Conventional Wisdom

 

Milton Friedman once opined that "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."  He hadn't seen an 'edge case', but we have.  It's analogous to Einstein's revelation that, at speeds approaching c, mass increases and time contracts.  Within limits, Newtonian physics works fine;  beyond those limits, it's a different universe entirely.

'Conventional wisdom' holds that tariffs cause inflation.  The mechanism is that tariffs are a tax paid to the government of the importer and which raise the price of imported goods to the consumer.  This doesn't cause inflation per se because the government is being funded via the tax, but it provides cover for domestic producers to raise prices.  Thus, things appear to be getting more expensive, but the inflation is merely 'apparent'.  The extra money that the consumer is paying is being funnelled straight back into the consumer economy, but in a different place.  Producers are subsidized by the tariff, and this creates an incentive to produce.

What happens if the foreign seller considers "the opportunity to sell within your market" to be too valuable to risk losing it?  The answer is that the foreign seller will 'eat' the tariff to keep the price to the importer low.  In that case, the ultimate consumer doesn't see prices of either domestic or imported products rise, and there is no apparent inflation.

For the longest time, my wife, an ardent big-government fan, would point to Europe:  "They have universal healthcare; they have 6-month paid maternity leave; they start work at 9am, not 7am, and they take 2-hour lunches, and pack it in at 4pm; they have ..."  and I never had an answer as to why we didn't have the same 'advantages' as Europeans.

Now I have an answer.  After WW-II, the U.S. instituted 'The Marshall Plan', a device meant to get European economies back on their feet after the unspeakable destruction of the war.  One feature of the plan was that we, the U.S., agreed to eat the tariffs Europe imposed on goods imported from the States, and that European governments could fund themselves with — essentially — a huge monetary gift amounting to Billions of dollars each year — for 80 years.  At the same time, we minimally tariffed European imports, just enough to cover the cost of customs inspections.

Along comes Trump whose economics education was imparted in conference rooms where contracts and architectural drawings littered the main table.  He understands 'leverage' perhaps better than any Chief Executive this country has ever had.  He sees The Marshall Plan and realizes his country is getting a very poor deal, not because of any trade imbalance, but because of a huge tariff-imbalance.  In an ideal world, a world in which 'free trade' actually exists, there would be no tariffs, or they would be small enough to be considered economically insignificant.  Alas, that is not the world we live in.

It is said that nothing squeals louder or longer than the brakes on The Gravy Train.

Every European government (with a few exceptions) hate Trump, and they hate him for one reason:  he has not simply applied the brakes to the gravy train, he's derailed it.  Suddenly, the billions of dollars that funded zero-carbon industrial policy, 6-month paid maternity leave, and universal health care has dried up, not over the course of decades, but over the course of months.  European governments have taken a huge economic 'hit' and they're feeling the pinch.  Not only are their tariff revenues shrinking, but their industries are now disadvantaged by U.S. tariffs on their products, and Americans are now feeling pressure to avoid those high-priced imports.  Their annual tariff benefit, that previously could be injected into their consumer side, has largely disappeared.

The same thing is happening with pharmaceuticals.  Trump has insisted that the American consumer get the best deal on imported pharma.  Where previously a pharma manufacturer could low-ball the price to (say) India and make up the difference by charging Americans the highest prices across all markets because "they're rich; they can afford it", now if India is getting it for seven cents a dose, so will we.  Where will pharma make up the difference now?  The short answer is that everyone is going to be paying $1.45 per dose.  We're not going to be treated better than anyone else;  we're going to be treated the same as everyone else.  We're getting Most Favored Nation prices... because we are, in economic terms, the most valued nation.  We have the most valuable consumer economy anywhere.  Producers cannot afford to lose access to the American market.  Europe can't, and Canada can't.  Mexico has already figured that out and they are frantically working at making a deal with us.

And this is where the Newtonian tariff rules come smack up against Einsteinian tariff rules:  If a foreign producer loses access to the U.S. consumer, the economic consequences could be fatal, and they know it.  They cannot afford the hit to the P&L that accompanies it, so they now absorb the tariff; they do not force the importer to write that check; they write the check for the importer, and they move lots of product through Customs.

Trump, realizing the importance of the American consumer, has leveraged our eagerness to consume into an economic boom-time.  The Dow-Jones Index crossed 50,000 this week.  It was 41,700-something on Election Day 2024.  That's an almost-20-percent jump in 14 months of Trump.  He has, not to put too fine a point on it, rewritten the rules, and established a new 'conventional wisdom'.

Now watch the Democrats fuck it up.

 

Have You Met Amelia?

