POITOU, FRANCE – President Trump escalated the trade war yesterday, making a kamikaze attack on a vast armada of Chinese imports – $200 billion in total – headed for California.
The Chinese say they will retaliate.
Phony Wars
Last month, we opined that the trade war wouldn’t go any better than Vietnam… or Iraq… or any of the feds’ other phony wars – against drugs, poverty, or terrorists.
It will be expensive, futile… and perhaps disastrous.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t be popular. Wars give the spectators something to live for – us versus them… good guys against bad guys… winners versus losers.
Their hat size swells as their champion wallops the Chinese. Their girth shrinks as he challenges and taunts the Canadians. Their manhood grows when the enemy gives in and admits defeat.
But while this puerile entertainment is taking place in the arena, the real action is going on in the expensive skyboxes, where the elite collude against the fans.
Wars shift resources from the boring and productive win-win deals in the private sector to the magnificently absurd win-lose deals of the feds and their cronies. The only real winner is the Deep State.
Weatherman David
We saw our colleague, former U.S. budget chief under President Reagan, David Stockman, on TV yesterday. The interview was painful to watch.
He was bravely trying to explain the trade deficit and why it was caused by monetary policy, not by trade ramparts that were too low.
But the young, know-it-all newscasters were such numbskulls – so lacking in any experience, theory, or historical perspective – he might as well have been instructing a walrus on how to chew gum. The lesson was in vain.
The three TV experts saw no problem with the trade deficit… and no danger approaching from Trump’s war on it.
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