Trade Wars

Immigration and free trade.  Two shibboleths that have fueled our nation’s economy for decades.  The vaunted economics department at the University of Chicago drilled those concepts into me.  A growing population and free trade are essential to a prosperous nation.   Most of us that have even a cursory grounding in economics have accepted, adhered and defended those ideas more readily than we have the 10 Commandments.   Just a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of having lunch with Deirdre McCloskey, libertarian and U of C trained economist that specializes in economic history (I highly recommend her recent book, Bourgeois Equality- a readable tome on economic history).  Commenting on Trump’s threatened imposition of tariffs, she simply stated, “It’s just stupid.”  In general, I have been in total agreement that free trade is good--as most economically literate people have.  

Free trade has undoubtedly enriched us.  The trouble with free trade, however, is twofold.  First, it does create some net losers, as companies turn to the cheapest sources.  According to McCloskey, 14% of jobs disappear per year permanently.  Second, not everyone plays by the same rules.  There is great temptation to “cheating” by subsidizing your own industries and erecting barriers to entry for the other guy.  But as a general matter, immigration (which I will deal with later) and free trade have been pillars of our prosperity.

But now comes Donald Trump to tap on the breaks and in his inimical style has caused even devotees like myself to put asterisks next to those concepts, and made me rethink them as absolutes.

With respect to free trade, I still remain a free trader and I have a natural aversion to the tariffs that Trump has proposed.   But I am no longer quite as doctrinaire.  “Free trade” is not an altogether straightforward thing.  Barriers to trade can be erected through various mechanisms:  tariffs, quotas,  product requirements, and subsidies.   All effect the way a market operates.  Our European allies have used all of them, which is part of the reason Trump has targeted them.   And we don’t always have unclean hands either.   For instance, we provide plenty of subsidies to our farmers.   The EU is notorious for doing protectionism through product requirements--- specifying, say, the exact required length and dimension of an imported banana.  Canada has a number of tariffs on products as well, and while tariffs might be a blunt instrument to get barriers in all forms lowered, Trump is correct to call out the EU and Canada on them.

China, however, is another matter.  Free trade is uncoerced, voluntary exchanges for value.  The most basic trade is your trip to the grocery store.  You give the store money and in exchange you get your groceries.  The exchange relieves you of the chore of picking your own beans, slaughtering your own cow, or milling your own flour.  And the store gets money.  It’s a great exchange.

But assume that every 4^th trip or so, the store owner sent his employees out to the parking lot and stole the tires from your car.  You probably wouldn’t want to shop there anymore.  But this is what China has been doing.  And as intellectual property is one of our main competitive products, protecting our rights is paramount.  If China interdicted some of our ships and forcibly took the goods, it would be a casus belli.   It would make them no different than Somali pirates.   Yet the value that the Chinese have stolen far exceeds what the Somali pirates have taken.  Outright theft, along with coercive measures like conditioning a U.S. company’s entrance into the Chinese market on transferring its intellectual property to a Chinese owned entity.

The Chinese have hacked our military repeatedly.  Most recently, it was reported that the Chinese hacked a U.S. military contractor and stole sensitive missile and submarine data.  Their fighter looks identical to the SU-27.   They have infiltrated the New York Times and most egregiously, stole personnel files from the OPM.  Many defense experts believe that the core technological leaps of the Chinese military over the past decade or so have been pilfered from the U.S.

Good trading partners do not steal each others’ stuff.

Most credible economists assert that Trump’s focus on the trade deficit is wrongheaded.  The trade deficit itself is a fairly meaningless number.  I agree.  I also agree that protectionism is a bad policy and that on balance more jobs will be lost than gained, especially if it devolves into a trade war.

But viewed as a tactic, threatening tariffs is a risky but not altogether irrational move.   This is especially the case with respect to China, but also may get some movement out of other global players.   I do not regard poking China in the eye with any regret.   China has manipulated its currency, subsidized its industry and effectively blocked many U.S. companies from its markets.   Its financial system permits companies laden with debt to operate far longer than U.S. banks would.  The West operated under the assumption that by letting China into the WTO, China would become a responsible trading partner.  Even the great Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama asserted as recently as a couple of years ago that a richer middle class in China would begin to assert itself and demand more freedom.   But the opposite has happened.   China has become more authoritarian, more aggressive and more militaristic.  At home, it has become a surveillance superstate.  Outliers like John Mersheimer were warning that a rich China is not good for the world.