 

The socialist, Islamophilic British government, smarting from fresh criticism over arresting 12,000 of His Majesty's subjects for unlawful tweeting, launched a propaganda program aimed at British youth: 'Pathways', an online 'game' in which the main character, Charlie, is being subverted by a Goth chick, Amelia, (blue hair, black velvet choker, pink mini-dress, purple cardigan) into rejecting his new neighbors from third-world countries.   The game has students trying to help Charlie defend against the verbal assaults of the hateful poisonous far-right Islamophobic revanchist Amelia.

Oddly, reaction from the actual students to the program content seems to be that they consider Amelia's opinions and positions to be common-sensical.

Oops...

Overnight, content creators have materialized Amelia into a modern-day British equivalent to Joan of Arc, but the government can't burn this one.   To see what Babbage hath wrought, pop on over to YouTube and search for 'Amelia'.   Page after page of AI-generated videos of Amelia, appropriately costumed, delivering British patriotic anthems of ages past: 'Jerusalem', 'I vow to thee, my country', and more, pressing into service modern rock diatribes as well.   One video has Amelia confronting Keir Starmer: "How did we get all the way from Churchill to you, you git?"

This would be no story except for the fact that popular support for Amelia has gone into low Earth orbit.   'Off the charts' simply doesn't do it justice.   The British people, it now seems, have only been waiting for someone to give voice to their unspoken — and untweeted — thoughts.

Even better, there is now a Swedish version, Inga, and a German version, Maria, and there's said to be an Australian version, but I haven't seen it.   All over the Western world, Amelia has spread like an engineered virus.   Various governments are furiously trying to put the genie back in its lamp and failing, predictably.

If you had asked me three weeks ago what I thought of the UK, I would have told you that I was sure it was 'a lost cause' soon to be overwhelmed by third-world in-migration and becoming, itself, part of the third-world.   Now?   As Churchill once opined: "This is not the end.   It is not even 'the beginning of the end'.   But it may be the end of the beginning."

You go, Amelia!

 

The 'solution' to Greenland is simple.

 

President Trump wants the US to 'own' Greenland.   Denmark, its current 'owner', is opposed, as are many European countries.   The situation appears complicated; it's not.

Pragmatically, Denmark cannot defend Greenland from aggression.   It can barely defend itself.   At base, the same is true for many or most of the objecting European countries.   Should Russia or China make an aggressive move toward Greenland, only one nation could plausibly stand in their way: the United States.   When Trump boasts of this, he is — for all his boastfulness — telling the truth.

Greenlanders aren't interested in becoming our 51st state.   If such a proposal were posited, the issue would have to be put to the inhabitants of Greenland, who — if reports can be believed — would vote 'no' overwhelmingly.   The US wouldn't, as a matter of policy, provide for Greenlanders the sort of European-style benefits they currently enjoy, so there's that.   Denmark is currently shelling out $600M per year for Greenland 'maintenance, but gets approximately nothing from Greenland in return.   Why they wouldn't want to shed it is something of a mystery.

So, what is the simple solution?   Simply this:   Greenland needs to be an independent nation — not some nation's property — not 'owned' except by its own people.

Let Greenland make its own deal with whomever is interested in dealing for whatever terms they can negotiate.

I know someone who will give them a pretty lush payoff, and they won't have to become a state to get it.

 

Citizenship

 

A person not a citizen of the United States by birth or inheritance must obtain citizenship via naturalization.   The process for becoming a naturalized citizen involves an oath of allegiance:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

A Muslim, whether practicing or not, must be presumed to be unable to "swear this oath" as that term of art is typically understood.   Why is this so?

Islam has as a basic tenet that there can be no other allegiances superior to Islam.   It is analogous to the First Commandment of Judeo-Christianity.   But the oath asserts that the person swearing the oath will "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic", and "bear true faith and allegiance to the same".   No Muslim can do this, since it (potentially) places Islam in an inferior position relative to the Constitution.

But many Muslims do swear this oath.   Have they committed perjury?   To non-Muslim eyes, the perjury is clear, but to Muslims (whose first and only duty is to Islam) the issue is not-so-clear.   The Koran, the 'holy book of Islam', carves out an escape clause: taqiyya.   Taqiyya, simply put, allows a Muslim to lie to an infidel (any non-Muslim) if doing so advances the cause of Islam.

Further, they cannot "take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion", since evasion is exactly the purpose of obtaining citizenship.   Obtaining U.S. citizenship is seen as a necessary first step toward the primary goal of Islam: establishing a world-wide caliphate governed by Sharia law.   Taqiyya is permissible.

Summarizing:   Muslims who take the Oath of Allegiance to the United States can only do so by resorting to taqiyya, an action that otherwise constitutes perjury and invalidates the oath ab initio.

