Category Archives: free trade

The Convention of States Project: A Bad Idea

Similar to Patrick Buchanan’s campaigns, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” the Tea Party, and to some extent Donald Trump’s presidency, the Convention of States Project* will not solve the crises that America faces. It will, undoubtedly, like most of the previous reform and populist movements be sabotaged by the ruling class if it ever gets close to accomplishing its goals.

The Project’s rhetoric is “old-style” conservative/populist-speak which seeks to “[propose] amendments that impose fiscal restraint on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.”** Some of the proposed amendments include:

Congressional term limits
Requiring a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to increase the public debt
Restoring the Commerce Clause to its original intent and scope
Repeal of the 16^th Amendment, which gave us the income tax
Giving states, by a three-fifths vote, the power to negate any federal law, regulation or executive order giving Congress an easy means of overriding regulation

So far, 19 state legislatures have called for a constitutional convention, 34 states are needed for a convention to be called and, for an amendment to be passed, it must be approved by three quarters of state legislatures.

The state legislatures who have signed on have realized that the federal government has become omnipotent and the individual states are now merely appendages to Washington. “The states,” said South Carolina state representative Bill Taylor, “have sort of lost their voice, and all we can do now is beg from the cheap seats and say, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’”***

After the totalitarian and draconian efforts of the U.S. government and those around the world the past two years in response to the “pandemic,” Mr. Taylor’s sentiment is, to say the least, an understatement!

The fundamental problem with efforts such as the Convention of States Project is that they do not understand the nature of the crises that both America and most of the world face. For America, its current malaise can be traced shortly after its independence with the adoption of the Constitution itself.

While it has long been touted as a great document of freedom and liberty, it is anything but. The “founding fathers” knowingly created a powerful central government and decreased the sovereignty of the individual state governments which had existed under the Articles of Confederation.

In the words of Murry Rothbard, the Constitution was a coup that, for the most part, was the antithesis of the spirit and drive of the American Revolution which was a movement against political centralization and empire:

It was a bloodless coup d’etat against an unresisting

Confederation Congress. . . . . The Federalists, by use

of propaganda, chicanery, fraud, malapportionment of

delegates, blackmail threats of secession and even

coercive laws, had managed to sustain enough delegates

to defy the wishes of the majority of the American people

and create a new Constitution.****

Worse than the power grab was the establishment of an omnipotent state as Rothbard incisively continues:

The drive [for ratification] was managed by a

corps of brilliant members and representatives

of the financial and landed oligarchy. These

wealthy merchants and large landowners were

joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in

their drive to create a strong overriding central

government – a supreme government with its

own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce,

and raise armies.*****

410jXD-zO+L

The celebrated “separation of powers,” and “checks and balances” within the federal system and even the Bill of Rights, so often lauded by conservative and populist commentators, have proven from the very start to be ineffectual in stopping the expansion of state power.

The Constitution itself declares that it is the ultimate authority as Article VI states:

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which

shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made,

or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,

shall be the supreme law of the land. . . . [Italics mine.]

The massive and now unresolvable social, economic and political troubles both in the U.S. and around the world stems from a concentration of political power that is inherent in the nature of constitutional government. This power is augmented and sustained by a system of central banking which provides the nation state with seemingly unlimited financial power to implement its various social engineering schemes, conduct continuous warfare, and has the ability to crush any opposition to its hegemony.

The solution, which is all too obvious, but not attainable in the current ideological atmosphere dominated by statist thinking, is political decentralization.

The smaller political alignments under decentralization would probably coalesce around peoples with similar economic, social and religious affiliations and status and those with similar ethnic and racial backgrounds. Such a system would be truly diverse and undoubtedly lower social tensions which derive from the central state’s forced integration polices.

Once political decentralization became a reality, the natural and mutually beneficial relationships and interactions between peoples would emerge. The immense advantage of free trade – the widening of the division of labor and specialization – would be the norm between societies since smaller countries could not afford to restrict trade since doing so would lead to autarky and the resultant fall in standards of living to primitive levels.

Likewise, a universal monetary standard, most likely based on gold and silver, would arise among differing communities since a multitude of currencies would lead to monetary chaos and render economic calculation an impossibility. Since no central state could impose its currency, the only honest and sound money – gold/silver – would be quickly adopted by all.

