THE MORNING RANT: Economic Nationalism and the USA’s Historical Aversion to Unrestrained Free Trade

Principled Free Traders™ have often been the target of my writing, not because of my having a deep ideological hostility to free trade, but because they have used the term “free trade” as a false-flag for their globalist hostility to US sovereignty, and for their open contempt for working-class Americans.

Unlike 1990s-era free trade, which was promoted as being about reciprocal, barrier-free trade, America’s 21st Century Principled Free Traders™ have advocated for unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism. (Mercantilism is the economic theory that a country’s wealth increases by having a surplus balance of trade, using protectionism as necessary to ensure the favorable trade imbalance.) Principled Free Traders™ favor unrestricted access to the US market for products made in hostile, authoritarian countries, while gladly accepting that those countries maintain tariffs and prohibitions on importing products from the US.

After doing a learn-to-code grave dance on those working class Americans who lost their middle-class lifestyle, Principled Free Traders™ argued that it was all cool, because products made by cheap foreign labor (and slaves) gave Americans more spending power.

As for me, the reality is that I’ve historically been more of a reciprocal free trader - what many of us called “fair trade” – than a protectionist, thus my contempt for the globalists who actively sought to harm America in the name of free trade.

But more and more I’ve had to rethink even my fair trade beliefs. I was clearly naïve about NAFTA, because it surprised me to learn that Canada was blocking American dairy products from their market despite the “free trade” agreement.

While the original NAFTA liberalized nearly all agricultural trade among the three countries, there were a few notable exceptions. Canada maintained tariffs on dairy goods ranging from 241% for liquid milk to 298% for butter. The trade protection is an essential element of its national program to establish fair dairy prices and manage supplies.

It took Donald Trump demanding that NAFTA be renegotiated for me to finally understand that NAFTA still allowed carve-outs to benefit other countries at the expense of the US. In other words, not free trade, nor fair trade.

Curtis Ellis had an excellent piece at American Greatness a few days ago about our country’s history with foreign trade, and how protecting domestic economic production fueled America’s growth and prosperity. He also documents how even such famous free market thinkers as Adam Smith (“The Father of Capitalism” was not a free trader, and certainly not a unilateral free trader who advocated surrendering to foreign mercantilism like today’s Principled Free Traders™ do.

This quote really stuck out, “We taxed foreign industry, not our own.”

We now have domestic statesmen and leaders who are ashamed to be Americans, and who seek to inflict harm on US manufacturing and American citizens if it will benefit those in foreign lands.

Below are a few snippets that I’ve blockquoted from Mr. Ellis’ piece, but please click and read the whole thing. It’s a little long, but it’s also a “read every word of it” piece.

An American System for America Prosperity

Our founders understood that America could not be independent and strong if we relied on other nations for our manufactured goods. They understood the United States had the natural resources, the technology, the labor force, and ample customers at home to support domestic industry and be largely self-sufficient.

Washington believed the United States could manufacture as well as farm, and he instructed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to come up with a plan to develop industry on these shores.
Hamilton’s plan, detailed in his 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures, called for tariffs that would raise revenues and protect infant American industries against predatory competition, and government procurement contracts to encourage American manufacturers.

For most of this country’s history, tariffs were the main source of federal revenue. There are many valid criticisms of tariffs and the incentives they create. But we replaced that revenue source with onerous taxes on income and investments, with a whole other set of negative incentives…most importantly that government feels that earning an income is bad, and must be punished with progressive taxation.

The tax on imports raised revenue to fund the government and prevented foreign goods from smothering our own infant industries. Tariffs were the nation’s primary source of revenue for its first 150 years. Consider: we taxed foreign industries, not our own.
In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton delivered his Report on the Subject of Manufactures to President Washington. It laid out the plan for the federal government to nurture the growth of domestic manufacturing industries in the United States rather than allow the new nation to depend on manufactured goods from abroad.

Hamilton’s report stood in contrast to “free traders” who believed America should confine itself to farming, export raw materials, and buy manufactured goods from Great Britain.

What about other great Americans through the years?

How about Thomas Jefferson, who famously wanted the US to be a nation of small farmers, leaving industrial production in Europe, where finished goods could be exported to the US. The War of 1812 changed his mind, with Britain embargoing necessities of life that were not manufactured in the US.

Jefferson explicitly renounced his earlier belief that America should be a strictly agrarian nation that depended on England “for manufactures.”
He went out of his way to disabuse Benjamin Austin of that notion in 1816, writing: “To be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist . . . Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them, at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture, must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins, and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns.”

How about Abraham Lincoln?

Lincoln ran on a platform of “protection [tariffs], homesteads [free Western land], rivers and harbors [internal improvements], and the Pacific railroad.” The industrial states of the North handed him the presidency. For building the transcontinental railroad, Lincoln insisted American steel be used even though British rails were cheaper. “When we buy manufactured goods abroad, we get the goods and the foreigner gets the money. When we buy the manufactured goods at home, we get both the goods and the money,” said Abe. More honest words have never been spoken.
Lincoln’s economic policy was driven by the conviction that production has primacy over consumption. Producing more enables one to consume more—that’s how to raise the American standard of living. Workers who produce more earn more and spend more. Consumption would rise in tandem with production and earning. Build it, and they will come.

The favorite argument of Principled Free Traders™ is that by exporting every possible job and industry to other countries, those who are aren’t left destitute can enjoy cheaper consumer goods.

President William McKinley had a very different opinion about cheap foreign goods, calling cheap “the badge of poverty.”

”They say ‘everything would be so cheap’ if we only had free trade. Well, everything would be cheap and everybody would be cheap. I do not prize the word ‘cheap’. . . It is the badge of poverty . . . when things were the cheapest, men were the poorest . . . Cheap? Why, cheap merchandise means cheap men, and cheap men mean a cheap country; and that is not the kind of Government our fathers founded. . . We want labor to be well paid, we want the products of the farm, . . . we want everything we make and produce to pay a fair compensation to the producer.”

President McKinley had much more sound advice, as documented by Mr. Ellis.

McKinley believed a foreign manufacturer had “no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws . . . He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties . . . He contributes nothing to the support, the progress, and glory of the nation. Free foreign trade . . . results in giving our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations, to the injury of our labor, our tradespeople and our farmers.”
If American industry has to pay taxes and the costs of our labor, health, and environmental laws, it only makes sense that foreign manufacturers should bear a similar burden if they want to sell on our shores. McKinley’s warning from two centuries ago rings true today. Change “Europe” to “Asia” and these ring as the words of a prophet:
”This country will not and can not prosper under any system that does not recognize the difference of conditions in Europe and America. Open competition between high-paid American labor and poorly paid European labor will either drive out of existence American industry or lower American wages.”

How about Teddy Roosevelt?

The man who succeeded McKinley in the White House, Teddy Roosevelt, declared, “Thank God I am not a free trader.” He understood how tariffs “will equalize the cost of production here and abroad; that is, will equalize the cost of labor here and abroad.”

So how about Adam Smith, the author of “Wealth of Nations” and also the man we honor as the “Father of Capitalism?” Not a free trader. Mr. Ellis provides a lengthy analysis of Smith’s beliefs about trade and the importance of national sovereignty and prosperity.

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, his foundational economic treatise on the principles of the free market system. Contrary to what so many today mistakenly believe and claim, Smith did not argue for a world without nations or a world where corporate interests came before national interests. Smith wrote about increasing the wealth of nations, not the wealth of transnational corporations or the wealth of “the global economy.”

Would Adam Smith approve of tariffs on foreign goods? Yes.

In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith describes the circumstances when a nation should impose tariffs and restrict imports, when, as he wrote, it would be “advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign [imports], for the encouragement of domestic industry.” Notice he explicitly says he wants to encourage domestic industry—he makes a distinction between his nation’s industry and those of another nation. He is not writing about a global economy without distinction among nations.

Tariffs for the purpose of national defense? Adam Smith supported them.

First, Smith said tariffs are justified to protect industries “necessary for the defense of the country.” The defense of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping.

How to respond to trade barriers that block our country’s manufactured goods? This is where Principled Free Traders™ argue for surrender and capitulation. Adam Smith recommended retaliation.

“Some foreign nation [may restrain] by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge in this case naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours.”

Again, read the whole thing. There’s so much more, and it’s all just as important.

Our founders and our greatest Presidents agreed that that the US must never be dependent on foreign countries for food, provisions, or the ability to secure our national defense. And even the Father of Capitalism stood for economic nationalism.

I’m proud to be an economic nationalist if the alternative is “free trade” that is designed to harm Americans.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

Comments
(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:00 AM (7Q7Ca)

2 Bold statements, there Buck.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:00 AM (7Q7Ca)

3 HTML tags. They're not just for Ace anymore.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:01 AM (7Q7Ca)

4 Lamont The Big Dummy will be taking over very soon.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:01 AM (7Q7Ca)

5 Off to get the otters.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:01 AM (7Q7Ca)

6 Consider: we taxed foreign industries, not our own.

=======

Back when fewer people saw taxation as a punitive measure against those they didn't like, I guess.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:01 AM (LvTSG)

7

The risk of free trade is very much the risk of being cut off from essential goods for industry

Posted by: Kindltot at March 27, 2023 11:02 AM (xhaym)

8 They want to destroy the concept of nationalism -- we're all just world citizens participating in the global market! No borders, no exclusive citizenship!

As is said on conservative twitter a lot, our current politicians see the USA as a tax farm, nothing more.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 27, 2023 11:04 AM (EdLEa)

9 Further to this, all of our 'economic and productivity growth' over the past 25-30 years was based on holding down inflation by: using Chinese slave labor to hold wages down, using ex-soviet raw materials at rock bottom fire sale prices, and shutting down American manufacturing.

Now, we have swathes of poverty and drug use in the former manufacturing regions, and we get the inflation that we were going to get anyway, but at a faster pace.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:05 AM (lTGtQ)

10 The real victory will be when shitty chinesium junk will be so ridiculously expensive to import, places like 99 cents only and Five Below will have to go out of business. Ben Shapiro hardest hit.

Posted by: UwU_Power at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (sj3w1)

11 Free trade would make America great again and we just CAN'T have THAT, now CAN we.......

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (7Q7Ca)

12 Fun fact: McKinley was the last U.S. President to serve in the Civil War, in which he started out as an enlisted man. I believe he was in the thick of the fighting at Antietam.

Posted by: Zombie Robbo the Llama Butcher at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (BTgKJ)

13
Wow, a lot of interesting stuff. Halfway through but will read the rest later. Thanks for putting this together.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (enJYY)

14 The favorite argument of Principled Free Traders™ is that by exporting every possible job and industry to other countries, those who are aren’t left destitute can enjoy cheaper consumer goods.
++++
It's a bit more nuanced than that. The argument is more like, "fewer people will be destitute because goods are so much cheaper and the loss of a job doesn't mean a collapse in the standard of living."

This is sort of true, but nonetheless disastrous. The other side of this equation - though it is rarely discussed because it is extremely ugly - is "welfare is as good as paycheck, and we can pay the bill for that because the trade deficit has to be sterilized somehow and Treasuries a nice, portable asset for that purpose."

