Here we go again, Oren to the rescue. Retroactively concocting an intellectual fig leaf for the aging Don's incoherent ramblings as he bleats out his taco tariff impulses of the week. But notice, Oren ignores the massive policy "victory" actually being implemented as we speak, the crowning achievement of the "new" right. Why no victory lap for the "new" right's BBB? Maybe Oren could muse over the long term economic implications of the record setting debt, or maybe the massive wealth transfer from the workin stiffs he purports to care about to the plutocrats? Or maybe how shredding our longstanding western alliances help in Oren's quest to confront China collectively? Or, the long term impact of building ICE into the largest federal law enforcement bureaucracy ever, larger than our prison system, with half the money going to building detention centers, just so we can have masked/plain-clothed agents round up our neighbors instead of criminals? Maybe that's why Oren changed the subject on this one?
Oren's bread and butter is relitigating the mistakes of leaders from the past. Fair enough, there's plenty of material. But, it's also fair that the leaders of his "new" right movement-the current political establishment, are accountable for their words and actions. Those holding power today seem more relevant than those who held it yesterday. JD and Little Marco uttered those words for a reason, and they capitulated for a reason. It bears directly on their character and fitness.
And to think, my party used to claim character counted. How quaint:)
Sigh .. okay, I will quibble with your characterization of Donald Trump as being of a party. He will always be a Democrat to me .. and also to me, the Republican Party is (very obviously temporarily - thus I am enjoying it while it lasts. We will never .. never .. again have a President or administration that lets us see the sausage being made) the Huey Long Democrat Party and there is a Democrat Party in name only.
I agree Don isn't of a party in the traditional sense. But it's indisputable that he dominates the R party. Members of the party had countless chances to say no, but most like what Don sells. Those who know better found their own ways to acquiesce, or they left the party. It's not just JD and Little Marco. McConnell is their equivalent, he could somehow both give the speech he gave post Jan 6, and also vote to acquit.
A common technique deployed by stereotypically inveterate comment-section cranks is to respond to an article on anything - which, by necessity, will NOT be an article about some other things - and then wail that it doesn't touch on Thing X, or Thing Y, or Thing Z that the crank is on about.
The unfortunate part is that people tend to catch on to this sort of attempted threadjacking quickly and tune the crank out.
I plead guilty. Call me Mr Inveterate. To me there is but one struggle the nation faces, and I will continue to speak out on it.
The willingness of elites to remain silent in the midst of the autocratic movement underway in our nation is something I never thought possible. Especially from the "leaders" of my former party. Don't take my word for it, take JD's and Little Marco's. Read their actual statements, it's all on the record. Look at the specific points they made, the language they used. Perhaps they were lying then, but my money says they're lying now. Sadly, they have plenty of company in the political, media, business, and think tank worlds. People who once admitted the truth, but have since capitulated. Then, read closely the on the record statements of the highest ranking staff from his first term. I believe them. Finally, if you haven't actually attended a Don rally, at least watch one in full on video, and see if you can identify anything of concern...
History shows that the acquiescence of elites is a prerequisite of success for such movements. Oren, and I suspect many readers of his work, are such elites. Shame on them, they know the truth, but they will never utter it. Even in the context of its long term implications for the economy. Nothing. Ever. The "other than that Mrs Lincoln" feel of these discussions is mind bending at times. One would have thought inciting an armed insurrection, the ultimate sin for a national leader, would have finally been enough of a flare, but even that most grievous of acts was accepted and justified. So yeah, I'm gonna keep calling it out. You should join me.
Not enough attention is given to how deeply motivated China is to once again be the world’s leading civilization, following their humiliation by Japan and an upstart Industrialized West from the 1800s until the 21st century. China hasn’t just taken advantage of our stupidity, they have also further developed our strengths in constructing their own political economy.
Trying to box them out of our domestic markets is necessary but insufficient. We also need to be able to compete with them for critical global markets.
For example, the national disgrace which is the financialization of Boeing needs to be brought to an end in every manufacturing sector of our economy. When given a choice between knowledge as power or money as power we can no longer afford to choose the latter.
I'm looking thru the commentary for things like what you point out. And, BTW, I lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland in the late '80s and '90s. When I came back to the USA I became a crank to many friends and others for saying the whole "free trade" thing was nonsense on the part of Republicans (and some Democrats trying to ride coattails on the nonsense). I worked for Daimler-Benz most of the time I was there. Since Daimler was a linchpin in Germany's economy, I saw an entirely different model: state-cooperated manufacturing and full-scale industrial policy. This included not Gordon Gecko takeover and PE approach, instead deliberate policies to assure that a) workers would not lose jobs and b) industry must innovate and assure highest quality. Not state-owned industry, but industry integrated into objectives that would raise/sustain wealth and support a working welfare state and, most of all, through building and exporting superior products.
Somewhere at the time or maybe later, I remember a cartoon showing the USA as a big stupid baby crying because it was losing economically to "socialism".
By far the best post here yet. No to little attacks on others thinking, and succinctly stated positions and analysis to help me understand. More of this type of post please.
In some MSAs there are barely any industries to sustain the local economy; the entire economy are public employees working for schools, cities, and universities, or they're subsidized by the public like nurses and hospital workers. Then everybody else is a contractor or small business retailer getting business from the publicly paid employees. This model would not hold up if it weren't for SSDI, state and federal assistance these employerss receive. They think the economy will run in perpetual motion like this forever with no consequences. The economy requires work and production above maintenance, bringing manufacturing would bring jobs to these areas and revitalize them.
When I got to "BYD is vertically integrated and might have a better self driving system than Tesla, and they can charge the car in five minutes" you lost me for good. I know you didn't write it but if you believe all that you're simply not paying attention and that was a terrible example to provide. To support the idea that Chinese manufacturers are suddenly innovating much faster than American ones illustrates how little these writers understand the subject matter they write about.
In general, I tended to look askance at unrestricted free trade, mostly because of the resilience it removed from supply chains and what might happen if we forgot how to make something. The pandemic proved my point. But, as I recall, the initial efforts to globalize were led by Republicans, starting with Nixon. During the Reagan years, Democrats fought offshoring efforts and when that didn’t work, tried to fund retraining programs, only to be shot down by…Republicans. What changed?
Awesome. 👏 Good job making sense out of things happening and showing a strong logic to these tariffs. Imperfect, as you say, but headed in the right direction.
EU/UK/CA may be important trading partners but we really shouldn't consider them allies. JD was correct, if too diplomatic. They have different values.
They have different values…. Nope. They simply HAVE values. Values other than ‘I could shoot someone on Fifth Ave’ or I can say whatever I want because I can just bully folks into the ground who’d point out it’s a lie. They have values that might last for a few decades perhaps not days like Trump’s and Vance’s.
I'm looking thru the commentary for things like what you point out. And, BTW, I lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland in the late '80s and '90s. When I came back to the USA I became a crank to many friends and others for saying the whole "free trade" thing was nonsense on the part of Republicans (and some Democrats trying to ride coattails on the nonsense). I worked for Daimler-Benz most of the time I was there. Since Daimler was a linchpin in Germany's economy, I saw an entirely different model: state-cooperated manufacturing and full-scale industrial policy. This included not Gordon Gecko takeover and PE approach, instead deliberate policies to assure that a) workers would not lose jobs and b) industry must innovate and assure highest quality. Not state-owned industry, but industry integrated into objectives that would raise/sustain wealth and support a working welfare state and, most of all, through building and exporting superior products.
Somewhere at the time or maybe later, I remember a cartoon showing the USA as a big stupid baby crying because it was losing economically to "socialism".
Yes, Trump and team are doing a great job. I hope they can get the stablecoins use going. I like the idea that stablecoins that use blockchain and a LEDGER where one can "follow the money" so to speak and allows us to see who is buying and who is getting bought. Love the transparency of stablecoins. Again, hope they can ramp this up.
Yes Jeff, one with the right tools can probably see where the money goes but not who has it. It’s pretty much like cash, put a marker on the bill and ou can see where it got to (if you are lucky). But not who had it before unless perhaps you are running the platform it’s traded…. and even then what you see is probably some platform dependent digital IDs of anonymous digital wallets. What neither you nor the authorities can see is the people behind the wallets. That’s why it became popular with criminal gangs.
Yes, but if they are CBDCs—most likely you’ll need to complete identity and anti-money laundering checks to hold CBDC stablecoins, especially ones being discussed that would be backed by treasuries.
If you can follow the money, can you tell us how much Don has pocketed to date on $Trump coin, and how much of it came from foreign adversaries like Chinese national Justin Sun? Multiple credible media outlets claim Don has pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars, are they wrong?
How do tariffs impact our exports? Many of our exporters rely on imports as components into what they export. The mechanism to claw back other fees is burdensome and I could imagine only more so with various inputs from various countries with various tariff rates. I would imagine that if we don’t take this into account our exports to the ROW would be at risk.
The story keeps repeating. The white sahib believes he can trick the so-called primitive aborigines into mining gold for him in exchange for glass beads and pocket knives. But the aborigines catch on quickly. They understand the value of labor, of tools, and, more importantly, of ownership. It’s not the pickaxe that matters — it’s who owns the mine. Soon enough, they figure out how to get their own pickaxes and shovels, and they send the sahib packing. When that happens, all he has left to sell is the family silver.
Ah, yes. Winners and losers. And if this doesn’t work, there’s always a military solution. And people saying Trump wouldn’t be crazy to implement that course of action.
Excellent summary. Thanks for posting it!! This strikes me as a politically and ideologically neutral analysis that explains the gap between the original vision for free trade with China—along with its underlying assumptions—and the reality we can now observe empirically.
Here we go again, Oren to the rescue. Retroactively concocting an intellectual fig leaf for the aging Don's incoherent ramblings as he bleats out his taco tariff impulses of the week. But notice, Oren ignores the massive policy "victory" actually being implemented as we speak, the crowning achievement of the "new" right. Why no victory lap for the "new" right's BBB? Maybe Oren could muse over the long term economic implications of the record setting debt, or maybe the massive wealth transfer from the workin stiffs he purports to care about to the plutocrats? Or maybe how shredding our longstanding western alliances help in Oren's quest to confront China collectively? Or, the long term impact of building ICE into the largest federal law enforcement bureaucracy ever, larger than our prison system, with half the money going to building detention centers, just so we can have masked/plain-clothed agents round up our neighbors instead of criminals? Maybe that's why Oren changed the subject on this one?
Rude. Write your own essay.
Oren's bread and butter is relitigating the mistakes of leaders from the past. Fair enough, there's plenty of material. But, it's also fair that the leaders of his "new" right movement-the current political establishment, are accountable for their words and actions. Those holding power today seem more relevant than those who held it yesterday. JD and Little Marco uttered those words for a reason, and they capitulated for a reason. It bears directly on their character and fitness.
And to think, my party used to claim character counted. How quaint:)
Sigh .. okay, I will quibble with your characterization of Donald Trump as being of a party. He will always be a Democrat to me .. and also to me, the Republican Party is (very obviously temporarily - thus I am enjoying it while it lasts. We will never .. never .. again have a President or administration that lets us see the sausage being made) the Huey Long Democrat Party and there is a Democrat Party in name only.
I agree Don isn't of a party in the traditional sense. But it's indisputable that he dominates the R party. Members of the party had countless chances to say no, but most like what Don sells. Those who know better found their own ways to acquiesce, or they left the party. It's not just JD and Little Marco. McConnell is their equivalent, he could somehow both give the speech he gave post Jan 6, and also vote to acquit.
A common technique deployed by stereotypically inveterate comment-section cranks is to respond to an article on anything - which, by necessity, will NOT be an article about some other things - and then wail that it doesn't touch on Thing X, or Thing Y, or Thing Z that the crank is on about.