The mass invasion of the U.S. taking place under the negligence and encouragement of the Biden Administration could also be thwarted through political decentralization. Areas where the lives and property of people are threatened by invaders have more of an incentive to effectively deal with unwanted groups than bureaucrats living often times thousands of miles away.

Each jurisdiction would make its own policies on who or how many it wanted in its territory. Moreover, each community could expel undesirables without interference from those who are not property owners or members of such communities.

While those behind the Convention of States Project and the state legislatures which have called for a constitutional convention may be well meaning, they will ultimately fail. Such efforts are a wrongheaded approach to address the myriad of problems that plague the U.S. and, for that matter, the entire world.

Instead of attempts to amend the Constitution or though the electoral process by finding the “right candidate,” the very viable and historically proven alternative of de-centralization through secession is the only pathway to ultimate success. Until the break-up of the nation state is accomplished, America and the world’s future will be considerably bleak.

*https://conventionofstates.com/

**https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/activists-more-than-halfway-to-forcing

***Ibid

**** Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty. Vol. 5, The New Republic, 1784-1791, ed., Patrick Newman. Auburn, AL.: Mises Institute, 2019, p. 306.

*****Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

America’s Trade Deficit: An Enormous Concern

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Another milestone (or more accurately millstone) was recently passed by the U.S. economy as the January trade deficit surged to an all-time record high of $107.6 billion, up some $26 billion from December’s $80.7 billion imbalance.*

Like the gigantic federal budget deficit, the trade imbalance is no longer talked about by the financial press. There has been little criticism of President Biden on either matter nor are Administration officials questioned about how things can be reversed. In fact, some commentators bizarrely contend that trade deficits show how robust an economy actually is!

The trade deficit was supposed to be alleviated by former President Trump who vowed throughout the 2016 campaign that he would rectify the situation and repeatedly ridiculed U.S. trade negotiators for their lack of financial acumen. He touted that his “friendship” with world leaders, most notably Chinese President Xi Jinping, would result in favorable trade deals for the country.

Trade hawks got on board with Trump’s economic nationalism believing that he would not only fix imbalances, but create an American industrial renaissance. Optimism ran high after his unexpected win in 2016.

As president, after a couple of contentious years of on-again, off-again negotiations a first phase of an agreement with China was signed in early 2018. During the negotiations, he boasted:

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars

on trade with virtually every country it does business with,

trade wars are good and easy to win.**

In actuality, nothing significant was agreed upon with China despite the Trump Administration bragging that it was the first phase of a more comprehensive deal to come. Despite all of the hoopla, the trade imbalance continued to grow and no deal was ever finalized.

Besides the initial agreement with China, the next biggest trade policy act was the scrapping of NAFTA and its replacement with a new treaty, “The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA). The new agreement was little different than the original treaty.

Thus, by the time he left office in 2020, the U.S.’s trade gap ($68.2 billion) was greater than during his predecessor, Barrack Obama’s term, who Trump lambasted for his ruinous trade policy.***

Trump wisely spoke little about trade during his unsuccessful 2020 re-election bid and, surprisingly, his opponents, despite the president’s miserable failure, steered clear of the issue. Of course, the Democrats were limited in what they could do with an obvious feeble, senile, and vile candidate at the top of their ticket.

Like the Democrats, Trump’s trade-hawk cheerleaders have remained reticent about the escalating trade numbers and like the former president they too, are now discredited when it comes to trade. If America could not overcome its trade gap with an economic nationalist as president for four years, then there must be a problem with their thinking.

The reason why Trump failed – as will Biden – is that he, his negotiators, and the trade hawks who supported him are ignorant of basic economics. The burgeoning trade deficits are not the result of bad trade deals or that of ineffective tariff policies, but are the result of a deteriorating U.S. economy which is no longer one of production, but of consumption and debt. A growing economy creates trade surpluses not deficits; it produces more than it consume.

Because of decades of anti-capitalistic economic legislation – confiscatory taxation, regulatory burdens, inflationary monetary policy, “crowding out” budget deficits, unemployment subsidies, minimum wage laws, and an overemphasis by the Establishment on higher education – the U.S. is no longer an industrial power and not a conducive environment for economic growth.