The second part held up somewhat well, but the first part did not. Welfare is *not* as good as a paycheck. Welfare is corrosive.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (t0OGg)

15 Invade. Invite. And most importantly, Indebt. This is what 'Free Trade' means.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (Iv+w0)

16 The comments started off boldly in this thread

Posted by: Sasquatch, the Original Trans-Wookie at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (xxG/v)

17 In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton delivered his Report on the Subject of Manufactures to President Washington. It laid out the plan for the federal government to nurture the growth of domestic manufacturing industries in the United States rather than allow the new nation to depend on manufactured goods from abroad.

I think it's important to remember that we were a young, and economically very immature country back then. Now, things are very different. That's why we've allowed less-developed countries to bend the rules a bit, just as we did with GB back then.

That's a very different proposition than letting a behemoth like China continue to enjoy the benefits of free trade, and none of the costs. Screw 'em.

Peter Zeihan predicts that SE Asia will become the new manufacturing powerhouse because of its favorable demographics. He might be right.

https://tinyurl.com/mr462e7h

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (eOEVl)

18 I fully support the free trade model if it only includes us and Chyna.

Posted by: Mitch McTurtle at March 27, 2023 11:08 AM (DMyTF)

19 I work for a Danish company. Traveling to Denmark after Trump was elected and instituted the "buy America" tariff plan, one of the managers pissed at me about the high tariff on importing Cisco hardware into the US afterwards.

"You know Cisco is a US based company, right? Buy me Cisco gear in the US, you avoid all that mess."

That's when I learned the company is doing everything it can to prop up the Danish economy, damn the costs externally.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:08 AM (7Q7Ca)

20 Ben Shapiro hardest hit.

Posted by: UwU_Power at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (sj3w1)

It's ok. His wife is a doctor.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:09 AM (7Q7Ca)

21 I’m proud to be an economic nationalist if the alternative is “free trade” that is designed to harm Americans.
++++
As you point out, the problem is symmetry. Asymmetrical free trade (e.g., we have no barriers but our trading partners have many barriers) is a nightmare scenario. Symmetrical - even only loosely symmetrical - free trade is generally beneficial. Specific faults with US/Canadian economic activity notwithstanding, our system of trade with Canada is mutually beneficial on average. There is almost always room for improvement, but it generally works.

Not so with most other places.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:09 AM (t0OGg)

22 19 That's when I learned the company is doing everything it can to prop up the Danish economy, damn the costs externally.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:08 AM (7Q7Ca)

======

That sounds like nationalism.

Evil. Invade them and install tranny free traders to make the Danish more enlightened.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:09 AM (LvTSG)

23 The second part held up somewhat well, but the first part did not. Welfare is *not* as good as a paycheck. Welfare is corrosive.

Good point. A lack of purpose is deadly to individuals and societies.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:09 AM (eOEVl)

24 Free trade is fine amongst equals, but not if you're trading with a country that has far lower worker protections and worse environmental regulations. In that case you're just relocating your pollution and worker exploitation for bigger profits.

I would be shocked that the Left has abandoned the environment and workers in pursuit of power but nothing the Left does surprises me anymore.

Posted by: Tom at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (UjkZy)

25 That's when I learned the company is doing everything it can to prop up the Danish economy, damn the costs externally.

Posted by: Sponge

They were being patriotic in supporting the Danish welfare state.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (lTGtQ)

26 ======

That sounds like nationalism.

Evil. Invade them and install tranny free traders to make the Danish more enlightened.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:09 AM (LvTSG)

Like the UK, I believe DK is in the EU, yet didn't adopt the Euro and still uses it's own currency.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (7Q7Ca)

27 Harrumpf!

Posted by: Darth Randall at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (mJJav)

28 20 Ben Shapiro hardest hit.

Posted by: UwU_Power at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (sj3w1)

It's ok. His wife is a doctor.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden

and his sister has a bodacious set of tata's.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (DMyTF)

29 *It's ok. His wife is a doctor.*

So is mine.

Posted by: My word as a Brandon at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (DhOHl)

30

They were being patriotic in supporting the Danish welfare state.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (lTGtQ)

Because the 150% tax on vehicle purchases just can't seem to cover all the 'free shit' the government provides.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (7Q7Ca)

31
and his sister has a bodacious set of tata's.
Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (DMyTF)

She does, if you can get past her Ben face.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (7Q7Ca)

32 The U.S. could become a manufacturing powerhouse again if the next administration would implement my energy plan. Stop all "alternative" energy programs and concentrate on a Manhattan Project style national priority of building a factory to produce 3000 small, modular reactors that would be spread across the country. This would make a bulletproof grid for national security purposes and provide nearly free (except for distribution) power to everyone. Build a steel mill next to one and you have a competitive advantage to everyone in the world. The human race progresses when there are quantum leaps in the cost and availability of power.

Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (VP9ao)

33 Buck,
You summarize the historical position of the US really both Dem and Republican until the 1940's. Basically, the unsaid part of the Marshall Plan was that the US would make its markets open to European nations in order to help them rebuild along with Japan. Despite the mechanisms of fair trade existing via statutory law, these were increasingly used ad hoc in order to influence the US political system rather than for economic purposes. So you get St. Ronnie being pilloried by free traders for his various ad hoc attempts to take off the pressure for the US auto and steel industries and manipulating the dollar's value overseas. Since Nixon, the main response of the US is to manipulate currency values rather than address the erosion of US making stuff. Big Agri is also a reason for this as the US produces a huge abundance of food far in excess of internal needs for export. Supporting free trade has always been a historical fact for this industry.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (jOFQQ)

34 and his sister has a bodacious set of tata's.
Posted by: Maj. Healey

They look magnificent.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (DlOzp)

35 ... Peter Zeihan predicts that SE Asia will become the new manufacturing powerhouse because of its favorable demographics. He might be right. ...
Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (eOEVl)
++++
China is being replaced, but not by a single country or region. SE Asia is going gangbusters and that is very likely to continue. But they aren't big enough - not even if they were a unified bloc - to do it. India is big enough, but I doubt they will "replace China." It will be distributed. SE Asia, India, South America, Mexico, Eastern Europe, us and probably even parts of Africa will end up replacing China.

Not to mention that there is a critical flaw with another distant land replacing the current distant land. The core assumption underpinning globalism is that security is a non-question. These distant, poor countries don't have to worry about security and can get anything they need from anywhere on earth on demand because nobody else has to worry about security, either. That world is in the process of ending as we speak.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (t0OGg)

36 Free trade as we knew it was in exchange for a security promise post WWII. We thought we could bribe China the same way by allowing them into the WTO.

What we discovered is that the CCP eventually would put someone in charge who would stupidly think China's success was based upon China, not because of us. The epitome of stupid thoughts. The US recognizing economic nationalism again pretty much was provided a boost by Xi stupidity, or perhaps more accurately described ego, to make us understand we really don't NEED China, and we can take care of that over a short period of time.

Posted by: Black JEM at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (UVyKP)

37 She does, if you can get past her Ben face.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden

That is why the good Lord invented paper bags.

Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (DMyTF)

38 I would be shocked that the Left has abandoned the environment and workers in pursuit of power but nothing the Left does surprises me anymore.

Posted by: Tom

The left openly supports slave labor in Xinjiang to supply their Iphones. The left openly supports child labor and strip mining in the open pit cobalt mines in the Congo to supply their EVs. The left openly supports Venezuelan death camps to eliminate opposition to the junta.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (lTGtQ)

39
I-uh, will uh-uh, I out another uh, fortnite...

yeah

Posted by: John Fetterman at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (vwCZJ)

40 A lot of tariff laws were set up to benefit an industry for political reasons, though there are some materials that must be brought from other countries. There is a cost in onshoring all production, in that it is often more expensive to do so, but there is also a risk in putting your production outside of your control.

All the economic theories in the world discuss pricing in one way or another, and free traders use those theories to justify getting the best price and point out that "the other country that is dumping their products on us are subsidizing our consumption" but even the most advanced ones can’t objectively assess value, and none of them I know of specifically discuss risk. Both value and risk are subjective, and are dependent on individual judgement balancing out information against needs.

I am waiting on someone to develop a theory on risk akin to the Theory of Marginal Utility. I expect I will be waiting a long time though.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (xhaym)

41 While it is true that, in the aggregate, Global Free Trade raises all boats, it harms some of our citizens in the specific. Plenty enough to be a real concern.

Not everyone can learn to code.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (yQpMk)

42 Free trade as we knew it was in exchange for a security promise post WWII. We thought we could bribe China the same way by allowing them into the WTO.

What we discovered is that the CCP eventually would put someone in charge who would stupidly think China's success was based upon China, not because of us. The epitome of stupid thoughts. The US recognizing economic nationalism again pretty much was provided a boost by Xi stupidity, or perhaps more accurately described ego, to make us understand we really don't NEED China, and we can take care of that over a short period of time.
Posted by: Black JEM at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (UVyKP)
++++
I go back and forth on the initial statement. I think a lot of China's rise in the late 90s - accelerated hard by their entrance into the WTO - might have been due to payoffs. Clinton giving them Most Favored Nation status almost certainly was.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (t0OGg)

43 They understood the United States had the natural resources, the technology, the labor force, and ample customers at home to support domestic industry and be largely self-sufficient.

———

This is the key point. If the United States, it’s land and people, were the only ones on the planet and everything else an inhabitable wasteland, we could still enjoy the standard of living we now live.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (cMXNt)

44 32 The U.S. could become a manufacturing powerhouse again if the next administration would implement my energy plan. Stop all "alternative" energy programs and concentrate on a Manhattan Project style national priority of building a factory to produce 3000 small, modular reactors that would be spread across the country. This would make a bulletproof grid for national security purposes and provide nearly free (except for distribution) power to everyone. Build a steel mill next to one and you have a competitive advantage to everyone in the world. The human race progresses when there are quantum leaps in the cost and availability of power.
Posted by: jwest
-------------
You are absolutely correct. Cheap energy is necessary to live a good life in a society for all. And could have been done by GWB and his assemblage of idiots post 9/11 and probably forestalled the rise of Obama and the 2008 meltdown.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (jOFQQ)

45 They were being patriotic in supporting the Danish welfare state.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:10 AM (lTGtQ)

Because the 150% tax on vehicle purchases just can't seem to cover all the 'free shit' the government provides.
-----------------
The Vikings aren't what they used to be.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (Iv+w0)

46 "They look magnificent."

https://youtu.be/aQNkeugaAMc

Posted by: Obligatory Seinfeld clip at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (DhOHl)

47 ... Peter Zeihan predicts that SE Asia will become the new manufacturing powerhouse because of its favorable demographics. He might be right. ...
Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:07 AM (eOEVl)
++++
China is being replaced, but not by a single country or region. SE Asia is going gangbusters and that is very likely to continue. But they aren't big enough - not even if they were a unified bloc - to do it. India is big enough, but I doubt they will "replace China." It will be distributed. SE Asia, India, South America, Mexico, Eastern Europe, us and probably even parts of Africa will end up replacing China.

You are correct. I should have said "a manufacturing powerhouse", not "the".

