We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – shining a light into dark places “Yes, Mr. Musk and his young team are seeing confidential government data. But he’s also the second most closely observed person on the planet, the exact opposite of the thousands who already have access to government data and stay invisible until they turn out to be Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Charles Edward Littlejohn or Jack Teixeira. Mr. Musk is said to be causing chaos but government programs are born in chaos—with congressional horse trading and payoffs to appease interest groups.”
– Holman Jenkins, Jr. Wall Street Journal
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I vaguely recall that several years ago the UK government created a database of everything government “service providers” might need to know about the nations children. Including health. There was a small kerfuffle on privacy grounds. The government reassured us that the security was top notch and access was restricted only to authorised users.
No more than about 300,000 people would be given access.
Yes indeed – the American government has used “confidential data” against political opponents since at least the Administration of Woodrow Wilson (more than a century ago) – and the Biden/Harris Administration used such “confidential data” for both political and financial corruption reasons.
Leftists justify their financial corruption with the “I am giving so much money to the poor – I deserve a little bit for myself” argument, an argument not invented by Democrat Mayor Curley of Boston (after which the “Curley Effect” in local government is named – i.e. making people poor by destroying business enterprises with taxes and regulations, so the people will become dependent on government benefits and your vote goes UP), but certainly made famous by Mayor Curley – it was his “interpretation” of a certain Encyclical of 1891 – an interpretation NOT intended by Pope Leo XIII – but sadly popular among modern Bishops and other such (and certainly not just Catholic ones). And this was an “interpretation” that Mr Biden held even as a young man – in blunt language, many years before he was senile Mr Joseph “Joe the Big Guy” Biden was a crook – as were all his associates, they were and are all crooks.
The fact that American media are totally disinterested in the fact that Washington D.C. is dominated by criminals is disturbing – for it shows just how corrupt the American media are.
What Mayor Curley and others never mentioned is that the money they are “giving to the poor” is NOT their own – this is NOT the Christian Virtue of Charity (benevolence) – this is taking money by the threat of violence, using some of it to (supposedly) “help the poor” (the wild spending, taxes and regulations have the effect of increasing poverty over what it otherwise would have been) and keeping the rest.
Sorry media (and “education system”) that this is done for the “Progressive Cause” does NOT make it O.K. – indeed it makes it WORSE. As (see above) the wild spending, taxes and regulations have the effect of increasing (not reducing – increasing) the poverty – over what it would have been.
Most large American cities and many States are being destroyed – it is not just Washington D.C. that is dominated by “Progressive” crooks.
What we get in the United Kingdom is something rather different.
Here, traditionally, statists (i.e. pushing for vastly more spending and taxes) parade their personal honesty and even declare they support free markets, indeed “laissez faire” (which they reduce to meaning free trade – regardless of the amount of statism they support).
For example, both Prime Minister Russell and Sir Charles Trevelyan (India, Ireland, and then creator of the British Civil Service) made a big thing of not taking money from the taxpayers for themselves (rather easy for them – as they were both very wealthy) and proclaimed their support of “laissez faire”
This “laissez-faire” turned out to mean state education spending and “public works” in India, state teacher training and bank bailouts (yes bank bailouts – Peel’s 1844 Act was suspended almost before the ink was dry) in Britain, and a state education system (1831), and crippling Poor Law taxation in Ireland.
Both the 1838 Poor Law Act (a Russell measure – although he was not yet Prime Minister), and the 1847 Poor Law Act (which massively increased the burden in Ireland) were opposed in Ireland – and by many people in the United Kingdom Parliament.
But all this dissent has been shoved down the Memory Hole in British history books – unless you actually read Hansard (the recornd of the proceedings of the House of Commons and House of Lords) you will find none of the dissent – and only fat, bald, nerds who live in Kettering, Northamptonshire, seem to read Hansard.
As far as most people are concerned – the disaster in Ireland was caused by “laissez faire” – and people like Prime Minister Russell and Sir Charles Trevelyan were great supporters of “laissez faire” – as they talked about “free trade” as they taxed entire nations to ruin.
