Look at Dubai; look at the cities and subway systems in China. Then, look at Detroit, Gary, Indiana, and Philadelphia. The last three places are not habitable. Destroyed public spaces, vagrants, wanton theft of retail locations.
We have declined. We simply won't admit it and blame racism, sexism, and the “ rich.”
It's not the money, it the belief that 'someone (else) should do something about this'. In all of the 3 cities mentioned there are islands of hope where the residents band together to make their piece of the world prosper.
Beyond hope or “ banding together.” The three cities I mentioned are disasters. The people living there can do nothing. They are similar to Sicily after WW2. Hopeless masses of people.
"Trumpists support the return of the days of high tariffs and claim “tariffs are a tax on corporate profits, not consumers.” They’re also wrong."
You miss the point. Cheap goods produced in China using slave labor in massively polluting factories will become more expensive for consumers. THAT'S THE POINT. Goods made domestically with fair wages in environmentally friendly ways will be cheaper by comparison. Wanting to keep foreign goods made cheap by slave labor and environmental destruction is the same arguement made by the confederates in the Civil War. "If I can't keep slaves cotton is going to get more expensive." Yes. Yes, it will.
No, I don't miss the point. Some targeted tariffs make sense. Punishing China for human rights abuses is one of them. Protecting strategic industries is another. Blanket tariffs on every country in the world shows a level of willful ignorance in a president that MAY be unprecedent.
You're taking one good example and arguing it applies to all tariffs. I've written quite a bit on the subject. Here are two examples:
It's NOT a blanket tartiff on all countries for all things though. He's negotiating with each country individually and there have been consessions made through those negotiations. The blanket tariff announcement was just to get the countries to the table. Basically, work with us or you'll be hit hard. The actual tariffs are not uniform.
Being accused of being a (classical) liberal is not an insult. The LPC abandoned liberalism decades ago and is now the second most illiberal party in Canada. Trump's tariffs have exposed the loose cannon populist as an economic illiterate despite his positive efforts at low hanging clean-up of Isle Leviathan. Your graphics captured the tribal mindset too well. End stage democracy (see Alexander Tytler on why all democracies die) is an ugly place where distraction and deceit are all that's on offer rather than the modern non-electability curse of honesty and fiscal sanity. As to the cause of societal cultural degradation, one could explore the displacement of Christianity with the welfare / nanny state and even more evil, the pantheism of the green blob resulting in a dedicated and well funded and networked leviathan dominating what remains of western civilization.
I would put the NDP tied with the Greens whose existence is the only reason Conservatives can ever achieve temporary power, through illiberal party vote splitting. Orwellian language capture is confusing but the most (classical) liberal party (ignoring the Libertarians, everybody else does) is the Peoples Party with the Conservatives heavily compromised due to the honesty (cowed by the media) curse.
I barely see any daylight between the NDP and the Liberals. Or at least I didn't until Carney started adopting the policies of the Conservative Party.
I disagree with respect to the Conservatives being compromised. To get elected you have to win most of the people in the center. Appeasing people who vote PPC might win them over but only at the expense of people in the center and center-right. That's a strategy for getting destroyed at the polls.
I would say your last sentence made my case. Put another way, the mindless mushy middle determine political outcomes and therefore when I hold my nose and vote Conservative (an honest confession), I know they won't touch health care, Co2 as a "pollutant", Group rights for races (grievance industry will continue to invert and reinforce apartheid), leave the cultural Marxism intact within the institutions, dairy and poultry supply management, and likely weasel-out of defunding the CBC, essentially accepting the ratchetted growth of leviathan from the LPC. They are fatally compromised libertarians but are the lessor of the (electable) evils, good for postponing the return to serfdom a little longer at best while keeping the seats warm for the return of the LPC. In our degraded culture that's as good as it gets. Tytler will not be proven wrong.
"The mindless mushy middle?" Is your position that centrists/moderates don't think? Would you be offended if I flipped your statement on it's head and described the current political situation as a world in which the clear thinking and reasonable center-left and center-right find themselves in an ongoing battle against illiberalism in the form of the far-left and far-right?
Those who compromise liberty with tyranny calling it moderation are essentially nihilists. Catering to such positions is a mindless pursuit of power. It's how you produce Red Tories. It's how the state is ratchetted up to where fascism is now the dominant political / economic paradigm.
I am not economist but I have been reading here on Substack and elsewhere different writers who have done the research and bring the data. From what I have seen most of the countries that we trade with charge the US a higher rate for us to sell them our goods than what we charge them to sell their goods here. I believe that this does need to change.
Thanks for the comment Jared. Here's a summary of pre-2025 tariffs:
Global Average: The trade-weighted average tariff on U.S. exports was approximately 2–5%, reflecting the complexity of global trade agreements and exemptions.
United States: The U.S. imposed an average tariff of about 2.2–2.5% on imports, which serves as a baseline for comparison.
Worst case scenario is that the average tariff on US goods was 2.8% higher than tariffs the US put on foreign goods. It's also important to remember that tariffs that Canada, Mexico, and the US place on each other were only on goods intentionally excluded from the USMCA trade agreement. In other words they all agreed on these tariffs.
Anyone telling you that the majority of countries around the world are "screwing the US" is lying.
Want to know what is wrong With the US?
Look at Dubai; look at the cities and subway systems in China. Then, look at Detroit, Gary, Indiana, and Philadelphia. The last three places are not habitable. Destroyed public spaces, vagrants, wanton theft of retail locations.
We have declined. We simply won't admit it and blame racism, sexism, and the “ rich.”
Our problem is money- we sent it overseas.
Detroit should be Dubai.
It's not the money, it the belief that 'someone (else) should do something about this'. In all of the 3 cities mentioned there are islands of hope where the residents band together to make their piece of the world prosper.
Beyond hope or “ banding together.” The three cities I mentioned are disasters. The people living there can do nothing. They are similar to Sicily after WW2. Hopeless masses of people.
Not all about money. Detroit, Gary and Philadelphia (stage whisper) It’s the negroes!
"Trumpists support the return of the days of high tariffs and claim “tariffs are a tax on corporate profits, not consumers.” They’re also wrong."
You miss the point. Cheap goods produced in China using slave labor in massively polluting factories will become more expensive for consumers. THAT'S THE POINT. Goods made domestically with fair wages in environmentally friendly ways will be cheaper by comparison. Wanting to keep foreign goods made cheap by slave labor and environmental destruction is the same arguement made by the confederates in the Civil War. "If I can't keep slaves cotton is going to get more expensive." Yes. Yes, it will.
No, I don't miss the point. Some targeted tariffs make sense. Punishing China for human rights abuses is one of them. Protecting strategic industries is another. Blanket tariffs on every country in the world shows a level of willful ignorance in a president that MAY be unprecedent.
You're taking one good example and arguing it applies to all tariffs. I've written quite a bit on the subject. Here are two examples:
When to use tariffs:
https://www.wrongspeakpublishing.com/p/cure-the-disease-and-kill-the-patient?utm_source=publication-search
Who is hurt by tariffs:
https://hoisttheblackflag.substack.com/p/when-life-gives-you-lemons
It's NOT a blanket tartiff on all countries for all things though. He's negotiating with each country individually and there have been consessions made through those negotiations. The blanket tariff announcement was just to get the countries to the table. Basically, work with us or you'll be hit hard. The actual tariffs are not uniform.
Being accused of being a (classical) liberal is not an insult. The LPC abandoned liberalism decades ago and is now the second most illiberal party in Canada. Trump's tariffs have exposed the loose cannon populist as an economic illiterate despite his positive efforts at low hanging clean-up of Isle Leviathan. Your graphics captured the tribal mindset too well. End stage democracy (see Alexander Tytler on why all democracies die) is an ugly place where distraction and deceit are all that's on offer rather than the modern non-electability curse of honesty and fiscal sanity. As to the cause of societal cultural degradation, one could explore the displacement of Christianity with the welfare / nanny state and even more evil, the pantheism of the green blob resulting in a dedicated and well funded and networked leviathan dominating what remains of western civilization.
What's the most illiberal party in Canada?
I would put the NDP tied with the Greens whose existence is the only reason Conservatives can ever achieve temporary power, through illiberal party vote splitting. Orwellian language capture is confusing but the most (classical) liberal party (ignoring the Libertarians, everybody else does) is the Peoples Party with the Conservatives heavily compromised due to the honesty (cowed by the media) curse.
I barely see any daylight between the NDP and the Liberals. Or at least I didn't until Carney started adopting the policies of the Conservative Party.
I disagree with respect to the Conservatives being compromised. To get elected you have to win most of the people in the center. Appeasing people who vote PPC might win them over but only at the expense of people in the center and center-right. That's a strategy for getting destroyed at the polls.
I would say your last sentence made my case. Put another way, the mindless mushy middle determine political outcomes and therefore when I hold my nose and vote Conservative (an honest confession), I know they won't touch health care, Co2 as a "pollutant", Group rights for races (grievance industry will continue to invert and reinforce apartheid), leave the cultural Marxism intact within the institutions, dairy and poultry supply management, and likely weasel-out of defunding the CBC, essentially accepting the ratchetted growth of leviathan from the LPC. They are fatally compromised libertarians but are the lessor of the (electable) evils, good for postponing the return to serfdom a little longer at best while keeping the seats warm for the return of the LPC. In our degraded culture that's as good as it gets. Tytler will not be proven wrong.
"The mindless mushy middle?" Is your position that centrists/moderates don't think? Would you be offended if I flipped your statement on it's head and described the current political situation as a world in which the clear thinking and reasonable center-left and center-right find themselves in an ongoing battle against illiberalism in the form of the far-left and far-right?
Those who compromise liberty with tyranny calling it moderation are essentially nihilists. Catering to such positions is a mindless pursuit of power. It's how you produce Red Tories. It's how the state is ratchetted up to where fascism is now the dominant political / economic paradigm.
I am not economist but I have been reading here on Substack and elsewhere different writers who have done the research and bring the data. From what I have seen most of the countries that we trade with charge the US a higher rate for us to sell them our goods than what we charge them to sell their goods here. I believe that this does need to change.
Thanks for the comment Jared. Here's a summary of pre-2025 tariffs:
Global Average: The trade-weighted average tariff on U.S. exports was approximately 2–5%, reflecting the complexity of global trade agreements and exemptions.
United States: The U.S. imposed an average tariff of about 2.2–2.5% on imports, which serves as a baseline for comparison.
Worst case scenario is that the average tariff on US goods was 2.8% higher than tariffs the US put on foreign goods. It's also important to remember that tariffs that Canada, Mexico, and the US place on each other were only on goods intentionally excluded from the USMCA trade agreement. In other words they all agreed on these tariffs.
Anyone telling you that the majority of countries around the world are "screwing the US" is lying.
I need to watch for your byline. I really appreciate the way you write and, by all appearances, the way you think. Thanks Phil.
Ps. You nailed it. We have a serious lack of integrity going on here.
Thank you Ken!
I write twice per month here and more frequently on my Substack here:
https://hoisttheblackflag.substack.com/
If you like what I write come on over. I appreciate people who like to comment.