URLs du Jour

2019-08-15

[nag nag nag]

  • Kevin D. Williamson's recent NR Corner post is Decisions, Decisions.

    The polls at the moment have it Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Harris, or the nincompoop, the nag, the nut, and the nark. I feel like the Democrats are not really giving Marianne Williamson a fair look.

    "Indeed." I'd tell you to Read The Whole Thing, but you just did.

    Instead of an Amazon Product today, I've resurrected an old comic page, originally grabbed from the Jack Kirby Museum. Click for a big version.

    If it's President Warren on January 20, 2021, you can't say you weren't warned. (I believe that's Marianne Williamson in black on the right.)


  • So I'm moaning over the wreckage of my investment portfolio and pricing out cat food. And at Cafe Hayek Don Boudreaux points out: Trump Seems Intent on Destroying the Global Economy....

    … and, to the extent that he succeeds in this madness, he will inflict incalculable damage, not just on non-Americans, but on – and perhaps especially on – Americans as well.

    Trump’s belief that his trade policies will enrich Americans and makes us more secure, both economically and militarily, is a figment only of his economic ignorance and naiveté. His trade policies will eventually more than eliminate any of the economic benefits that other of his policies are generating. Trump and his advisors – both those, such as Peter Navarro, who actively encourage Trump’s trade madness, and others who, despite knowing better, cravenly abide it because of their wish to remain near The Prince – are fast becoming a greater threat to Americans’ prosperity and peace than are any foreign governments.

    Prof Don points out a new Foreign Affairs article by Chad P. Bown And Douglas A. Irwin, Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System. You need to register to read the full article, but even the part you get for free is pretty damning.


  • Or you could just read free stuff, like the latest from Pun Salad fave, Veronique de Rugy: You Can't Have Your Tariff Cake and Eat It Too.

    When it comes to trade policy, President Donald Trump and his adviser Peter Navarro provide endless examples of incoherent economic thinking. They regularly claim that X is true, and then in the next breath, they assert that not-X is also correct. Let's consider two recent examples.

    The first involves Navarro. Following an announcement that the administration was again ready to hit Chinese imports with a new round of tariffs, Navarro made the rounds on TV to argue that consumers should not worry because this will not affect them at all. Talking to Fox Business Network's Gerry Baker, Navarro said, "There's a lot of people who are saying, incorrectly, that somehow the American consumer is bearing the burden of these China tariffs. And it's just false." In other interviews, he went on to praise the billions of dollars raised by Uncle Sam from the tariffs.

    These claims make no sense. The whole point of Trump's tariffs is to raise the prices of foreign goods to make them so unappealing to U.S. consumers that these consumers will instead buy more domestically made goods. Some of the Chinese producers of the goods could, in theory, eat the full cost of the tariffs and suffer reduced profit margins. However, in reality, importers pass a large portion of the costs of tariffs on to customers — manufacturers and households in the United States — by raising their prices. In fact, many academic studies have found that most or all of the burden of these tariffs is borne by U.S. consumers.

    So we're damaging ourselves, throwing a lot of capricious policy around, mangling relationships with trading partners, … what's not to like?


  • So the Washington Post Fact Checker gave Liz and Kamala "Four Pinocchios" (Harris, Warren ignore DOJ report to claim Michael Brown was ‘murdered’). Factcheck.org don't have a cute scale for lies, but nevertheless found Harris, Warren Wrong About Brown Shooting.

    And yesterday Politifact weighed in with…

    "How much should this word choice matter?" Well, if you're deciding whether the word is true or false, they matter quite a bit.

    If you're guessing that Politifact is going to weasel out of its ostensible mission, congratulations. From the linked article:

    Because the significance of Harris’ and Warrens’ [sic] use of the word is open to some dispute, we won’t be rating their tweets on the Truth-O-Meter.

    Here's my "word choice": Politifact exemplifies cowardice and dishonesty.

    Let's go to JVW at Patterico for an alternate take:

    So there you have it, helpfully distilled by the deep musings of three more academics: words, even those from famous politicians who are vying for the highest office in the land, should be taken colloquially, not literally; when speaking about race we have to understand that grievances from the past allow for narrative liberties to be taken in the present; and getting hung up on words, even when they are used irresponsibly, keeps us from achieving our perfect woke selves.

    What an utter load of horse manure.

    I think he's being kind. Horse manure, unlike Politifact, can be useful.


  • We try to Keep It Clean here at Pun Salad, but when P. J. O'Rourke headlines his article Shut the F%$K Up, what are ya gonna do? (Subhed: "Whose Bright Idea Was It To Make Sure That Every Idiot In the World Was in Touch With Every Other Idiot?")

    The big corporations who operate social media platforms have the ethics of an opioid-addicted Oxycontin pharmaceutical sales rep.

    User privacy equates to getting a prostate exam in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve while dropping trou’ between Christina Aguilera and Ryan Seacrest.

    Social media makes us easy victims of fraud and financial manipulation. (Darn it! Of all the Nigerian government officials, I spam-blocked the one who actually had $100 million to wire to my bank account.)

    Peej continues. You know what to do.


Last Modified 2019-08-16 6:14 AM EDT