“Ten tariff questions aren’t being asked — but should be: 1) President Trump’s so-called ‘trade war.’ Many call the American effort to obtain either tariff parity or a reduction in the roughly $1 trillion trade deficit and 50 years of consecutive trade deficits a ‘trade war.’ But then what do they call the policies of the past half-century by Europe, Asia, China and others to ensure asymmetrical tariffs, pseudo-health and security trade restrictions, and large surpluses? A trade peace? Trade fairness? 2) Do nations prefer surpluses or deficits? Why do most nations prefer trade surpluses and protective tariffs? Are Europe, Asia, China and others stupid?” [editor’s note: “Nations” don’t prefer anything; only individuals have preferences. Regimes are gangs of individuals whose preferences come at the expense of the other individuals who identify with the “nations” the gangs rule – TLK] (04/13/25)
“Something very strange has happened to American colonialism. Somewhere between the shock-and-awe of Dubya’s New American Century and the explosive verbal dysentery of Orange-Sphincter-Bad, Uncle Sam’s mask of sanity got cracked. Naturally, the neocons and neolibs will blame it all on Trump but the election and reelection of such an openly debauched hooligan would never be possible in a functioning empire. That would be like blaming Caligula alone for Rome’s demise just because he stopped drawing the blinds before the orgies. The rot here clearly runs much deeper than 2024. Any nation that responds to a recession by reigniting the Cold War was already on its way down whether the fools calling audibles from their ivory towers realized it yet or not.” (04/13/25)
“Luther Martin believed the Constitution’s sweeping taxation power was one of its most dangerous features, a direct threat to both state sovereignty and individual liberty. Long before the Sixteenth Amendment and the rise of federal income taxes, Martin warned that the new government’s power to tax would concentrate control in the hands of a distant, centralized system – one that could crush the people economically and render the states irrelevant. His fierce opposition to the Constitution rested on this core concern: centralized taxing power would become a tool of oppression, not protection.” (04/13/25)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joni Ruller McGary
“Future healthcare providers have the same right to bodily autonomy as the patients they will someday serve. We must ensure that personal medical decisions remain with individuals, especially those who will one day be entrusted with our nation’s health.” (04/13/25)
“Something odd is happening amid the great market instability touched off by Donald Trump’s lunatic tariff announcements. Normally during a chaotic trading situation, anxious financiers run to what has long been the safest of investments: dollars and dollar assets, like U.S. government debt. That drives the value of the dollar up and the interest rate on debt down. Instead, we are seeing the opposite: The dollar is falling against other currencies, and interest rates on American debt are increasing. As yet, these movements are relatively modest, and may represent nothing more than chaos in the market. However, they do indicate a likely weakening of confidence in the stability and security of the dollar as a global reserve currency – which, given Trump’s deranged behavior, ought to be expected. A country that elected a senile criminal madman twice is not to be trusted.” (04/14/25)
“Charlie Munger once said that ‘it’s not the bad ideas that do you in, but the good ones.’ While some have taken this quote to mean that people get stuck too easily on their good ideas, even if they don’t work. But you can also consider this to mean that poorly implemented ‘good’ ideas can have dangerous consequences for these ideas, perhaps even more so than people never taking your ideas seriously in the first place. At least as currently implemented, I’m afraid that this is where the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is. But first, I’d like to give DOGE some credit. They are at least bringing about a conversation, or a ‘vibe shift’ in the necessity of a seemingly never-ending increase in government spending.” (04/13/25)
“In 1862, Abraham Lincoln doubted his authority to free slaves held in the Confederate states by executive order (the Emancipation Proclamation), and, according to then-congressman George W. Julian of Indiana, ‘used to liken the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, ‘Five, ‘to which the prompt response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.’ That line, usually quoted using a dog rather than a calf, comes to mind for me every April as millions of Americans arrive at line 37 of the standard US federal income tax return form, the 1040: ‘This is the amount you owe.’ Calling a demand for payment a debt doesn’t make it one.” (04/12/25)
“Watching the wild lines of the S&P 500, U.S. Treasury bond yields, and various foreign markets is how I’ve spent most of the past week. This felt familiar; I’d spent much of 2017 doing the same, following the vagaries of the first Trump administration and tracking the markets’ reactions like a nurse checking a patient’s heart rate. But despite that familiarity, this isn’t the same as last time. I actually wish it were. This time, there’s no coming back from this quickly. Whoever is elected the 48th president won’t be able to easily rebuild what Donald Trump is busy destroying. Countries can and will move on without the United States. Their firms will establish new supply chains and pursue other markets. Even if the U.S. were the ultra-dominant trading partner it used to be, the credibility of the nation’s promises, its treaties, its agreements, and even its basic rationality has evaporated in just weeks.” (04/12/25)
“With Tax Day rapidly approaching, I can’t be the only person who chuckles over reports about layoffs and top officials quitting at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). ‘Oh, that should put them off their game,’ I think to myself. I’m equally pleased to see Congress moving to extend tax cuts even while knowing that the federal government really needs to balance its books. After all, the feds have never shown much willingness to cut spending even as they burn through every dime they collect and more. The fact is that I hate taxes and the system that collects them, and so do most Americans.” (04/11/25)
“Donald Trump was never much of an executive, a fact attested to by his many high-profile failures (the casinos, the Plaza, etc.) and his scams (Trump University, the accounting shenanigans, etc.). He likes to present himself as the ultimate deal-maker, but he is not much of a negotiator, as Vladimir Putin knows. He likes to play at being a tough guy, but he is easily backed down by opponents ranging from Canadian politicians to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and his weak character makes him vulnerable to flattery. His gift isn’t for business or hardball politics or the Machiavellian exercise of hard power — his gift is for storytelling. … Feuds, histrionic reactions, histrionic reactions to the histrionic reactions — Trump’s political pattern is simply an adaptation of familiar reality-television tropes fitted to the pace of social media.” (04/11/25)