For those who do not know – about a quarter of the population of Ireland either died or fled the country in only a few years. And Property Taxes most certainly do NOT just hit “landowners” – they are passed on and (if very high) crush the entire society.
As for personal information – if you have an Income Tax you have no privacy, it is that brutally simple.
John Bright, perhaps the greatest supporter of free trade in 19th century Britain, understood this.
To use modern language – he denounced what happened in 1842 (the imposition of an Income Tax in the name of “free trade”) as what we would call today a “bait and switch” – an effort by the government to gain information on the people, on all their economic dealings and economic life. Making talk of privacy and civil liberties an illusion.
It is true that Sir Robert Peel promised to get rid of the Income Tax – and perhaps he was quite sincere (we will never know – due to his fall from office and the riding accident that killed him).
Gladstone was sincere in his desire to get rid of the Income Tax – but, as his friend and biographer John Morley sadly pointed out, it was in the lifetime of Gladstone (and partly by things he personally did) that the Income Tax machinary became efficient (straight forward for the government to take as much money as they liked), and, in the 1890s, “Progressive” or “Graduated”.
Chancellor Sir William “we are all socialists now” Harcourt was lying when he wrote about the emotional scene when Gladstone left office – there were no tears (at least not from Gladstone), nor did Gladstone “embrace his friends” – because they were not friends, they had just stabbed him in the back.
When it was clear that Lord Rosebery (who lived to regret, bitterly regret, what he had helped do) and Harcourt had made his position impossible – Gladstone, in reality, left office with “a few cold words” – then he turned on his heal and walked out of the room, showing his contempt for the “friends and followers” who had betrayed not just Gladstone personally, but the rolling back the state principle Gladstone stood for.
As for the United States.
As Elizabeth Trump (a rather tough Bavarian – who controlled the family business after the early death of her husband) told her grandson Donald Trump….
In 1913 the Federal Income Tax was agreed (Elizabeth Trump was in New York – she witnessed the arrival of the Income Tax – and of the officials demanding to know every detail of one’s life) – it was said that it would be very low, and that it would lead to “freer trade”.
Only 20 years later (in peace time) – the top rate of Federal Income Tax was over 60% (that had been accepted by President Hoover – Franklin Roosevelt pushed it even higher) and far from “free trade” the tariff was at an all time high.
The whole thing had been a massive fraud – a vast lie, or scam.
And far from arresting the thieves and rogues that benefited from the Federal Reserve system (also created in 1913 – and it was the Credit Bubble antics of the Federal Reserve in the late 1920s that caused the Great Depression, something that even Milton Friedman seemed to fail to grasp, it is the Credit Money “boom” that leads to the “bust” – the bigger the Credit Money bubble, the bigger the bust) Franklin Roosevelt stole all monetary gold from ordinary people (admittedly some people manage to hide their gold – or smuggle it overseas, but his intention was to steal it all), and violated all contracts – public and private.
For people not brainwashed by the education system and the radio stations (there were no television stations in 1933) it was obvious, as far back as 1933, that the United States Federal Government was a gang of fraudsters and bandits – as were the business interests that were in bed with them.
Paul:
One of the many problems with tariffs is that if, for example, they replaced the Federal Income Tax that became law in 1913, tariffs would have to be enormous. Even the most passionate pro-tariff types would realise this (although some of those who want the US to revert to a siege economic model might like it, and damn the consequences).
Just before 1913, federal spending as a share of gross domestic product was, as this item from the Tax Foundation shows, about 3 per cent. https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/short-history-government-taxing-and-spending-united-states/
It skyrocketed in subseqent decades. US debt as a share of GDP was 3% 120 years ago; it is now over 100%.
To get rid of the Federal IT, which depending on income brackets, goes up to 24%, with a tariff, would, unless Mr Trump manages to slash public spending, and end Medicare, Social Security, much defence spending, and the rest of it, mean any tariff would need to be around 200% or 300% of goods imported to make up the shortfall.
Just as with the Laffer Curve point, the perverse impact of taxing imports this way would hit people in ways they least expect: surging prices for all kinds of items. Manufacturers’ input costs would rise dramatically. Assuming that all these things “should” be made at home (according to whom?), there will be a big diversion of scarce resources to replacing what was imported from a abroad to make them at home. The global division of labour, and all the benefits of specialisation, will be weakened, and at the margin – where all economics is – people get poorer.