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (eOEVl)

48 I question how cheap those cheap imports actually are, when you have to spend more money on things like increased law enforcement and more prisons, the cost of addiction and broken families due to drugs and failed marriages, the cost of increased regulations here at home (such as environmental regs), not to mention the massive military expenditures of maintaining a global order that allows for massively fragile global trade networks.

Posted by: Colorado Alex in Exile at March 27, 2023 11:15 AM (wmDcS)

49 Not everyone can learn to code.

*sobs*

Posted by: NPR drones at March 27, 2023 11:16 AM (eOEVl)

50 Mmmmm....Teri Hatcher.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at March 27, 2023 11:17 AM (DlOzp)

51 Buck, this is where you lose me. Curtis Ellis piece completely misrepresents Adam Smith, intentionally it appears. Over at Cafe Hayek you can read the take down of Ellis. If Ellis has to lie to make his point, then what has he got.

I personally am in favor or free trade (not open borders; do not intentionally misrepresent that). Once the Principled Protectionists realize that trade barriers are really just another form of crony capitalism (Every. Single. Time.), maybe we will have progress.

Posted by: Earl Schlobodowicz at March 27, 2023 11:17 AM (P7Iz+)

52 All the front end taxes (income, FICA, medicare, labor burden, etc.) applied to every domestic product and service amounts to massive subsidy to imports with heavy taxation of domestic goods.
Consider the 'Fair Tax' would replace all embedded front end taxes with a national sales tax at the point of sales. About 35% (?) with no net cost increase on the product after you pony up at the register. The import would cast that much more though.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 27, 2023 11:17 AM (z8N1c)

53 The great point made that, since revenue has nothing anymore to do with spending, taxes only exist to punish those the rulers disagree with.

Considered in the tariff context, not taxing foreign nations flooding our markets with cheap crap points toward who they want to punish

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at March 27, 2023 11:18 AM (1SUOz)

54 produce 3000 small, modular reactors that would be spread across the country. This would make a bulletproof grid for national security purposes and provide nearly free (except for distribution) power to everyone.

Posted by: jwest

The number one issue for the left is stopping power production, especially nuclear, and petroleum is a close second. They have been successful with nuclear, and are working hard on petroleum. Without those sources of energy, the planet cannot support more than half of what it currently does. Shut those down, and half of the world's population dies.

Anyone should be able to see the primary goal of the left.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (lTGtQ)

55 Another thing about manufacturing, America's manufacturing output is the highest it has ever been. This is despite Biden's best efforts to the contrary. You don't measure industry output with employment (which is an input), but with income/revenues and with profit.

Posted by: Earl Schlobodowicz at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (P7Iz+)

56 I am waiting on someone to develop a theory on risk akin to the Theory of Marginal Utility. I expect I will be waiting a long time though.
Posted by: Kindltot
----------
Risk is already assessed, always imperfectly, by the markets and even manipulation by governments has more the effect of magnifying corrections due to delaying the inevitable.

However, like assessing individual people vs society, it is much easier to plug in aggregate values or limit oneself to one firm rather than try to parcel out effects of trade policy to a given number of firms or to a given number of individuals.

What is true for the individual case in analysis is not necessarily true for the aggregate sum of cases and vice versa.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (jOFQQ)

57 PZ has been claiming that there is a huge price, skill, and productivity advantage to Mexican labor. I thought that was pretty sketchy, but I've seen the claim repeated elsewhere. Interestingly, here's another site (that seems to be from the Mexican CoC) that say Mexico is a BIT cheaper, and only marginally less productive.

https://tinyurl.com/mthtzwnm

Shipping costs from Mexico are MUCH smaller. If Mexico could only get its s*** together from a crime pov, they'd be in fantastic shape.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:20 AM (eOEVl)

58 57 Shipping costs from Mexico are MUCH smaller. If Mexico could only get its s*** together from a crime pov, they'd be in fantastic shape.
Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:20 AM (eOEVl)

==========

"No, senor, I am in fantastic shape now."
-The Mexican government

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:21 AM (LvTSG)

59 Commenting present, lunch time

Posted by: Skip at March 27, 2023 11:21 AM (ek0ng)

60 PZ has been claiming that there is a huge price, skill, and productivity advantage to Mexican labor over Chinese labor.

Argghhhhh. Proofreading is important.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:22 AM (eOEVl)

61 Another thing about manufacturing, America's manufacturing output is the highest it has ever been. This is despite Biden's best efforts to the contrary. You don't measure industry output with employment (which is an input), but with income/revenues and with profit.
Posted by: Earl Schlobodowicz at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (P7Iz+)
++++
Output is higher. Parts of this country - namely the south and specifically the middle south - are undergoing an industrial renaissance right now that will be unstoppable unless the government wrecks energy (which they might, especially with their control of the 800 billion ton gorilla in the energy market in that region: the TVA).

But it isn't generalized anymore, which is a strategic problem. There is a lot of stuff we can't make in this country anymore, especially in electronics and light machinery. Those are problems that will need to be solved at some point, and the market will force the issue down the road.

Like everything else in the globalized economy, we can make a lot of stuff but we can't make everything we need for anything.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:22 AM (t0OGg)

62 The number one issue for the left is stopping power production, especially nuclear, and petroleum is a close second. They have been successful with nuclear, and are working hard on petroleum. Without those sources of energy, the planet cannot support more than half of what it currently does. Shut those down, and half of the world's population dies.

Anyone should be able to see the primary goal of the left.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
----------
What we call the 'left' is mainly the creature of oligarchs--the 'left' are in essence parasitical subsidized critters that act on the behest and suggestion of their wealthy patrons. Their wealthy patrons, more or less, despise commoners and aspire to being their own god that is beyond good and evil of mere society. So, the oligarchs have funded and honed the ideas of the Great Reset in order to institute a new static feudalism which requires stagnant or even negative economic growth in order the save Gaia. In reality, it is to prevent them from being replaced and forgotten by history.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:22 AM (jOFQQ)

63 Shipping costs from Mexico are MUCH smaller. If Mexico could only get its s*** together from a crime pov, they'd be in fantastic shape.
---------------
Mexico is Socialism for the wealthy. They could have been something 70 years ago. But they didn't want that.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:23 AM (Iv+w0)

64 So, it appears after all these years that I am something of a mercantilist ....

Posted by: Blacksheep at March 27, 2023 11:23 AM (6mvRv)

65 It truly hurts to read the brilliant words of our Founders and compare it with the abject imbeciles and idiots we have running our country now (and for a very, very long time).

Posted by: Lady in Black at March 27, 2023 11:24 AM (sVtYq)

66 How can we expect to achieve America-first trade (or anything else) when we have a President who takes cash from our enemies? Trump accuses Biden of treason, and the GOP says nothing?

Oh, do you think this is some political tit-for-tat because of Trump being pursued for a 7-year-old misdemeanor that he credibly denies? The President of the United States and his family are in the pay of foreign powers and have been for years, and we have the receipts!

That is ALL Trump should talk about at every instance, and the GOP should be standing right beside him! What the hell does it take to anger the American people enough to defend ourselves?!

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at March 27, 2023 11:24 AM (AcLxR)

67 The Shat goes after The Musk

Hey @elonmusk
what’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter? I’ve been here for 15 years giving my ⏰ & witty thoughts all for bupkis. Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free? What is this-the Colombia Records & Tape Club?

Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 27, 2023 11:25 AM (DMyTF)

68 THE MORNING RANT: Economic Nationalism and the USA’s Historical Aversion to Unrestrained Free Trade

----

Good job, Buck. One of your best yet, and describes by attitudes to a tee.

As an aside, as much as I like Thomas Jefferson, I have to admit his dial not only goes to 11, it is set there and the knob ripped off.
So as adamantly he argued one way, and then when proven wrong, equally casts those who disagree with his new opinion were brutes who'd likely live in caves.

But, he said it so well!
So did you.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:26 AM (FCbAQ)

69 The biggest influence was “Economics In One Lesson” with the idea that a country with completely open trade wins no matter what their trading partners do.

Actual reality disproves that idea. That’s because economics is a social science and not a hard science based on physics.

There are two “free trade” arguments. One is the “goods are cheaper” argument as Brock stated and the second is “trading partners don’t fight”.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at March 27, 2023 11:26 AM (cMXNt)

70 Anyone should be able to see the primary goal of the left.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (lTGtQ)

That is why you need to dangle the carrot of free electricity for everyone in front of them. Think of the children! Elderly, homeless, single mothers, it's a tear jerker of a political commercial. On top of that, communities that don't want modular nukes in their town can opt out and just pay more in the distribution to pipe in their power from a neighboring area. As a political point, it hits all the buttons. Number one is national security protecting people in case of war or natural disaster. Then comes economic with making manufacturing profitable even with our higher wages, then comes the human benefits of power, heat, air conditioning and electric car charging for free.

Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:26 AM (VP9ao)

71 They understood the United States had the natural resources, the technology, the labor force, and ample customers at home to support domestic industry and be largely self-sufficient.

We are the OG of nations.

In addition, our geography alone makes us a superpower.

https://ytube.io/3cMA

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:27 AM (yQpMk)

72 65 It truly hurts to read the brilliant words of our Founders and compare it with the abject imbeciles and idiots we have running our country now (and for a very, very long time).
-----------------
Heh, I saw most of Idiocracy this weekend. Yeah, we talk like fags and our shit's all retarded.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:27 AM (Iv+w0)

73 Liberal governments in Canada,(mostly Liberal governments have been in power for the last 150 years) have given Quebec dairy farmers a virtual monopoly in the dairy market in Canada to preserve Liberal Party political power.

It should be no surprise that the Canadian government blocks the importation of dairy from abroad.

As a consequence of this Quebec monopoly, Quebec style corruption stalks the land, as an example of this, Quebec dairy farmers adulterate the butter that they export with palm oil to boost their profits.
Canadians may have noticed that butter tastes less buttery and is harder to spread as a result, remaining still solid at room temperature and requiring microwaving.

Posted by: Speller at March 27, 2023 11:28 AM (pSotA)

74 Back when fewer people saw taxation as a punitive measure against those they didn't like, I guess.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:01 AM (LvTSG)

What are you trying to imply, TJM? That from the very beginning the progressive income tax was instituted to foment resentment of the high income people more than as a way to pay for things?

Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (FCbAQ)

75 Good post. I too had to rethink my reflexive support of free trade. I am also rethinking my support for the idea of corporations.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (qVln6)

76 12 Fun fact: McKinley was the last U.S. President to serve in the Civil War, in which he started out as an enlisted man. I believe he was in the thick of the fighting at Antietam.
Posted by: Zombie Robbo the Llama Butcher at March 27, 2023 11:06 AM (BTgKJ)

You'd think he would have learned to duck.

Posted by: Leon Czolgosz at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (cupoy)

77 what?

too soon?

Posted by: Leon Czolgosz at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (cupoy)

78 I always thought free trade is fine but only iff like Communists all countries were equal but know that would never be. So all it does is shift any manufacturing out of the country.

Posted by: Skip at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (ek0ng)

79 What are you trying to imply, TJM? That from the very beginning the progressive income tax was instituted to foment resentment of the high income people more than as a way to pay for things?
----------------
It was Woody putting stones in the working man's backpack. Notice that not everyone pays Income Tax.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (Iv+w0)

80 74 What are you trying to imply, TJM? That from the very beginning the progressive income tax was instituted to foment resentment of the high income people more than as a way to pay for things?
Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (FCbAQ)

=========

Eh...

