for-zero tariffs on industrial goods
and I’ll bet that doesn’t include the other non-monetary barriers
But it’s a good start
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Update the second, what to expect in Canada the next 5 years: https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/04/07/great-success-67/
“Canadians should expect to become poorer over the next five years, says a Privy Council report. The forecast was drawn from interviews with “experts across the Government of Canada” who said economic outlooks for families were so stark they predicted a national mental health crisis.”
This is a PRIVY COUNCIL REPORT, not some bunch of malcontents at Rebel News talking schlitz about Canada. The government itself is literally saying that middle-class people will be moving back in with their Mom over the next 5 years.
Looking out the window, I do not doubt this.
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Naomi Wolf just did a column on Canada and she is pretty much in agreement that Canada is screwed. She’s reacting to the latest round of, “Hate speech,” legislation (along with practically spitting at Amnesty International).
Still not conservative, but always interesting to read.
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Nobody understands what Canada really is. It’s a -ribbon- of farms running along the shore of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence river in the East, and the US border out West. If you drive more than 200 miles north from the lakes or the border, the farms peter out to a bit of logging and mining. 300 miles there’s nothing but moose and the Canadian Shield. Which is granite.
Along this ribbon there are three (3) cities of note. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
That’s it. That’s all there is.
The 3 cities have put up trade barriers against each other. You can’t make beer in BC and sell it in Toronto. There’s a tariff. You can’t grow a cow in Ontario and sell it in Montreal, there’s a tariff.
You can’t be a doctor in Quebec and move to Toronto. There’s a regulation. I mean, you can move but you can’t work as a doctor. It’s illegal. You have to pass the Ontario boards. And so forth.
However, all things are possible if you can get a “Special Deal” from the #LiberalPartyofCanaduh. Kiss the ring, and blessings will fall upon you.
I bet Naomi Wolfe didn’t mention any of that. ~:D
By the way, the purpose of the “Hate Speech” legislation is to make people like myself shut up about mass immigration. If you speak out of turn, or arrange a demonstration like the Freedom Rally, they want the power to throw you in jail legally instead of the ridiculous farce they had to assemble for the truckers. Hate speech sells better than “counseling public mischief”.
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I’ve been listening to Frank Vaughn a lot over the last few weeks. From time to time he brings up the little factoid that there is literally just one highway, and one rail line, that connects Quebec and Ontario with the western provinces.
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Single Point of Failure….. hrmmm… not much forethought there. And that’s in PEACETIME when natural disaster and accident are the only concerns.
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Single point of failure, yeah. Did you know there is ONE (1) factory producing welding gases in Canada? It’s in Montreal. All the rest of Canada gets welding gases from the USA.
You can’t do -anything- without welding gas. Can’t cut, can’t heat things, can’t braze, MIG or TIG. Nothing.
It didn’t use to be that way, but it sure is now.
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Yes, the Trans-Canada is the single, lone highway connecting Ontario and the East with the west. And there’s a few spots with ONE (1) bridge. No side-roads, no alternative route. Which is -genius- isn’t it? They were really thinking there. Rails the same. One bridge, no alternates.
But it isn’t just the roads. Did you know there is ONE (1) main power line feeding all of downtown Toronto? There used to be more than that, but the big power station down on the lakefront was closed many years ago, and they just never bothered to do anything about it.
Phone system for downtown? Single point of failure. I’ve seen it. Toronto has been taken down by rain storms, never mind nefarious activity. Recently they lost the phone system downtown because of a fire.
Americans can be forgiven for thinking that Canada may well be a nation of unserious freeloaders and hangers-on, riding America’s coat tails.
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Sounds an awful lot like what I heard during the last two Democratic administrations here in the US…
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Anyone who thinks buildings falling down in Myanmar has anything at all to do with foreign aid is either ignorant or lying, of course. Because when do buildings fall down in earthquakes? When they are not built up to code (and the building code is well-written). Which requires a functional government to set building codes, and also for people to follow those codes instead of cutting corners. And when the government is literally waging war against its own citizens, who’s going to trust them and follow their rules? Not many people.
Compare this to nearby Thailand, where the only building that fell down (to the best of my knowledge) was a Bangkok high-rise that was still under construction, so it wasn’t YET up to code. Bunch of unlucky construction workers killed in that one, but that one was just pure bad luck. Nobody (again, to the best of my knowledge) was cutting corners, it’s just that the building wasn’t finished yet so its structural stability wasn’t yet up to snuff.
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Yeah, I saw some of the videos out of that earthquake from Thailand. Rooftop pools spilling over the side of high-rise hotels (including a video fo some people GTFO of one of them when they realized what was going on.) But it was just the water. The hotels stood.
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The Thailand hi-rise was apparently almost complete. They were putting the glass cladding on the exterior of the building, which suggests that the interior stuff that was supposed to hold it up was all in place. But…
The company that built it is Chinese…
I think there’s a pretty strong chance that the reason why it collapsed had nothing to do with the fact that it wasn’t quite finished, and a lot to do with “corners were cut”.
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One must also consider that concrete takes awhile to cure to full hardness.
But if you cut corners on quality of concrete, or just go cheapo on the rebar within it….
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This post is well-timed; I just finished my annual sentence in Tax Hell tortuously filling out a dozen tax forms. Next week I have to mail them in, along with checks for several thousand dollars. Most of that money will vanish into the maws of corrupt government agencies and even more corrupt ‘NGOs’. I will get nothing of value in exchange. I am not even allowed to know how and where my money will be spent. I do know that some of it will be spent enforcing a buttload of bureaucratic rules nobody ever voted for, that restrict and violate everybody’s rights.
