I like your optimism but until they ditch those woke oddities they won’t have a chance of achieving anything
R.I. Loquitur
1 month ago
Protectionism, choice, peace, strong borders, concern for health, and, yes, even low taxes all used to be policies of the Democrats. The type of Democrat Trump used to be and still is. How do you think he drew so many Democrats like RFK, Tulsi, Ackman, Musk, etc. to his side? They haven’t become Republicans” in the d**k Cheney sense. Trump stole the Republican party and used it to scoop out the moderates of both parties. He’s left both the Far Left and the Far Right with nothing popular to run on.
Alex Lekas
1 month ago
The left has to stand for something other than reflexive opposition to anything Trump says or does. And by ‘something,’ I something besides the equally obsessive fixation on people’s skin tone, genitals, and other group status markers. The author’s last line is on target; Dems are anything but liberal.
Terry M
1 month ago
Broad tariffs are terrible as policy even if popular with workers. Trump is using these threats as negotiating ploys as we see already with Mexico who are slowing down the illegal immigrant caravans. But tariffs targeted at specific countries (China) for specific products (electronics, pharmaceuticals) can be very effective in stimulating domestic production where it is needed most.
John Galt
1 month ago
I honestly think tariffs are a bad move from an economic standpoint, they don’t work. But I support them from a national defense standpoint, we can’t have supply chains that reach across the ocean and having local manufacturing capabilities is a must. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
They don’t “work” if your only goal is maximizing GDP. The issue is for a rich country like the US, or UK, or EU, tariffs increase the return on capital and depress the return on labor (i.e. working and middle class labor). Western capital gets to exploit cheap labor over seas and labor pays the price. That’s why we’ve seen 2-3% real GDP growth in the US for decades, with almost no increase in the real median wage. In the US 100% of the real income gains over the last 40 years have gone to the top 20% of households by income.
Free trade also ensures that all the hard industries necessary for waging war are sent over seas. I’d rather have a nation with a strong industrial base, higher wages for working and middle class people, and lower returns on the stock market, even if it mean total GDP is lower. This doesn’t even account for the massive increases in welfare spending that have been necessitated by the devastation of working class real income. People working full-time receive myriad benefits in US, from the EITC, to food stamps, to health insurance and housing subsidies. Net that spending out of GDP, and the cost to collect the taxes and administer the bureaucracies, and I’m not sure free trade even increases total wealth.
Samuel Ross
1 month ago
Try selling “Made in the UK” in China. They put up numerous barriers to entry, they want you to “make product” in the CCP, and eventually copy your product and sell it for cheaper.
But “tarriffs bad”, say the experts. Right ….
David Yetter
1 month ago
While I am very definitely a conservative in the peculiar American sense (we want to conserve the American Founding as well as the patrimony of Western Civilization leading up to it, but the American Founding is the quintessentially liberal event in the history of the world, with liberalism being understood in its original sense: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, free markets), I really do think we need a proper Left in America, rather than the woke with their amalgam of Frankfurt School cultural Marxism, Derrida, and anti- and post-colonialist Leninist imperialism theory, cosied up with the professional managerial class to create a new version of fascism. By a proper Left, I mean someone who genuinely looks out for the interests of the working class.
I’d really like us to have our original Left back — we had anarcho-syndicalists, rather than socialists before they were largely destroyed by the first Red Scare and subverted by the Communists. After all, we know socialism does not work, for the reasons Hayek and vonMises told us it would not work. At least anarcho-syndicalism has the virtue of not having been proved unworkable.
R.I. Loquitur
1 month ago
When will the world wake up? Trump was and is still a DEMOCRAT!!! Its why he appeals to the working class and to minorities. He’s a fiscally conservative DEMOCRAT!!! The “Democrats” are just Socialists in sheep clothing and the RINOs are the real Republicans. He took the middle from each of them and that’s why they both hate him.
I like your optimism but until they ditch those woke oddities they won’t have a chance of achieving anything
Protectionism, choice, peace, strong borders, concern for health, and, yes, even low taxes all used to be policies of the Democrats. The type of Democrat Trump used to be and still is. How do you think he drew so many Democrats like RFK, Tulsi, Ackman, Musk, etc. to his side? They haven’t become Republicans” in the d**k Cheney sense. Trump stole the Republican party and used it to scoop out the moderates of both parties. He’s left both the Far Left and the Far Right with nothing popular to run on.
The left has to stand for something other than reflexive opposition to anything Trump says or does. And by ‘something,’ I something besides the equally obsessive fixation on people’s skin tone, genitals, and other group status markers. The author’s last line is on target; Dems are anything but liberal.
Broad tariffs are terrible as policy even if popular with workers. Trump is using these threats as negotiating ploys as we see already with Mexico who are slowing down the illegal immigrant caravans. But tariffs targeted at specific countries (China) for specific products (electronics, pharmaceuticals) can be very effective in stimulating domestic production where it is needed most.
I honestly think tariffs are a bad move from an economic standpoint, they don’t work. But I support them from a national defense standpoint, we can’t have supply chains that reach across the ocean and having local manufacturing capabilities is a must. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
They don’t “work” if your only goal is maximizing GDP. The issue is for a rich country like the US, or UK, or EU, tariffs increase the return on capital and depress the return on labor (i.e. working and middle class labor). Western capital gets to exploit cheap labor over seas and labor pays the price. That’s why we’ve seen 2-3% real GDP growth in the US for decades, with almost no increase in the real median wage. In the US 100% of the real income gains over the last 40 years have gone to the top 20% of households by income.
Free trade also ensures that all the hard industries necessary for waging war are sent over seas. I’d rather have a nation with a strong industrial base, higher wages for working and middle class people, and lower returns on the stock market, even if it mean total GDP is lower. This doesn’t even account for the massive increases in welfare spending that have been necessitated by the devastation of working class real income. People working full-time receive myriad benefits in US, from the EITC, to food stamps, to health insurance and housing subsidies. Net that spending out of GDP, and the cost to collect the taxes and administer the bureaucracies, and I’m not sure free trade even increases total wealth.
Try selling “Made in the UK” in China. They put up numerous barriers to entry, they want you to “make product” in the CCP, and eventually copy your product and sell it for cheaper.
But “tarriffs bad”, say the experts. Right ….
While I am very definitely a conservative in the peculiar American sense (we want to conserve the American Founding as well as the patrimony of Western Civilization leading up to it, but the American Founding is the quintessentially liberal event in the history of the world, with liberalism being understood in its original sense: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, free markets), I really do think we need a proper Left in America, rather than the woke with their amalgam of Frankfurt School cultural Marxism, Derrida, and anti- and post-colonialist Leninist imperialism theory, cosied up with the professional managerial class to create a new version of fascism. By a proper Left, I mean someone who genuinely looks out for the interests of the working class.
I’d really like us to have our original Left back — we had anarcho-syndicalists, rather than socialists before they were largely destroyed by the first Red Scare and subverted by the Communists. After all, we know socialism does not work, for the reasons Hayek and vonMises told us it would not work. At least anarcho-syndicalism has the virtue of not having been proved unworkable.
When will the world wake up? Trump was and is still a DEMOCRAT!!! Its why he appeals to the working class and to minorities. He’s a fiscally conservative DEMOCRAT!!! The “Democrats” are just Socialists in sheep clothing and the RINOs are the real Republicans. He took the middle from each of them and that’s why they both hate him.