Tag: economy

The Case For Tariffs – How Tariffs Can Help Bring Back The Golden Age Of American Economy

About once a decade, the question of Protective Tariffs finds its way into the national debate. Whether a political candidate dares to raise the issue or a clever collection of activists and analysts work together to inject it into the national discussion, the reaction is always the same from the halls of entrenched power – hysteria and panic over the mere discussion of tariffs. 

Both the establishment Right and the establishment Left in the United States argue that tariffs represent an end to industry and trade, that they deny opportunity to the third world, will only raise prices for American consumers, and that they are the first shot in a tragic trade war. In the halls of corporations and academia, everyone seems to agree – tariffs are bad for the economy and the country as a whole. Predictably, corporate property in Congress parrot the same line and it appears that opposing tariffs is one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans can agree.

Thus, when anti-tariff politicians, CEOs, and academics speak, their warnings that tariffs represent an end to their globalist vision where international corporations continue to abandon Western workers with their pesky wages, rights, and protections while exploiting third world workers for lower wages, easy replacement, and lack of concern for basic human needs are thinly veiled. This latter, more honest, concern is, in fact, correct. tariffs do threaten globalism and corporate exploitation of workers and societies. Particularly older working class citizens remember the days of American Tariffs and the undeniably better economic distribution of wealth and opportunity they afforded. Younger (middle aged) Americans remember at least the removal of those Tariffs and the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs leaving for Mexico, South and Central America, Asia, and China that decimated their communities and the American economy before their eyes. Indeed, it seems that the working class inherently understand the benefit of Tariffs and Protectionism, at least when they are properly explained. This is why such a massive and sustained media, academic, and governmental propaganda campaign has been invoked to convince them otherwise and why, whenever Tariffs are mentioned in the public discourse, they are immediately attacked as fringe, crazy, xenophobic, racist, populist, and dangerous. 

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Cloward-Piven And The Migrant Invasion

John Maynard Keynes, who should be burning in Hell for his shyster economic theories, is largely responsible for our current looming apocalypse. 

His theory basically is that only demand, made more real than just wishing for things by creating fiat money and credit, is important, since in his myopic, context-dropping theory, people produce a supply when there is a demand. 

(That they’d want the money they are paid to be valuable enough to buy someone else’s products he neglects to envision.)

His theory was refuted by F.A. Hayek at the time. But politicians usually ignored the refutations, since they saw a way of expanding their power and budgets while using a bit of Cambridge University produced con artistry as cover. Politicians are the first ones to get to spend new fiat currency and credits, deciding which donors, cronies, businesses, organizations will get it, before it causes inflation and reduces the purchasing power of the currency in general. It allows a constant redistribution of wealth to whoever controls the printing press and those nearest to them.

Keynes is also famous for saying: 

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.” 

Once again he is wrong. 

We are currently being pushed even faster toward disaster, not just by his voodoo macroeconomics, and not by the ideas of dead economists, but of a deceased sociologist.

The sociologists in question are a husband and wife team, the late Richard Cloward and his wife Francis Fox Piven (still with us at 92), professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. 

The Cloward-Piven Strategy, which the couple first published in the socialist magazine The Nation, sought to bring change out of chaos. The idea was that social workers and other government employees and leftist groups (Ms. Piven was on the board of Democratic Socialists of America) would cajole anyone they could to apply for every government assistance program, until the welfare state was so overloaded it broke down, which would lead, they thought, to the institution of a “free” minimum guaranteed income for every American.

Whether this would have worked or not, subsequent strategists on the left clearly decided to expand it by importing poor people from anywhere in the third world. 

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Oakland’s New Mayor Wants $50 Minimum Wage, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Barbara Lee, a longtime Democratic politician, is stepping into her new role as mayor of Oakland amid economic chaos and public concern.

After leaving her congressional seat in 2024 to pursue a U.S. Senate bid—ultimately losing to Adam Schiff—she returns to city politics at a precarious moment.

Oakland’s city government is staring down an $87 million budget deficit.

Pensions, insurance, and a shrinking tax base are expected to make matters worse.

