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I shared an earlier version of my simple summary of tariffs on social media and got a fair amount of negative feedback for it.
But I stand by it! 😉
Some of my critics expressed respectful disagreement, which I always appreciate. After all, the best way to hone one's views and knowledge is to consider opposing points of view.
Their objections, however, were all grounded in misconceptions about what a free market is and how it functions.
That is understandable since all that most people know is what the government and mainstream media say -- and the public discourse treats the term "free market" as though that is the economic system we are currently operating under.
"Free market" is used as a bad word -- like "fascism" or something.
The truth, of course, is that the economic system we currently live under is very far from a free market.
That ought to be obvious to everybody. The Federal Reserve, after all, is a government-legislated private monopoly over the control of the supply of currency.
But the economic "experts" have managed to convince most people that we need the Fed to perpetually rob us of our purchasing power.
There's even a name for that school thought: Keynesianism. (And "Modern Monetary Theory", or MMT, which says things like "deficits don't matter", is just Keynesianism 2.0.)
They then point to all the negative consequences of the current system and blame it on "the free market" -- the proposed solution to which is always even more of the government intervention that caused the problem in the first place, only on an even greater scale.
This, of course, is a logical fallacy.
When you point that fallacy out to people, they often respond with remarks describing my explanation of a true free market as some "utopian" idea that is unobtainable.
That viewpoint seems to be even pretty well entrenched even within the libertarian community, where I would assume my own viewpoint would be universal -- but where I've instead seen some support for Trump's tariffs, or at least an on-the-fence position.
And here is how I would respond to this particular objection:
My hope that humankind might someday become civilized may very well be considered "utopian", but that is not a reason to oppose a civilized society.
I appreciated those types of dialogues with my respectful critics. Of course, there were also those who retorted that I was an "idiot", etc., for not applauding Trump's so-called "Liberation Day", i.e., announcing insane tariffs on the world.
I hope I can reassure you, dear reader, that I am not an idiot. Neither am I claiming to be any kind of expert in economics -- just as I don't claim to be an expert in international affairs, vaccines, the COVID-19 lockdowns, or any of the other issues I've accurately reported about.
My lack of credentialed expertise should hardly be a problem for any of my newsletter subscribers considering the actual track record of the so-called "experts" on all these issues!
(Which contrasts with my own strong track record going back to 2002, when I was accurately warning how the US government was lying about Iraq having WMDs to start an illegal war of aggression for the purpose of regime change.)
I pride myself in having made a career-- as a concerned layperson -- out of debunking the so-called "experts" in whatever area I've chosen to focus my research efforts.
To lend credibility and authoritativeness to my seemingly controversial view of tariffs, let me point out that I did write a book on the Fed's role in the 2000s housing bubble that was praised by none other than the Wall Street Journal-owned financial weekly Barron's as a "must-read" that "conveys more insight into the causes and cures of business cycles than most textbooks".
So, I do know at least a little bit about how the economy functions, and I believe that my views on Trump's tariffs -- and all tariffs -- are worthy of consideration.
I hope you at least agree with that last part! |