If people are annoyed at me for ragging on Trump, MAGA and his cheerleaders of tariffs, so be it. It is one of the worst things about him; it is damaging the US, and won’t do what he claims. Tariffs are based on bad history, a misreading of the past, often justified by bully-boy tactics of dubious use. For instance, arguing that Trump can be mean to countries he does not like and get results ignores that this threatening behaviour can blow back, and won’t work over and over. The evidence of history about tariffs is so crushing that it seems kind of sad to point this out on a blog like this.
If the US or Western governments had tax burdens as low as they were at the turn of the 20th century, then the Trump idea of replacing income tax with a tariff might fly. Today, it is a delusion of Napoleonic scale.
Holman Jenkins should have included Julian Assange in his list.
Trump’s “replace income tax with tariffs” idea is a non-starter, one of his whackier ones, but I really do enjoy his new more-realistic idea of setting reciprocal tariffs against countries charging tariffs against us.
“I’ve decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America,” Trump said in the Oval Office with Howard Lutnick standing by his side. “In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them but those days are over.”
https://x.com/MargoMartin47/status/1890110173731225613?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1890110173731225613%7Ctwgr%5Ecdb244bacc5df00042261738fe148ad6d3883667%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Ftrump-imposes-reciprocal-tariffs-will-also-respond-value-added-taxes
I live in dairy country. We are a short drive from Canada. We cannot sell into Canada because of the killer tariffs.
But no one is complaining about this, making me think that the tariff excitement is really an anti-Trump excitement.
Never heard of a cockroach turning the lights on.
I should have noted – current Canadian dairy tariffs for USA milk are 270%.
I notice the same people crying about this didn’t raise any issues when. Obama wanted to track everyones cell phone calls.
“Yeah, but it’s just metadata”
I’m not as horrified by Trump using tariffs as a foreign policy weapon as are some here, but I don’t think reciprocal tariffs are very smart weapon.
The only thing that can be said for them is that they can reasonably be represented as a tit for a pre-existing tat. If the oppo retaliates, it has to escalate. It can’t retatiate in kind …. because it already has.
That said the effect of Ruritania’s tariff on US pork scratchings may be wildly different from the cost of US retaliatory tariffs on Ruritanian pork scratchings. It may be pinprick v. nuclear strike. or the other way round.
Maybe they’ve selected which foreign tariffs to retaliate against smartly. I hope so.
PS I also hope, as mentioned before, that Trump is not going to get the execrable Canadian Liberals re-elected.
PPS Trump also needs to remember to get rid of his tariffs before the Congressional Budget Office costs his Budget Bill. He’ll need the revenue from reintroducing the tariffs in the Budget Bill, to get the sums right for reconciliation.
I guess I see them as a great PR weapon at this point.
We’ve all been watching as the econ world expresses horror at Trump’s initial “huge” 25% tariff threat against Canada. Migawd, he’ll kill trade!
But no one seems to have publicly spoken the truth that we face a current 270% tariff on some trade into Canada.
A reciprocal tariff will bring the actual numbers into the discussion. At that point, 25% doesn’t seem so huge.
But tariffs aren’t “them charging us, and us charging them” it’s them charging *THEMSELVES* and us charging *OURSELVES*. WTF does Trump think pays tariffs? The person paying to buy the goods. “We’re so pissed by you shooting yourself in the wallet, we have no choice but to shoot ourselves in the wallet in retaliation.”
That’s a comforting misconception jgh. Tariffs increase the cost to the buyer, reducing demand and inducing the buyer to switch to a tariff free substitute. And there’s a tax receipt to the government. Who finishes up worse off and by how much, or occasionally better off is one of those complicated tax incidence questions to which there is no simple answer.
Except that simply saying the buyer bears the whole cost is wrong. Just like saying that corporate income tax is borne entirely by shareholders. It isn’t.
Johnathan Pearce – the central problem is indeed Government Spending, you are correct.