The city has become a symbol of urban decline in California, marked by rampant crime, business closures, and general lawlessness.

Oakland voters have made their choice, and now they’ll live with the consequences.

Barbara Lee’s election is not just another leftward lurch—it’s a hard swerve into fantasy economics and failed policies repackaged as “progress.”

Anyone who thinks raising the minimum wage to $50 an hour—equivalent to $104,000 a year—is a sane or sustainable policy shouldn’t be running a lemonade stand, much less a major city.

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Stocks surge as White House confirms 100 countries want a trade deal with U.S.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has confirmed that there is progress on President Donald Trump’s agenda to get fair international trade standards for American manufacturers and consumers alike.

The president launched a series of tariff battles because for years American producers have had to pay high tariffs to get their products and services into other nations, while those nation’s often have been given virtually free access to American markets.

The imbalance is what has caused America’s large trade deficit and other financial complications.

Trump’s tariffs have been producing results she said.

“We’re doing very well in respect to a potential trade deal with China. There have now been 18 proposals and more than 100 countries around the world who are wanting to make a deal with the United States of America,” Leavitt confirmed.

“The president and administration are setting the stage for a deal with China. … We feel everyone involved wants to see a trade deal happen — and the ball is moving in the right direction.”

The Daily Mail pointed out the Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed up 600 points on the announcement. Actually, the market surged about 1,000 points on the news.

Fox News reported she continued, “You have Secretary Bessent, Secretary Lutnick, Ambassador Greer, NEC Director Hassett and Peter Navarro, the entire trade team meeting with 34 countries this week alone. We are moving at Trump speed to ensure these deals are made on behalf of the American worker and the American people.”

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Trucking Industry Says Positive Marijuana Tests And ‘Sometimes Outdated’ Federal Regulations Are Contributing To National Driver Shortage

A recent policy paper from a pair of companies in the trucking industry says the sector was short about 80,000 drivers last year—an issue it asserts was exacerbated by workers testing positive for marijuana under the federal Department of Transportation’s (DOT) strict, zero-tolerance drug policy.

“A significant number of otherwise qualified drivers fail pre-employment or random drug tests due to marijuana use,” says the new report. “These drivers are often unaware of the DOT’s strict zero-tolerance policy or mistakenly believe that legal marijuana use in their home state is acceptable under federal law.”

Titled “Cannabis, Compliance and Driver Retention,” the white paper was published by fleet management firm Fleetworthy in partnership with the trade publication FreightWaves.

As marijuana has “moved from a largely prohibited substance to a widely legalized and socially accepted drug,” it says, “these cultural and legal shifts create complex challenges for both carriers and drivers.”

Other obstacles it points to are what it calls “the widespread proliferation of marijuana and CBD products” and “rigid (sometimes outdated) DOT regulations.”

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US Trade Wars and Military Globalization Spark Complex Alignments

President Trump’s new round of reciprocal and universal tariffs will escalate trade tensions, lower investment, hit market pricing, distort trade flows, disrupt supply chains, and undermine consumer, business and investor confidence. It will certainly penalize global economic prospects.

As fears of a recession mount and mass protests in the US have begun, the loss of over $6 trillion on Wall Street in only two days is just a prelude of what’s to come. Along with China, the large trading economies in Europe, Japan and South Korea, India and Brazil and the rest of the world are positioned to counter the Trump tariffs.

Days before Trump’s new tariffs, China declared its trade minister had agreed with Japan and South Korea, Washington’s two treaty allies in Asia, on a common response to Trump’s actions. In Seoul and Tokyo, the statement was seen as overstated. Nonetheless, after the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, the divided South Korea must cope with trade war amid a constitutional crisis, whereas Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba has declared it a “national crisis.” In South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, developing economies coping with natural disasters and external destabilization efforts are targeted by Trump tariffs as well.

As Washington is decoupling the old linkages between trade and defense policies, it has opened the Pandora’s box for multi-dimensional alignments.

“National security” as pretext for global fragmentation

Taken at face value, the Trump reciprocal tariffs indicate that contemporary America’s greatest threats would be Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Lesotho and Cambodia; that is, a few tiny French islands close to Canada and two poor and small developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, respectively.