It's not like the South was complaining that the federal government, led by New York, was punishing them with taxation on imports (tariffs) in the 1830s or anything.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (LvTSG)

81 We are the OG of nations.
In addition, our geography alone makes us a superpower. ...
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:27 AM (yQpMk)
++++
Geographically, the United States is perfect, and the area east of the Missouri is unmatched on this planet. Climate, terrain, arable land, navigability, water, minerals, energy, etc.

It had no excuse being damn near uninhabited (as compared to this place's carrying capacity) when it was discovered by the Europeans.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (t0OGg)

82 72 65
Yeah, we talk like fags and our shit's all retarded.´´
Speak for yourself.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (qVln6)

83 I like to recall the time I realized the Gingrich revolution was dead-- when they rolled over and gave in to Clinton's request for permanent Most Favored Nation trade status.

Rush was all over how it was a bad idea before they caved.

It was an easy win that no one in the base wanted but the donors are the votes that count.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (1SUOz)

84 Not to mention that there is a critical flaw with another distant land replacing the current distant land. The core assumption underpinning globalism is that security is a non-question.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:12 AM (t0OGg)

There is another issue. As time passes the world becomes more inter-dependent and complex. Simultaneously, the people in the world become less educated and capable of high level thought.

When there was a large population of problem solvers you could afford cheap, unreliable crap. Most of these "distant lands" produce unreliable crap and see no reason to change.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at March 27, 2023 11:32 AM (1Z8zZ)

85 You'd think he would have learned to duck.
Posted by: Leon Czolgosz at March 27, 2023 11:29 AM (cupoy)

You´d think the US would have learned to close the immigration door on commie fucks like you too.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:32 AM (qVln6)

86 It had no excuse being damn near uninhabited (as compared to this place's carrying capacity) when it was discovered by the Europeans.

*shifty eyes*

Posted by: Smallpox at March 27, 2023 11:33 AM (eOEVl)

87 51 Buck, this is where you lose me. Curtis Ellis piece completely misrepresents Adam Smith, intentionally it appears. Over at Cafe Hayek you can read the take down of Ellis. If Ellis has to lie to make his point, then what has he got.

I personally am in favor or free trade (not open borders; do not intentionally misrepresent that). Once the Principled Protectionists realize that trade barriers are really just another form of crony capitalism (Every. Single. Time.), maybe we will have progress.
Posted by: Earl Schlobodowicz
--------
Earl,
If you have ever read Smith's work and most importantly his earlier Theory of Moral Sentiments on which his Wealth of Nations is built upon, he is making a rhetorical case for reducing trade barriers in general as a way of combating mercantilism but not at the risk of the national state and its military. Much of his work actually investigates the micro economics of firm production such a division of labor at a pin factory or the transitional society in UK that went from a share cropper type farming to a more active managed agricultural estate system.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:33 AM (jOFQQ)

88 When there was a large population of problem solvers you could afford cheap, unreliable crap. Most of these "distant lands" produce unreliable crap and see no reason to change.

They do it because we accept it. Why wouldn't they?

Posted by: Smallpox at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (eOEVl)

89 Free trade always will go to where cost of living is the lowest

Posted by: Skip at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (ek0ng)

90 produce 3000 small, modular reactors that would be spread across the country. This would make a bulletproof grid for national security purposes and provide nearly free (except for distribution) power to everyone.

Posted by: jwest

I'm not hot on the idea of a national "smart" grid with central control of power if that's what you're talking about. Imagine Senile Joe with the ability to shut off the electricity for "deplorable" regions.

However, I am very interested in several overlapping "dumb" grids, esp within each state, that are shielded against EMP and most CME issues.

I've always believed with nuke power it should be "let a million flowers bloom'.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (mm6iK)

91 Not everyone can learn to code.

As Amazon, Google, and a bunch of others are finding out, we have plenty of coders. An excess really, at least for now. What we could use are some more plumbers and electricians so you don't have to wait weeks to get one to come do the work that you need done.

Posted by: Oddbob at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (nfrXX)

92 Liberal governments in Canada,(mostly Liberal governments have been in power for the last 150 years) have given Quebec dairy farmers a virtual monopoly in the dairy market in Canada to preserve Liberal Party political power.

It should be no surprise that the Canadian government blocks the importation of dairy from abroad.

Posted by: Speller

Which reminds me of a story by Buddy Hackett. He claimed he was born in a taxi cab. His mother was smuggling margarine into Wisconsin when she went into labor. I don't know that the story is true, but what is true is that in Wisconsin, due to the dairy lobby, one could not purchase yellow margarine in the state. You could however purchase it in disgusting white with a dye pack to color it yourself, and pay an extra tax for the privilege. People made a career out of smuggling margarine into Wisconsin.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:35 AM (lTGtQ)

93 Geographically, the United States is perfect, and the area east of the Missouri is unmatched on this planet. Climate, terrain, arable land, navigability, water, minerals, energy, etc. It had no excuse being damn near uninhabited (as compared to this place's carrying capacity) when it was discovered by the Europeans.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (t0OGg)

With unlimited power, everything west of Missouri would be perfect too. The only thing standing between pumping and desalinating billions of acre feet of water is cheap electricity.

Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:36 AM (VP9ao)

94 It's not like the South was complaining that the federal government, led by New York, was punishing them with taxation on imports (tariffs) in the 1830s or anything.
-------------------
Yep. And that most of money provided for the Erie Canal came from the South - making NY the Empire State.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:37 AM (Iv+w0)

95 Free trade is one of the most dishonest terms used in the world today. It is a subjective term, defined differently by countries around the world.

Fair trade based on a level playing field is what matters.

Posted by: JackStraw at March 27, 2023 11:37 AM (ZLI7S)

96 Geographically, the United States is perfect, and the area east of the Missouri is unmatched on this planet. Climate, terrain, arable land, navigability, water, minerals, energy, etc.

It had no excuse being damn near uninhabited (as compared to this place's carrying capacity) when it was discovered by the Europeans.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:30 AM (t0OGg)

In fairness, many many millions of natives perished from small pox and other imported diseases between the time the Spanish conquered Mexico and the arrival of the English colonists. The fact that the area settled by the Pilgrims was almost entirely depopulated by disease is well documented. Indeed, when Squanto returned from his involuntary trip to Europe, he found all his kin and village dead.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:38 AM (yQpMk)

97 With unlimited power, everything west of Missouri would be perfect too. The only thing standing between pumping and desalinating billions of acre feet of water is cheap electricity.

And California environmental regulations. They destroyed a bunch of dams to save fish nobody'd ever heard of and now are reaping the consequences with all that rain.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 11:38 AM (ZGrMX)

98 Anyone should be able to see the primary goal of the left.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:19 AM (lTGtQ)

Unfortunately, many of those capable of seeing it are convinced that they'll be in the half that's left and they have no problem with that outcome.

Evil stalks the Earth.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at March 27, 2023 11:38 AM (1Z8zZ)

99 With unlimited power, everything west of Missouri would be perfect too. The only thing standing between pumping and desalinating billions of acre feet of water is cheap electricity.
Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:36 AM (VP9ao)
++++
The Rockies are still a thing. Mountains aren't useless by any means and there is a ton of economic potential (much of it even realized) in them, but the terrain is a challenge nonetheless.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:39 AM (t0OGg)

100 94 "Yep. And that most of money provided for the Erie Canal came from the South - making NY the Empire State."

Ahem!

Posted by: Ohio at March 27, 2023 11:39 AM (AcLxR)

101 94
'Yep. And that most of money provided for the Erie Canal came from the South - making NY the Empire State.'

In exchange you got a million visitors 30 years later.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (qVln6)

102 I'm not hot on the idea of a national "smart" grid with central control of power if that's what you're talking about. Imagine Senile Joe with the ability to shut off the electricity for "deplorable" regions. However, I am very interested in several overlapping "dumb" grids, esp within each state, that are shielded against EMP and most CME issues. I've always believed with nuke power it should be "let a million flowers bloom'.
Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (mm6iK)

Absolutely. The whole idea is to have 3000 separate, independent power systems that have dumb interconnections to neighboring communities. Every population area can run on its own, backed up by a few nearby town. In a war or natural disaster scenario, most all areas would maintain their electrical power, keeping life comfortable.

Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (VP9ao)

103 In fairness, many many millions of natives perished from small pox and other imported diseases between the time the Spanish conquered Mexico and the arrival of the English colonists. The fact that the area settled by the Pilgrims was almost entirely depopulated by disease is well documented. Indeed, when Squanto returned from his involuntary trip to Europe, he found all his kin and village dead.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:38 AM (yQpMk)
++++
Even at its peak in the Precolumbian era, population density in North America was significantly below the area's carrying capacity. Unsurprisingly though, given the local geography, the highest densities and civilizations were east of the Missouri.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (t0OGg)

104 The President of the United States and his family are in the pay of foreign powers and have been for years, and we have the receipts!

That is ALL Trump should talk about at every instance, and the GOP should be standing right beside him! What the hell does it take to anger the American people enough to defend ourselves?!
Posted by: Ray Van Dune at March 27, 2023 11:24 AM (AcLxR)

I suppose the threat is that the Dims will go after the Turtle and Mutt Rombley and their ilk.

Fine. Do it.

The sooner those working for foreign gov'ts are out of office the better.

And yes, Trump should be talking about this.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (mm6iK)

105 With unlimited power, everything west of Missouri would be perfect too. The only thing standing between pumping and desalinating billions of acre feet of water is cheap electricity.
Posted by: jwest

It would certainly improve the West.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (jOFQQ)

106 Posted by: Ohio at March 27, 2023 11:39 AM (AcLxR)

"Ahia"

Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (AwYPR)

107 This is one of the best Morning Rant's I have read here. - long time lurker, rarely comment. Great post! Good job.

Posted by: B. Hammer at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (Kl7F3)

108 SUSTAINABILITY!

You know. A word that means nothing but has been pushed by the UN (and their accomplices in the U.S.) since Y2K or so to be part of every school kids' vocabulary, even though no one has any idea what it means beyond a vague sense of the actual definition, and that's on purpose.

But it doesn't mean a single thing in the real world, while it is constantly mentioned in regards to food, energy, transportation, housing, etc.

Everything is an op.

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (95YDO)

109 in Wisconsin, due to the dairy lobby, one could not purchase yellow margarine in the state. You could however purchase it in disgusting white with a dye pack to color it yourself, and pay an extra tax for the privilege. People made a career out of smuggling margarine into Wisconsin.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:35 AM (lTGtQ)

Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?
blech!

Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (FCbAQ)

110 "Free Trade" is an overdefined term and near useless at this point.

Like "fascism" and "communism" and "racism" etc etc etc

It's almost impossible to use in a non-facile manner.

The vast majority if the time it is cover for corporate stooges to depress wages and reduce sovereignty of nation states.

Posted by: Thesokorus at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (1ais2)

111 People made a career out of smuggling margarine into Wisconsin.

That seems weird. Why, if locally produced butter was being favored economically, would residents of WI even want margarine? Was this during the time (which is still ongoing) when the government was lying to us about which foods were healthy or not?