The unfortunate part is that people tend to catch on to this sort of attempted threadjacking quickly and tune the crank out.
I plead guilty. Call me Mr Inveterate. To me there is but one struggle the nation faces, and I will continue to speak out on it.
The willingness of elites to remain silent in the midst of the autocratic movement underway in our nation is something I never thought possible. Especially from the "leaders" of my former party. Don't take my word for it, take JD's and Little Marco's. Read their actual statements, it's all on the record. Look at the specific points they made, the language they used. Perhaps they were lying then, but my money says they're lying now. Sadly, they have plenty of company in the political, media, business, and think tank worlds. People who once admitted the truth, but have since capitulated. Then, read closely the on the record statements of the highest ranking staff from his first term. I believe them. Finally, if you haven't actually attended a Don rally, at least watch one in full on video, and see if you can identify anything of concern...
History shows that the acquiescence of elites is a prerequisite of success for such movements. Oren, and I suspect many readers of his work, are such elites. Shame on them, they know the truth, but they will never utter it. Even in the context of its long term implications for the economy. Nothing. Ever. The "other than that Mrs Lincoln" feel of these discussions is mind bending at times. One would have thought inciting an armed insurrection, the ultimate sin for a national leader, would have finally been enough of a flare, but even that most grievous of acts was accepted and justified. So yeah, I'm gonna keep calling it out. You should join me.
Rude. Write your own essay.
Not enough attention is given to how deeply motivated China is to once again be the world’s leading civilization, following their humiliation by Japan and an upstart Industrialized West from the 1800s until the 21st century. China hasn’t just taken advantage of our stupidity, they have also further developed our strengths in constructing their own political economy.
Trying to box them out of our domestic markets is necessary but insufficient. We also need to be able to compete with them for critical global markets.
For example, the national disgrace which is the financialization of Boeing needs to be brought to an end in every manufacturing sector of our economy. When given a choice between knowledge as power or money as power we can no longer afford to choose the latter.
I'm looking thru the commentary for things like what you point out. And, BTW, I lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland in the late '80s and '90s. When I came back to the USA I became a crank to many friends and others for saying the whole "free trade" thing was nonsense on the part of Republicans (and some Democrats trying to ride coattails on the nonsense). I worked for Daimler-Benz most of the time I was there. Since Daimler was a linchpin in Germany's economy, I saw an entirely different model: state-cooperated manufacturing and full-scale industrial policy. This included not Gordon Gecko takeover and PE approach, instead deliberate policies to assure that a) workers would not lose jobs and b) industry must innovate and assure highest quality. Not state-owned industry, but industry integrated into objectives that would raise/sustain wealth and support a working welfare state and, most of all, through building and exporting superior products.
Somewhere at the time or maybe later, I remember a cartoon showing the USA as a big stupid baby crying because it was losing economically to "socialism".
By far the best post here yet. No to little attacks on others thinking, and succinctly stated positions and analysis to help me understand. More of this type of post please.
In some MSAs there are barely any industries to sustain the local economy; the entire economy are public employees working for schools, cities, and universities, or they're subsidized by the public like nurses and hospital workers. Then everybody else is a contractor or small business retailer getting business from the publicly paid employees. This model would not hold up if it weren't for SSDI, state and federal assistance these employerss receive. They think the economy will run in perpetual motion like this forever with no consequences. The economy requires work and production above maintenance, bringing manufacturing would bring jobs to these areas and revitalize them.
To my point https://x.com/utobian/status/1943127594960064713?s=46&t=tyCe4btKM5WxaV19IhJmLQ
When I got to "BYD is vertically integrated and might have a better self driving system than Tesla, and they can charge the car in five minutes" you lost me for good. I know you didn't write it but if you believe all that you're simply not paying attention and that was a terrible example to provide. To support the idea that Chinese manufacturers are suddenly innovating much faster than American ones illustrates how little these writers understand the subject matter they write about.
