Posted On: Tuesday - May 28th 2024 3:39PM MST
In Topics: Music Trump Pundits China Economics Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Zhou Bai Dien Taxes
Also, the Pope is no longer Catholic, and dogs and cats have been recently seen living together in purrfect harmony. I never thought I'd live to see the 1st thing, though!
Great Libertarian and Conservative Ron Paul's recent column says Biden’s Tariffs Are Another Nail in the Dollar’s Coffin. I strongly disagree with the gist of the column.
I wouldn't say the wording of Dr. Paul's column title is necessarily wrong. There are plenty of other nails, though, and, worse than being in this rare disagreement* with the great Ron Paul is that I agree with Zhou Bai Dien here. (I'm also surprised, having figured Bai Dien has been under the whip hand of the Chinese, seeing as how the CCP must have many pictures and videos of Bai Dien's only surviving son in some "compromising" situations. Hence, our appellation.)
It was Trump who finally did something to fight the greatly unfair trade situation with China, before Bai Dien. It was one of his actual successes. Peak Stupidity mentioned this in our book review of Josh Rogin's Chaos Under Heaven and explained more earlier in our post The Chinese are not happy with their > 20 year-long unfair! trade deal with America. I don't mean "unfair" here in the sense of "unbalanced". I mean unfair unfair, the way the Chinese have "reciprocated" ever since the Clinton administration and the Wall Street finance boys started giving away our manufacturing to China in the 1990s. I have a personally gleaned story on this that'll have to appear in another post. Yet, Ron Paul says:
Specifically, President Biden raised tariffs on products including Chinese-produced steel and aluminum and many components imported from China for use in manufacturing electric vehicle batteries. Tariffs on Chinese-made semiconductors are rising from 25 to 50 percent while tariffs on Chinese-made electronic vehicles are rising from 25 percent to an astounding 100 percent.GOOD!! Dr. Paul did not get into the importation of Cheap China-made Crap here. No matter the quality, manufacturing must come back to the US (and the invasion stopped too) or we're sunk ... like a 20,000 TEU container ship. (See Where's my stuff??)
I get Ron Paul's very principled stance on free markets. However, as with the flow of people, as I think he understands now, it's important for a country to be as self-sufficient/self-reliant as it can. Not only did America do very well on this score for a few centuries, but the Founders of this country were mostly FOR tariffs. Tariffs were, in fact, one of the main sources of income for the US Gov't through its early history.
"Customs Duties" are an indirect method of performing the same function as tariffs, making foreign products more expensive. The simple table below comes from an interesting 18 y/o paper, U.S. Federal Government Revenues: 1790 to the Present.
Look, if the Founding Fathers were fine with this, than who am I, and who is Ron Paul, to argue? More from his column:
Of course, the costs of these tariffs will be borne by Americans wishing to purchase electric cars and American electric car manufacturers that use material imported from China. These new tariffs thus undercut Biden’s goal of getting more Americans to drive electric cars.Well, first of all, that EV goal is just in the name of Globalism and destruction of the middle class (getting them onto public transport). Secondly, one puppet string running Zhou Bai Dien doesn't necessarily know what the other one's doing. The rest of the financial picture that Dr. Paul paints is true enough, such as:
If the dollar loses its world reserve currency status, the US government would lose the ability to “weaponize the dollar.” Other countries would then have less incentive to abide by US demands, including related to regime changes. It would also reduce other countries’ interest in purchasing US debt instruments.That's all good. and yep, I suppose it does mean that:
This would increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to monetize the debt, creating more price inflation and leading to a major economic crisis. This will not just end the US military and financial empire abroad. It will also end the welfare state at home.Uhhh, yeah, but isn't that what both of us and real Conservatives, real Libertarians*** all want anyway? It's not like even YOU, Ron Paul, with 545 clones in the Congress, could get us out of the hole we are in. The financial pain is coming, one way or another.