No Muslim should be offered United States citizenship under any circumstances.   Muslims who have been granted citizenship via naturalization should be immediately de-naturalized.   Muslim citizens-by-inheritance should be considered national security risks.

 

Stolen Land

 

There's a great deal of preening, primarily on the Left, about "stolen land", the notion that the Europeans who arrived on these shores in the 15th century and on 'stole' the land from the indigenous people whose land then is still rightfully theirs.   A more ridiculous position has not been held for ages, potentially never.

When the explorers and conquistadors first set foot in the Americas (and Africa and Australia, if it matters), the inhabitants were Stone Age people.   They knew about fire, but not about wheels.   They hunted with spears, bows, and atlatl, and got their 'greens' largely by picking fruit from trees.   Any animal husbandry was focused on keeping the goats alive until it was time to eat them.   To suggest that any of that gave some property rights to the inhabitants is the prelude to demanding that we all regress to their lifestyle.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect had intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.    — Galileo Galilei

Having attained a modicum of civilization — whatever form that might take — the duty of the newcomers — not to the locals, but to themselves — is to make what use they can of the environment — the environment that the then-current inhabitants had neither the skill nor the impulse to exploit.

Israel is, funnily enough, in the same general position.   When the current crop of modern Jews began drifting back to what would become Israel, the Ottomans were in charge, and the land was barely fit for raising goats.   It had been in roughly that condition for millenia.   There had been no serious effort at making it more productive.   The arriving Jews changed that.   They converted the desert-like landscape into a productive greenspace such that 'Jaffa oranges' (among many other things) became something never before seen.

Suddenly, the 'Palestinians' want their ancestral homeland back from those who stole it from them — and brought it from the Stone Age into the Modern Age.  

Don't make me laugh.   More importantly, don't make me cry.

 

ICE in Des Moines

 

ICE has arrested the Superintendent of the Des Moines Public School System, Ian Roberts.   That's the headline.   The subject is an illegal alien here since 1999 on a student visa — which he overstayed.   Okay, ICE did their job.

The question in my mind is: How did he manage to get past all the required checks to prove eligibility for employment?

The answer is that somebody — or several 'somebodies' — within DMPS' HR department cut a corner or two, and just coincidentally violated federal law by doing so.

Step #2 falls to DOJ.   They need to descend upon DMPS/HR and demand to see all the paperwork and all the sign-offs connected to this illegal alien being cleared for work.   Anything that smacks of illegality should result in immediate arrests and equally immediate arraignments, followed by quick trials for every single person within HR that had anything to do with clearing Ian Roberts for his appointment.

Only by making the lawbreakers accountable will such travesties be brought to an end.   Paging Pam Bondi...  Paging Pam Bondi...

 

Charlie's Last Question

 

On September 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was at Utah Valley University for one of his outreach events, this one billed as "America's Comeback Tour".   As was his modus operandi, Charlie was debating with a student, this time on the topic of 'transgenderism'.   The student had just asserted that 'gun violence by transgenders' (tgv) was a minuscule — an almost imperceptible — portion of the whole spectrum of 'gun violence', and Charlie had just asked for a clarification:

Charlie's last question was   "Counting or not counting gang violence?"   At that instant, a sniper's bullet severed Charlie's left carotid artery and he collapsed in a pool of blood, his last question unanswered.   It is said that had a trauma surgeon been sitting at Charlie's side at the time, it would have made no difference.   The wound was not survivable.

Why would Charlie Kirk have thought such a 'clarification' important?

The United States occupies 3.8 million square miles.   That's a lot of space in which 'gun violence' can occur.   But...   if you were to put a pin in a map of the U.S. for every incident of 'gun violence', you might be surprised (or maybe not) to discover that most of those pins were clustered into several small areas, viz: the 'inner cities' of two dozen or so of our larger cities.   The area of those clusters, combined, is about 400 square miles, one one-hundredth of one percent of the total area of the nation.

If you were to exclude those areas — where much, most, or all of the nation's 'gang violence' occurs — from the crime numbers for the whole of the nation, the U.S. would look like a very safe place, indeed.

So, if you compare tgv to the national numbers, you get a very different answer depending on whether you're including those inner city numbers or not.   If you include gang violence, then tgv disappears in the haze.   If you exclude gang violence, tgv is a startlingly large portion of what's left, far out of proportion to the percentage of transgender individuals within the U.S. population.

It's a trick question: — if the answer is 'including', then the student is implicitly admitting that tgv is akin to gang violence;   if the answer is 'excluding', then the student risks their basic premise: that tgv is a minuscule problem.

And that's why Charlie's last question was — and still is — important.