$38,000,000,000,000

[kyredneck]

Tariffs that rebalance trade and bring back industries are an excellent start.

I hope so, looks good right now. The (simple) strategy of 'reciprocal tariffs' could pan out to be quite benign in the long run and benefit the U.S. greatly.

 

[Cathode]

I hope so, looks good right now. The (simple) strategy of 'reciprocal tariffs' could pan out to be quite benign in the long run and benefit the U.S. greatly.

And as for China’s leverage on rare earth minerals.

We have a massive stockpiles of mined rare earth here, and mineral sands, people are excited by the processing plants opening up.
Australia can provide the rare earth minerals America needs I think, we have huge mining and processing industries in place already.

 

[MMDAN]

It took the United States only 2 months and 10 days to increase the national debt from $37 trillion to $38 trillion.

I remember when the national debt was less than $1 trillion.

In 1980 (the year I started high school) the national debt was 908 billion.

 

[MMDAN]

Yea....a dollar just ain't what it used to be anymore.

So true. In Revelation 6:6, we read - And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, (day's wage) and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” That verse seems to indicate a time of scarcity coming when a loaf of bread would cost a days' water, which highlights the economic challenge that will be faced during that time.

 

[Cathode]

So true. In Revelation 6:6, we read - And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, (day's wage) and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.” That verse seems to indicate a time of scarcity coming when a loaf of bread would cost a days' water, which highlights the economic challenge that will be faced during that time.

What it suggests is a fully managed centrally controlled economy, where wages are paid in daily subsistence rations.

Either this will be the result of a miserable communist style takeover or, some great disaster will have taken place destroying food production worldwide and governments will be forced to seize and ration food to their populations to prevent famine.

In the first authoritarian scenario it seems to be an entirely plant based ration. Wheat and barley being mentioned.
Today we see climate Marxists pushing a “plant based “ food diet to save the planet. Stalin starved millions in Ukraine for his political ends.

In the second scenario of a natural disaster causing global famine, we already have historical precedents. The year without a summer in Europe caused by volcanic eruption, ended in crop failure and wide spread famine that killed millions.
Atmospheric particulates blocking out the sun can be caused by volcanism, nuclear war, asteroid impact debris and worldwide fire events.

 

[KenH]

Ken, what are your thoughts about States/Commonwealths that allow the fusion Ballot?

Don't really have an opinion about that kind of fusionism.

I am more interested in the fusionism that used to exist back when I was a kid and as a young adult. The fusionism associated with Frank S. Meyer, and that reached it zenith with the election of 1980 of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States and his reelection in 1984. Meyer advocated both free markets and virtue, while maintaining that virtue could not be enforced by the state but had to be the result of individual, not collective, action. It was a way of uniting elements of the conservative movement and the libertarian movement back then. His book, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, published in 1962, became the lodestar of my philosophy of government. This is my favorite quote from the book:

"The state therefore has two natural functions, functions essential to the existence of any peaceful, ordered society: to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assault, and to judge in conflicts of right with right. It has a further third function, which is another aspect of the first, that is, to protect its citizens from assault by foreign powers. These three functions are expressed by three powers: the police power, which protects the citizen against domestic violence; the military power, which protects the citizen against violence from abroad; and the courts of law, which judge between rights and rights, as well as sharing with the police power the protection of the citizen against domestic violence.
…
But since this institution must possess a monopoly of legal physical force, to give to it in addition any further power is fraught with danger; that monopoly gives to the state so much power that its natural functions should be its maximum functions."

After the fall of the Soviet Union, fusionism continued for a while but during the 2000s started receding. It pretty much no longer exists nowadays.

 

[KenH]

Tariffs that rebalance trade and bring back industries are an excellent start.

I still side with President Ronald Reagan on the subject of tariffs. He did place some narrowly targeted tariffs on Japan, but he was loathed to do even that, for in the long run they hurt American workers and consumers. Here is a five minute radio address President Reagan gave on April 25, 1987:

If standing with people such as Ronald Reagan in support of free markets and free trade make me anachronistic, so be it.

 

[KenH]

People cry Smoot Hawley when the US imposes tariffs but forget that countries imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades have prospered wonderfully.

Would you rather be a consumer in a country that you characterize as "imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades", or a consumer in the United States?

 

[KenH]

Might be time to break dirt on a country farm, grow potatoes and tobacco, get some good mules to pull the plough.

Way back in the 1970s when I was in college, there was a joke among my closest friends about moving to north Arkansas and digging taters.

 

[KenH]

K, so you've spelled out the mess we're in, give some solutions.

My proposal, and I will use rounded numbers to make the math easier, is this:

The yearly deficit is $2 trillion. In year one, reduce spending and/or raise revenue to reduce the yearly deficit by $400 billion to $1.6 trillion. Year two do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $1.2 trillion. Year three do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $800 billion. Year four do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $400 billion. Year five do the same thing to reduce the yearly deficit to $0. And from then on, if the Congress wants to spend more money than current revenue, raise more revenue; or if the Congress wants to reduce revenue below the level of spending, then cut more spending.

 

[Cathode]

I still side with President Ronald Reagan on the subject of tariffs. He did place some narrowly targeted tariffs on Japan, but he was loathed to do even that, for in the long run they hurt American workers and consumers. Here is a five minute radio address President Reagan gave on April 25, 1987:

If standing with people such as Ronald Reagan in support of free markets and free trade make me anachronistic, so be it.

If you practice free market economics and your rivals don’t, you lose and they win.

China had tariffs on America for all the decades America practiced “ Free trade “.

This is why China rose at America’s expense, now China is not just a rival, it’s a threat.

 

[Cathode]

Would you rather be a consumer in a country that you characterize as "imposing tariffs on the US unfairly for decades", or a consumer in the United States?

So a guy goes into a hardware store when tariffs are 110% on China. The Chinese hammer is $180.
Does the guy say ‘I got to spend all this for a hammer, gee inflation is killing us ‘

No, he buys the hammer next to it, made in a country that has a 10% Tariff on it or better yet, he buys an American made hammer with no tariff on it.
Cheaper alternatives show up on the shelves.

Targeted tariffs don’t have to lead to high inflation.

 

[KenH]

If you practice free market economics and your rivals don’t, you lose and they win.

Incorrect. Would you rather be a consumer in the China or in the United States? The American people have been winning over the Chinese people for decades under free market economics compared to the State Capitalism the government of China practices.

China, Europe, etc., are economic competitors, and to whatever extent that they are economic "threats", it is because the United States has been abandoning free market economics during the 21st century. The way to deal with an economic "threat" is for the United States to stop moving toward larger and more intrusive government as it has been doing during the 21st century, and instead heed the quote by Frank S. Meyer in my post #26 above and the radio speech by President Reagan that I posted in my post #27 above.

 

[KenH]

Targeted tariffs don’t have to lead to high inflation.

The classic definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. Restricting trade restricts the amount of goods, so unless the amount of money is also restricted, prices will rise.

This talk about making more stuff in the United States is ignoring that, currently, it takes years to erect a factory and staff it; plus this talk is ignoring the fact that new factories would not be operated by a massive human workforce, but by AI and its robots, with only whatever workforce it required to keep them operating. New factories are not going to be staffed by millions of Americans putting tiny screws into smart phones.

 

[Salty]

I don't think we are talking about the same time I fusion!
I am talking about a fusion ballot where a candidate is on 2 or more party lines.