However, the end result may be a return to limited, constitutional government and a political class that realizes that Ronald Regan [sic] was correct when he told me that no nation has ever abandoned gold and remained great.Always the optimist, Ron Paul is, at least at the end of 95% of his columns. I like that. "Never, never, never say "never", ne dis jamais jamais."
"Better, better believe in forever, and it can be that way."
Styx never charged extra for the French lesson here, from their 1979 album Cornerstone. Tommy Shaw wrote this one and sang lead vocals on it. In their prime, Styx was:
Dennis DeYoung – vocals, keyboards, accordion.
James "JY" Young – vocals, electric guitars, guitar synthesizer, autoharp.
Tommy Shaw – vocals, guitars, mandolin, autoharp.
Chuck Panozzo – bass guitar, string bass.
John Panozzo – drums, percussion.
* I almost forgot. I also disagree on his stance against proposals for required use of eVerify. It get his point. eVerify is electronic intrusion by the Feral Gov't into our working lives. Yet, that's water under the bridge built by Amendment XVI** more than a century ago and taking this step as just one of many to halt the invasion is important. If the invasion is not stopped and reversed, Constitutional Rights will continue to mean exactly squat.
** See also Part 2 and Part 3.
*** From what I've seen during the last 2 presidential elections, the official Libertarian Party itself has become a real farce.
Comments:
Dieter Kief
Thursday - May 30th 2024 12:25AM MST
PS
Finally, after 2 complaints via mail from me at Passage Press, and a wrong mail of them, that they had already shipped it two (!) monts ago - my Noticing-copy arived on monday.
I had to drive a few kilometers to the nearst post-office, bcause postmen are not allowed to handle - - - cash, anymore...
It cost me 70 Euros. Close to ten are the customs-duties! 31$ for mail, 29 for the book.
Ohter US books go here for the US-retail-price. So - the worldwide success of the book might not be overwhelming.
Finally, after 2 complaints via mail from me at Passage Press, and a wrong mail of them, that they had already shipped it two (!) monts ago - my Noticing-copy arived on monday.
I had to drive a few kilometers to the nearst post-office, bcause postmen are not allowed to handle - - - cash, anymore...
It cost me 70 Euros. Close to ten are the customs-duties! 31$ for mail, 29 for the book.
Ohter US books go here for the US-retail-price. So - the worldwide success of the book might not be overwhelming.
Adam Smith
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 2:24PM MST
PS: Thanks, Achmed!
Yeah, you're right. A libertarian society and a Scandinavian style social safety net are mutually exclusive.
I probably should have wrote that as...
"we can't have a nice, high trust, libertarian society 𝑜𝑟 a Scandinavian style social safety net because..."
Makes more sense that way. And it's a whole lot less utopian.
But hey, what can I say... I'm an optimist.
☮️
Yeah, you're right. A libertarian society and a Scandinavian style social safety net are mutually exclusive.
I probably should have wrote that as...
"we can't have a nice, high trust, libertarian society 𝑜𝑟 a Scandinavian style social safety net because..."
Makes more sense that way. And it's a whole lot less utopian.
But hey, what can I say... I'm an optimist.
☮️
Moderator
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 9:53AM MST
PS: Nice mini-rant, Mr. Smith. I'd say that Libertarianism and the Scandinavian Safety Net cannot CO-EXIST (as per the bumper stickers). However, I agree with your points - I don't think either can work with the crowd inhabiting this place nowadays.
Mblanc46
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 7:22AM MST
PS Closing the barn door long, long after the horse has departed. We are well and truly sunk. The only question is, Will enough whites finally wake up and save something of Western civilization in the former USA?
Adam Smith
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 7:18AM MST
PS: Good morning, everyone,
𝑅𝑜𝑛 𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒-𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝐺𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑙...
Apparently libertarianism doesn't even work on a local level.
I mean, it could. I think.(?) But that would depend largely on having a better sort of people than we currently have. Libertarianism can only work among an intelligent, honest, resourceful, hard working, self sufficient people who are not burdened by a dishonest, thieving, wasteful, predatory group of people who call themselves "government" parasitizing the productive members of society.