Posted by: Oddbob at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (nfrXX)

112 Even at its peak in the Precolumbian era, population density in North America was significantly below the area's carrying capacity.

This leads to two questions from me

A) How would we actually know that?
B) What was the limiting factor for the population?

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (yQpMk)

113 Indeed, when Squanto returned from his involuntary trip to Europe, he found all his kin and village dead.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023

***
After looking around at some of the trashy and overpopulated places in the country, I say, "Maybe Squanto made a mistake."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (J2vNu)

114 The number one issue for the left is stopping power production, especially nuclear, and petroleum is a close second. They have been successful with nuclear, and are working hard on petroleum. Without those sources of energy, the planet cannot support more than half of what it currently does. Shut those down, and half of the world's population dies.

They've explicitly stated that their goal is closer to eliminating 7/8ths of the world's population.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (ZGrMX)

115 96
'In fairness, many many millions of natives perished from small pox and other imported diseases'

Yeah, we were right on the cusp of flying cars when you disease bearing bastards showed up

Posted by: Ungrateful dead Indian at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (qVln6)

116 Actually, North America did have a serious, development-limiting problem despite its otherwise perfect geography: animals. North America (and South America) didn't have good animal resources. Without beasts of burden and animals that are easy to grow and develop for food, options are limited. North America had bison - a poor candidate for domestication - and that's about it.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (t0OGg)

117 Unsurprisingly though, given the local geography, the highest densities and civilizations were east of the Missouri.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (t0OGg)

——-

Not to mention that Native Americans were at essentially a Stone Age technology level.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (cMXNt)

118 (checks 1963 documented plan for communists to conquer the United States)

Ah, there it is.

"#4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether
or not items could be used for war."

It's crazy how they're pretty much all in place, isn't it?

I wonder if that's why Our Betters are so comfortable moving us so quickly to the next stage ? (spoilers: 2030)

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (95YDO)

119 Ahia"
Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (AwYPR)

This is prinounced "Uh-high-uh" right?

Posted by: Thesokorus at March 27, 2023 11:44 AM (1ais2)

120 Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?
blech!

Posted by: OneEyedJack

Price

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:44 AM (lTGtQ)

121 Wish I would have kept track if a article read years ago how the US land is the most sparse population but most useful land. For instance Russia is bigger but a very large portion of it is useless for agriculture.

Posted by: Skip at March 27, 2023 11:45 AM (ek0ng)

122 I have sometimes wondered how things might have been different if the Viking colonization of NA had been successful. Perhaps the English would have encountered a well developed Thor worshiping iron age culture when they made it over.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:45 AM (yQpMk)

123 95 Free trade is one of the most dishonest terms used in the world today. It is a subjective term, defined differently by countries around the world.

Fair trade based on a level playing field is what matters.
Posted by: JackStraw
---------
Free trade as an absolute can only exist in a the hothouse of a nation or empire. Notably, the Austrian economists were born under an Empire with such circumstances which in part distorts their work regarding international trade and monetary flows. One of the difficulties, I expect, is that the distribution of economic growth and trade's contribution to it is non linear in nature.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:45 AM (jOFQQ)

124 Anyone should be able to see the primary goal of the left.
Posted by: Thomas Paine

As Glenn Frey explained some years ago . . .

It's the lure of easy money, it's got a very strong appeal

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (FVME7)

125 This is prinounced "Uh-high-uh" right?

Posted by: Thesokorus at March 27, 2023 11:44 AM (1ais2)

That's how I hear it.

Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (AwYPR)

126 Hamilton was good for more than just dancing.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (63Dwl)

127 Like "fascism" and "communism" and "racism" etc etc etc

It's almost impossible to use in a non-facile manner.

--

Part of the plan, my good man. Same as when you'd watch people online insist that someone had lost an argument because of "Godwins Law"

They didn't care about Hitler. They didn't want you making connections public and discussing it in the forums.

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (95YDO)

128 Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?

Because they aren't rich and snobby.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (ZGrMX)

129 Without beasts of burden and animals that are easy to grow and develop for food, options are limited. North America had bison - a poor candidate for domestication - and that's about it.

That's right, I'm bad.

Posted by: Bison at March 27, 2023 11:46 AM (eOEVl)

130 Not to mention that Native Americans were at essentially a Stone Age technology level.
Posted by: MAGA_Ken at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (cMXNt)

Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste.

Posted by: Miss Issippi at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (sI15f)

131 Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?
blech!
Posted by: OneEyedJack
---------
FDR Dairy marketing orders and then the subsequent rationing of butter and milk products in WWII.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (jOFQQ)

132 Fair trade based on a level playing field is what matters.
Posted by: JackStraw

Finally, Kansas can win!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (FVME7)

133 That seems weird. Why, if locally produced butter was being favored economically, would residents of WI even want margarine? Was this during the time (which is still ongoing) when the government was lying to us about which foods were healthy or not?

Posted by: Oddbob

It wasn't favored economically. The dairy lobby successfully prevented a cheaper alternative from being offered, or if offered, was made unappealing and a surtax was imposed on it. Margarine was far cheaper than butter, so the system was tweaked to limit competition against the butter producers.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (lTGtQ)

134 Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?
blech!

Posted by: OneEyedJack

Price

---

Go to the grocery store with a family and their two kids and watch the same thing happen today.

"Why aren't you buying the tub of organic spreadable butter for $7? Don't you know the $1 tub of margarine is so much worse tasting and bad for you?"

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 11:48 AM (95YDO)

135 Wish I would have kept track if a article read years ago how the US land is the most sparse population but most useful land. For instance Russia is bigger but a very large portion of it is useless for agriculture.

You don't say.

Posted by: V. Putin, eying Ukraine at March 27, 2023 11:48 AM (eOEVl)

136 As Amazon, Google, and a bunch of others are finding out, we have plenty of coders. An excess really, at least for now. What we could use are some more plumbers and electricians so you don't have to wait weeks to get one to come do the work that you need done.
Posted by: Oddbob at March 27, 2023 11:34 AM (nfrXX)

We have an excess of BAD coders. And everything you use contains code written by BAD coders layered on top of code written by different BAD coders. And this is because management wants things to be "good enough" and "we'll fix issues later".

The problem is laxity in acceptance of someone as a software developer and the general "what-ever, man" attitude of the industry as a whole.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at March 27, 2023 11:48 AM (1Z8zZ)

137 Just prior to WWII, the Germans developed a "butter" made from coal.

It did not go over well.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (yQpMk)

138 North America had bison - a poor candidate for domestication - and that's about it.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023

***
We would have had the horse. But the Indians killed them all off so long before the Europeans got here that they had forgotten about equines and were astonished at them. (They took right to horses, however. See the careers of the Apache and Comanche.)

We had and have species of deer and elk, but I suppose they are difficult to domesticate too, or we'd have done it by now. We had mammoth or mastodon, and the big American lion (larger than our mountain lion today), but those would have been for food, not for domestication. And the Indians got all of those too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (J2vNu)

139 Is $20, same as in town free trade?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (a3Q+t)

140 I-uh-uh,, where am-uh I?

yeah

Posted by: John Fetterman at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (vwCZJ)

141 I say we manufacture everything in China and Mexico and focus on being a nation of content creators for Instagram and Tik Tok fed a steady of diet of soy, corn syrup, and psychiatric medications.

Posted by: brak at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (25k9m)

142 What if you had like 50 state like things that operated under a similar basic understanding of common law and common sense? That would be a free trade nirvana I'm guessing. A central body could then just be focused on protecting the group from outsiders and making sure none of the internal parties went crazy.

Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at March 27, 2023 11:50 AM (oWBc3)

143 After looking around at some of the trashy and overpopulated places in the country, I say, "Maybe Squanto made a mistake."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius
------------
It was inevitable anyway due to population pressures in Western Europe and the games of empires in securing resources world wide.

The whole noble savage bit was tired even in Rousseau's day. None of the Euros had a hand in the downfall of the SW Indian civilization nor most probably the Mound Builders of Central and Eastern fame--definitely not the Mayans or Olmecs.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:50 AM (jOFQQ)

144 141 I say we manufacture everything in China and Mexico and focus on being a nation of content creators for Instagram and Tik Tok fed a steady of diet of soy, corn syrup, and psychiatric medications.
----------------
So we can all become thought leaders. Fucking A!

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:50 AM (Iv+w0)

145 The problem is laxity in acceptance of someone as a software developer and the general "what-ever, man" attitude of the industry as a whole.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at March 27, 2023 11:48 AM (1Z8zZ)
++++
Power covers up many ills. A lot of bad code is because resources to run it are so plentiful. There's no reason that TurboTax needs to be so huge and ponderous and slow, but it doesn't *need* to be better to run.

The best programmers, in my experience, are Russians of a certain age. The ones that came up in the late Soviet period or the early post-Soviet period dealt with brutal resource constraints and had to get it optimized and (relatively) bug-free to have any chance of getting to run it at all.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:50 AM (t0OGg)

146 141 I say we manufacture everything in China and Mexico and focus on being a nation of content creators for Instagram and Tik Tok fed a steady of diet of soy, corn syrup, and psychiatric medications.
Posted by: brak at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (25k9m)

=======

It's a solid plan.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, being witty and sophisticated with Ernst Lubitsch at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (LvTSG)

147 "Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste."

That's a Prog myth.
Where I live, there is a place called Smashed-in-Head Buffalo Jump. Archeologists examined the debris at the bottom of the jump and determined that 80% of the buffalo they found there was wasted.

Posted by: Speller at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (pSotA)

148 That's right, I'm bad.
Posted by: Bison at March 27, 2023

***
Bison bison!

Rattus rattus!

Posted by: Linnaeus at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (J2vNu)

149 I find the idea of free trade (and no borders) appealing but, and it's a big but, free trade doesn't seem to be an option with other countries. And the most important principle is that everyone play by the same rules. (No borders requires a reorganization of citizenship and no welfare and various impossible things.)

So SAME RULES. Which means controlling trade to protect our interests.

Interestingly, some people have pointed out that charity to (in this case, Africa) destroys local economies. When Americans send clothes or food that can be had for free, local merchants are destroyed. They can't give clothes away for free. Farmers can't give food away for free. The charity undercuts local producers and puts them out of business.

Posted by: Synova at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (BD/yx)

150 130
"Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste."

Well, except for the internecine slaughter.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (AcLxR)

151 We would have had the horse. But the Indians killed them all off so long before the Europeans got here that they had forgotten about equines and were astonished at them. (They took right to horses, however. See the careers of the Apache and Comanche.)

This is a little known aspect of history. Most people just assume the Indians always had horses, so of course they were expert horse riders. In fact, they didn't have them until the Spaniards lost some horses, and they gradually spread (the horses, not the Spaniards, although really both). It took only a few generations for the Indians to become probably the world's best horsemen.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (eOEVl)

152 We have an excess of BAD coders. And everything you use contains code written by BAD coders layered on top of code written by different BAD coders. And this is because management wants things to be "good enough" and "we'll fix issues later".

