Day 584 Sunday August 26, 2018 994 Days to Go
Intercepted Phone Conversation from the Naval Observatory Circle, Washington DC, home of the vice-president of the United States.
{Woman #1 voice on telephone] “Yes, I know. Isn’t it exciting?”
{Woman #2 } “Do you really think it’s going to happen?”
W #1 “Well, I don’t know but last night Mike said, ‘Mommy, any day now you’ll be the First Lady.’ ”
W #2 “Has Mr. Trump been hitting on you?”
W #1 “No, silly. He means he may become the president!”
W #2 “Wow! For real?”
W #1 “Uh huh. Gotta go. The little man is home.”
On to reality.
Well, reality as we know it.
And to not quote Mr. Giuliani, “Reality is not reality.”
John Oliver had a great piece on his show about economics. It’s entitled Econ 101. This to point out what anyone who was even partially awake in a basic econ course knows: when you impose a tariff the people who pay are the people in your country. In other words it’s a tax on the people! This is an concept that is missing in the current administration’s thinking. A more sophisticated analysis (which ain’t saying much) is to take this a step further and to look at what happens in a trade war brought on by tariffs. Okay, here we go: Country 1 imposes tariffs on Country 2; Country 2 responds by imposing tariffs on Country 1. What happens? The people in each country have to pay more for the goods, trade decreases and, as economists love to say, “The system becomes more inefficient.” The conclusion is that BOTH COUNTRIES LOSE. However, this is a concept that the Obama administration knew and understood and this administration being anti-Obama must do the opposite of what they were doing, hence a trade war with China.
So you ask the economists, “I’ve heard the Chines are cheating economically somehow, and if tariffs aren’t the answer what is?”
The economists would respond, “You are right grasshopper, China does cheat. The way to get them to stop is to get everyone together to work as a unit against them. This is the only way.”
“Then why don’t we do this?”
“We did. It was called TPP.”
“What happened?”
“The great president Trump came in and threw out all the things the even greater President Obama did. The included TPP, and to make sure there was nothing left Mr. Trump also pissed off all our trading partners. Now, China is free to run the table, which they are doing with great gusto.”
“Really? How?”
“Ah, well you see they decided to invest over a trillion dollars in projects. Actually, one thousand projects of a billion dollars each. We in the U.S. decided to give a trillion dollars to people who don’t need it, won’t spend it, and hate to do their fair share.”
“Is that all?”
“Oh no, grasshopper, the Chinese have developed a missile that can sink our air craft carriers. It has a range of 800 miles. Our navy has moved our air craft carriers 800 miles away from the Chinese coast. This allows the Chinese to freely have influence over that area. Plus with all their projects they are developing around them they are having a much greater influence, while the U.S. influence has shrunk.”
“Is that all?”
“With the Chinese? No, there is more, but there are bigger concerns here in the U.S.”
“Like?”
“Well, for instance students no longer come here to study and do research. All the research is being done by companies all over the world, not in our colleges and universities. We no longer educate the best and brightest in the world. It is very sad.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
994 Days to Go
PS Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
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