Oh if only there were such a thing as free trade nee "fair trade". Other countries impose massive tariffs on us and that's free trade (just for them, not us). We decide to do the same thing to them and all of a sudden tariffs are Evil! Evil! Evil!
Lost in all of this is the fact until 1913 and the 16A all federal government tax revenues were consumption taxes in the form of among other things, tariffs and they were very popular with the working stiffs. We've been told all along consumption taxes are the way to go because the taxpayer controls his taxpaying destiny. Now all of a sudden consumption taxes are bad world wide.
The reality is the United States has a $1 Trillion trade deficit due to one way street "free trade" and that is primarily due to our Harvard Captains of Industry selling us, our jobs and our wealth out to the low bidder. Talk of comparative advantage and other nostrums ring hollow not only in the Rust Belt but all across the fruited plain.
I'm glad Larry Fink & co. are crying foul. As we say down south "The bit dog barks the loudest". That's a sure sign Trump is over the target so Bombs Away!
If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it from them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage.
~ Adam Smith, from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (1776)
While this is true, if that foreign country subsidizes the production of those products to a level below that which we can profitably produce, and we allow it to continue, then our economy is damaged-possibly forever. AND, there are certain products that we should strive to produce ourselves for national security reasons. It's a delicate balance and it requires altruistic thinking-something in extremely short supply in many places.
One by-product of Trump's (who i don't like) actions is to see all of the "investor's" panic. To me a big problem is the flurry of "rich" people who produce nothing who are investors...... That is the major reason we have so many elitists.
I watched Tucker Carlson interview our Secretary of the Treasurey, Scott Bessent. Regardless of what you may think of him, he made one good point: If tariffs are so bad, why does every trading country on earth use them?
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no Asian, especially Chinese, manufacturing powerhouse to compete with. If you think competing with people in mudhuts on $3 an hour is possible in a country with open borders, welfare for everyone, the huge drug problem that replaced working class employment etc. you should stay in LaLaLand and keep tilting at windmills. Try comparing apples with apples. You can't just advocate importing some bits of someone else's economy or lifestyle.
Tariff imbalances after WWII made sense since it was in our national interest to have economically stronger partners rather than the ash pits left behind by the war.
Tariffs haven’t made sense for some time and the acceptance of tariffs on our export goods by our trading “partners” was stupid on the part of the US. Certainly NOT the free trade so often wished for that don't happen.
The US controls access to the largest market on the planet. Access to foreign markets needs to be as simple as our structure. If a US business produces a product that is functionally competitive with your local boy but you choose to keep, say Ford, from competing...to the detriment of our citizens then why would we NOT do the same to you? Goose v., Gander et.al.
The Japanese and the euros have been jobbing us for some time. Times UP.
I’m a zero tariff person, but that only works when we are trading with other zero tariff partners who also are not restricting your exports with other means. Sincerely appreciate your perspective and always enjoy your articles. Maybe all of this tough tariff talk will bring about true free trade? Strange times.
What do most people do today; what do they own? I imagine that China is what I witnessed as a boy. Charles Schwab was a child laborer, he went to work for Carnegie Steel, the largest low-cost producer situated in Steel Town Pittsburg and other places; he rose to the second position next to Carnegie. He was a genius, a steel man, no formal education but was one that Roosevelt called on to push American war production, 70,000 planes a year and a like fantastic number of of other implements of destruction. American production was prodigious, mystifying. America invented everything, manufactured everything.
Standard oil, Rockefeller, before the broke it up controlled oil worldwide. Maybe, there would never have been two world wars if oil was produced in various places, especially Russia, and distributed equitably and cheaply by Rockefeller. But the elite, governments always want control and advantage.
JP Morgan, the financial boys, bought Carnegie Steel; they changed the name, US Steel, made Charles Schwab president. Eventually they clashed and Schwab was fired. He bought a small company in Bethlehem, PA. He made it into the largest steel producer in the world.
He built a plant in my neighborhood, Sparrow’s Point, Md; it employed 35,000. He built a whole town and street cars running to it, then highways. It was prodigious, awe inspiring.