You can't have 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚 without 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑙.
This means the criminals masquerading as "government" would have to go get real jobs. (Or go somewhere else and leave us alone. Or die off. If they all died this would work too.)
America has too many people who have been marinated in and raised under a weird hybrid form of socialism/communism. Too many Americans have no useful skills and no desire to learn them. They expect mommygov to feed them, to house them, and to pay off the student loans they acquired for their grievance studies degrees. They want a "government" that will pay for the birthing of their bastard children including a couple months in the NICU because they're so fat and unhealthy that they are having unhealthy premature babies. They want a "government" that will coddle them from cradle to grave without a care or thought about where those resources might come from.
We are at the point of the decline where they are seriously considering "government" subsidies for uterine transplants for transwomen...
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/should-uterus-transplantation-transwomen-and-transmen-be-subsidized/2023-06
Sure, free uterine transplants for transwomen would probably cost a whole lot less than continuously blessing Israel with billions in tribute in the hope that maybe one day Moloch will start blessing us back.
Hell, I'm a little surprised there aren't politicians out there promising free tattoos and mountain dew to these fools.
(That might be a winning campaign strategy, actually.)
I guess the point of my mini-rant is that we can't have a nice, high trust, libertarian society with a Scandinavian style social safety net because the American people are too lazy, too stupid, too fat and diabetic, too dishonest and too many of them really luv luv luv their communism.
I really wish the situation were different.
I really wish we could have nice things. ☮️
𝑅𝑜𝑛 𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒-𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝐺𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑙...
Apparently libertarianism doesn't even work on a local level.
I mean, it could. I think.(?) But that would depend largely on having a better sort of people than we currently have. Libertarianism can only work among an intelligent, honest, resourceful, hard working, self sufficient people who are not burdened by a dishonest, thieving, wasteful, predatory group of people who call themselves "government" parasitizing the productive members of society.
You can't have 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚 without 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑙.
This means the criminals masquerading as "government" would have to go get real jobs. (Or go somewhere else and leave us alone. Or die off. If they all died this would work too.)
America has too many people who have been marinated in and raised under a weird hybrid form of socialism/communism. Too many Americans have no useful skills and no desire to learn them. They expect mommygov to feed them, to house them, and to pay off the student loans they acquired for their grievance studies degrees. They want a "government" that will pay for the birthing of their bastard children including a couple months in the NICU because they're so fat and unhealthy that they are having unhealthy premature babies. They want a "government" that will coddle them from cradle to grave without a care or thought about where those resources might come from.
We are at the point of the decline where they are seriously considering "government" subsidies for uterine transplants for transwomen...
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/should-uterus-transplantation-transwomen-and-transmen-be-subsidized/2023-06
Sure, free uterine transplants for transwomen would probably cost a whole lot less than continuously blessing Israel with billions in tribute in the hope that maybe one day Moloch will start blessing us back.
Hell, I'm a little surprised there aren't politicians out there promising free tattoos and mountain dew to these fools.
(That might be a winning campaign strategy, actually.)
I guess the point of my mini-rant is that we can't have a nice, high trust, libertarian society with a Scandinavian style social safety net because the American people are too lazy, too stupid, too fat and diabetic, too dishonest and too many of them really luv luv luv their communism.
I really wish the situation were different.
I really wish we could have nice things. ☮️
Moderator
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 6:20AM MST
PS: Good questions re the Chinese, M. I don't know what's more important to them, keeping the exports rolling, or the demise of the $. They have just as big a market for their products in the EU I believe. That makes me wonder how much of their products can be considered "commodities" though they wouldn't be by the strict definition.
Could middle-man companies buy whole containers of goods from Europes with no tariffs on them and bring them here? The goods would still be Chinese though, but then, I don't know the details of how/where the tariffs get applied.
Anyway, it's high time we did this. Inflation's coming on strong anyway. More than anyone, Ron Paul knows this, and he knows the basic reason. He's the guy who writes and talks about the FED more than any (former) candidate ever alive, so why bring up inflation wrt the Chinese goods?