The “common defense and general welfare” (Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution of the United States) is the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers then listed for the Congress – contrary to the demented ravings of past Supreme Court rulings, there is no “general welfare spending power”.
Accept a “general welfare spending power” (rather than limited and specific spending powers for the government) and the government will spend the United States into oblivion – and that is exactly what is happening. The “entitlements” are mad – but no politician (and Donald John Trump is a politician) can touch them now.
As for the one TRILLION Dollars spent every year on the National Debt – well, as you know, I detest the fiat (command, order, whim) monetary system – it is utterly evil and perverse, BUT it does have one advantage.
Under a fiat money system there is no need, none, for a National Debt – it is utterly mad to create money from nothing, lend it out to the “financial industry” and borrow it back again at a higher rate of interest.
It would create no more inflation to create the money (from nothing) and spend it, than it does to create the money (from nothing), lend it out to the “financial industry” and borrow it back again at a higher rate of interest.
To have BOTH a fiat money system (with all the evil that goes with that – such as the Cantillon Effect enriching a small corrupt elite at the expense of everyone else) AND a national debt – makes no sense, none. The 36 TRILLION American government debt serves no good purpose – there is, under a fiat money system, no justification for it.
It is the worst of both worlds.
Again I do NOT support a fiat money system – but for the establishment to have both a fiat money system AND a national debt is beyond perverse.
They are rejecting the one advantage of their own fiat money system – the advantage that it means there is no need for a national debt, and no need to spend a TRILLION Dollars a year servicing this thing.
Lee Moore: It doesn’t encourage the buyer to switch to a tariff-free substirute, it encourages the buyer to switch to a *CHEAPER* substitute. But the functioning of tariffs means there is no cheaper sustitute, the consumer just ends up paying more.
Before:
Patriotic America widgets, $10 per pound
Traitorous Canadian widgets, $5 per pound
Consumer buys Canadian widgets.
After:
Patriotic America widgets, $10 per pound
Traitorous Canadian widgets, $5 per pound plus $5 tariff
Consumer pays $10 for either American widgets or Canadian widgets. Consumer worse off.
Try harder, damn those Canuks:
Patriotic America widgets, $10 per pound
Traitorous Canadian widgets, $5 per pound plus $10 tariff, that’ll show them.
Consumer buys $10 for Amerian widgets in preference for $15 Canadian widgets. Consumer worse off.
Patriotic American Widget Co realises they can make more money by pricing up to the competition. PAWCo charges $15 per widget.
Consumer pays $15 for either American widgets or Canadian widgets. Consumer worse off.
Eventually, Consumer says F*** this for a game of soldiers and stops buying Widgets. PAWCo and CanukiWidge both go bankrupt.
You have a very poor opinion of the people making the pricing decisions in the US. No one is going to say “yay, no more Canadian widgets, we can triple our prices!” They still have to attract buyers, and discourage new US widgetmakers who see a new opening.
jgh – As your After and Try harder illustrations show – the tariffs inflict harm on the traitorous Canuk widgetmakers and the equally traitorous Canuk government. The blow does NOT land entirely on the patriotic American consumer.
And in all of your examples there are Americans who win. The producers and the government (in tax revenues.) Not to mention the smugglers 🙂
It may be that eventually the high tariffs and lack of acceptable home production will simply abolish the market for widgets, so there’s no sales, no purchases and no tariff receipts. But even then the cosh has landed a blow on those traitorous Canuks. Your original thesis was that tariffs are dumb because the blow lands only on patriotic Americans.
But it doesn’t – it lands also on traitorous Canuks. Nobody claims that American consumers are better off – the claim is that the wicked furriners are worse off. Whether it’s a good weapon depends on who suffers how much pain and how sturdy their constitution is. If the pain to the Americans is worse, and the Canuks can take the pain without flinching, then the tariffs will not be a good weapon.
You need to leap outside your economics textbook and thnk of it as war. In a war both sides suffer. The question is – what’s the balance of suffering ? Who suffers most and so is most likely to offer concessions to stop the pain ? So far IIRC Panama, Colombia, Mexice and Canada have indicated that they prefer less pain, even in advance of any actual pain being administered.
No doubt it wil be harder to frighten the Chinese.