Trump tweeted out that he would like to see a removal of ALL trade barriers.   Perhaps whacking China with tariffs is the only way to get its attention.  We’ve had a couple of decades in which nothing else has really worked. 

The More Things Change.....

Who would have thought that in a single week, we could have peace on the Korean peninsula and a border war with Canada?

But that’s about where we stand right now.

With all the noise from the MSM, it’s difficult to tease apart what has actually occurred, the importance of it, and what the likely outcomes will be.

First, with North Korea.   The world stood amazed as an American president met face-to-face with a leader from the Hermit Kingdom for the first time in 70 years.   It was hard not to feel hopeful after threats of nuclear war were exchanged only a few months ago.  The meeting (that only a few weeks before Trump almost quashed) came with much fanfare, and a worldwide sigh of relief. 

But what did it really accomplish?  The reaction from the media and “experts” is so divided that it is difficult to gain any clarity and I will try to do so.

As for the meeting itself, it was brief—only a few hours longs, so that you know that there was very little actual negotiation going on.   As I read the body language, Kelly looked very taut and nervous, Trump formal and businesslike, and Pompeo smiled through the whole thing.   Overall, the atmosphere looked forced.   While Kim Jung Un’s opening statement was appropriate and carefully worded, the meeting itself produced only a single bullet point vaguely worded statement of intentions that omitted the words  “irreversible” and “verifiable” before the word “denuclearization.”

Immediately afterwards, Trump announced that he could trust Kim Jung Un, that he would cease military exercises on the Korean peninsula, and that the nuclear threat from North Korea had ended. 

Color me very skeptical.   While I applaud Trump’s efforts at a new approach to North Korea after 70 years of failure, the summit has given me nothing of substance to tell me that the only concrete outcome of the summit was to implicitly recognize North Korea as a nuclear power.   Yes, for now, the immediate threat of war has receded, but nothing that has been publicly disclosed has given me any indication that we are any closer to denuclearizing North Korea.  

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a debate at the University of Chicago between a supporter of Trump’s foreign policy and an opponent.   Both made excellent points on a number of issues.  Yet the most irrefutable point is the near impossibility of verification.  We simply do not know where all the North Korean sites, how many warheads they possess, and it is unlikely that the Hermit Kingdom would permit inspections that were intrusive enough to find out. 

Certainly, it is possible—even likely—that there is much going on behind the scenes about which we are unaware.    And it’s a good thing that tensions seem to have relaxed some.  North Korea returned some hostages, destroyed one nuclear site, has ceased missile testing and has made progress toward returning the remains of U.S. soldiers from the Korean War.  But these are token gestures.  In return, we legitimized the regime (and Trump has even lavished praise on Kim Jung Un).   The cessation of military exercises is a huge concession, both to North Korea and China, which has long chafed under U.S. military presence.

The Left has cheered every time Trump appears to have taken a wrong turn.  When it looked like Trump was going to cancel the summit, a chorus of “I told you so’s” went up.   Trump supporters were ready to award Trump the Nobel Peace Prize for agreeing to the summit.   In my view, both positions are premature.   It will take awhile to determine where this is all headed.  But in terms of what concrete objectives each side achieved, it is pretty clear that Kim Jung Un won this round handily and bigly--- assuming there is nothing material that is nonpublic that we have achieved. 

I was harshly critical of the Obama administration for its negotiation of JPCOA.    Likewise, I slammed John Kerry and his absurd speech in Cuba, “This is what change looks like.”    I fumed at the rough treatment of our only reliable ally in the Middle East—Israel—by the Obama administration. 

The Obama foreign policy often seemed to embrace dictators and alienate our friends.  He gave concessions up front and did not hold adversaries accountable.

But after a week in which Trump insulted Trudeau, lavished praise on Kim Jung Un, got nothing concrete in return and pushed for Russia to be allowed to return to the G7,  it’s possible that Trump and Obama are more alike than it would at first appear.

Bye bye Elite Women's Athletics

Who put these people in charge?