In general, I tended to look askance at unrestricted free trade, mostly because of the resilience it removed from supply chains and what might happen if we forgot how to make something. The pandemic proved my point. But, as I recall, the initial efforts to globalize were led by Republicans, starting with Nixon. During the Reagan years, Democrats fought offshoring efforts and when that didn’t work, tried to fund retraining programs, only to be shot down by…Republicans. What changed?
Awesome. 👏 Good job making sense out of things happening and showing a strong logic to these tariffs. Imperfect, as you say, but headed in the right direction.
EU/UK/CA may be important trading partners but we really shouldn't consider them allies. JD was correct, if too diplomatic. They have different values.
They have different values…. Nope. They simply HAVE values. Values other than ‘I could shoot someone on Fifth Ave’ or I can say whatever I want because I can just bully folks into the ground who’d point out it’s a lie. They have values that might last for a few decades perhaps not days like Trump’s and Vance’s.
I'm looking thru the commentary for things like what you point out. And, BTW, I lived and worked in Germany and Switzerland in the late '80s and '90s. When I came back to the USA I became a crank to many friends and others for saying the whole "free trade" thing was nonsense on the part of Republicans (and some Democrats trying to ride coattails on the nonsense). I worked for Daimler-Benz most of the time I was there. Since Daimler was a linchpin in Germany's economy, I saw an entirely different model: state-cooperated manufacturing and full-scale industrial policy. This included not Gordon Gecko takeover and PE approach, instead deliberate policies to assure that a) workers would not lose jobs and b) industry must innovate and assure highest quality. Not state-owned industry, but industry integrated into objectives that would raise/sustain wealth and support a working welfare state and, most of all, through building and exporting superior products.
Somewhere at the time or maybe later, I remember a cartoon showing the USA as a big stupid baby crying because it was losing economically to "socialism".
Yes, Trump and team are doing a great job. I hope they can get the stablecoins use going. I like the idea that stablecoins that use blockchain and a LEDGER where one can "follow the money" so to speak and allows us to see who is buying and who is getting bought. Love the transparency of stablecoins. Again, hope they can ramp this up.
Umm…one of the big selling points of cryptocurrency is that you *can’t* follow the money.
Not true.
Yes Jeff, one with the right tools can probably see where the money goes but not who has it. It’s pretty much like cash, put a marker on the bill and ou can see where it got to (if you are lucky). But not who had it before unless perhaps you are running the platform it’s traded…. and even then what you see is probably some platform dependent digital IDs of anonymous digital wallets. What neither you nor the authorities can see is the people behind the wallets. That’s why it became popular with criminal gangs.
Yes, but if they are CBDCs—most likely you’ll need to complete identity and anti-money laundering checks to hold CBDC stablecoins, especially ones being discussed that would be backed by treasuries.
If you can follow the money, can you tell us how much Don has pocketed to date on $Trump coin, and how much of it came from foreign adversaries like Chinese national Justin Sun? Multiple credible media outlets claim Don has pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars, are they wrong?
And I do wonder what you think of the BBB.
How do tariffs impact our exports? Many of our exporters rely on imports as components into what they export. The mechanism to claw back other fees is burdensome and I could imagine only more so with various inputs from various countries with various tariff rates. I would imagine that if we don’t take this into account our exports to the ROW would be at risk.
The story keeps repeating. The white sahib believes he can trick the so-called primitive aborigines into mining gold for him in exchange for glass beads and pocket knives. But the aborigines catch on quickly. They understand the value of labor, of tools, and, more importantly, of ownership. It’s not the pickaxe that matters — it’s who owns the mine. Soon enough, they figure out how to get their own pickaxes and shovels, and they send the sahib packing. When that happens, all he has left to sell is the family silver.
Ah, yes. Winners and losers. And if this doesn’t work, there’s always a military solution. And people saying Trump wouldn’t be crazy to implement that course of action.
Excellent summary. Thanks for posting it!! This strikes me as a politically and ideologically neutral analysis that explains the gap between the original vision for free trade with China—along with its underlying assumptions—and the reality we can now observe empirically.