tariffs 102

Speaking of worms, did you know that all our local worms are old world worms.  A friend who is a bit of a horticulturist told me once that at some point, probably when the white man showed up (It is always the white man isn't it?) all the native new world worms got replaced by old world worms (say old word worms five times real fast).  I thought oh pshaw, but then I looked it up and there it was, right on the internet.  I don't remember where it was, but it sounds like the sort of thing old dog would enjoy researching.


Speaking of researching I looked up tariffs last night, and as most things like that turn out to be, it is very complicated.  In addition to tariffs there are licences, and quotas and subsidized industries, and some of these are applied to some countries and not to others.  Averaging all these things out loosely the general consensus was that the US was about in the middle, half the countries have higher and half have lower.

These tariffs of course are applied unilaterally.  Some industry doesn't like the competition so they lobby their government to set up a tariff against say Italian shoes, and if they are successful there is a tariff.  Eventually it gets really thorny (what if Wisconsin wouldn't allow Texas beef in, so Texas set up a tariff against Wisconsin cheese?  No more cheeseburgers for cheeseheads or cowboys), and the countries get together and they make a deal where I'll cut my tariffs if you will cut yours, and voila free trade and the economies of both countries are better off.  Except in Trump's view if it is Americans negotiating with another country in which case the Americans, like most other Americans who aren't Trump, are a bunch of dumbasses and regularly make the worst deal ever made in the history of the world.

And how about that dealmaker?  He gave away a pretty good deal we had with Iran, North Korea took him to the cleaners, he can't make a deal with anybody in Europe because he is too busy insulting them, he can't even make a deal with his own party (and it is his party), and is threatening a shutdown.  What deal has he made with anybody?

Whenever they make a significant deal it involves a lot of paper.  One tactic of those who oppose it is to slam it down on a table and act surprised and say something like   How can anything that involves 1200 pages of regulations be considered free?  All these things take up a lot of paper because there are plenty of details and they have to be accounted for.  The length of the bill or the deal whatever is not an indication that it is on the face of it no good. 

Yeah right, how would we like it if the Chinese paid us in scrip?  We have a deficit because other people work cheaper and we don't save our money, not because of some evil cabal of traders or a long line of dumbass negotiaters (see above).  This is what causes our debt and if the Chinese didn't buy it up, who would, and if nobody did we'd be in deep shit.


I don't  think Old Dog has answered the question of what if Avenatti (despite having skeletons in his closet) was tearing them up in the primaries and polls showed that he would crush Trump in the general while the social democrat and Joe Biden and the savvy centrist would be crushed by Trump and the all-important Illinois primary was coming up, who would he vote for?