The tyrannical Left is tramping through our gender and sexual mores like Godzilla through Tokyo, bullying, coercing, stomping and knocking things over wherever it goes.  And if you so much as raise questions about it, you get labelled a homophobe, trans-phobe, or, gasp--- a defender of the Patriarchy.

Title IX was passed to rebalance inequities in athletics, addressing the disparity between the resources devoted to boys and men’s sports and women’s sports.  Title IX did have some negative side effects.  It was devastating to men’s “minor” sports like wrestling as schools cut those programs to achieve some sort of parity.  But opportunities for women improved greatly since its passage and while women’s sports do not yet have the attendance or generate the money that the men’s sports do—particularly in basketball and football, the opportunities and quality of play have vastly improved since Title IX’s passage.  Women’s basketball, soccer, hockey look nothing like they did 30 years ago.   The game, the skill level of the players, the talent is at an entirely different level.

But the Left has taken Title IX, and twisted it beyond all recognition.  It is being being used to destroy women’s sports and reverse all of the progress that has been made, and along with it, reset sexual relationships among men and women on campus—all without a vote or discussion.  It has done so through diktat and coercion.

In  Connecticut this week, transgender athletes won the state title in the 100 and 200 meter girls track events (one of them breaking a record).  In 2017, a biological male won state titles in two track events in Connecticut. Last year, a transgender won the Texas state girls wrestling title.   Internationally, biological males have won powerlifting championships in women’s divisions.  Occurrences like this are becoming more and more common and will continue to proliferate.    Transgender or gender dysphoria, affecting a tiny proportion, has now developed an outsized influence on our society.  The transgender/gender fluidity movement of has gone from its original aim—to halt or minimize unfair discrimination, bullying, or marginalizing to elbowing its way into the mainstream, which it is not.   Progressivism, which helped to pass Title IX and advance women’s sports is now threatening to destroy elite women’s athletics.

The Left has decided that the “rights” of this tiny minority of the population deserves to be elevated and should take priority over the rights and lifestyles of girls and women.  To become a state champion in track and field requires hours and hours over years of hard, grueling training, discipline, attention to diet, and lifestyle changes.   Often, it requires financial sacrifice and sacrifice on the part of an entire family.   It often takes financial sacrifice as well.  Parents hire private coaches, cart athletes off to camps and clinics, as well as travel to and from meets, which often take time and expense.   Competing at the elite level means that these girls do not have a “normal” life.   If schools and associations are going to permit biological males to compete and unfairly deprive girls and young women of the opportunity to win, why do it?  Why go through all this?   Why suffer through the fatigue, the hard work, the sacrifice when you cannot be champion?  Competitive girls will start to turn their energies elsewhere where they can flourish and be successful.    Why would an elite female athlete compete when the best she can do is 2^nd or 3^rd place?

The progressive Left has been on quite a roll lately.   It has decided that Boy Scouts should not be limited to boys, and has allowed girls to become members, depriving boys of a limited space in our society in which they can, without the pressure of girls around, learn to become men.  And just this week, the Miss America beauty pageant decided to do away with the beauty part of the pageant, because in their minds it “objectifies” women. Forget that the beauty of the human form has been a subject of artists for hundreds of years.

No Boy Scouts.  No Miss America Pageant.  And in the not-too—distant future, the top echelon of women’s athletics will no longer be for women.

Had enough progress, yet?

Inversions, Hypocrisies and Absurdities

It’s been a tough few weeks for Western Civilization, with morality inverted and hypocrisy spreading like the plague.   I will be seeing Jonah Goldberg give a talk on his book, The Suicide of the West, but I could probably have written the preface for him.

I will start with where I left off last week—with the Jesuits.  As I mentioned last week, the Vatican delivered a stinging critique of capital markets, yet has completely ignored the election of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, the vote to legalize abortion in Ireland, and is hosting a “climate c.   To top it off Jesuit priest Father Martin tweeted out this in response to President Trump calling members of the vicious gang MS-13 “animals.”

No one is an animal.  Every person has infinite human dignity, including the worst criminals.  Calling people “animals” led to genocide in Nazi Germany, where Jews were “vermin” and in Rwanda were Tutsi’s were “cockroaches” and is sinful.