Ostensibly, the new international tariffs are legitimized by “national security.” In practice, they foster new volatility and uncertainty.

In the past, US military allies were trade partners and vice versa. Now military allies are trade adversaries. In the past, disagreements were resolved while tariffs were reduced; today the reverse applies.

The new protectionism is reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley and reciprocal tariffs in the 1930s that went hand in hand with assertive nationalism, xenophobia and massive military rearmament paving the way to World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is thus odd that the military dimension has been largely ignored in recent globalization/deglobalization surveys.

In 1945, the United States accounted for almost half of the global economy. It was the world’s manufacturing giant and greatest debtor. US dollar monopolized cross-border transactions. Today, the relative share of the US in the world economy has halved. It’s the world’s de-industrial giant and greatest borrower. And the global dominance of the US dollar in world transactions has likely been halved, too.

Military power is an entirely different story, however. It is the muscle that the Biden administration used covertly and the Trump White House likes to tout overtly. It is this brute military primacy that is systematically exploited as the White House seeks to hammer the world into its image.

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China Is In Economic Dire Straits And They’re No Longer Able To Hide It

Official economic data from any government is always treated with suspicion by anyone with common sense.  The US, for example, witnessed some of the most egregious statistical tinkering imaginable under the Biden Administration, not to mention outright lies and propaganda from the establishment media on the health of the economy.  To this day no one has been fired (or tarred and feathered) for hiding the reality of the stagflation crisis.  Any government or corporate economist that called the threat “transitory” should be stripped of their financial prestige and banished to a cash register at Arby’s.

And let’s not forget Biden’s misrepresentation of the labor market, portraying millions of new jobs for illegal migrants and visa holders as if they were jobs benefiting American citizens.  In the US and across the western world, lying about the economy is generally seen by politicians as a temporary solution to secure reelection.  However, in China, lying about the economy is treated as a national security imperative.  If there’s anything in the world that gives communists a feeling of existential dread, it’s the fear that their ideological enemies will discover proof that communism doesn’t work.

The Trump Administration’s tariffs on China are not the initiator of the nation’s troubles, they are more a bookend to a process of decline that has been ongoing for years. 

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DHL to suspend global shipments of over $1,000 to US consumers

DHL Express, a division of Germany’s Deutsche Post, said it would suspend global business-to-consumer shipments worth over US$800 (S$1,000) to individuals in the United States from April 21, as US customs regulatory changes have lengthened clearance.

The notice on the company website was not dated, but its metadata showed it was compiled on April 19.

DHL blamed the halt on new US customs rules that require formal entry processing on all shipments worth over US$800. The minimum had been US$2,500 until a change on April 5.

DHL said business-to-business shipments would not be suspended but could face delays.

Shipments under US$800 to either businesses or consumers were not affected by the changes.

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The Myth of Biden’s “Roaring” Economy

Claims that President Trump inherited a thriving economy from President Biden are not just misleading—they’re dishonest. The Biden supporters measure economic “growth” from the lowest point of the COVID lockdowns in 2020, when businesses were shuttered and unemployment was artificially high. This makes even mediocre recovery look like booming progress. But if we compare Biden’s economy to 2019—the last full year before the pandemic—many key indicators show not a robust rebound but an economy weighed down by inflation, debt, and diminished purchasing power.

Real wages are down. From January 2021 to May 2024, average hourly earnings for private-sector workers fell by 2.24% when adjusted for inflation. Even broader comparisons with 2019 show only marginal gains. According to the House Budget Committee, inflation-adjusted household net worth was still down 4.7% as of early 2025. Meanwhile, inflation surged 15.5% cumulatively from January 2021 through December 2024, with a peak annual rate of 9.1% in June 2022—the highest in more than four decades. President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, along with the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act—two of the largest spending and money-creation programs in U.S. history—helped sustain inflationary pressure rather than curbing it.