Schwab had a philosophy, the higher up you rose the closer you were to the production. The biggest houses, the highest paid bosses, had 13 blast furnaces in their back yard. Occasionally delivering stuff I would find myself 60 yards from those blast furnaces and one after another at intervals they would spew molten steel into ingots on railroad cars to be transferred to the rolling mills. Those mills ran 24 hours a day, three shifts. It was awesome. All over America, in small towns it was awesome.
Today it is all dead and the Townes are all Ghosts like the roaring old west, like the plains Townes, the old farming communities. The people languish, have Mountain Dew moth and die of fentanyl. It’s mass genocide and they just let 12 million more, uneducated, forlorn people in.
The American dream is dead, some bastards killed it.
The bastards own everything, produce nothing.
They own the stock market, 1% owns 60% but they control the passive investors. It is the source of their power, it signifies nothing, just corruption.
It’s all corruption and people are nothing to this 1%. They deal in genocide and control, the destruction of America. Destroy Americans, that antiquated sense of freedom, divine rights, control the world.
They want to control the world, it’s all the bastards have, they have no soul.
Their mantra lies, war after war, save the world for democracy. Their main tool, FREE TRADE.
Extrapolate what was, contemplate what is and decide what future you're willing to fight for.
Speaking of sophistry, I tire of reading & hearing of the top 10% who “own” the market. That theme is an emotionally laden tactic designed to drum up envy. Like riled up protesters taking to the streets, their desire is to occupy our minds, filling us with confusion. Nearly all workers have some form of savings.
Mr. Trump keeps talking about the years 1885 - 1912, when we had so much money we had to form a commission to figure out what to do with it. That money came from tariffs and these were pre-income tax days. So there must have been something else going on at the time if all this did was make us rich. I know there was a bad recession around 1908, but we shrugged it off after a few months. But the economists I respect don't seem to like them at all. On the other hand, all my enemies down't like them either, so what's a girl to believe? Do you know what was going on back then? I'm obviously just too lazy to go down the rabbit hole myself. Too much work to do around here!
Great question, Steve. Tariffs are voluntary contributions by the rich. The tax office does not seize your assets if you choose not to buy foreign goods.
Pre-income tax tariffs paid for the government with those taxes on voluntary purchases.
Imported things were (and are) for rich people.
The basics of a comfortable, healthy, good life were grown and made here...as they still can be and largely are.
Buy local!
The 100 mile diet is healthier. I like mangoes and pineapples, but can live happily with apples, peaches, blueberries, and cherries.
I have a pair of American-made brown brogue shoes that have been re-heeled 3 or 4 times, resoled once, shoe treed when not being worn; they look & feel great after 50 years of frequent use.
It was also a far smaller government that was not giving away freebies to anyone. Doing that today would mean no social security and no Medicare, which along with defense (which could be drastically reduced) and debt interest are the lion share of the expenses.
Interestingly, I just bought a couple of items on aliexpress. One was a pair of glasses, under 7USD shipped. (Not great quality, of course, they last me about a year.) The other was ten 2" diameter round metal plates, that a magnet would stick to. I use them to mount a GPS holder that I made using a magnet, as the suction cups always fall off. That was under 6USD. Both amounts I could afford to lose, as previous items I bought on aliexpress, several years ago, were never delivered, and they didn't honor their delivery guarantee. But what was really interesting is that I used paypal, and AUS Merchant Services received payment. I assume that is a proxy company in australia to get around the tariffs. The discs are supposed to arrive in 10 days, I wonder where from. The glasses are supposed to ship in 24 days. Tariffs or not, commerce goes on. Some people are really screwed, as their costs will double or triple, and there is no way around it for them.
Government regulation, taxation, welfare, fiat currency, over spending, labor laws, reduction of property rights, voiding contractual agreements, foreign entanglements and in general government interference and control of the free market and individual rights have destroyed America's previous advantages of doing business in America. Tariffs are just another example of government interference in the market place. Placing barriers on trade will not make America more productive and will de-incentivize business investments. An opinion from one who adheres to the tenets of Classical Liberalism.