Father Martin makes a number of slippery and dangerous error in moral thinking when he compares Jews and Tutsis to MS-13.   The first and most obvious one is that he fails to distinguish between predator and prey.   Jews and Tutsis were the innocent victims of the Nazis and Hutus, respectively.  MS-13 are the predators.   Second, Jews and Tutsis were slaughtered because they happened to be of a certain ethnic class.  Membership in MS-13 is voluntary and is formed FOR THE SPECIFIC PURPOSE of causing lawlessness, murder and mayhem within civilized society.   To say that MS-13 is anything other than a blight on humanity is to spit in the face of humanity itself.  These people torture and kill, murder children, gut people like game, all with no remorse.   Father Martin’s statement, along with Nancy Pelosi’s comment that they have a “spark of divinity” is a perversion of the moral order of the worst kind.  MS-13 needs to be banished from our society completely and utterly and Trump’s statement was an accurate one. 

Next, we have the issue with Tommy Robinson in Great Britain.   Robinson was arrested last week and jailed for reporting on the “grooming gangs” in Britain, packs of Muslims that repeatedly torture and gang rape young women.  Not only was Robinson arrested but the judge put a gag order forbidding the press to talk about it (since lifted).   Now, I don’t know a lot about Robinson, other than that he has, like Pat Condell, been an activist against the Islamization of Great Britain, speaking out against some of the aspects of Muslim culture that has popped up across Europe—push for Sharia law, no-go zones, persecution of women’s and gay rights, and the material increase in rapes that have accompanied Muslim immigration.  He has been called a “thug,” and “knuckle-dragger,” and an “extremist” by the Left.   Across Europe, the authorities have suppressed the facts and figures and have downplayed the havoc resulting from mass immigration from Islamic countries.   Europeans are beginning to push back.  Denmark banned the burka and niqua.  Denmark is considering a bill to ban the “call to prayer.”   Former Eastern block countries have taken a stand against Merkel’s unlimited immigration policy.    The most pernicious part about Britain’s jailing of Tommy Robinson, whatever you think of him, is the State’s silencing of him.   Citizens need to know about the consequences of the policies of their government on their society.   Europe has kept its citizens in the dark on immigration (the US government has too, although more facts are coming to light), and the facts are not all good, and some are downright ugly and scary.

The U.N., always the standard bearer for peace and justice in the world, elevated Assad’s Syria to head the U.N. Disarmament Commission.   The only thing I could think of that might be more perverse would be to pardon Bernie Madoff and nominate him to head the S.E.C.  Not only that, but we learned yesterday that Kim Jung Un will meet with Assad.   The only open question is whether they will be discussing North Korean disarmament or whether Little Rocket Man is seeking to rent temporary warehouse space for his nukes.

Trump hatred has hit a fever pitch, with Never Trumpers cheering when Trump canceled the North Korean summit (which is now apparently back on).  They couldn’t hide their glee that Trump’s initiative with the North Koreans was teetering on the brink of failure, and even foreign policy expert Richard Haass couldn’t control himself and sent out an “I told you so” tweet.   The hatred runs so deep that one gets the impression that they would view a disarmed North Korea and a path to reunification as more catastrophic than war on the Korean peninsula.

Here at home, both Starbucks and the N.F.L. blamed Trump for their racial woes.  

And, of course, Roseanne’s tweet took up a great deal of media and social media time, with the Left making claims that Roseanne’s racist tweet represented the views of all Trump supporters, while all the while folks like Samantha Bee were used the kind of language to denigrate Ivanka Trump that the Left found so repulsive when Donald Trump used it.

We learned that the U.S. government is hard at work keeping us safe as the U.S. Geological Service issued a warning that it is not safe to toast marshmallows in the fissures of the lava flow in Hawaii.

And, finally, the University of Cincinnati is dealing with a first-of-its-kind case under Title IX.   As you know, college campuses have been wrestling with consent issues and resulting litigation since the Obama administration issued its guidance letter, essentially shifting the burden to men in sexual assault cases, giving rise to a myriad of proof and due process issues.   At the University of Cincinnati, both parties claimed sexual assault after a drunken rendezvous.   So, in a novel (or maybe more common than you think) occurrence case, we may have mutual nonconsent.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder.