Tag: economy

Repeal Government Regulators. Improve Safety and Quality, End Inflation

Voluntary cooperation is robust, multiply-protected, and loss-limiting, and brings healthy deflation. A government regulator makes a system fragile, fraught with a single point of failure, and loss-compounding, and brings sickening inflation.

Donald Trump and his unity team members Robert Kennedy and Elon Musk promise to limit cronyism and slash waste.

Both approaches deny that state-government and national-government administrative states are themselves peak cronyism. If government people stop hosting business-crony socialists but still host activist-crony socialists, that’s still tyranny. Also, it’s unconstitutional.Thomas J. DiLorenzoBuy New $11.57(as of 10:36 UTC – Details)

The only adequate approaches are to fully executively close and legislatively repeal.

When there are no government regulators, that doesn’t mean that there’s a vacuum. Instead, people naturally take care of themselves and one another.

Voluntary Cooperation Increases Safety and Quality

Many people take advantage of the considerable information they have available and use it to make the choices that they expect to be the best for them. In doing so, they self-regulate.

Their choices affect others, creating a network of interactions. In this network, people’s interactions with others regulate the others.

So then when people are free, they increase safety and quality by taking decentralized, interdependent actions:

  • Product raters compete to find and play up even small advantages and disadvantages.
  • Media people spread bad news very quickly.
  • Customers stop buying harmful products very quickly.
  • Retailers and distributors stop carrying harmful products.
  • Civil complainants can eliminate product lines and companies.
  • Insurers work to prevent and limit losses.
  • Producers anticipate problems and prevent them.

The resulting system is robust and resilient, and the people in it select naturally for improved performance. This is why freeing people to take care of themselves in the Dutch Republic, England, and the USA enabled people to create dramatic gains in how much value they added, bringing modern material comforts to the world.

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Trump Unleashes 10% Baseline Tariff on All U.S. Trading Partners Starting April 5 — Hits ‘Worst Offenders’ with Even Tougher Measures April 9 — Here is the List of Countries and Their Corresponding Tariffs

President Donald Trump announced today the implementation of a 10% baseline tariff on all imports, effective April 5, 2025. This decisive action aims to correct decades of unfair trade practices that have disadvantaged American workers and industries.

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, President Trump proclaimed April 2 as “Liberation Day,” marking a new era of economic independence. He emphasized that this measure is essential to protect American jobs and revitalize domestic manufacturing.

“For too long, other nations have taken advantage of our open markets while imposing barriers to our products. Those days are over,” the President asserted.

Trump added via Fox News:

“American steel workers, auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen,” Trump said from the White House Rose Garden Wednesday afternoon. “We have a lot of them here with us today. They really suffered, gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream. We had an American dream that you don’t hear so much about. You did four years ago, and you are now. But you don’t too often.”

“Now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt,” he said. “And it will all happen very quickly. With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before or. Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.”

“For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, nonmonetary barriers and other forms of cheating. And because we are being very kind, we will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us. So the tariffs will be not a full reciprocal. I could have done that. Yes. But it would have been tough for a lot of countries,” he said.

“For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries,” Trump said. “And in many cases, the non-monetary barriers were worse than the monetary ones. They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant taxes to disadvantage our products, adopted unfair rules and technical standards, and created filthy pollution havens.”

“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. And the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been,” he said. “So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting. We were collecting so much money so fast, we didn’t know what to do with it. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?”

“And my answer is very simple. If they complain, if you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America. Because there is no tariff. If you build your plant, your product in America. And we’ve seen companies coming in like we’ve never seen before,” he said.

The White House released a detailed chart showing how badly many countries have been ripping off American workers, charging high tariffs on U.S. goods while benefiting from America’s generosity in return.

The White House fact sheet released today clarified that Canada is exempt from the reciprocal tariff announcement.

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Seattle Economic Crisis: Proof That Democrat Wealth Taxes Lead To Disaster

To look at the Pacific Northwest today one would never know that 25 years ago the region was an economic powerhouse at the forefront of technology and business innovation.  At the time Portland and Seattle were known for constant rain as well as raining cash, and the “millionaire density” of the Seattle area was at historic highs.  The tech boom and international trade with Asia had created a Silicon Valley of the northern coast.  

Companies like Nike, Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon established corporate offices and generated tens of thousands of jobs, and many of those jobs were considered high income.  People can debate the overall effects of the population surge to the region; there are many who would argue that Washington and Oregon were better off when they were considered backwoods fishing and lumber states.  That said, it’s undeniable that for a time the Northwest was one of the most desirable and lucrative places to live in the US.  

That’s all gone now.  The wealthy are leaving Seattle like it’s a leper colony and all that’s left are millions of broke activists, poverty stricken residents and illegal immigrants.  Some blame the constant riots or the steady stream of welfare recipients. Others say that the draconian covid mandates caused people to jump ship.  However, a primary factor in businesses (and money) leaving the city was the institution of a progressive “Payroll Expense Tax”.  

The PET is a quarterly tax approved by the Seattle City Council in 2020 in the middle of the Covid hysteria.  It increases taxes on businesses depending on how many employees they hire and how much their employees get paid.  In other words, it punishes companies that hire more people and pay them a good salary.  The conditions of the PET are very similar to what Democrats say they want for their “Wealth Tax” – An extra tax on top earners and large companies beyond the income tax.  

Democrats were high on their own supply in the early 2020s and in their fervor to destroy conservatives they instituted every suicidal policy imaginable, from defunding police to near-zero prosecution for property theft under $1000.  It’s not surprising that wealth taxes were established at the same time to “stick it to the capitalists”.  What they seem to have forgotten, though, is that communist tactics don’t work if people and businesses are able to walk away, and that’s exactly what has happened in Seattle.

Larger businesses are packing up and leaving the Northwest as quickly as they arrived.  Amazon, Meta, Google and Expedia are the most prominent examples of companies exiting the Seattle labor market and hiring elsewhere to avoid the Payroll Tax, but there are numerous others. 

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WINNING: Trump’s “Reciprocal Tariffs” Trigger Global Response — Multiple Nations Slash Import Duties on U.S. Goods

​Several countries have announced plans to reduce or eliminate tariffs on U.S. imports in response to President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” policy, set to take effect on April 2, 2025.

This policy aims to match the tariffs that other nations impose on U.S. products.

The White House released a detailed chart showing how badly many countries have been ripping off American workers, charging high tariffs on U.S. goods while benefiting from America’s generosity in return.

The White House fact sheet released today clarified that Canada is exempt from the reciprocal tariff announcement.

This exemption comes after a series of trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada. In February 2025, the U.S. imposed a 10% tariff on Canadian energy imports and a 25% tariff on other Canadian goods, prompting Canada to respond with its own tariffs on American imports. Subsequent negotiations led to temporary suspensions and adjustments of these tariffs.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford proposed that Canada eliminate tariffs on U.S. imports if President Trump reciprocates. Ford emphasized that mutual tariff removal would benefit both economies and urged cooperation for greater prosperity and safety.

However, according to the New York Post, Ford lacks the federal authority to enact such policy changes.

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How Trump’s Tariffs Are Fueling U.S. Jobs, Manufacturing, and Tax Relief — Despite Democrat Outrage

Democrats have criticized President Trump’s tariffs, arguing that they lead to price increases that disadvantage American workers. While tariffs can contribute to higher prices, they also offer benefits to American workers.

Firstly, revenue generated from tariffs contributes to the government’s operating fund, potentially offsetting expenses that would otherwise be covered by income taxes. This additional revenue has opened discussions about tax relief measures, such as removing income tax from overtime pay or tips.

Moreover, tariffs serve to encourage domestic manufacturing and attract foreign direct investment (FDI).

Foreign companies aiming to maintain access to the U.S. market may choose to establish manufacturing facilities within the United States to circumvent import tariffs.

For instance, Hyundai Motor Group announced a $21 billion investment in U.S. operations, including a new $5.8 billion steel plant in Louisiana, to avoid potential tariffs and bolster its American manufacturing presence.

Similarly, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is set to invest $100 billion in a U.S.-based semiconductor plant.

Tariffs can reduce the need for subsidies by leveling the playing field for American producers competing against heavily subsidized foreign imports. A good example is agriculture.

The media criticized President Trump for placing a 25% tariff on Canadian food imports, claiming it would raise grocery prices and hurt American families. But the reality is more complex, and the tariffs make sense in context.

The United States is food-independent and typically a net exporter of agricultural products—it produces more food than it consumes and doesn’t rely on imports to feed its population.

Still, in 2023, the U.S. imported $40.5 billion worth of agricultural goods from Canada, about 20.6% of total agricultural imports. These imports aren’t driven by necessity but by factors like seasonality, economic efficiency, and consumer demand.

Some products—like fruits, vegetables, and certain animal goods—are simply cheaper to import due to Canada’s climate, harvest cycles, or subsidies. The two countries also have deeply integrated food supply chains, with items often crossing the border multiple times for processing.

While these imports provide variety and affordability, they also undermine American farmers—who already receive tens of billions in subsidies each year. In 2023 alone, agricultural subsidies totaled $10.97 billion.

Programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pay farmers to take land out of production for environmental reasons, but have been criticized for reducing the total food supply.

On top of that, the American Relief Act of 2025 added another $31 billion in aid to farmers and ranchers.

Democrats are fond of isolating facts when it suits them—especially when it paints President Trump’s policies in a negative light. When it comes to tariffs, they focus only on the short-term price increases and ignore the broader economic goals.

Yes, tariffs can raise prices on certain goods, but they also create jobs, generate government revenue, and reduce the need for taxes and subsidies.

Tariffs on agricultural imports—like those from Canada—help ensure American-grown food reaches consumers instead of being destroyed or left unharvested.

That means less waste, less need for subsidies, and more support for American workers and producers.

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Transactional Weakness Tips the Balance of Power – ‘Hold to No Illusions; There Is Nothing Beyond This Reality’

A U.S. economic ‘re-balancing’ is coming. Putin is right. The post-WWII economic order ‘is gone’

The post-WWII geo-political outcome effectively determined the post-war global economic structure. Both are now undergoing huge change. What remains stuck fast however, is the general (Western) weltanschauung that everything must ‘change’ only for it to stay the same. Things financial will continue as before; do not disturb the slumber. The assumption is that the oligarch/donor class will see to it that things remain the same.

However, the power distribution of the post-war era was unique. There is nothing ‘forever’ about it; nothing inherently permanent.

At a recent conference of Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs, President Putin highlighted both the global fracture, and set out an alternate vision which is likely to be adopted by BRICS and many beyond. His address was, metaphorically speaking, the financial counterpart to his 2007 Munich Security Forum speech, at which he accepted the military défie posed by ‘collective NATO’.

Putin is now hinting that Russia has accepted the challenge posed by the post-war financial order. Russia has persevered against the financial war, and is prevailing in that too.

Putin’s address last week was, in one sense, nothing really new: It reflected the classic doctrine of the former premier, Yevgeny Primakov. No romantic about the West, Primakov understood its hegemonic world order would always treat Russia as a subordinate. So he proposed a different model – the multipolar order – where Moscow balances power blocs, but does not join them.

At its heart, the Primakov Doctrine was the avoidance of binary alignments; the preservation of sovereignty; the cultivation of ties with other great powers, and the rejection of ideology in favour of a Russian nationalist vision.

Today’s negotiations with Washington (now narrowly centred on Ukraine) reflect this logic. Russia isn’t begging for sanctions relief or threatening anything specific. It is conducting strategic procrastination: waiting out electoral cycles, testing Western unity, and keeping all doors ajar. Yet Putin is not adverse either to exerting a little pressure of his own – the window for accepting Russian sovereignty of the four eastern oblasts is not forever: “This point can also move”, he said.

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DOGE Reveals Mind Shocking Fraud Propping Up Economy

Former Wall Street money manager and financial analyst Ed Dowd of PhinanceTechnologies.com is back with an update of a report on “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025.”  It was not just heavy government spending on illegal immigration, but “mind shocking” fraud that has been revealed with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).  Investigators have uncovered $115 billion so far with many hundreds of billions more to be exposed.   Dowd says, “Both sides of the aisle are probably going to have problems.  The DOGE revelations are mind shocking.  The clear way in which the government was spending money through NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and people taking kickbacks and profits along the way is going to come out.  There may have been theft along the way.  What business does Stacy Abrams have getting $2 billion for an NGO?  This doesn’t make any sense.  It’s going to be shocking, even shocking to me.  I knew there was rot in the system, but the mind blowing way the NGOs were used to facilitate the illegal immigration just blows my mind.  The 10 million plus illegals that came in over the last four years, you just don’t wake up one day in Central America and say I am going to the Darien Gap, and go to the Mexican border and then meander my way into the interior of the US without a tremendous amount of aid along the way.  NGOs facilitated that and probably took their cut.  What was the all-in economic cost of the goodies they got once they got here?  Plus, the NGOs spent and what the government spent themselves to facilitate this, it’s not hard to imagine $50,000 to $100,000 all-in cost per illegal. . . . This is the all-in cost up and down the entire economic food chain. . . . It was anywhere between $500 billion to $1.5 trillion depending on the illegals.  It was an illegal project funded purposely, and it was very logistical.  It was not something that just happened overnight.”

The result, says Dowd, was the US economy was propped up when it should have already tanked.  Now, all this spending on this illegal invasion is going away.  Dowd says, “When we wrote our report, we were surprised on how fast DOGE would get to work. . . . This is why our thesis is playing out a little quicker than we thought. . . . The housing market was on fragile ground the last year or so.  It was held up by illegal immigrants supporting rent prices.  So, as that unwinds, we think there will be a mini 2008–2009 housing issue.  Housing prices are going to come down, and that is a big driver of consumption in the economy.  That needs to happen because home affordability is off the charts.”

Dowd also see a recession coming as the government downsizes, illegal alien funding gets cut and illegals continue to self-deport.  Dowd says, “Consumer confidence has taken a nosedive recently, and you can see why.  There are 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants worried about their gravy train coming to an end.  So, they may be holding back on their spending.  There are millions of government employees worried about their jobs.  Then, you have the NGO networks that employ about 6 million people.  So, you have about 20 million to 25 million people that are in the workforce . . . worried about where their money is going to come from, and that can cause consumer spending to slow down.”

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Europe Waves The White Flag: EU Prepares “Term Sheet Of Concessions” For Trump Trade War

In what may be the first clear confirmation Trump’s plan to realign the global trader system is working, moments ago Bloomberg reported that the European Union is identifying concessions it’s willing to make to Donald Trump’s administration to secure the partial removal of the US tariffs that have already started hitting the bloc’s exports and that are set to increase after April 2.  

According to Bloomberg, EU officials were told at meetings this week in Washington that there was no way to avoid new auto and so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump is launching next week. Discussions also began on what the contours of a potential deal to reduce them should eventually look like.

That prompted the European Commission (which handles trade matters for the EU) to start working on a “term sheet” for a potential concession agreement, which would set out areas for negotiations on the punitive trade measures, including lowering its own duties, mutual investments with the US as well as easing certain regulations and standards.

In short, Europe – led these days by France’s Macron – did what Europe always does when led by the French: it surrendered.

The reciprocal tariffs which will be unveiled on April 2 are meant to strike out against what Trump considers to be unfair levies on US goods as well as non-tariff barriers, such as domestic regulations and how countries collect taxes, including the bloc’s value-added tax, digital taxes and regulations. The EU says its VAT is a fair, non-discriminatory tax that applies equally to domestic and imported goods (for more on the framework for Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, see this).

The news, which is actually rather bad for Europe as it confirms the continent will be unable to retaliate fully and instead will be on the receiving end of Trump’s trade war, sparked a brief rally in the Euro…

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Even if the war ended tomorrow, Ukraine could end up broke by 2026

There is no plan in place to fund the Ukrainian budget after 2025.

Even if the war ends by the summer of 2025, it will take some time to reduce military expenditures, leaving European nations on the hook. It’s not clear that European elites have fully understood the political costs, however much longer the war continues.

With intensive, U.S.-brokered negotiations ongoing in Saudi Arabia involving separate Ukrainian and Russian delegations, hopes are rising that the Trump administration will finally be able to bring an end to the war.

