Tariffs On? Or Tariffs Off? Or What?

Are the walls there. Or not?

So as I write this (on May 12) Trump has announced a temporary suspension of tariffs against China, and he’s trumpeting the suspension as a great victory and a feat of deal-making.

But, also as I write this, experts are not convinced that the suspension isn’t just a short-term measure, and that America has gained anything for all the effort (other than a titanic embarrassment internationally), and that the deal won’t collapse in the end. (See The U.S. and China make a deal on trade. Here's what analysts are saying: Stocks are rallying, but this victory looks hollow, analysts and economists say — and it might not last, By Catherine Baab, Quartz)

So, by the time you read this (I’m scheduling it for May 23), pretty much everything may have changed. Probably for the worst.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the theory is that if he just keeps talking, just keeps blithering, people won’t notice what a disaster he really is.

Not even when we all end hungry, selling blood to survive, and offering kidneys for the transplant market. 

GOP Mega-Doner: Trump’s Not Such A Good Idea After All

Politico is reporting that Ken Griffin, a major GOP donor and star of the libertarian-free-enterprise world, has startled everyone by rejecting Trump’s tariffs. Not only are they bad for business, he says, they also open the door to Crony Capitalism, with the government deciding who wins and who loses.

It is interesting to see Griffin taking this position. He was, until recently, a serious Trump supporter. Now, quite the reverse. 

It’s good that he is taking on Trump, of course. Though, really, it would have been nice if he'd seen what Trump was a bit sooner. Which should have been easy. After all, Trump made no secret of his intentions. 

Which brings up a question. Why is it that "visionary" business professionals so often fail to see what is right in front of their face? And which all the rest of us…we non-visionaries…have perceived all along? 

Goodbye Europe

Europe says So Long, and thanks for all the movies

If you get a chance, check out this article in Zeit Online: Thanks America, That’ll Be Al:lAndy Warhol, Big Mac, iPhone: It was a grand American epoch. But it’s over, by Florian Illies

In it, the author looks at Trump and the American Right’s foreign policy (such as it is) and concludes that the special relationship that used to exist between the US and Western Europe is gone for good. And, maybe, American cultural vigor has gone as well.

The article is a little bit tongue in cheek, but you have to admit, the author’s got a good point. Trump has effectively ruined our relationship with the rest of the world, in general, and with our allies in Europe in particular.

Frankly, that could hurt us far more than it could hurt Europe. For a long time, Western Europeans accepted our leadership, and devoured our popular culture. But, now, that happy time is gone.

And mind you, all of this was so that one Orange Man could impose his diseased conception of the world on events, and so that rabid MAGAts could “own the libs.”

Somehow, I don’t think the “victory” was worth the price.

Factories, but not Factory Jobs

No place for people

So I’ve heard that one of Trump/Musk’s justifications for large scale layoffs of government employees is that no one will really suffer for long. What will happen, they say, is that the unemployed will find fulfilling, well-paid jobs in the factories that Trump’s tariffs will return to our shores.

But, come, this is a fantasy. If manufacturing is coming back to America (itself not certain), then it will be modern and efficient. Meaning it will be automated. Factories will have a workforce of (mostly) robots. Today, you don’t want people on the factory floor. They just get in the way. You have machines instead.

Thus, in an age of automation, the economy may be based on manufacturing, but employment is not. Which means that the supposedly well-paid factory jobs coming in the wake of tariffs will almost certainly never get here. 

One wonders what they will do then…our glorious leaders? When yet again the prosperity they promise to the many proves an illusion? And all they can offer is still greater wealth to the vanishingly few? 

Rand Paul Agonistes

So I read that Rand Paul is so aghast at Trump’s tariffs that he fears for the future of his party. He notes that each time the GOP has instituted tariffs in the past (as in 1850 and 1930) the result has been a severe economic downturn while the Republican party lost seats in the House and Senate. He fears, in fact, that the Party could be wiped out in Congress for “sixty years.”

I both fear and hope that he’s right. Fear, because I suspect that the tariffs will be every bit as destructive to the American economy (and society) as he says. But, also hope, because it would be lovely to think that the GOP was about to be expelled into the outer darkness for another half century or more.

Or…better yet…far better….

…be dissolved as the criminal enterprise it has so clearly become.

~mjt

4D Chess, Occam’s Razor, and the April Fool

So there was recently an interesting article in the Atlantic, The Wild Trump Theory Making the Rounds on Wall Street: QAnon for tariffs by Rogé Karma. In it, Mr. Karma notes that among Wall Street insiders, there is a weird conspiracy theory circulating that Trump’s apparently insane antics about tariffs are actually planned and highly rational. The idea is that Trump is using his clownish behavior to drive other nations toward an agreement by which America would profit greatly. 

Mr. Karma is not impressed by the theory and suspects that Trump’s clownishness is the result of his being just, well, a clown.

I tend to follow Karma’s lead on this. Though, you always do wonder, could there really be more here than meets the eye. Could Trump actually be a brilliant tactician who’s just playing the fool to lure his enemies to their doom? It is certainly what his supporters have said many times in the past. They imply that he’s playing 4D chess and simply looking like he’s a nutcase. And you have to admit, so far Trump’s been far more successful than he has any right to be.

Upon reflection, though, I think that we can dispense with the theory that he’s a genius in disguise. Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is often the right one, and so if a person appears to be a raging, narcissistic idiot…well, then…that is probably what he is.

Or, to put it another way, this particular April Fool is just exactly that. I.e., a fool, in April or any other month.