The problem is laxity in acceptance of someone as a software developer and the general "what-ever, man" attitude of the industry as a whole.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at March 27, 2023 11:48 AM (1Z8zZ)

Yeah, Boy928 is the technical director for a software startup and spends all his time rewriting inherited crap code and trying to train millennial in how to actually code.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:52 AM (yQpMk)

153 I saw Coal Butter open for Stillwater at the Great Western Forum in '72.

Posted by: William Miller at March 27, 2023 11:52 AM (h5TKJ)

154 They have turned us into a colony of taxpayers for the benefit of the investor elites. We need to go back to our roots, replace the income tax with tariffs and fees and let the moneyed elites of the world bleed dry their own countries.

Posted by: Carlos Rodriguez at March 27, 2023 11:52 AM (6mVSf)

155 I say we manufacture everything in China and Mexico and focus on being a nation of content creators for Instagram and Tik Tok fed a steady of diet of soy, corn syrup, and psychiatric medications.
Posted by: brak at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (25k9m)

Finally.

A common sense plan for America!

Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 11:52 AM (mm6iK)

156 The worlds best horsemen? Genghis Khan and his progeny say hello - just sayin.

Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem at March 27, 2023 11:53 AM (oWBc3)

157 My Dad, the baker, had some nut come into the shop requesting a special order. The Feds were just starting on their dietary guidelines, and the customer wanted something, I forget what, made with margarine instead of butter. Dad said No. This was back in the 60s. Have a butter sugar cookie and shut up.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 11:53 AM (lz5hY)

158 Fair trade based on a level playing field is what matters.
Posted by: JackStraw

Black gold on toast, it's the most!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 27, 2023 11:53 AM (FVME7)

159 It was inevitable anyway due to population pressures in Western Europe and the games of empires in securing resources world wide.

It was inevitable due to the isolation of the Americas and the resultant lack of resistance of the natives to European diseases. I can think of no way this wouldn't have happened.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (eOEVl)

160 It took only a few generations for the Indians to become probably the world's best horsemen.
----------------
The Mongols would like to have a word with you. Normans as well.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (Iv+w0)

161 We had and have species of deer and elk, but I suppose they are difficult to domesticate too, or we'd have done it by now. We had mammoth or mastodon, and the big American lion (larger than our mountain lion today), but those would have been for food, not for domestication. And the Indians got all of those too.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 11:49 AM (J2vNu)
++++
Deer and elk are lousy domestication candidates for the same reasons Gazelles are. They're herd animals (a plus), but they can jump and are fast. Capturing them is hard and containing them is extraordinarily hard. They're awful for domestication, which is why they aren't domesticated.

As to the mastadons and mammoths, I'm not sure. Megafauna tend to be a bad thing in general and people have a habit of exterminating them for safety reasons. The only notable example I can think of is the elephant, which is an extremely smart animal that people can get along with.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (t0OGg)

162 It took only a few generations for the Indians to become probably the world's best horsemen.
Posted by: Archimedes

There was no tv then.

Posted by: JT at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (T4tVD)

163 147 "Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste."

That's a Prog myth.
Where I live, there is a place called Smashed-in-Head Buffalo Jump. Archeologists examined the debris at the bottom of the jump and determined that 80% of the buffalo they found there was wasted.
Posted by: Speller
------------
Without a written history, there is no real way to assess 'efficiency' versus necessity and most of all, Indians were humans just like the rest of us and prone to the same problems besetting civilizations of overusing resources in specific areas or failing to adapt to changing environments.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (jOFQQ)

164 The worlds best horsemen? Genghis Khan and his progeny say hello - just sayin.

Another strong contender, to be sure.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:54 AM (eOEVl)

165 The best programmers, in my experience, are Russians of a certain age. The ones that came up in the late Soviet period or the early post-Soviet period dealt with brutal resource constraints and had to get it optimized and (relatively) bug-free to have any chance of getting to run it at all.

Europeans and Americans of a certain age are pretty good too. But the paying jobs are mostly for scripts that run on top of mile-high abstraction layers so people like me that speak fluent assembly language do that as a hobby while Javascript and C++ pay the bills.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 11:55 AM (ZGrMX)

166 The best programmers, in my experience, are Russians of a certain age. The ones that came up in the late Soviet period or the early post-Soviet period dealt with brutal resource constraints and had to get it optimized and (relatively) bug-free to have any chance of getting to run it at all.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:50 AM (t0OGg)

When I started as a programmer, back when we scratched our code directly onto the silicon with our Bowie knives, we actually tried to keep our active routines within a 2k pageframe to avoid the insanely long access times of active paging.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 11:55 AM (yQpMk)

167 The worlds best horsemen? Genghis Khan and his progeny say hello - just sayin.
Posted by: Indignacio Vindacatorem

Sarah Jessica Parker is the best horsewoman.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 27, 2023 11:55 AM (FVME7)

168 The Indians invented the landfill.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 11:55 AM (lz5hY)

169 Am I getting through to you, Mr. Throckmorton? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Throckmorton. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

Posted by: Arthur Jensen at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (GlyUK)

170 North America had bison - a poor candidate for domestication - and that's about it.

Posted by: Joe Mannix

I have been reading about Indian history, and found some interesting tidbits in recent research. The bison herds that were so immense are now believed to be an aberration, that they were not sustainable under normal seasonal conditions, and were destined to fall precipitously under any circumstances.

Also, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was probably the decisive factor in the decline of the bison. The Spanish had trained large numbers of Pueblo to squire their horses. When the revolt occurred, the Pueblo took horses and their skills and taught the other plains indians. This dramatically changed the buffalo hunting patterns. Signs of a rapid decline in the bison population were already apparent in the 1840s, long before many settlers and explorers were west of the Mississippi.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (lTGtQ)

171 Am I getting through to you, Mr. Throckmorton?

You don't have a lot of friends, do you.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (eOEVl)

172 yeah

I am lump

Posted by: Fetterman's Lump at March 27, 2023 11:57 AM (Vu7A1)

173 As to the mastadons and mammoths, I'm not sure. Megafauna tend to be a bad thing in general and people have a habit of exterminating them for safety reasons. The only notable example I can think of is the elephant, which is an extremely smart animal that people can get along with.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023

***
Yeah, we don't know what mammoths were like. We can extrapolate from elephant behavior -- but then we have Indian elephants, who are tameable and trainable, and African pachyderms, which are really not. (I'm not sure which species the ancient world used for their war elephants. Indian ones might have filtered in from the East.)

Posted by: Linnaeus at March 27, 2023 11:58 AM (J2vNu)

174 Posted by: Arthur Jensen at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (GlyUK)

I know I've seen this movie, I just can't remember the name.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:58 AM (FCbAQ)

175 I have been reading about Indian history, and found some interesting tidbits in recent research. The bison herds that were so immense are now believed to be an aberration, that they were not sustainable under normal seasonal conditions, and were destined to fall precipitously under any circumstances.

Also, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was probably the decisive factor in the decline of the bison. The Spanish had trained large numbers of Pueblo to squire their horses. When the revolt occurred, the Pueblo took horses and their skills and taught the other plains indians. This dramatically changed the buffalo hunting patterns. Signs of a rapid decline in the bison population were already apparent in the 1840s, long before many settlers and explorers were west of the Mississippi.

Interesting. Can you recommend a book?

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:58 AM (eOEVl)

176 "Without a written history, there is no real way to assess 'efficiency' versus necessity and most of all,"

Yes, sorta'.
Lewis and Clark recorded their expedition meticulously and observed that many of the areas they passed through while mapping America were hunted out almost completely by competing tribes.

Posted by: Speller at March 27, 2023 11:58 AM (pSotA)

177 8 hands, one guitar playing Bolero.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xDOYTIcjRF0

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 27, 2023 11:59 AM (FVME7)

178 169
'Posted by: Arthur Jensen at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (GlyUK)'

Is this from 'Network'?

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:59 AM (qVln6)

179 Posted by: Arthur Jensen at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (GlyUK)

College...collage?....lots o big words there.

Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (AwYPR)

180 "Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste."

That's a Prog myth.

--

Look to modern food. Not even fast food, but food that people make at home with store-bought ingredients. Someone here made an excellent point that we've been making copies of copies of copies of what was once good-tasting food in pursuit of cheaper/faster/better. I posted a cake icing recipe recently because store-bought cake icing is repulsive. Can you put it on a cake? Sure. Is it food? Only because you can eat it and your body can process the sugar. Taste wise it's complete crap, and cooks from the 80s and 90s would be disgusted to taste what they would have to pay three times more for.

We have advanced, but things are not necessarily better.

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (95YDO)

181 We can extrapolate from elephant behavior -- but then we have Indian elephants, who are tameable and trainable

My daughter was visiting India a few years ago with one of her Indian friends. The family always talked about "elephant menace". It is apparently quite the thing there, consisting of anything from crop and fence destruction to outright attacks on people.

Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (eOEVl)

182 When I started as a programmer, back when we scratched our code directly onto the silicon with our Bowie knives, we actually tried to keep our active routines within a 2k pageframe to avoid the insanely long access times of active paging.
Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023

***
Good programming practice when memory was expensive was to leave off the century digits in a 4-character date, i.e., "73" instead of "1973." Thus the problem with old code ca. 1999-2000.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (J2vNu)

183 If you think that Canadians like paying two to three times the U.S. rate for dairy products, think again. The dairy tariffs are very much a grift given to a few hundred entrenched dairy producers in Quebec, in exchange for votes.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (tkR6S)

184
119 Ahia"
Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 11:41 AM (AwYPR)

This is prinounced "Uh-high-uh" right?
Posted by: Thesokorus at March 27, 2023 11:44 AM (1ais2)

Where did this pronunciation come from?

I’m from NE Ohio

O-hi-O

This “Ahia” shit must be promulgated by the folks downstate .

Posted by: browndog on his cell at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (CCSxw)

185 149 I find the idea of free trade (and no borders) appealing but, and it's a big but, free trade doesn't seem to be an option with other countries. And the most important principle is that everyone play by the same rules. (No borders requires a reorganization of citizenship and no welfare and various impossible things.)

So SAME RULES. Which means controlling trade to protect our interests.
Posted by: Synova
--------
I don't find the idea of open borders even the slightest bit compelling simply because people are not potatoes nor blank slates. They carry with them their society and assumptions to a new place. Had the US been colonized by the Spanish, we would have had a culture much like Latin America, if by China, Chinese culture, etc. Immigrants have much the same effect. A much fairer system to inhabitants of a country would be that a country controls who comes in, but must allow any who wants to leave that country.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:01 PM (jOFQQ)

186 >The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Throckmorton. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

This speech is much better than the more-famous one from Network.

https://youtu.be/V9XeyBd_IuA

Posted by: BourbonChicken at March 27, 2023 12:01 PM (44ww/)

187 'Posted by: Arthur Jensen at March 27, 2023 11:56 AM (GlyUK)'

Is this from 'Network'?
Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 11:59 AM (qVln6)

Yep. Thanks for the reminder. I could see Ned Beatty and the big boardroom, but the other character wouldn't come to mind.

Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 12:01 PM (FCbAQ)

188 This “Ahia” shit must be promulgated by the folks downstate .

--

I'm from downstate. I never once in my life pronounced Ohio as any variation of "ahia." I'm proud to say...

