This is how tariffs work. They make superior offers less desirable for buyers by making them more costly. The result is that buyers end up with goods and services that, absent the tariff, they would not want to buy.
Tag: history
The First Rule of AIPAC Is: You Do Not Talk about AIPAC
For decades, howling “antisemitism” any time the matter came up proved an effective tactic for shutting down public discussion of the “special relationship” under which Israel receives lavish foreign aid subsidies, effective control of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and lately even state (and pending federal) legislation requiring government contractors to sign loyalty oaths to Israel’s government. The Israeli lobby’s power to prevent that discussion seems to be slipping, however. Why?
Who Owns You?
The problem is not this or that regulation. Nor is the problem even the FDA itself. The root problem is the government’s claim to jurisdiction over so-called “public health.” The ultimate question is: who owns you? The answer will determine who is to be in charge of health.
Technological Unemployment: A Self-Test
Normal people worry about technological unemployment. Economists keep telling them to relax, but to little avail. You can’t trust a coven of eggheads, can you? Rather than rehash the textbook arguments, let me propose an easy way for the public to test its own understanding.
In the Grain
Jeff Riggenbach points out that European civilization in the North American new world was founded by two distinct types of adventurer, the first sought freedom from the old order, while the second sought to impose a new order. We Americans, as a people have been in fundamental conflict ever since.
Judicial Secrecy: Where Justice Goes to Die
The traditional depiction of Lady Justice is a woman wearing a blindfold to demonstrate impartiality. In her right hand she wields a sword (symbolizing swift punishment for the guilty). Her left arm holds aloft a scale to weigh the opposing sides’ cases — publicly, for all to see. Over time, American judges have become increasingly inclined to demand that the public itself wear the blindfold, and that the opposing parties wear gags.
What’s Historic?
One of the main goals of history is to create enough psychological distance (and hindsight!) to sift the fundamental from the ephemeral. But doing this is easier said than done.
Hypocrites Oppose Peaceful Migration (11m) – Episode 284
Episode 284 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: how simple and cheap it is to start your very own podcast on the Everything-Voluntary.com podcast network; an article he wrote in July 2018 titled, “People Leave if They Can, And You’re People”; humanity’s history of migration; why you should leave if your environment becomes intolerable; and more.
“Second Shutdown” Theatrics: Heads Trump Wins, Tails America Loses
Unless Congress and the Trump administration reach a new spending deal by February 15, the federal government will go back into “partial shutdown” status. As of February 10, congressional negotiators seem to be nearing agreement on a deal that includes about $2 billion in funding for President Trump’s “border wall” project. Trump, as before the recent shutdown, is seeking $5.7 billion.
A Preference for Peace: Not the Same Thing as Support for the Bogeyman of the Week
I’m not ashamed to admit it: I’m a peacenik. I think war is a bad thing. I’ve seen it up close and personal as an infantryman, and I’d like to see less of it, preferably none at all, either up close or from a distance. In part, this desire also makes me a “non-interventionist.” That is, in a world with 195 “sovereign nations,” it makes sense that the political officials in each one should mind his or her own state’s business and not try to decide who gets to run the other 194, or how they should do so.