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For this (very) rare Sunday Ricochet Podcast, we’ve assembled our original cast as Rob Long, Peter Robinson, and James Lileks gather ’round their respective audio capture devices to chat about current events. Also stopping by, That Sethany Show hosts Seth and Bethany Mandel (the latter is of course also a Ricochet Editor and a member of The LadyBrains Podcast). Guns and due process, trade tariffs, kids and politics, the Oscars are all on the docket in this wide ranging conversation. Listen in!
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@blueyeti heads up, @sethmandel is listed as a guest but @bethanymandel isn’t.
Holy mackerel – I do the egg equilibrium thing as well, and for the same reason.
Ok.. quoting a moral philosopher who is quite correct about much is still nothing more than a theoretical position. The point is: empirically are there actual net benefits to the society as a whole – including the effect on all other systems – from the policies? Moreover, the context of 1776 is quite different than today. In Smith’s era non-free trade was not a 25% tariff, but enforcing trade restrictions in which colonies were only permitted to trade with the home country and were not allowed to trade with other colonies – particularly of other powers upon pain of death. European Powers, for example, limited colonies to selling their raw products only through Royal agents or monopolies and to purchasing manufactured goods through similar agents. Their technology made transportation costs very high and physical capital was immobile. How does that relate to our current situation except that one can use the same term (“Free Trade”) to represent what are now things so different in degree as to be different in kind?
On EconTalk you can find a reexamination of the work of David Ricardo in the true context of the tariffs with respect to France & Portugal (from memory circa 2007-09) – an instrument of war policy, not economic. And today’s interview with Nassim Taleb might cause one to think that maximizing short-term economic returns through putting much of a nation’s industrial capacity on the other side of the world in the hands of its ideological enemies from a distinct civilization is putting its survival at risk, which means it will not survive on some time scale. #SkinInTheGame
Exactly, except: as he described it, he takes eggs from each end to balance the carton. The better method is to take eggs from the center so that the perimeter of the carton remains filled because that provides balance, a greater rotation inertia (greater resistance to spinning than having eggs in the center), and greater rigidity where you grasp the carton from the body of the eggs.
Clearly, he’s not an engineer.
As I’ve stated previously in the context of why Trump won and another Ideological FreeTrader Republican would not have:
But, it is less likely that a Free Trade Ideologue would make the appeal for using government policy to encourage domestic employment instead of doing the standard “Free Trade always and everywhere makes our lives better….’and who cares if someone is employed in Podunk, Ohio’ [Ben Shapiro on….somebody’s podcast recently…I think Joe Rogan]” Mainstream Conservative schtick that would NOT have won WI, MI, or PA…and possibly not Ohio. This is a long and complicated…dare I say “nuanced”?….discussion, but whether it is ideologically correct, economically correct, Rights-of-Man correct to have virtually tariff-free importation of manufactured goods (along with what had been unrestricted immigration of manual laborers), it has helped to lose Presidential elections in the middle of the country.
Yes, Bastiat put The Tariff alongside Slavery as twin sins of the American Founding in “The Law”…in what he finds an otherwise admirable state. But, you know what is really destructive of human liberty? The Income Tax, the IRS…and the vast majority of the federal bureaucracy. The nation developed quite well under the Republican Tariffs at the end of the 19th. Circa 1915 excise taxes were 50% of federal tax revenue and tariffs ~30%; there was no federal income tax.
Jonah always liked to throw out the “every civilization is continually invaded by barbarians; we call them ‘children.’” You know what civilizes a man? Work. All the welfare programs in the world do not civilize humans like productive work….in fact, they are on the whole destructive of civilization…they barbarize the recipients and their children.
Yes, the robots are going to take all the jobs away!!!!!!!! But in the meantime, adjusting laws, regulations, and policies to INCENTIVIZE domestic production and domestic employment of citizens* – NOT giving jobs, paying rent seekers, selectively placing trade restrictions only on politically connected sectors (e.g. Ag), selectively lowering taxes – is a popular program that sets up a virtual cycle of organic civilizing of citizens and making them more productive and less dependent on government handouts. Lowering the corporate tax rate was a great step towards making production in the US more attractive.
In my experience in a major manufacturer, the decisions to move products from Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina to Mexico were made for marginal cost reductions….a few percent here and there overall improvement because of the lower labor rates.
*because as much as the “smart” people like to talk about how much better immigrants are than lazy, stupid, drug-addled Americans, we’re stuck with each other.
I can vouch for the prior one too, from last summer. 1000% must listening.
Anything but a consumption tax is unmanageable in the long run. Congress points a gun to our head and auctions off rates and deductions. Madness. Central planning by prostitutes.
The structure of our financial system, the Federal Reserve, and the government, favors the left all the time. Especially now. Complexity is a menace to conservatives and the libertarians.
Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of the Fed dual mandate but couldn’t because the priority was burying the Soviets. Bush 41 should’ve done it the second the Soviet Union fell and NAFT was passed. A million things would’ve taken care of themselves.
David Stockman says we need to wipe out the fiction of FICA taxation. That’s part of his approach to undo all of this stupidity.
I thought it was “ichor,” an ethereal fluid flowing in the veins of the gods.
Been happily married for 33 years and raised 3 kids. Don’t think I’ve ever had to “sandwich”. Sounds like a lot of work.
#MeToo
Sorry guys, old-school movies are good. Traditional storytelling is good.
Kramer vs. Kramer was fine. And I lament the loss of movies like that. But the real loss has been the loss of mid-budget genre movies like Chinatown, Body Heat, Marathon Man, Rosemary’s Baby, Double Indemnity, Shane, The Sting, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Out of the Past, Casablanca, Witness for the Prosecution, etc.
And no, those stories are not being told on TV now, Rob, because TV is just not the same as film.
Some stories need to have a beginning, a middle, an end and — most crucially of all — need to be told in a 90 minute-2 hour time frame.
TV has its own imperatives. And some long-form TV is genuinely great. But even the best long-form TV (yes, even The Wire, The Crown, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, and Game of Thrones) doesn’t resonate the way the best 2 hour movies do.
The egg thing drives me NUTS. I’m constantly having to take out the eggs to see how many are left.
I checked out “Babylon Berlin” @jameslileks, and was hooked after the first episode. Thanks and glad you mentioned it in the podcast. Have you watched Netflix’s other German import, “Dark”?
This is how Our Rulers should proceed on everything. They never have, and they never will. So it will get worse.
Free Trade is a universal concept which brings benefits to all humans in every era. In fact, a good bit of The Wealth of Nations is about ancient Rome.
So, you read the Smith and you read my link to the shorter encyclopedia entry. But you still don’t see the empirical evidence of free trade all around you?
I admit that finding examples of free trade actually being practiced among the world’s nations is not that easy, and it’s even harder to identify specific empirical evidence of gains or benefits since I’m not an expert. But what are the United States of America if not a gigantic free trade regime? If you can’t see the countless benefits for all of the hundreds of millions of people who practice free trade among our 50 states, try imagining how much would be lost if free trade were diminished in various ways. For example, what if California set the motor vehicle emissions standards for all our automobiles and trucks nationwide? Oh… wait…
You are overstating this in the context of the current global economic situation and how corrupt and cartel-ized even our economy is. It never mattered before robots, NAFTA, and China opening up.
The deplorables are swallowing opioids and voting for Trump because we are too stupid, corrupt, and scared to make it free enough for them to have enough agency and prosperity to stop swallowing opioids and voting for Trump.
I’ve got nothing lofty to add about eggs or free trade, but I’ve also been watching the show with German subtitles. I’ve enjoyed looking at the imagined atmosphere of 1929 Berlin, which seems about right, whatever mystery Lotte will ultimately solve per the story itself.
What?
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/steel-production
I have chickens and ducks. No egg problem here :)