Posted by: Lady in Black at March 27, 2023 12:02 PM (sVtYq)

189 This is a little known aspect of history. Most people just assume the Indians always had horses, so of course they were expert horse riders. In fact, they didn't have them until the Spaniards lost some horses, and they gradually spread (the horses, not the Spaniards, although really both). It took only a few generations for the Indians to become probably the world's best horsemen.
Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023 11:51 AM (eOEVl)

There seems to be a significant push among some Native Americans for the idea that there were a very few horses left in America from those brought with people across the Bering Strait.

I remember hearing it years and years and years ago and the claim that their were curly haired horses in the Rockies. I haven't heard the curly hair horse story since then, but there's some conflict about a horse in Canada that was supposedly from before the Spanish lost any horses.

But 200 years is more than enough time to populate a continent from 1500s to 1700s. How many human generations of telling horse stories is that? And it's more generations for the actual horses.

Posted by: Synova at March 27, 2023 12:02 PM (BD/yx)

190 We can extrapolate from elephant behavior -- but then we have Indian elephants, who are tameable and trainable

My daughter was visiting India a few years ago with one of her Indian friends. The family always talked about "elephant menace". It is apparently quite the thing there, consisting of anything from crop and fence destruction to outright attacks on people.
Posted by: Archimedes at March 27, 2023

***
Yes, I'd guess with any animal that big, "tameable and trainable" is kinda relative.

Another reason I'm glad I don't live in that part of the world.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 12:02 PM (J2vNu)

191 Absolutely. The whole idea is to have 3000 separate, independent power systems that have dumb interconnections to neighboring communities. Every population area can run on its own, backed up by a few nearby town. In a war or natural disaster scenario, most all areas would maintain their electrical power, keeping life comfortable.
Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 11:40 AM (VP9ao)
__________________

Energy federalism. I like it.

This has been a great post, Buck, and most informative. It has also spurred a lot of highly informative comments.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at March 27, 2023 12:02 PM (wpPM0)

192 184
There is a remarkably large number of comments on this piece of trivia.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 12:03 PM (qVln6)

193 I posted a cake icing recipe recently because store-bought cake icing is repulsive.

Strong disagree. Store-bought icing tastes just as good as anything you make yourself. Everything wrong with the left comes from snobbery.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 12:03 PM (ZGrMX)

194 184 Yep. I'm from NE Ohio, always said O-hi-o. Ex SiL married a guy from Ironton, down by the river, and he said something close to Ahia.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 12:03 PM (lz5hY)

195 Interesting. Can you recommend a book?

Posted by: Archimedes

Probably the most decisive commentary was by Dan Flores called The Great Contraction, which is part of a symposium book on of all things, the battle of Little Bighorn called "Legacy, New Perspectives on the Little Bighorn." Also, The Buffalo, by Francis Haines, and The Commanche Empire, by Pekka Hamalainen, who is a professor at UC.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 12:03 PM (lTGtQ)

196 This “Ahia” shit must be promulgated by the folks downstate .

Posted by: browndog on his cell at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (CCSxw)

SE Ahia...Zville environs.

Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (AwYPR)

197 But then you have Ben Stein's brilliant ad-libbed refutation to high tariffs:

https://tinyurl.com/mvbps2h4

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (2tUFv)

198 Good programming practice when memory was expensive was to leave off the century digits in a 4-character date, i.e., "73" instead of "1973." Thus the problem with old code ca. 1999-2000.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 27, 2023 12:00 PM (J2vNu)

We were so penurious with our RAM that it was common to overlay the initialization code with working storage since, hey, we aren't using that code again in this iteration of the program.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (yQpMk)

199 India has elephant menace, tiger menace, cobra menace, street-shitter menace....

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (DlOzp)

200 If you think that Canadians like paying two to three times the U.S. rate for dairy products, think again. The dairy tariffs are very much a grift given to a few hundred entrenched dairy producers in Quebec, in exchange for votes.

I wonder if this might be necessary in response to our farm subsidies.

Posted by: Diesel Jones, Biologist at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (Vu7A1)

201 We have advanced, but things are not necessarily better.
Posted by: NISTdot gov
------------
A market will necessarily price goods as to the labor and content of the goods themselves plus a profit. So, if you want artisan cake frosting in a can, you can make it if you wish but you are competing with those that make it from scratch (denying their compensation as to labor), those who buy a finished good made by an artisan and pay the labor cost, or those that cannot afford your 'artisan' work but can afford Betty Crocker icing in a can made by machines.

That is the same as arguing that styrene baseboards are inferior to wood baseboards when both are available for sale--sometimes ersatz is good enough for some purposes and better than nothing.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (jOFQQ)

202 There is a new thread upstairs

Posted by: kallisto at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (dCxaZ)

203 I don't find the idea of open borders even the slightest bit compelling simply because people are not potatoes nor blank slates. They carry with them their society and assumptions to a new place. Had the US been colonized by the Spanish, we would have had a culture much like Latin America, if by China, Chinese culture, etc. Immigrants have much the same effect. A much fairer system to inhabitants of a country would be that a country controls who comes in, but must allow any who wants to leave that country.
Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:01 PM (jOFQQ)
++++
The fundamental conceit of far too many masters of the universe is the perception that people are interchangeable parts. I see this all the time in my company. "Product X is resource constrained, so borrow some people from Product Y, 'train them up real quick,' and put them on Product X."

It isn't as simple as changing the torque specification and slotting in a different part.

Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (t0OGg)

204 Mr Aspirin Factory, you missed mentioning the honey badger menace.

Posted by: Speller at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (pSotA)

205 Yeah, we don't know what mammoths were like. We can extrapolate from elephant behavior -- but then we have Indian elephants, who are tameable and trainable, and African pachyderms, which are really not. (I'm not sure which species the ancient world used for their war elephants. Indian ones might have filtered in from the East.)
------------------
All of the horses you see today came from two herds from the Steppes of Europe and Asia. American horses were eaten for a reason.

Posted by: Pudinhead at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (Iv+w0)

206 Me learn to choad.

Posted by: Fetter Man at March 27, 2023 12:05 PM (B8BKL)

207
"Arthur Jensen"

I googled the name. He's a psychologist famous(infamous?) for suggesting a genetic basis for racial differences in IQ.

Anywho, he's called "the father of Modern racism" by all the usual suspects.

So, I guess this "Arthur Jensen" is some silly troll trying to get posters to agree with some statement by "The father of modern racism".

Whatever.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 12:06 PM (mm6iK)

208 Most people just assume the Indians always had horses, so of course they were expert horse riders.
Posted by: Archimedes

I point people to look at the historical record. None of the indians east of the Mississippi had horses when we encountered them. West of the Mississippi, after 1800, the indians had them.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 12:06 PM (lTGtQ)

209 The left openly supports slave labor in Xinjiang to supply their Iphones. The left openly supports child labor and strip mining in the open pit cobalt mines in the Congo to supply their EVs. The left openly supports Venezuelan death camps to eliminate opposition to the junta.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 27, 2023 11:13 AM (lTGtQ)

I am not of the Left, at all, but I have no problem with strip mining, as long as there is a practical reclamation plan in place. Yeah, you alter the landscape. So what? Nature alters landscapes all the time anyway. So does farming. Deal with it.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 27, 2023 12:07 PM (tkR6S)

210 Good programming practice when memory was expensive was to leave off the century digits in a 4-character date, i.e., "73" instead of "1973." Thus the problem with old code ca. 1999-2000.

We're coming up on the end of 32-bit time_t in another 15 years or so. Gonna be interesting to see what breaks then.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 12:07 PM (ZGrMX)

211 Cake frosting out of a can is pretty much whipped sugar and vegetable oil. Now, the Old Man would get a special cake order now and then. He pretty much kept to white, yellow, and chocolate. If it was something different, yours truly, if around bumming donuts for his friends, would be sent to the grocer for a box of Duncan Hines mix.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 12:07 PM (lz5hY)

212 200 If you think that Canadians like paying two to three times the U.S. rate for dairy products, think again. The dairy tariffs are very much a grift given to a few hundred entrenched dairy producers in Quebec, in exchange for votes.

I wonder if this might be necessary in response to our farm subsidies.
Posted by: Diesel Jones, Biologist
-------
Most nations are resistant to having their food supply determined by their neighbors. Thus, the Japanese have been obsessed with rice production in Japan as it is a staple. UK, has its greenbelts to preserve farms from subdivisions, and so on.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:07 PM (jOFQQ)

213 The worlds best horsemen? Genghis Khan and his progeny say hello - just sayin.

The descriptions of the Comanche on horses outdo the Mongols.

It was very fortunate for neighboring tribes and the US Army that there were only about 10,000 of them.

Read: Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 27, 2023 12:08 PM (2tUFv)

214 Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste.
Posted by: Miss Issippi at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (sI15f)

Using every part of the buffalo isn't the same as using every part of every buffalo.

Posted by: Synova at March 27, 2023 12:09 PM (BD/yx)

215 Energy federalism. I like it.
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at March 27, 2023 12:02 PM (wpPM0)

That's the only drawback to this plan - the reactors need to be owned by the federal government and built on federal land. It's the only way to prevent years of delay and lawsuits and to eliminate the liability issue. It should be the central theme of Trump's and associated republicans 2024 campaign, then be implemented with all the gentleness of a bulldozer the day after the election. Distribution would remain with utilities throughout the country.

Posted by: jwest at March 27, 2023 12:10 PM (VP9ao)

216 SE Ahia...Zville environs.
Posted by: BignJames at March 27, 2023 12:04 PM (AwYPR)

My ppl are from down Wash Co PA and Wheeling and that's how the Ohio ppl said it.

Posted by: Thesokorus at March 27, 2023 12:10 PM (xwDmm)

217 Most nations are resistant to having their food supply determined by their neighbors. Thus, the Japanese have been obsessed with rice production in Japan as it is a staple. UK, has its greenbelts to preserve farms from subdivisions, and so on.

Both those countries were subject to wartime blockades in the last century.

Posted by: The ARC of History! at March 27, 2023 12:10 PM (2tUFv)

218 207
"Arthur Jensen"
Nope. It was also the name of Ned Beatty's character in Network. he delivers the corporations are everything speech.
Which they shouldn't be. See my comment 75.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at March 27, 2023 12:11 PM (qVln6)

219 You are absolutely correct. Cheap energy is necessary to live a good life in a society for all. And could have been done by GWB and his assemblage of idiots post 9/11 and probably forestalled the rise of Obama and the 2008 meltdown.
Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:14 AM (jOFQQ)

A necessary condition for that to work: take all the brakes off oil and gas drilling, and coal production, even as the 300 reactors are built and deployed. That gets us cheap energy during the transition, and an abundant source of raw materials once all the reactors are humming along. You cannot make fertilizer or plastics out of neutrons.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 27, 2023 12:11 PM (tkR6S)

220 YOU
WILL
A-
-TONE!

Posted by: BourbonChicken at March 27, 2023 12:11 PM (44ww/)

221 The fundamental conceit of far too many masters of the universe is the perception that people are interchangeable parts. I see this all the time in my company. "Product X is resource constrained, so borrow some people from Product Y, 'train them up real quick,' and put them on Product X."