(The allowed, minimally, purpose of rule-proving exceptions is to prove to the exception-taking unexceptional world-view ideologists that Vegas gambles its fortunes on gamblers.
Or, same opened vein, that the Wailing Wall Street TBTF swashbucklers actually gamble - or trade - between the teeth of the “efficient markets hypothesis.”
Or, veins shredded, swallowed, digested & excreted - continuously - that multi-generational dynastic wealth needn’t be quote-enclosed because that’s just what it is & not grand theft auto/maton sacrificial force/fraud takings.)
In The Imitation Game Alan Turing, & crew, cracked the enigma code. A few years later The Grateful Dead showed its appreciation such that Turing toasted himself with a beaker of cyanide.
Point being that even idiot-savant geniuses can’t crack the code of the Imitation People - or cyphers - that write their imitation paychecks let alone all the normies trying to imitate the influencer/s du jour.
Cohen, coverers, sang of the crack that lets the light in. But not as specifically, & usefully, & a lot less crack cocaine’ishly, as Jim Croce did:
Oh if only there were such a thing as free trade nee "fair trade". Other countries impose massive tariffs on us and that's free trade (just for them, not us). We decide to do the same thing to them and all of a sudden tariffs are Evil! Evil! Evil!
Lost in all of this is the fact until 1913 and the 16A all federal government tax revenues were consumption taxes in the form of among other things, tariffs and they were very popular with the working stiffs. We've been told all along consumption taxes are the way to go because the taxpayer controls his taxpaying destiny. Now all of a sudden consumption taxes are bad world wide.
The reality is the United States has a $1 Trillion trade deficit due to one way street "free trade" and that is primarily due to our Harvard Captains of Industry selling us, our jobs and our wealth out to the low bidder. Talk of comparative advantage and other nostrums ring hollow not only in the Rust Belt but all across the fruited plain.
I'm glad Larry Fink & co. are crying foul. As we say down south "The bit dog barks the loudest". That's a sure sign Trump is over the target so Bombs Away!
Well written narrative and interesting perspective.
Dittos
If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it from them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage.
~ Adam Smith, from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (1776)
While this is true, if that foreign country subsidizes the production of those products to a level below that which we can profitably produce, and we allow it to continue, then our economy is damaged-possibly forever. AND, there are certain products that we should strive to produce ourselves for national security reasons. It's a delicate balance and it requires altruistic thinking-something in extremely short supply in many places.
Exactly. And Adam Smith was writing at a time before mass-production skewed
the marketplace.
I was delighted to see thar Melei was the first to express an interest in a zero tarriff relationship that could be good for both countries.
One by-product of Trump's (who i don't like) actions is to see all of the "investor's" panic. To me a big problem is the flurry of "rich" people who produce nothing who are investors...... That is the major reason we have so many elitists.
I watched Tucker Carlson interview our Secretary of the Treasurey, Scott Bessent. Regardless of what you may think of him, he made one good point: If tariffs are so bad, why does every trading country on earth use them?
Tariffs are voluntary taxes. If you don't want to pay it, don't buy that thing.
Tariffs are a tax on the rich and the debtor class who think they are rich.
Don't buy the tariffed things.
Just say no. Isn't that fair?
It looks fair from the rock this frog is sitting on - middle-class, debt-free me.
Because they do not know better. Keynes is the name.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no Asian, especially Chinese, manufacturing powerhouse to compete with. If you think competing with people in mudhuts on $3 an hour is possible in a country with open borders, welfare for everyone, the huge drug problem that replaced working class employment etc. you should stay in LaLaLand and keep tilting at windmills. Try comparing apples with apples. You can't just advocate importing some bits of someone else's economy or lifestyle.
Tariff imbalances after WWII made sense since it was in our national interest to have economically stronger partners rather than the ash pits left behind by the war.
Tariffs haven’t made sense for some time and the acceptance of tariffs on our export goods by our trading “partners” was stupid on the part of the US. Certainly NOT the free trade so often wished for that don't happen.
