Prices Will Go Up!

 

Since the call came down early this morning, I have encountered three leftists lamenting their loss to Trump. What most concerns them surprises me.

“Prices will go up,” one says. 

“Don’t those stupid people realize it is not China that pays the tariffs? It’s the consumer!” another says.

So they don’t fear some Trump Nazi dictatorship, or the supposed loss of abortion rights. Those were just a cover story for the rubes, I guess. Of course they were: those were absurd on their face.

It is tariffs.

But then, how can their concern really be that prices will go up? After all, prices held steady through Trump’s first term; they went up dramatically under Biden. Their guy.

It is not prices. It is tariffs.

And not just any tariffs either.

After all, not long ago, it was the left that was opposed to free trade. The Canadian Liberal Pary lost my support over just that issue. 

The only way I can see this making sense is that they fear tariffs will hurt China, and they are secretly rooting for China to defeat the evil capitalists to show that the Marxist system is best.

To be fair, not just China. They of course also want tariffs and trade barriers on Cuba dropped as well.

Trump does says he wants to impose more tariffs. It does seem common sense that this will raise prices. I have always been a free trader myself. But I am open to Trump’s arguments.

If it will raise prices, it will do other things as well. I was convinced by Trump’s argument for tariffs on steel: it is strategically important not to rely on some foreign source for essential materials. This makes you vulnerable to blockade in time of war. Or, as we have seen recently, times of epidemic.

It will further encourage more manufacturing, and more economic activity, at home. This is Trump’s current  argument. Things may cost more money, but more of the money stays in the USA, instead of being drained away to China or some other nation. When you look at it in those terms, of the economy as a whole, might tariffs actually conserve, i.e., save, money? Don’t you save money by keeping it in the household, making your own things, darning your own socks, growing your own garden, instead of spending it at the store?

And Trump has raised another issue. The extra money from tariffs goes to fund our government. Trump suggested this might even replace income tax.

The argument that tariffs are being paid by the consumer, not by China, is being made by the same people who keep selling or buying the idea that taxes on “big corporations,” or a raised minimum wage, is money taken from the corporation, and not the consumer. Same to same.

So the real question is whether it is better to pay your taxes as tariffs, or as income tax. The foreign goods actually remain the same price. 

Paying taxes on consumption rather than income  is more voluntary, and that seems a good thing. Taxing income naturally serves to suppress initiative or hard work, and takes money the individual might have better use for—such as investing it to improve their business, hence the economy. With a tax on consumption, you can reduce your tax burden by reducing your consumption of foreign goods. It encourages saving and investing rather than spending.

Granted, an economy needs consumers as well as producers. But on balance, surely someone who overproduces is more valuable to the economy and to the rest of us than someone who overconsumes. And if producers can be found abroad, as now, surely consumers can be too.

The idea is worth a look, and perhaps a trial.

Kamala Chameleon and the Big Lie

 

Look! The Moon is Green!

Kamala Harris has by come commentators been nicknamed “Kamala Chameleon,” because she seems to tell every interest group whatever they want to hear. She is against fracking; she is for fracking. She is against a border wall; she is for a border wall. She wants to confiscate guns; she is for the Second Amendment. 

This, since she herself raised the comparison, is something else she and the Democrats have in common with Hitler. This is why historians have trouble classifying Nazi ideology, have trouble defining what Nazism actually was. As William L. Shirer observed in following Hitler’s rise, he would simply promise every crowd whatever he thought they most wanted to hear.

This makes sense, because Nazism’s core value was simply power, ultimately power in the hands of one man. Like the modern left, it saw all of human society as a power struggle. The goal was (and is) to get more power for yourself, not to advance anyone else’s interests. So you make whatever promises will achieve this. Once in power, you then do as you like.

Another way in which the modern Democrats echo the Nazis is in their embrace of the propaganda technique of the “big lie”: that if you keep repeating something often enough, it comes to be, or be accepted as, truth. This is the fundamental ideology of postmodernism. It is why they can assert that men become women, and vice versa, by saying so, and it must then be illegal for anyone to say otherwise. They use the big lie on the hustings again and again, asserting the Russian collusion hoax, the fine people hoax, the Vance sofa hoax, the Liz Cheney firing squad hoax, the drink bleach hoax, and a dozen others, knowing they are debunked.

The Final Polls

 

The popularity of polls over fortnights

It is the eve of the US elections, and the polls are contradictory—Including polls from previously highly accurate pollsters. Just the other day, one highly reliable pollster showed Harris up by three in Iowa, and another that Trump will win by seven. That’s no margin of error.

I think polling is no longer a science; I guess because people no longer answer their phones or are prepared to tell a stranger how they will vote. It is hair-raising to hear a pollster talk about all the adjustments they make to the raw data. I also keep hearing them cite polls, even their own, and then say “but I can’t believe that’s right.” In the end, they are guessing.

We should have a clearer idea by this time tomorrow. 

A Storm in a Peanut

 

God seems to have intervened again in the US election, again in Trump’s favour. The issue of the day is, unexpectedly, the killing of Peanut the squirrel by the NY state government. This seems well timed and calculated to endorse Trump’s message of less government regulation. It should also remind everyone of his “they’re killing the dogs. They’re killing the cats!” comments at the Harris debate; and seems to reinforce them. Big government does not care about animals. And people generally care more about their pets than other people.

Incidentally, it irritates me that commentators, even those opposed to the government’s action, keep referring to Peanut and Fred the Raccoon being “euthanized.”  “Euthanasia” properly refers to mercy killing. This includes when it is done to animals—we do not refer to a chicken or a cow being “euthanized” at the abattoir, even though every effort is made to make their death painless. It counts as euthanasia if the likely alternative is suffering for the animal. Peanut and Fred were executed or killed by the state, not euthanized.

And since I mentioned it, about the phrase “they’re killing the dogs. They’re killing the cats!” Notice how often Trump’s comments are made into rap memes. It shows his profound talent as a rhetorician. His cadences are naturally musical. They are also naturally comic; timing is everything in comedy, and Trump has a perfect ear for rhythm and timing. This makes him always enjoyable and memorable to listen to. 

He is completely aware of this; he works at it. Talking to Joe Rogan, he demurred that “Communist Kamala” was not an ideal insult, because it is hard to say. The rhythm is not great. He knows what he is doing.