Let’s start with the irreducible minimum:
That’s it. How much money, and where to get it, are implementation details. :-P
Since a proper government does provide valuable services, there should be some way to make money from those services in an open market. By the voluntary exchange of value for value, rather than robbing the ‘beneficiaries’ at gun-point.
I think the last 110 years have proven that income tax is a very bad implementation. The government is devouring the economy and the country, growing at several times the rate of either. If This Goes On, there will be nothing left but the government. There will be nothing to tax but the government, and the USA will implode as the government attempts to devour itself.
Income tax penalizes people for earning money. That is wrong in every way. Flipping it around, so that you’re taxed when you spend money, at least makes the tax somewhat voluntary.
I do have one idea: a small tax — less than 1% — on stock, security and option transactions, paid by the seller. At present, some 80% (or more) of the stock market’s trade volume is generated by ‘flash trading’ bots that make hundreds of buys and sells per second, shaving off fractions of a percent. This practice creates NO value, only distorts the market and leeches money from it. A small tax would put a stop to that by eliminating the profit.
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It’s government sanctioned insider trading.
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destructive impact of regulatory costs, versus tax costs, versus tariff costs
The Biden regime probably in part had stability issues precisely because it was running through a lot of the margin of surplus wealth that cushions against starvation.
Ten percen is maybe not enough more to cause a breakaway dip, if such a breakaway effect is possible.
Progressive taxation is somewhat of ‘we hurt the other guy’ in justification, and basically the wealthy are in reality simply more equipped to work as proxy tax farmers.
So ‘the other guys are dicks’ is a weak policy justification. Stuff just doesn’t stay contained, and instead of doing what it is told to, the reality of wealth shifts instantly and invisibly.
Free trade in fentanyl is not that useful, and free trade in government subsidized slaves (criminal aliens) is not that useful. PRC is using trade based leverage to get Mexico and Canada leaders on board as collaborators.
Trade based leverage is maybe an appropriate remedy.
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Lottery is not a solution.
Texas has managed to corrupt the Texas Lotto up in multiple ways over it’s lifetime to the point that many “smarter” locals will only buy the other multi-state lotteries. It’s hard to dream when you know foreign corporations will “buy” the larger jackpots through semi-illict methods.
Tariffs and DOGE at least got all the other countries are sucking on the US teats immediate attention. No more Uncle Sugar. Beats the neocon methods of power projection through color revolutions and bombs.
I’m not smart enough to figure out a way to fund the necessary government that can’t be gamed by the shenanigins of word twisting lawyers and special interests. But I’m tired of paying for globalist crony “NGOs” seeking to destroy the country and enrich themselves.
What I would like is to pay no property tax, at least no property tax that supports local schools.
The more I learn about modern “public” education, the worse it looks. You really don’t want to know the latest poop hitting the oscillating device, unless you have a strong mind and stronger stomach. The insane evil stuff that gets covered up.
Back to tilting at windmills…
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Tariffs aren’t the only barrier to free trade. Airbus is heavily subsidized by those outrageous Eurotaxes, putting our domestic aircraft manufacturers at a big disadvantage. We need some way to compensate for that.
Of course, with government subsidies comes a certain degree of freedom to ignore reality — witness the A-380 debacle. Bigger is only better up to a certain point. While such a huge airplane has the potential to haul passengers more efficiently, it’s dependent on constantly finding 600+ passengers wanting to travel from point A to point B at the same time, then another 600+ wanting to get from point B to point C, another 600+ from point C to point D… The plane also spends a lot longer sitting at the gate getting 1,200+ people and their baggage unloaded and reloaded. Turns out that several smaller planes wind up being more efficient because they’re more versatile. Boeing apparently hit the ‘sweet spot’ with the 747.
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The one place where you can consistently find hundreds of people all wanting to go from A to B, then another several hundred people wanting to go from B to A, is international travel. When I fly domestic within the US, I’m usually on a plane with 3-and-3 seating, but my most recent trip was 2-and-2 seating and before that was a little plane with 20 rows of 1-and-2 seating (yes, one seat, an aisle, then two seats, and that’s it). But when I fly across the Pacific Ocean? Jumbo airliner, pretty much every time, with about 60-70 rows of 3-4-3 seating: three seats, an aisle, four seats, another aisle, three more seats. That’s 600-700 people at max capacity. And it’s usually full enough that getting an empty seat next to you is a rare occurrence.
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IIRC, the only major American commercial aircraft manufacturer still around is Boeing. And the Europeans argue that the reason why it survives is because the US government makes sure to send lots of juicy contracts its way.
As we all know, Boeing hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory lately. It’s taking corrective steps, and hopefully they work. But there’s been some very ugly messes there recently.
But the problem is that Boeing is still the last big airplane manufacturer in the US. While it might be nice if the laws of the market had their way with the company, we can’t afford to let it go under because then we won’t have any companies capable of making those large planes.
Having said that, it doesn’t get “helped” to the extent that Airbus does.
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The Reader suggests they look at Boeing’s financial statements and see how much the defense division has lost in the last decade. If the US government is subsidizing Boeing Commercial Airplanes via the defense budget, they are doing a terrible job of it.
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It seems our “betters,” are obsessed with “effciency,” seen as making things bigger and to a standardized plan. As in, huge, uniform blocks of housing. How efficient! How equitable! Everyone with the same square footage and amenities, so everyone has the same level of comfort. Until some folks trash their space, while others fight to keep theirs clean and improve it as much as they can…which, of course, means they are Against Equity. The best one can hope for in that system is if one’s masters enforce relentless tidiness rather than ignoring squalor. (Spits in the system’s general direction: don’t want “masters,” deciding how and where I live).
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POW!
The only time taxation is not theft is when ALL of the taxpayers agree on the need to fund a specific thing, and are willing to fund it with what they consider to be their fair share, and not one penny more! Has that ever occurred in the entire history of this country? Heck, I doubt it’s occurred in the entire history of most towns in this country.
BANG!
IIRC, tariffs were the primary means of funding our federal government in the first half of our nation’s existence. Income taxes were brief means of funding specific wars, and expired afterwards. Also helped to give our fledgling industries a head start from foreign ones swamping them. That’s the thing, once we have our industries established, the need for protective tariffs in a free economy, vanishes.
JAB!
In many respects, tariffs are a luxury tax. You bought a foreign product for bragging rights, esthetics, or maybe because it was the best in the world and you needed something that much better, when there were equivalent products produced here in the U.S. I won’t call it a value added tax because just because something comes from overseas doesn’t mean any value was added to it.
BOING!
I really don’t like VATs because as I see it, they encourage giant monopolies from initial resources to final retail points as a means of keeping prices down by eliminating middle man sales to transporters and wholesalers. Of course, once the monopoly is established, they can price whatever they want since there is no competition.
SMASH!
(Is that enough donnybrooking?)
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Was that a comment or a 1960’s TV Batman fight?
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Well, our hostess did say she expected a donnybrook in the comments. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her, would you?
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If he puts in tariffs and actually gets rid of the income tax, is this a good thing?
Yes. It would mean that there is one tiny part of our lives that Congress can’t take a cut of.
They need to stop acting like they’re pimps, and we’re whores who owe them money.
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Tariffs would be infinitely better than income taxes, even if my total taxes paid were exactly the same.
I have never had to sign a sales receipt with a paragraph warning me of the penalty for perjury.
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I trust Trump on tariffs just as I do on deportations and DOGE.
My concerns remain as they have been; no arrests of any of the actual corrupt players, merely their foot soldiers; his continuing support of H1B and all that implies; and that Musk, while a worthy ally, also wants H1B to continue (and not just for rocket engineers) and his unhealthy interest in brain chips.
The problem is not what Trump is doing. It’s what he’s NOT doing.
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if the tickets are, say, $2, and 1/3rd of Americans buy a ticket every week…
that’s still only 11 billion.
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Forcing Congress to stop spending money is non-negotiable, regardless of any other measure.
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Of course, a lot of people buy more than one ticket….
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Evidently, MegaMillions just jacked the price up to $5.
I could justify buying a dream for $1 pretty regularly. Raising the price to $2 meant I did so less than half as much. $5? Not a trucking chance. For that much, I can buy a book. Or beer.
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Word. Even a bad book gives more excitement!
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Even if it’s only the satisfaction of hurling it at a wall.
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Which can be satisfying indeed.
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I forgot to say I also am tired of him playing ball with corrupt judges; but on the issue of the criminals sent to El Salvador, the left has decided to push Trump into a corner where he *can’t* comply, so that problem seems to be fixing itself. Though that also, worryingly, implies to me that the left was a visceral showdown as well as a legal one. Yes, I know the tesla attacks were already happening. But as you yourself have said, they don’t know what lighting the fuse on a real conflict would mean. But they seem bound and determined to, by hook or by crook.
But yes, I agree with you on what is happening with the EU. And a good thing, too.
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Interesting article over in PJ Media about the Left obsession with killing Trump or Musk. Bombshell Study Reveals How Many Leftists Support Killing Trump and Musk – PJ Media
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The political establishment of both parties wants him impeached and out of office. (And the Judiciary wants judicial supremacy, not to be a co-equal branch, or worse, the least among equals.)
These dictats from judges are predicate for this.
Personally, I’m of the option he should raise the stakes and start imprisoning judges. They are operating far beyond their remit, and arguably violating a lot of laws in the process.
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These “tariffs” are a negotiating tool for President Trump … for some countries he is trying to get them to remove their tariffs (the EU for one) for others its for other reasons …
all of the economists who are running their models are acting like they are permenant (because historically NOBODY Lowers tariff or taxes) …
But the odds are that for a great number of these countries they will have been negotiated down or away the “tariffs” by the time a single item of retail product hits the shelves in US stores … and that was the point all along …
President Trump has clearly said “If I called these countries and said I wanted to talk about their tariffs nobody would have called me back” … nobody, allies or not, nobody …
For Wall Street to drop 10-15-20% before a single American has paid a single extra dollar for a single product is simply nonsense … but thats what Wall Street does now … its a big casino driven by rumor or hints or just the direction a bird flew outside thier window … its all a huge engine that requires volitilaty and volume EVERY SINGLE day to sustain it … and its all driven by inside information … and in this case they hate that they can’t get a heads up from President Trump about what deal his is negotiating this afternoon … so they play the “what if” game all day and trade off of it …
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Get all the nations of the world’s leaders together in one room, and Trump would still be the smartest one in the room.
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Coffee and Covid has an interesting perspective on how the tariffs are going.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/trump-sneezed-monday-april-7-2025
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I buy lottery tickets for about the same reason-cheapest entertainment you can buy these days and it’s usually pretty good. While I am probably too old for things like hot-and-cold running courtesans and seven-figure supercars, I can damn well dream about travelling anywhere I want, any time I want. Telling a boss exactly where he can shove this job, without lube. An epic library. A house built the way I want it. Maybe even have a good cover artist secretly redo all of Great Aunt’s book covers to get new attention online.
On the changes via tariffs and such-I don’t know enough to comment, beyond this-
We can’t keep going on the way we’re going.
It’s that simple. Our choices are making different choices and trying new things or riding this disaster into either revolution or a new Dark Ages on a Lovecraftian scale.
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This. This is really what it all comes down to. I don’t know what the best thing is to do, and I don’t think anybody else really does either. What I do know for a certainty is that whatever we do as a nation, it CANNOT be the same thing we’ve been doing for the past 20, 30, 80+ years.
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IIRC, there was a famous early American politician who said something like, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
A recent author said (via a fictional character) something like, “The power to destroy a thing, combined with the will to do so, absolutely guarantees ownership of that thing.”
A+B=C
Also, I have never understood the willingness on the vast majority of the USA populace to accept that somehow the “national debt” has no obligation to be repaid, and the holders of that debt must remain unknown, and that “interest” payments are the only obligation that matter.
This doesn’t work for individuals or family or business entities. Why should it work for the “government”, which is simply a bloated, morbidly obese, overgrown entity comprised of (too many) individuals?
Debt is bad. There is no debate. The only times when debt is unavoidable, is when it is forced on people, usually by the implicit threat of lethal force, disguised as “government”, extrapolated through societal acceptance of evil and removal of choice. That is what it boils down to.
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Chief Justice John Marshall in the decision of McCulloch v. Maryland, which established that the “necessary and proper” clause (Art I sec 8) has a lot more power than most thought, and that the Constitution overrides any state law that conflicts with it.
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‘Dune’ was written in 1965 so, not all that recent. The Lynch movie was made in 1984, still not all that recent. Maybe you’re thinking of another author but Frank Herbert got there first.
The Paul Atreides quote from the movie was “Who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.” Ownership is far more comprehensive than mere control, the ability to deny others access to the commodity in question.
Just because you have the ability to blow up a building doesn’t mean you can make any other use of it.
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Senator Morgan in First Lensman used that quote as part of his stump speech.
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How can a judge rule that a federal law presently in effect, the Alien Enemies Act, does not authorize the duly elected President to deport enemy illegal aliens? In fact, that law requires Trump to deport them!
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Don’t know the judge’s thinking but I had some thoughts about Trump’s use of that Law.
First, IMO “Illegal Immigrants” can be deported without using that Law.
Second, the Law was intended to give the President the power to deal with citizens of countries that the US was at war with who were living in the US.
Third, while Trump is using it against green-carded foreigners living in the US that support Hamas, the question for me is “does that Law apply since the US isn’t officially at war with Hamas”.
Note, I think non-American supporters of Hamas don’t belong in the US but I’m wondering if Trump actually have the authority to deport. Of course, I’m not a lawyer.
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We have designated Ham-Ass a foreign terrorist organization. You don’t formally declare war on terrorists, you just exterminate them. That distinction did not exist when the law was passed.
Sometimes you need to be like Star: “These negotiations would be greatly improved if you take him [points] out and shoot him. Do it now.”
They did it now.
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The historical analog would probably be piracy – you catch a known pirate in your port, you hang him.
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About the only delay might be “making sure that you’d be hanging the correct person”. [Wink]
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While everyone (including the administration) seems to keep focusing on “anti-American speech”, the extradited Hamas supporters that I’m aware of were also involved in the sorts of activities that the right calls “violence”, but the left calls “speech”. This would be things like vandalism, attacking Jewish students, trespassing, and keeping a couple of janitors locked up while you “occupy” the building that they work in.
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Nod
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THIS.
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iirc, there is also a clause in the law which designates people working for/with a foreign entity with which we are not technicallly at war. I can’t remember the exact phrasing.
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No donnybrook from these free seats. I agree with every word you’ve written.
See. Worse is always on offing.
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I’ve been thinking about this whole tax thing for a while and, frankly, it is a little depressing. I favor cutting taxes whenever it is possible. Under any circumstances and with any excuse. The nature of government is to make itself larger and taxation is the fuel that powers that engine.
So, when I consider Trump’s proposed tax cuts such as eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits I admit they seem inadequate. I would prefer outright elimination of taxes or, at least, a simplified tax code without any special treatments and distortions. However, such a desire is pure fantasy. There are many incentives for politicians to support tax favoritism and very few reasons for them to oppose it. Even if, by some miracle, we did get a simple tax system, within 10 or 12 years it would be just as complex as the politicians find reasons to benefit favored constituencies or donors.
I guess, for now, “whenever it is possible” and “any circumstances and any excuse” is the best I can hope for.
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“what we get as choices in this world is not cake or death. It’s usually more like a light beating or a serious scratching”
And that’s because no one believes there are any other choices. In fact, no on WANTS there to be any other choice – because most everyone ultimately wants there to be BEATINGS and WHIPPINGS. They just want to be the ones doing the BEATING or WHIPPING – ie they want to be the ones everyone else is forced to OBEY.
If you want FREEDOM, instead of just accepting being treated as the PROPERTY of the State, there needs to be a new ABOLITION movement – just like the one when slavery was considered the ONLY option open to men. As was true then, BOTH the Left AND the Right have to be *taught* the FACT that the individual is NOT the PROPERTY of the State, to be disposed of as IT sees fit, to satisfy the desires of whomever currently has wrested control of the government’s GUN from everyone else’s hand – just as the Abolitionists did back in the days of black slavery.
But NO ONE – not even you – WANTS to do that.
Instead, everyone – Left, Right, and in-between – all just SQWABBLE over the ‘best’ way to dispose of the State’s human CHATTEL.
THAT is WHY you get ONLY the choices of beatings or whippings. That’s ALL you ever DEMAND.
That has to STOP. Instead of rolling over and arguing with the RAP lST over which orifice is ‘best’ for him to use, you need to START *fighting* AGAINST any and all forms of RAP E.
Put simply, instead of just meekly looking up at the ceiling and thinking of Queen and Country while forever taking whatever you are given, start clawing the bastard’s eyes out!
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Robespierre, is that you?
Your system does create a lot of dead people.
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“Robespierre, is that you?”
No. It’s Frederick Douglass. I’m sorry the difference between the two is not apparent to you. But then, it wasn’t apparent to the Southern Slave Owners either, who held your same view of ABOLITION: that ABOLISHING slavery ONLY ‘creates a lot of dead people’ and that the ONLY choice human beings face is whether they will be BEATEN or WHIPPED.
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Oh, for the love of Heaven, man, GROW UP.
Do you think we weren’t all like you once? At about 12.
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No, I don’t remember ever being that much of an asshole. Maybe I just forgot over the last 50+ years, but I don’t think so.
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“I don’t remember ever being that much of an asshole.”
One thanks imag for confessing the fact that REJECTING slavery and rape is his definition of being “an asshole”.
Of course, that was just one of the ad homs the Southern Slave Owners vomited at the Abolitionists because the Abolitionists identified slavery as evil, so no change there!
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Idiot. Asshole. Vermin.
You come in calling people names, refuse to debate honestly. And someone telling you you’re the asshole is to blame.
Take yourself off, glowie. You’ll find no takers here.
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So far, you have done Items 2, 3, 4 and 5 on Larry Correia’s Internet Troll Arguing Checklist. Only 4 to go for a clean sweep!
Just in case you’re confused, that’s not a good thing.
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If there were still slavery you’d be the one with the whip, because it’s “rational” and since other people aren’t rebelling you need to force them to.
Go, you misguided Robespierre. Go with your sans coulottes and demand that “If only everyone.”
In your wake you leave only blood and shit.
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“If there were still slavery you’d be the one with the whip”
Now Sarah argues that Abolitionists did NOT actually wish to ABOLISH slavery. They ONLY wanted to be the ones holding the WHIP!
Talk about DISHONEST ‘debate’.
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She said a specific thing about YOU, not about abolitionists. The only dishonest thing here is your response to a very straightforward ad hominem statement.
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I’ve flushed better. Moo.
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There is still slavery, it’s just called by other names. ‘Socialism’, ‘communism’, ‘collectivism’, ‘progressivism’… Any ‘-ism’ that pretends other people owe them something simply for existing. That they have a ‘right’ to ‘free stuff’ paid for with other people’s labor.
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Yes, but note he’s coming here to yell at us, not to the lefty blogs.
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Speaking of, did you cut the troll off? I don’t think we were quite done flogging it yet. :-P
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He was getting boring. I’m sorry. Do you want me to let him through again?
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No, no. I take it the critter was getting on your nerves? And you have so few left. :-D
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I’m just starting to recover — barely — so I’m tired and low on patience. Also he is scary-crazy.
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Ah, that’s just virtue signaling on his part. “Look, how unsullied I am. I rage at the system.”
Mutters about put in a barrel and fed through the bunghole till he becomes human.
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The East German Judge gives the troll a 2.4.
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1.9 from the Ukrainian judge.
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“Ah, that’s just virtue signaling on his part.”
Again, Sarah can’t present a RATIONAL argument. So she attacks ABOLITION as EMPTY and IMMORAL.
Talk about the definition of DISHONEST ‘debate’!
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Presenting rational arguments to the irrational bullshit spewed by an internet troll is a waste of effort. STFU and go away, you PFM.
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Of course, maybe he is an AI bot. Or just salty USAID is no longer paying.
I mean, he glows so bright he could be seen from orbit.
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“Of course, maybe he is an AI bot. Or just salty USAID is no longer paying.
I mean, he glows so bright he could be seen from orbit.”
Since there is NO *rational* argument for the State to treat the individual as its PROPERTY, the ABUSER here has NOTHING to offer but verbal ABUSE in ‘support’ of her desire for physical ABUSE.
As the saying goes: Abuser’s gotta ABUSE.
THAT is Sarah’s definition of ‘Grown Up’.
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“Oh, for the love of Heaven, man, GROW UP. Do you think we weren’t all like you once? At about 12.”
It is a shame that, at the young age of 12, you utterly gave up on the principles of liberty and rights – treating them as NOTHING but the ‘wishes’ of children. It is a shame that, at 12, you embraced slavery and rap e as the definition of being an adult.
And it is a shame (though not a surprise) that verbal ABUSE is all you can now offer in support of your ‘grown up’ physical ABUSE.
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“I say that you must obey me, or you’re slaves!”
Bad market choice with that argument; I’d be shocked if anybody here hadn’t gotten the lecture about how they needed to be somebody else’s obedient slave or they were not “really” free.
There’s exactly one route that can make that statement, He’s not likely to show up screaming hysterically rather than making actually rational arguments.
Then there’s the nasty part.
Even those of us who don’t formally recognize it can identify the insidious narcissism of the viewpoint– “those who recognize obligation are slaves, the free are entitled to all they can get, and have no debts to anyone.”
Whatever you have access to, you claim as your inherent right– and are offended you don’t get more.
That sort of “freedom” is a toxic, twisted mass that gives only horror.
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Y’all really aren’t from around here, are you?
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To explain. You are making the same mistake as the commies.
Humans aren’t ants, but neither are they solitary animals. We’re social apes.
Social apes who came up in the band. Bands WILL FORM. You can’t stop them. It’s who we are. It’s our biological reality.
Wishing otherwise don’t make it so.
And abolishing our government while other governments exist will only make us incapable of defending ourselves.
If your ideal society depends on “If only everyone” it doesn’t matter what you want everyone to do, it’s a pipe dream.
As for having that as a world system, it’s even crazier. You’re ignoring culture which in humans has almost as much force as biology.
Your system or communism, both will fill graves, paint the earth in blood and accomplish nothing.
Consider for a moment that the founding fathers had more knowledge of history and of human psychology in their little fingers than you have in your whole body.
And stop stomping your feet and saying “If only everyone.”
Everyone has never. Everyone will never. We’re humans. Wishing us otherwise will not change even a little bit.
Accommodating yourself to that is the beginning of wisdom.
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“Humans aren’t ants, but neither are they solitary animals. We’re social… Bands WILL FORM.”
That wasn’t in dispute, any more than the fact that humans have sexual intercourse is in dispute. What IS in dispute is HOW they have that intercourse – ie is it consensual sex or is it rap e. Everyone here keeps saying there MUST be rap e. YOU keep saying that rap e is “who we are” and that it is “the beginning of wisdom” to “accommodate yourself” to the fact that rap e is “our biological reality.”
That is both wrong and evil.
“Abolishing our government…”
It is telling that you view the ABOLITION of VIOLATING other human beings means the ABOLITION of the State. In other words, you just confessed I was rights – ie that you, like everyone else here, *feels* the DEFINITION of government is VIOLATING other human beings, and that the ONLY question open to anyone is WHO is going to violate WHOM. You can’t even CONCEIVE of a State like the Founding Fathers sought to create – a State which is LIMITED *solely* to the DEFENSE AGAINST the VIOLATION of the individual’s MONOPOLISTIC right to his OWN life and his OWN effort; including against the State itself.
For you, a State is NOT a State if it does NOT VIOLATE – if it does NOT rap e – other human beings.
Talk about evil!
“Everyone has never. Everyone will never. We’re humans. Wishing us otherwise will not change even a little bit.
This is the SAME ‘argument’ that the Southern Slave Owners used against the Abolitionists: ‘Everyone practices slavery. Everyone will always practice slavery. Slavery is human. Wishing otherwise won’t change that fact.’ Yet today slavery has been ABOLISHED in the US and across the West, proving the fact that humans DO have a choice to act good or evil – ie contrary to your premise here, human beings are not determined by “biology” to be evil.
Pretending otherwise – pretending there can ONLY be rap e – is what ‘fills graves, paints the earth in blood and accomplishes nothing’ but destruction and death, as the pre-Civil War South is a horrific testament.
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I seriously recommend growing up. And meeting some humans.
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“I seriously recommend growing up. And meeting some humans.”
And I seriously recommend you change your definition of “growing up” from accepting rap e to rejecting rape. I further suggest you change your definition of “human” to be something OTHER than rap ist.
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Damn, boy, you are projecting a lot of bullshit on Sarah. I’ve never read anything by her that says or implies any of that crap. Try pulling your head out of your ass; your view of the world will be a lot less shitty.
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“you are projecting a lot of bullshit on Sarah. I’ve never read anything by her that says or implies any of that crap.”
Then you didn’t read her responses to my posts here. She EXPLICITLY said ALL these things about rape and slavery – about treating the individual as the PROPERTY of the State. She EXPLICITLY declares the REJECTION of rape and slavery by the State to be ‘childish’ behavior that she ‘grew out of’ at age 12.
So, instead of just repeating your oddly anus-focused insults, try actually READING what has been written here.
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I not only read Sarah’s comments, I understand them, as you obviously do not. Somewhere betwixt the screen and the inside of your head, what she has written is being replaced by something completely different. Something unrecognizable to rational people.
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“I not only read Sarah’s comments, I understand them, as you obviously do not.”
Imag hasn’t learned yet that his EMPTY ‘Nu uh!’ ain’t an argument. But one thanks him for confessing the fact that is what passes as a RATIONAL argument for him. No wonder he has only EMPTY aspersions to cast, rather than actually PROVING his assertions by refrerence to the facts of reality.
At least Sarah presented ONE post that had actual arguments before she reduced herself to nothing but insult vomiting. Imag can’t even muster that much of a PRETENSE at logic.
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You don’t deserve any better, troll-boy. In case it had escaped your notice, we’re mocking you. And you are responding exactly as we’d expect from a CISG.
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The fellow(?) needs to open eyes, check for polyps, and pull head out of there.
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Go away, kid, the adults are talking. And don’t come back until you’ve learned to read.
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If you don’t WANT to look like a headcase try not INJECTING all caps every FEW words.
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“If you don’t WANT to look like a headcase…”
If you want to look like you have an actual argument, try attacking SUBSTANCE instead of impotently attacking STYLE.
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Rad: *defines anything he disagrees with as rape and slavery*
Sarah: *explains why that is a false tautology*
Rad: Why do you SUPPORT evil RAP ISTs?????
There is definitely someone here making a disingenuous argument.
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I know, I know, but just for the record, I have NOT taken a laxative. That…. thing…. is his(?) own thing.
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MacDougald seems to me to have some good points in this post. The main one (quoting Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University,) is that the strange tariffs on small countries are because China has been trans-shipping through other nations to avoid the former tariffs on Chinese products, and Trump wants to head that off from any direction. At root, he is telling the EU and others they can play on China’s team or with the US, and it’s time to choose.
Via Powerlines Headlines list:https://thedailyscroll.substack.com/p/april-7-the-trade-war-is-about-china
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Not just China. There are plenty of uninhabited or barely inhabited spots on the globe that would likely became major “shipping hubs” (note scare quotes) for multi-national corporations if Trump didn’t put tariffs on those places.
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Yep. We’ve figured that out.
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Loss of Face may be more important to the CCP than an economic calamity.
Loss of Face over actively opposing Trump is likely less damaging than the Loss of Face over Trump winning a confrontation.
China is going to be looking for an outright win, versus a least worst outcome. This may involve some seemingly weird or counter-productive actions.
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Concur.
Way back, may have actually been one of ESR’s essays, there was someone who wrote up an analysis on information out of communist regimes close to failure. Which is maybe a similar situation as you describe. Key point is that some time below failure, one can somewhat backproject true perceptions from the shape of the lies, yet just before failure, everything becomes chaotically unpredictable to everyone.
I’ve been in the insomnia mode again, and that either scrambles my thinking, or it exposes something I had not previously taken the time to put together. Or both.
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I feel slow.
(I have taken many determined vacations this year from thinking hard about politics, but I still feel slow.)
So the Democrats have been talking about Russia, in a very structured way, since 2022.
The Europeans have been talking about Russia.
Both fairly blindly, a bit confident that no one else is thinking about Russia in a way that is different from theirs.
Hazard /and/ opportunity.
So since 2022, Russia has been invading a neighbor.
Russia is probably committed to the attack, and does not have much ability to commit forces elsewhere. Also may have fairly limited ability to generate a lot of surprise force, and it would probably also take them time to roll over Poland.
2022 was also a bit of a response to Biden, which basically means that it is an estimator with regard to perceived opportunity in US policies/abilities, and an estimator of stress in other possible future adversary regimes. These also predict the PRC, but unreliably.
Are the PRC’s best days of conquest in the future, or in the past?
So, mental experiment time. You were briefed on a lot of conventional US defense thought and projections, through 2020, then you watched Biden intentionally (?) communicate weakness on Afghanistan, then the 2022 event. Question is not about specific estimates on your mind, questions have got to include the shape of the estimates you make, and on how you think about your potential future, and alternative futures.
(Bit of new to me intel, is business leadership succession plans, and how some financial planners think. Probably old hat to Trump. He’s been saying that he should have already been retired.
His most optimistic scenario is probably retiring in 2028, having Vance as successor, adn having Vance on the development path to having a succession plan in place by 2036.)
IIRC, the Russians hacked the pipeline in 2020, clearly prepping battlespace for a Europe war, and attacked in 2022. Very definitely correlation, and not with super flexible planning. PRC had the covid stuff. Plus perhaps Biden.
Obviously, he can’t warn Russia off, and get peace for cheap there. But, if he conveys seriousness with PRC, perhaps he can deter them, or there is that chance that he or Vance will have to also deal with China.
2023, or 2024, he knows he has a chance of winning. Also, the domestic chaos strategy may do something, and that PRC or Russia might expect that spring or fall 2025 is an opportunity.
My line of analysis, from knowing the short delay between Crooks and selection of Vance, has been understanding Vance as a domestic pick, and a focus on domestic stability.
Yet, Trump has extensive background in projects with long lead times, and parallel preparations that execute in sequence. He also has substantially different information than in 2016 and 2017.
If you were to have a ‘that could have been me’, and don’t get too frightened to play? He has probably had people working on the unhappy paths, for a PRC attack at various times the next five or so years down. Weakness and opportunity are baked into existing perceptions, who can act on them?
The Signal leak actually conveys a lot in this light. Independent thinking inside the administration, and Vance is already being developed against the contingency that age or domestic politics needs Vance to take over quickly. (Okay, in theory, the existing procedures mean that all cabinent officials are so equipped.)
The fast pace of the early second Trump admin has not just been for the sake of the policy stuff itself, or speed in addressing all of, say, the government budget reform goals. There was a deliberate play for regime stability/reliability, and psychological space, so that the statement of the tariffs would be heard clearly by the foreign government audience, in preparation for stuff later in the timeline.
I’m not going to say ‘trust the plan’. Never ‘trust the plan’. Diamond cuts diamond, and human thinking can always be tested by human thinking.
But, it actually probably is safe for me to treat this situation as well handled, and stop thinking about it for a week or two.
Stuff is almost always between the most positive optimistic path and the most negative pessimistic path, if we correctly identify the state space, and correctly identify uncertainties and trajectories.
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Sarah: you say on your about page to leave comments here; I assume that that’s true, even if my comment isn’t directly about the topic of this entry.
I’m a new (1st novel) old (~60) writer. I’m going to finish my novel because I love it, and because I’m learning deeper things about my characters as I write them. But, as you say, “writers gotta eat.” Before I go down the publishing or self-publishing route, I’d like to know if I have any talent. My wife’s critiques don’t count; she would love my work even if it was objectively terrible.
Do you accept a few chapters from random 60-year-old men and honestly help them evaluate their magnum opus for commercial value? Would you be swayed to help more if I told you that I have Parkinson’s disease? (I really do have the disease and I’m not above pity help).
Thanking you in advance,
Russ
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Russ, talent is a myth.
I’ve seen a lot of writers come and go. The ones who seemed to be naturals often didn’t finish their first novel. The no hopers who kept at it are now bestsellers.
Look, do yourself a favor: go to Amazon or the bookstore of your choice and buy/order “Techniques of the selling writer” by Dwight swain. Then read it three times and take notes.
It will do much more for you than any native “talent.”
(And yes, I need to write about this at Mad Genius Club, which is my writers’ blog.)
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Thanks for the quick reply. I’ll get the book.
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Seriously, hit Mad Genius Club tomorrow, where I can answer your question at more length.
https://madgeniusclub.com/
THERE IS “talent” but it’s not the most important factor, and it’s not for EVERYTHING. The “talent” I have is for words, which is bloody useless. It’s better to use words clumsily and have a gift for plot.
My secondary gift is for characters and that’s slightly more useful. Still not as good as plot and narrative voice. I came up the hard way and made every mistake twice.
BUT you can. Everything can be learned.
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The most important factor in success is showing up. Try hat is my arrogant opinion.
There is someone making a living doing really bad artwork for super cheap cards. The most popular fantasy series in my childhood were ones that got a new book every three months. I have refined taste so I didn’t read them, but they had a better market.
When I started reading the writers market book before the internet made them obsolete, I thought Speculative Fiction books paid better than romance. They don’t, because romance writers who usually recycle the exact same plot (in fact it’s a promise to the reader) and have minimal worldbuilding often write 5 books a year.
Also skills and talent are honed through practice. Getting started and holding the course when you hit the bumpy part of the journey is the hard part.
If you get substantially better with practice, just make a new pen name for your new ‘more skilled’ works.
Just the arrogant opinion of someone who needs to take her own advice.
Go for it, you can do it!
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One of my favorite Economics books is called “Economics in One Lesson” — that lesson is provided in the first chapter (heck, the last sentence of the first chapter), and all the other chapters is the application of that lesson over and over again — and that lesson is “You cannot know the full effects of a policy without taking into consideration the unseen effects too.
A phrase used repeatedly in the applications is “If economics is your only concern, you should prefer policy X!”.
And that’s a huge escape hatch! Because economics is only one aspect of interactions between people and societies.
Take tarrifs, for example: while the book is, all other concerns being ignored, against them, that escape hatch is there for other concerns: trying to convince another country to lower their tarrifs on our goods, or trying to “protect” our home industry so we don’t have to rely on political or worse enemies for our supplies, or trying to even out our “clean air” regulations (which are, somewhat arguably, good!) with a country producing those same goods without the same regulations (and thus producing pollution that we unintentionally import) — all these are good non-economic reasons for considering tarrifs!
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“taking into consideration the unseen effects too”
Of course, there is what others don’t see because they miss it, and then there is what others don’t see because they turn a blind eye to it (ie they don’t WANT to see it). And, in the case of tariffs, what its proponents do not WISH to see – what they do not WISH to admit, even to themselves – is that they are treating human beings as their PROPERTY, to be disposed of as they see fit, to satisfy their desires.
In other words, they are acting just like the rap ist or Southern Slave Owner. They REJECT the individual’s monopolistic right to his OWN life and his OWN effort, instead *feeling* that human beings are just MEAT PUPPETS to be used for their OWN satisfaction.
Talk about THE “non-economic” reason to REJECT tariffs!
As to readings on tariffs, instead of Hazlitt try Bastiat, especially his “Petition of the Candle makers” and, more generally, his “The Law”.
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You misunderstand my point: economically, I oppose tarrifs, because of all the things that people don’t see they lose when tarrifs are in place. However, I tend to agree with President Trump’s tarrifs — because it’s relatively clear to me that he is taking things like national security and using the threat of tarrifs as a cudgel to get rid of tarrifs on us. Yes, we’ll have to pay more for some things, if we produce them here — but if we can manufacture things here, we won’t be up a creek without a paddle if China declares war on us.
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Yep. I think it’s a matter of national security.
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Lefties and even some Libertarians think that somehow we will usher in a new age of eternal peace. But in my pessimistic view there will always be another war until after the second coming. So maintaining domestic technology production so we can maintain our infrastructure independently of other countries is vital for the next tragic war.
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China is in the process of collapsing as we speak. How far it will go is anyone’s guess, I certainly don’t know, but things are bad. Adding to that, the carry trade is also blowing up, which would lead to a financial crisis in the US, but would be very damaging to Asia.
was a wild day, might be a wild night.
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I like living in the modern world for the most part, but dealing with collapsing dictatorship who have nukes and other crazy options when they start going batshit nuts is not one of them.
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The number of posts on Twitter that work out (with varying levels of malice) to, “You’ll be sorrrrrrrrrryyyyyy!” are reaching nearly unbearable levels.
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Yep.
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Have you tried DayQuill for your coughing? NightQuill would make me a zombie the next day. I switched to Day Quill and it works for me. Maybe it will work for you.
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Right now I’m holding it at bay with benadryl. It’s the ONLY thing that worked.
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Too much benadryl is apparently very bad for you. But we’re talking maximum dose every day for several months having bad cumulative effects.
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yeah. It gives me horrible bottom of the abyss depressions, but I don’t expect to do this more than 4 or 5 days.
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And I HAVE to be able to sleep….
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I’ve generally been opposed to gambling, but you put forward the only argument in its favor that actually makes sense to me. Huh.
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Oh, yeah. I don’t gamble to win. I gamble to dream. I mean if I won I’d have a lot of fun, but that’s not needed to be my $2 worth.
And note we still do it very rarely.
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While I really don’t like the idea of a tax on the stupid. A lottery seems to be the least invasive.
Tariffs will not be as bad in the US as in smaller countries because of our size and diverse natural resources. They will definitely stimulate domestic innovation it’s what Americans do. I feel bad for the rest of the world. But when we play one sided free trade we’re just suckers.
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it is the season when trees try to kill me.
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I’ve started paraphrasing Weber: it’s not the trees hate me. They just don’t give a darn one way or the other.
That and I keep seeing Mother Nature (she looks like the actress who played Castle’s mother) in a bright green caftan, speaking to the trees: “There, darlings, it’s Spring! Stretch your branches and pump that pollen, pump that pollen!”
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