But even if the war ends tomorrow, it would be unwise to assume that Ukraine could reduce military spending close to prewar levels.

Ukraine now has almost 900,000 men and women at arms, a threefold increase from peacetime, and that doesn’t take into account irrecoverable losses through death and injury. Estimates vary widely, but the casualty rate is commonly thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, with compensation provided to the injured and families of the deceased.

The war in Ukraine has therefore come at a vast financial cost to that country. Ukraine’s defense spending has risen tenfold since the 2021 budget was announced, when social welfare payments were the country’s biggest expenditure.

This has left a gaping hole in Ukraine’s finances that no amount of tax increases or Western donations will be able to fill over a sustained period without political consequences.

Since 2022, Ukraine has run an average budget deficit of over 22% of GDP. Based on the current exchange rate, Ukraine’s budget shortfall in 2025 amounts to around $41.5 billion. And that assumes defense spending falling slightly this year. In the hopefully unlikely event that war continues to the end of the year, the Ukrainian state would need to revise its budget upwards as it did in 2024.

Today, Ukraine’s domestic revenue, including taxes, excise, and duties, just about covers the cost of the defense effort, which in 2024 accounted for 64% of its total budget expenditure. That includes significant tax increases as the war has gone on. Total tax revenue will have risen by more than 100% since the war started and personal income taxes by over 200%. This in a country in which, according to the Wilson Center, 50% of the population lives at a basic subsistence level.

As Ukraine is cut off from international capital markets, it has had to meet the difference through aid and loans from Western nations.

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The Economy of Denial: Addiction, Extortion, Deception

Denial doesn’t end well, and the ‘Economy of Denial’ is destined to deconstruction.

Even the most opinionated become circumspect when the discussion turns to The Addiction Economy, for the term The Addiction Economy calls things by their real name, which disrupts our protective shield of denial.

Yes, denial, for ours is an Economy of Denial, where the surface stability of normalcy demands we avoid calling things by their real name at all costs, for that lays bare the core mechanisms of the Economy of Denial: addiction, extortion, deception. This is a jarring, disturbing mirror, for we see our own reflection.

We become quiet when The Addiction Economy comes up, for the core concept here is that highly profitable addictions have been normalized to the degree that the majority of the populace is addicted but doesn’t identify their addiction as an addiction because the words addiction and extortion have such negative connotations that they threaten both our sense of normalcy (i.e. belonging to the safe, stable, acceptable majority) and our self-pride that we’re far above the poor lost souls who succumb to addiction.

Addiction calls up images of illicit drugs and lost souls trapped in destructive dependency. Since discipline and will power are the highly valued engines of accomplishment, we view addicts with disdain, for their emotional craving for immediate comfort and solace has overwhelmed their rational will.

This is why saying that we’re addicted to our phones, social media, snacks, junk food, fast food, novelty, selfies, entertainment, the endless scroll of “news” and all things “money” is so disquieting, as all of these addictions have been normalized. Since “everyone does it,” it can’t be an addiction, right?

The denial isn’t just about recognizing behaviors as destructive dependencies; it’s also a denial of the core dynamic of our economy, which is weaponizing and normalizing our instincts to overcome our rationality. As Charles Darwin observed, “The very essence of instinct is that it’s followed independently of reason.”

It’s natural to seek sources of immediate comfort and solace, and be drawn to sources of novelty, distraction, amusement and belonging that are socially approved. These are our instinctual, hard-wired drives for dopamine hits and endorphin highs.

What The Addiction Economy does is exploit these instincts by engineering products and service to be so addictive that dependency is guaranteed. Given an immediate dopamine hit, rationality and will both dissipate into the ether, and the instinct to get another hit of comfort and solace increases.

Bet you can’t eat just one is the entire goal, and it’s easily amplified / weaponized. But just as important as the weaponization is the narrative control of normalizing destructive dependencies: impulsively looking at our phone hundreds of times a day isn’t like an addict seeking a hit; it’s normal. Turning to snacks for dopamine hits isn’t an addiction, it’s normalized. Everyone snacks, all day long.

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