Employment numbers tell a similarly deceptive story. Biden often boasts of adding 16.6 million jobs, but much of that reflects people simply returning to work after pandemic shutdowns. Job growth also leaned heavily on part-time and public-sector positions. Of the jobs Biden claims to have created, about half, 8.3 million were part-time, and 1.2 million were government jobs—positions effectively created by executive action, shifting money from taxpayers to government payrolls.

Americans were also borrowing more just to get by. Total household debt hit a record $17.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2024, up 26% from $14.15 trillion in 2019. Credit card debt alone exceeded $1.14 trillion, up nearly 15% when adjusted for inflation. Delinquencies have surged—9.1% of credit card accounts were delinquent as of Q3 2024, the highest rate since 2011. Auto repossessions rose by 23% in 2023, with an estimated 1.5–2 million vehicles repossessed, a jump from 1.3 million in 2019. Foreclosure activity followed a similar path: filings rose to 357,000 in 2023, still below the 493,000 in 2019 but climbing as post-pandemic protections ended.

The cost of living soared, especially in housing. Average mortgage payments doubled from $1,300 to $2,600 between 2021 and 2024, pushing many Americans out of homeownership, while rents rose 40%. At the same time, the personal savings rate fell to 4%—down from 7.5% in 2019—signaling that households were draining savings just to cover basic expenses.

Supporters of Biden’s economy often point to headline GDP numbers and international comparisons. In 2023, the U.S. posted a real GDP growth rate of 2.5%, outperforming peers like Japan (1.9%), Canada (1.1%), and the Euro area (0.5%). That resilience, however, is nothing new. In 2019, the U.S. grew at 2.3% while Germany grew just 1.1%. The U.S. economy has long outperformed other G7 nations thanks to a large consumer base, a dynamic private sector, and global tech leadership. Nominal GDP reached $27 trillion in 2023, dwarfing Japan’s $4.2 trillion and Germany’s $4.5 trillion. But these structural advantages are not new and cannot be credited to Biden. They are the result of decades of American economic dominance—not the product of any one administration’s policy.

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Trilateral Commission: China Achieves the ‘New International Economic Order’

In writing How the World Adopted Beijing’s Economic Playbook, Michael Froman is no Zbigniew Brzezinski. As a member of the Trilateral Commission and President of the subversive Council on Foreign Relations, Froman argues that China Has Already Remade the International System. His declaration is a day late and a dollar short and thoroughly disingenuous.

In 2001, an article appeared in Time Magazine where another Trilateral, Hedley Donovan, was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, and his publication was one of several media outlets that collaborated with Trilateral initiatives. The article, Made in China: The Revenge of the Nerds , accurately and plainly revealed what had taken place during the prior 20 years:

The nerds are run­ning the show in today’s China. In the twenty years since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms kicked in, the com­po­si­tion of the Chi­nese lead­er­ship has shifted markedly in favor of tech­nocrats. …It’s no exag­ger­a­tion to describe the cur­rent regime as a tech­noc­racy.

After the Maoist mad­ness abated and Deng Xiaoping inau­gu­rated the opening and reforms that began in late 1978, sci­en­tific and tech­nical intel­lec­tuals were among the first to be reha­bil­i­tated. Real­izing that they were the key to the Four Mod­ern­iza­tions embraced by the reformers, con­certed efforts were made to bring the “experts” back into the fold.

During the 1980s, tech­noc­racy as a con­cept was much talked about, espe­cially in the con­text of so-called “Neo-Authoritarianism” — the prin­ciple at the heart of the “Asian Devel­op­mental Model” that South Korea, Sin­ga­pore, and Taiwan had pur­sued with apparent suc­cess. The basic beliefs and assump­tions of the tech­nocrats were laid out quite plainly: Social and eco­nomic prob­lems were akin to engi­neering prob­lems and could be under­stood, addressed, and even­tu­ally solved as such.

The open hos­tility to reli­gion that Bei­jing exhibits at times — most notably in its obses­sive drive to stamp out the “evil cult” of Falun Gong — has pre-Marxist roots. Sci­en­tism under­lies the post-Mao tech­noc­racy, and it is the ortho­doxy against which here­sies are mea­sured. [Emphasis added]

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