Are Trump’s tariffs smart? More stupidity on the left. And breaking news?

Are Trump’s tariffs smart? More stupidity on the left. And breaking news?

Memorial Day, 2026

Happy Memorial Day and thanks to all those who have served and thanks to their families and friends for their support. My brother flew B-52s over Viet Nam. A cousin who I considered my other brother has a bronze star. My Dad was never drafted into WWII because of being the principal of the black elementary school in Madison, GA. Dad half-jokingly said it was because he couldn’t cook. But my mother’s brother-in-law was a mechanic in the Navy in the Pacific theatre and was haunted from being below decks when his destroyer was rocking and rolling during encounters with the Japanese. My other half’s father was a Bedford Boy and landed at Omaha Beach. The D-Day Memorial is in Bedford, VA. https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/featured/d-day/2024-06-02/bedford-boys-dday-wwii-virginia-army-normandy-14056070.html

People ask me if I am a veteran and I say that I served in the southern campaign, University of Georgia 1962-1966. I would have gone through ROTC, like my brother at Purdue, had it not been for a bigoted colonel commanding Georgia’s Air Force ROTC. But that is another story for another day. Today – and every day – I am grateful for all of those who wore the uniform and all of those who supported them.

Are Trump’s tariffs smart?

I have said it a dozen times before: Trump’s tariffs are not erudite – just the opposite. The president loves universal tariffs. Those are not smart because he puts tariffs on countries with whom we run a surplus even though he rails about trade deficits. He says that his tariffs are to protect US manufacturing when half of our imports are inputs making manufacturing more costly. US automobile companies are facing losses because of tariffs on their components (see aluminum and steel). Then puts tariffs on stuff we don’t make or grow ourselves. Again, not very smart. Goodyear is closing its Fayetteville, North Carolina tire plant and laying off 1,700 workers because we don’t grow rubber trees. Goodyear is losing buckets of money – $249 million in the first three months of this year because of the high cost of materiel inputs. Translation: we don’t grow rubber trees. Even with an anticipated refund on the first round of the president’s illegal tariffs, the company will still face increased costs of $420 million this year due to tariffs and inflation. A smarter tariff – if there is such a thing – would exempt stuff we don’t make or grow. Goodyear gets rubber from Thailand to make its tires. Trump probably thinks rubber trees grow in North Carolina. But they don’t. 

Remember that Trump’s trade representative said that the new tariffs are based on “excess supply” beyond a country’s needs. So since obviously Thailand produces more rubber than it can consume locally, it must be exploiting all the countries to which it exports, thereby driving out the competition of local rubber. Growers Only problem is that there are no local (US) rubber growers. No matter trumpets Trump. No soup for you! Just like denying the automobile companies relief, no relief in sight for Goodyear either. That means more tires from China as domestic producers are cutting back production due to this tariff madness. And higher prices. Raise your hands if Trump’s tariffs on stuff we don’t produce makes sense to you.

The fourth part of this madness is the tariffs in the name of national defense. It seems to me that if some important goods are vital to national defense then we should have zero tariffs on them to get them as cheaply as possible. Isn’t it stupid to make us pay more for something that is deemed “vital”? Rather, if they are so vital then instead of placing a tariff on them, why not start to heavily subsidize American manufactures to produce those products while charging a zero tariff on imports? Although I am certainly no fan of subsidies this seems a more efficient way of doing things. 

I only hope that the next administration sees things differently, however unlikely. The democrats have always embraced restraint of trade thinking it benefits their labor union constituents. Republicans – before the RINO Trump – generally supported free trade because it lowered input costs. There is a high probability that the next democrat in the White House will keep whatever tariffs deemed legal in place. What will the next republican president do?

The Met gala: More leftist stupidity

We just were subjected to the Met Gala (and no that is not where a baseball team from New York is sitting around eating apples). This year’s attendees were highlighted in the press showing their outrageous tasteless attire. Missing this year was AOC attending the $30,000 per ticket event in a high dollar designer dress saying “Tax the Rich.” Can you imagine someone doing something that stupid? Oh. It was AOC so the answer is obviously “yes.”

This year’s occasion became the latest in which the progressives have taken the opportunity to assail the rich. Whoever it is that writes the progressive playbook has deemed it is “tax the rich even more week.” All of a sudden the left is attacking billionaires, reading out of the same playbook. Jeff Bezos was one of the sponsors of the Gala and was promptly attacked by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren pompously intoned “If Jeff Bezos can drop $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes.” Bernie Sanders tweeted “The reality of American life today: Jeff Bezos, worth $290 billion, spent: $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse $500 million on a yacht. Meanwhile, he‘s planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots. Unacceptable.”

Are they saying that Bezos hasn’t added value and can’t do what he wants with his own money? I guess Liz and Bernie don’t use Amazon and they don’t employ 1.58 million people – but Bezos does. But this is now the left’s playbook. I think AOC started it with saying that no one is worth a billion dollars and if they got it they must have cheated, stole, or ripped people off. She said “You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that.” This is the Marxist notion that the economic pie is fixed and to get more for yourself you have to take from others. Ted Cruz called AOC and “idiot” and “a little Marxist.” He was being kind. I would have called her a fool. My Dad used to tell us that envy was a wasted emotion. He would always say “Don’t ever be jealous of anyone. Make them be jealous of you.” 

Even the left must realize that this pillorying of billionaires is a lie. If it were true then there would be no economic growth and we would all be impoverished as an increasing population would fight over a stagnant GDP. But the billionaires create wealth – not only for themselves –  and add value. The economic pie is only fixed if you are a Marxist. Look at all the Teslas running around, Starlink and Space X. You may not like Elon Musk but he may soon be the world’s first trillionaire.  Did he add value? Look at all the employees and wealth created. Steve Jobs didn’t add value? Google didn’t add value? What about Bill Gates?

The left knows that what they are spewing is BS yet they persist. You have got to be really blind and really stupid to believe this nonsense. Mamdani wants to increase taxes on the rich who have second homes in New York. The mayor of Seattle has told the rich that if they don’t like more taxes then they can leave. And they are. Didn’t New York governor Hochul tell the rich “we don’t want you” and now she is begging them to come back? 

The left conveniently ignores the fact that many of those dastardly billionaires create jobs and are major contributors to charities in their states and cities. Is AOC critical of Bezos giving $100 million to a charity funding early childhood education in New York or Ken Griffin – recently the subject of Mamdani’s ire – giving billions in philanthropy? But what I find interesting is why are the left’s billionaires allowing their subjects to sharply criticize them as well? Soros is a billionaire as are Steyer, Bloomberg, Linkedin’s Hoffman, Google’s Schmidt, Illinois governor Pritzker among others. All in all there were 28 billionaires who backed Kamala Harris. So why don’t they tell their wayward children to just shut the you-know-what up?

Breaking news?

Word is that we are close to a memorandum of understanding with whoever it is that is negotiating for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard with our crack (no not Hunter Biden) negotiators Jared Kurshner and Steve Witkoff. They are promising to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz. (Make them send the first boats through just to show its safe.) We are going to let them sell some oil because they are running out of places to store it. We have promised to tell Netanyahu to stop assassinating their leaders – if they can find them. They will dig up all the buried enriched uranium and since Israel has assassinated all their nuclear scientists they will give it to us so we can make them a bomb. Trump, reportedly said no to all of this until they offered to rename the country the Islamic Republic of Trump. That sealed the deal! (Apologies to the Babylon Bee).