Could middle-man companies buy whole containers of goods from Europes with no tariffs on them and bring them here? The goods would still be Chinese though, but then, I don't know the details of how/where the tariffs get applied.
Anyway, it's high time we did this. Inflation's coming on strong anyway. More than anyone, Ron Paul knows this, and he knows the basic reason. He's the guy who writes and talks about the FED more than any (former) candidate ever alive, so why bring up inflation wrt the Chinese goods?
M
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 3:01AM MST
PS
Assuming the Chinese are fine with the tariffs, it must be because they think it's better for the Chinese that America has them.
One reason may be because as per the article, it risks the US losing "reserve currency" status and therefore losing influence. If the US has less influence and freedom of action in the world, there would be room for other countries, i.e. China, to have more.
Overall, I'm not certain of this. The US dollar is the reserve currency only partly because of trading in oil with the Saudis in it. It's also because the US is the most stable country and best for investment with the largest amount of currency out there.
The Euro is about the only rival for size, and it's not as good for investment because its policy depends on (at least) France and Germany agreeing on something. Other countries (Russia, China) have rather worse investment environments.
If the US becomes much worse for investment, it might lose that status. BRICS might become an alternative if it gets large enough, likely for people to hedge their bets with.
Assuming the Chinese are fine with the tariffs, it must be because they think it's better for the Chinese that America has them.
One reason may be because as per the article, it risks the US losing "reserve currency" status and therefore losing influence. If the US has less influence and freedom of action in the world, there would be room for other countries, i.e. China, to have more.
Overall, I'm not certain of this. The US dollar is the reserve currency only partly because of trading in oil with the Saudis in it. It's also because the US is the most stable country and best for investment with the largest amount of currency out there.
The Euro is about the only rival for size, and it's not as good for investment because its policy depends on (at least) France and Germany agreeing on something. Other countries (Russia, China) have rather worse investment environments.
If the US becomes much worse for investment, it might lose that status. BRICS might become an alternative if it gets large enough, likely for people to hedge their bets with.
Moderator
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 1:51AM MST
PS: Alarmist, VDare writer Pat Cleburne (not his real name, of course) has written a lot lately about Chinese New Arrivals™️.
https://vdare.com/articles/the-chinese-immivasion-fearing-peasants-elite-goes-into-belittle-deny-mode-dishonest-as-usual
That's all in addition to the other pathways that I wrote about long ago:
"The China to King Buffet pipeline":
https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=597
Man, that was 6 years ago.
"Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?" Ron Paul is being principled as a free-market Libertarian here, but I don't think Libertarianism necessarily works on a Global level.
"Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?"
https://vdare.com/articles/the-chinese-immivasion-fearing-peasants-elite-goes-into-belittle-deny-mode-dishonest-as-usual
That's all in addition to the other pathways that I wrote about long ago:
"The China to King Buffet pipeline":
https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=597
Man, that was 6 years ago.
"Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?" Ron Paul is being principled as a free-market Libertarian here, but I don't think Libertarianism necessarily works on a Global level.
"Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?"
The Alarmist
Wednesday - May 29th 2024 1:29AM MST
PS
You forgot the one about Bears doing their business in the woods.
"No matter the quality, manufacturing must come back to the US...."
No worries about quality: The US has a few million highly-skilled New Arrivals™️, many of whom are Chinese, who can continue to deliver the quality Americans have come to expect in their goods.
Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?
You forgot the one about Bears doing their business in the woods.
"No matter the quality, manufacturing must come back to the US...."
No worries about quality: The US has a few million highly-skilled New Arrivals™️, many of whom are Chinese, who can continue to deliver the quality Americans have come to expect in their goods.
Whodathunk Ron Paul would become a Chinese stooge?
Regarding the postmen, I don't know if they've EVER been able to take one's cash, as long as I've been alive. You've got to go to the local Post Office, where, at least they still take cash, no sure thing these days!