It isn't as simple as changing the torque specification and slotting in a different part.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)
------------
Absolutely true. Managing people is an art, not a science and the ideas of Human Resources as an input to be utilized is far from the conception of a department of Personnel.

Figuring out second, third, and fourth order effects is hard enough in a modeling world of relatively easy to measure figures. Humans are more like a quantum wave function where you have to collapse the wave to determine the value of it.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:11 PM (jOFQQ)

222 Cake frosting out of a can is pretty much whipped sugar and vegetable oil.

--

Corn syrup and palm oil. You can sometimes even taste the chemicals that are supposed to be less than 2% of the listed ingredients.

vs snooty butter and sugar

Again, we're buying copies of copies of copies of what used to taste good.

Posted by: NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7 at March 27, 2023 12:12 PM (95YDO)

223 I am not of the Left, at all, but I have no problem with strip mining, as long as there is a practical reclamation plan in place. Yeah, you alter the landscape. So what? Nature alters landscapes all the time anyway. So does farming. Deal with it.

100%. Strip mining is significantly safer than sending people into tiny drilled-out caves and dead easy to fix once you're done. You just put all the dirt back where it was and plant trees or whatever.

Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 12:12 PM (ZGrMX)

224 Welp.

I'm wrong.

There is an "Arthur Jensen" in "Network" and this is one of his speeches.

*sigh*

Posted by: naturalfake at March 27, 2023 12:12 PM (mm6iK)

225 Both those countries were subject to wartime blockades in the last century.
Posted by: The ARC of History!

True, but even the Sov Union and China have tried and failed to maintain internal food supplies. Blockade or not, nations have consistently tried to protect economic advantages versus the outside world and to retain the ability to feed themselves. Netherlands is indicating politically what happens when a nation tries to destroy its domestic food production in service to Gaia urbanites.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:14 PM (jOFQQ)

226 'In fairness, many many millions of natives perished from small pox and other imported diseases'

Yeah, we were right on the cusp of flying cars when you disease bearing bastards showed up
Posted by: Ungrateful dead Indian at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (qVln6)
_______________

Now do Covid.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at March 27, 2023 12:14 PM (wpPM0)

227 True, but even the Sov Union and China have tried and failed to maintain internal food supplies. Blockade or not, nations have consistently tried to protect economic advantages versus the outside world and to retain the ability to feed themselves. Netherlands is indicating politically what happens when a nation tries to destroy its domestic food production in service to Gaia urbanites.
Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:14 PM (jOFQQ)
_______________

Which is why we need to develop the advanced photolithography machines currently available only (?) from the Netherlands.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at March 27, 2023 12:15 PM (wpPM0)

228 223 Some of the nicer looking tracts of land are reclaimed landfills, terraced and sculpted, proper drainage, maybe for a short while methane vents. I've seen a couple that could be pretty nice golf courses.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 12:16 PM (lz5hY)

229 and his sister has a bodacious set of tata's.
Posted by: Maj. Healey at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (DMyTF)

She does, if you can get past her Ben face.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 27, 2023 11:11 AM (7Q7Ca)

Face??

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy now with twice the crazy at March 27, 2023 12:17 PM (Zvtjl)

230 100%. Strip mining is significantly safer than sending people into tiny drilled-out caves and dead easy to fix once you're done. You just put all the dirt back where it was and plant trees or whatever.
Posted by: Ian S. at March 27, 2023 12:12 PM (ZGrMX)

Except where you blow right through the aquifers and pollute the drinking water of thousands.

Posted by: G'rump928(c) at March 27, 2023 12:17 PM (yQpMk)

231 100%. Strip mining is significantly safer than sending people into tiny drilled-out caves and dead easy to fix once you're done. You just put all the dirt back where it was and plant trees or whatever.
Posted by: Ian S.
-------------
Any kind of large scale surface disruption has effects beyond what you mention--including local weather patterns, water flows including underground aquifers, and pollution. Mining all too often has taken the individualized benefits but left the local population in the lurch dealing with the aftermath. Ideally, that should be priced into the cost of the mining activity itself or by the broader society benefiting from the production. Tragedy of the commons is a thing.

I am not an environmentalist but a conservationist type and disagree with the muh property uber alles as much as the centralized state making all the decisions.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:17 PM (jOFQQ)

232 There seems to be a significant push among some Native Americans for the idea that there were a very few horses left in America from those brought with people across the Bering Strait
----
Santa Fe was a trading hub for horses; Spaniards buying from the Indians.
Those horses were coming from the north.
Far in excess of the numbers possible from the "escaped from the Spanish" hypothesis.

The Indian had horses, they knew horses, they just didn't as a cultural see them as pack animals. Kinda like our tradition of the ox as a draft animal but not to ride.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at March 27, 2023 12:18 PM (1SUOz)

233 Which is why we need to develop the advanced photolithography machines currently available only (?) from the Netherlands.
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara
---------
Quite a few foundries exist in the US for specialized production such as IBM and the cell phone producers as to making prototypes. But, like the production of gun barrels via cold hammer forging, the cost of the capital goods in making the EUV lithography has caused a consolidation and specialization to the point that only one or maybe two firms that do that sell those goods world wide.

Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 12:21 PM (jOFQQ)

234
"Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste."

That's a Prog myth.
Where I live, there is a place called Smashed-in-Head Buffalo Jump. Archeologists examined the debris at the bottom of the jump and determined that 80% of the buffalo they found there was wasted.
Posted by: Speller

Plus, the Injun approach to sanitation. Set up teepee village next to a stream. Shit and dump game offal next to teepees for a few weeks until the stench becomes too offensive. Move teepee village a thousand yards downstream to a pristine stream-side meadow. Repeat, until stream runs out of decent campsites. Move to another stream and repeat.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 27, 2023 12:21 PM (n+4am)

235 Why? Butter is awesome and margarine isn't.
Why did people go so far out or their way for oleo?
blech!
Posted by: OneEyedJack at March 27, 2023 11:42 AM (FCbAQ)

My take on it, too. Why was the dairy lobby so concerned by an inferior substitute that was cheaper?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 27, 2023 12:21 PM (tkR6S)

236 If Indians know horses why don't Indian Casinos have race tracks? Because the crafty Indian has figured out there's more money in slots and Keno.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 12:23 PM (lz5hY)

237 Actually, North America did have a serious, development-limiting problem despite its otherwise perfect geography: animals. North America (and South America) didn't have good animal resources. Without beasts of burden and animals that are easy to grow and develop for food, options are limited. North America had bison - a poor candidate for domestication - and that's about it.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!) at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (t0OGg)

They did, but they ate them all.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 27, 2023 12:23 PM (tkR6S)

238
Kinda like our tradition of the ox as a draft animal but not to ride.
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice

Mongo like ox. Ox give smooth ride.

Posted by: Mongo at March 27, 2023 12:26 PM (n+4am)

239 237 "What I wouldn't give right now for a pickled buffalo tongue". Line from a movie, forget which one, but it sounds pretty good with some saltines and a cold beer.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 27, 2023 12:27 PM (lz5hY)

240 Most important post of the year, if not decade, JJ.

Nobody ever talked about it but Trump's two best hires were Wilbur Ross and Bob Lighthizer who cut 10s of thousands of regulations and came up with the GENIUS 1st-point-of-sale-in-Asia tariffs. I am an engineer designing and manufacturing American OEM durable goods and they WORKED! See Spencer Morrison's take on this(below) and pay attention that DC grifter Mark Simone just admitted that RdS is being guided by the Bush/Rove team that is decidedly against this.

They are running RdS to stop Trump and his very sound economic policies.

https://tinyurl.com/bdz66j7s

Posted by: Danimal28 at March 27, 2023 12:28 PM (klw0w)

241 That was pretty much Trump's position: zero tariffs, but if the other country wouldn't do that, then the US would match their tariffs tit-for-tat. It seems that few people realized the level of tariffs assessed against US goods, even by such "friends" as Canada. Tariffs on dairy? Tariffs on wood / paper products? Fine - how about 400% on Canadian autos? Don't like it? Tough.

Posted by: LCMS Rulz! at March 27, 2023 12:29 PM (K58O6)

242 Until 1913, the federal government subsisted mainly on tariffs applied to all foreign imports.

Posted by: insurgens ad opus at March 27, 2023 12:34 PM (Q37W6)

243 Sorry Buck, wrong page.

Posted by: Danimal28 at March 27, 2023 12:36 PM (klw0w)

244 Until 1913, the federal government subsisted mainly on tariffs applied to all foreign imports.
Posted by: insurgens ad opus at March 27, 2023 12:34 PM (Q37W6)

The personal income tax was sold as a solution to the rank partisanship of assigning tariffs and excise taxes by Congress.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 27, 2023 12:58 PM (xhaym)

245 Sadly, it was mostly Republicans (with the silent aid of Dems who wanted to be bought off) who pushed the whole "free trade" BS. Can't get around this. I have had a long journey from my support for the idea of "Libertarian-Conservativism" in the 80's to my much clearer understanding of the reality of post-modern capitalism (which always strives for crony "capitalism", a precursor to fascism). The Libertarians really screwed us (and they showed their true colors over the last six years).

Posted by: Thomas Shydler at March 27, 2023 01:42 PM (M3pDV)

246 What we call the 'left' is mainly the creature of oligarchs--the 'left' are in essence parasitical subsidized critters that act on the behest and suggestion of their wealthy patrons. Their wealthy patrons, more or less, despise commoners and aspire to being their own god that is beyond good and evil of mere society. So, the oligarchs have funded and honed the ideas of the Great Reset in order to institute a new static feudalism which requires stagnant or even negative economic growth in order the save Gaia. In reality, it is to prevent them from being replaced and forgotten by history.
Posted by: whig at March 27, 2023 11:22 AM (jOFQQ)
==
I'm way late - but bravo!

Posted by: Black JEM at March 27, 2023 01:59 PM (UVyKP)

247 Not to mention that Native Americans were at essentially a Stone Age technology level.
Posted by: MAGA_Ken at March 27, 2023 11:43 AM (cMXNt)

Hmmm...not exactly. Advanced is not always better. They were very efficient. No waste.
Posted by: Miss Issippi at March 27, 2023 11:47 AM (sI15f)
==
Eh, actually an untruth. Some were - some were not. Many plains Indians behaved more like locusts. Which is why their numbers were always limited.

Posted by: Black JEM at March 27, 2023 02:13 PM (UVyKP)

248 Hey Buck, I don’t take you too seriously because you are blogging this on a site that is led by two dunces that have clearly chosen the GOPe candidate Governor DeFatso, advised by Karl Rove (doesn’t get any closer to Bush family and GOPe), over the America First candidate, President Trump.

So why don’t you talk to Deuce and CBD and see if you can help them dislodge their little pea-sized heads from their rectums.

Posted by: Dummy #43 at March 27, 2023 03:15 PM (FkMTW)

249 Adam Smith is being misquoted. He supported tariffs as retaliation for foreign countries imposing tariffs on domestic manufacturers, and warns against extending this to more goods.

Posted by: MikeN at March 27, 2023 08:35 PM (XygMV)

Processing 0.03, elapsed 0.0401 seconds.
15 queries taking 0.0184 seconds, 258 records returned.
Page size 180 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.