The US controls access to the largest market on the planet. Access to foreign markets needs to be as simple as our structure. If a US business produces a product that is functionally competitive with your local boy but you choose to keep, say Ford, from competing...to the detriment of our citizens then why would we NOT do the same to you? Goose v., Gander et.al.
The Japanese and the euros have been jobbing us for some time. Times UP.
I’m a zero tariff person, but that only works when we are trading with other zero tariff partners who also are not restricting your exports with other means. Sincerely appreciate your perspective and always enjoy your articles. Maybe all of this tough tariff talk will bring about true free trade? Strange times.
What do most people do today; what do they own? I imagine that China is what I witnessed as a boy. Charles Schwab was a child laborer, he went to work for Carnegie Steel, the largest low-cost producer situated in Steel Town Pittsburg and other places; he rose to the second position next to Carnegie. He was a genius, a steel man, no formal education but was one that Roosevelt called on to push American war production, 70,000 planes a year and a like fantastic number of of other implements of destruction. American production was prodigious, mystifying. America invented everything, manufactured everything.
Standard oil, Rockefeller, before the broke it up controlled oil worldwide. Maybe, there would never have been two world wars if oil was produced in various places, especially Russia, and distributed equitably and cheaply by Rockefeller. But the elite, governments always want control and advantage.
JP Morgan, the financial boys, bought Carnegie Steel; they changed the name, US Steel, made Charles Schwab president. Eventually they clashed and Schwab was fired. He bought a small company in Bethlehem, PA. He made it into the largest steel producer in the world.
He built a plant in my neighborhood, Sparrow’s Point, Md; it employed 35,000. He built a whole town and street cars running to it, then highways. It was prodigious, awe inspiring.
Schwab had a philosophy, the higher up you rose the closer you were to the production. The biggest houses, the highest paid bosses, had 13 blast furnaces in their back yard. Occasionally delivering stuff I would find myself 60 yards from those blast furnaces and one after another at intervals they would spew molten steel into ingots on railroad cars to be transferred to the rolling mills. Those mills ran 24 hours a day, three shifts. It was awesome. All over America, in small towns it was awesome.
Today it is all dead and the Townes are all Ghosts like the roaring old west, like the plains Townes, the old farming communities. The people languish, have Mountain Dew moth and die of fentanyl. It’s mass genocide and they just let 12 million more, uneducated, forlorn people in.
The American dream is dead, some bastards killed it.
The bastards own everything, produce nothing.
They own the stock market, 1% owns 60% but they control the passive investors. It is the source of their power, it signifies nothing, just corruption.
It’s all corruption and people are nothing to this 1%. They deal in genocide and control, the destruction of America. Destroy Americans, that antiquated sense of freedom, divine rights, control the world.
They want to control the world, it’s all the bastards have, they have no soul.
Their mantra lies, war after war, save the world for democracy. Their main tool, FREE TRADE.
Extrapolate what was, contemplate what is and decide what future you're willing to fight for.
Speaking of sophistry, I tire of reading & hearing of the top 10% who “own” the market. That theme is an emotionally laden tactic designed to drum up envy. Like riled up protesters taking to the streets, their desire is to occupy our minds, filling us with confusion. Nearly all workers have some form of savings.
"...Is he playing 4D chess... or giant, rubber Jenga?"
They don't need to be mutually exclusive 😀 And coincidence that our dear friend Ursula is sudeenly proposing free trade between us? Hmmm 🤔
Mr. Trump keeps talking about the years 1885 - 1912, when we had so much money we had to form a commission to figure out what to do with it. That money came from tariffs and these were pre-income tax days. So there must have been something else going on at the time if all this did was make us rich. I know there was a bad recession around 1908, but we shrugged it off after a few months. But the economists I respect don't seem to like them at all. On the other hand, all my enemies down't like them either, so what's a girl to believe? Do you know what was going on back then? I'm obviously just too lazy to go down the rabbit hole myself. Too much work to do around here!
Great question, Steve. Tariffs are voluntary contributions by the rich. The tax office does not seize your assets if you choose not to buy foreign goods.
Pre-income tax tariffs paid for the government with those taxes on voluntary purchases.
Imported things were (and are) for rich people.
The basics of a comfortable, healthy, good life were grown and made here...as they still can be and largely are.
Buy local!
The 100 mile diet is healthier. I like mangoes and pineapples, but can live happily with apples, peaches, blueberries, and cherries.
I have a pair of American-made brown brogue shoes that have been re-heeled 3 or 4 times, resoled once, shoe treed when not being worn; they look & feel great after 50 years of frequent use.
It was also a far smaller government that was not giving away freebies to anyone. Doing that today would mean no social security and no Medicare, which along with defense (which could be drastically reduced) and debt interest are the lion share of the expenses.
Great idea! Too bad that won't happen.
Interestingly, I just bought a couple of items on aliexpress. One was a pair of glasses, under 7USD shipped. (Not great quality, of course, they last me about a year.) The other was ten 2" diameter round metal plates, that a magnet would stick to. I use them to mount a GPS holder that I made using a magnet, as the suction cups always fall off. That was under 6USD. Both amounts I could afford to lose, as previous items I bought on aliexpress, several years ago, were never delivered, and they didn't honor their delivery guarantee. But what was really interesting is that I used paypal, and AUS Merchant Services received payment. I assume that is a proxy company in australia to get around the tariffs. The discs are supposed to arrive in 10 days, I wonder where from. The glasses are supposed to ship in 24 days. Tariffs or not, commerce goes on. Some people are really screwed, as their costs will double or triple, and there is no way around it for them.
This is a fantastic essay Joel ! Thank you.
Government regulation, taxation, welfare, fiat currency, over spending, labor laws, reduction of property rights, voiding contractual agreements, foreign entanglements and in general government interference and control of the free market and individual rights have destroyed America's previous advantages of doing business in America. Tariffs are just another example of government interference in the market place. Placing barriers on trade will not make America more productive and will de-incentivize business investments. An opinion from one who adheres to the tenets of Classical Liberalism.
Trump is a cipher.
As are most s/elected installations.
(The allowed, minimally, purpose of rule-proving exceptions is to prove to the exception-taking unexceptional world-view ideologists that Vegas gambles its fortunes on gamblers.
Or, same opened vein, that the Wailing Wall Street TBTF swashbucklers actually gamble - or trade - between the teeth of the “efficient markets hypothesis.”
Or, veins shredded, swallowed, digested & excreted - continuously - that multi-generational dynastic wealth needn’t be quote-enclosed because that’s just what it is & not grand theft auto/maton sacrificial force/fraud takings.)
In The Imitation Game Alan Turing, & crew, cracked the enigma code. A few years later The Grateful Dead showed its appreciation such that Turing toasted himself with a beaker of cyanide.
Point being that even idiot-savant geniuses can’t crack the code of the Imitation People - or cyphers - that write their imitation paychecks let alone all the normies trying to imitate the influencer/s du jour.
Cohen, coverers, sang of the crack that lets the light in. But not as specifically, & usefully, & a lot less crack cocaine’ishly, as Jim Croce did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vKONRcAJnk
Yeah, big Jim got his hat
Find out where it's at
And it's not hustlin' people strange to you
Even if you do got a two-piece custom made pool cue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMjzKKcz_ew
“Freedom attracts go-getters, entrepreneurs, risk-takers, geniuses, start-ups.”
And pirates, patents, & venomous liquidity m(onopoly)o(ligarchy)c(artel)casins … which have carrion-mouths to side-order the dual-syringe load.
https://a57.foxnews.com/a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2018/10/640/320/1862/1048/cottonmouth-moccasin-snake-istock.jpg?ve=1&tl=1?ve=1&tl=1
And gypsies, tramps & thieves.
And a few Diogenes.
And vast hordes of Denyogenes.
“Tariff” is the contraction of tar & feathers. And one of many contradictions of honor among thieves.
No shortage of treatments imitating the treatment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGrOng77-8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5zQyzPBR7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMeBxnpJpZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83OjgGPGlDU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRkmo1yeeUM