Because it possesses the world’s reserve currency, the U.S. has been able to offset its trade imbalances by importing goods in exchange for dollars. Even with this advantage, however, trade deficits have continued to grow. It appears that even its status as the possessor of the world’s reserve currency may be coming to an end as the dollar’s preeminence will fall with the surge in price inflation. This will have a devastating effect not only for the domestic economy but its foreign trade as well as the country will not be able to export dollars for goods in the future.

The burgeoning trade deficit is a far more accurate indicator of the health of an economy than GDP, unemployment figures, or the government’s “official” rate of price inflation. All these statistics are so manipulated that they do not come close to showing what is actually happening in the real world. The trade deficit is a more reflective gauge of an economy’s productive capacity.

That Trump posted the largest trade deficit in history also explodes his claim that under his watch, the U.S. had the greatest economy ever! How he calculated and supported such nonsense (which was not challenged by the financial press) is hard to maintain with trade deficits in the stratosphere.

When America’s economy was at its zenith, it was a creditor nation with trade surpluses and producing goods which were sold the world over. It had a high savings rate, a low inflationary environment, little public debt, and respect for private property, particularly the right for entrepreneurs to hire and fire whom they pleased. All socio-economic groups prospered from the free market and free trade, not just the 1%.

The trade deficit can be turned around, but not through bureaucratic state orchestrated deals which favor big business and multi-national corporations at the expense of American consumers. The proper trade policy is no policy at all, except the freeing of the economy from government intervention.

*https://www.reuters.com/business/us-goods-trade-deficit-hits-record-high-january-2022-02-28/

**https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-trump/trump-tweets-trade-wars-are-good-and-easy-to-win-idUSKCN1GE1E9

***https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/05/us-trade-deficit-january-2021.html

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

“Inflation,” Properly Defined

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What Is Inflation in Economics? Definition, Causes ...

The use or rather misuse of language has always been an effective tool of politicians to enact their agendas. George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” brilliantly showed, in his day, how language was being manipulated for all sorts of totalitarian measures:

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin, where it belongs.*

Since its publication in 1946, matters have only gotten worse. For example, in today’s parlance words such as “racism,” “discrimination,” “fascism” have lost all meaning and are usually used by the Left to smear its political opponents.

In the sphere of economics, examples abound of the misuse of terms and concepts all of which advance the interests of the politically-connected elites, technocrats, governments, and the banking establishment at the expense of everyone else. One of the most glaring examples which, after the financial collapse in 2020, has now become more prominent in daily life, has been the meaning of the word “inflation.”

Inflation, at one time, and properly understood meant an increase in the money supply; it did not mean an increase in prices. A rise in prices was and still is, the result of inflation.

The meaning of inflation, however, has been deftly misused by the world’s monetary lords to cover their own nefarious machinations. By deliberately changing the term it deflects the focus of their activities which can thus be blamed on others – greedy businessmen, oil cartels, workers demanding higher wages, etc.

Since central banks have complete control of the money supplies of the world, when inflation is properly understood its cause can be directly traced to them, which may lead to some inconvenient – for the banksters at least– inquires such as: “How did they attain such power and privilege?”

Redefining inflation has been done to disguise and shift focus away from the actual cause of what America and many economies of the Western world are now experiencing in the startling rise in both producer and consumer prices. This is the result of the central banks’ expansion of the money supply to mind-boggling proportions purportedly to fight the corona plandemic, but in reality it has been done to offset the financial implosion which began in late February/March of 2020 before the unnecessary and destructive lockdowns began. The lockdowns and closing of the economies gave cover for the Federal Reserve and central banks to create vast amounts of money and credit to salvage, and then re-inflate a bubble in the stock and asset markets.

An accurate account of the matter will show that the financial collapse of the system really began in the fall of 2019 as the “repo” market began to meltdown, causing the Fed to intervene with injections of “liquidity” to keep interest rates from spiking. However, just like the meaning of inflation has been corrupted, so has the narrative of the financial collapse of 2020 been purposely skewed.

As a separate discipline, economics developed in large part in reaction to British Mercantilism of the 18^th century. Economic theory was used by authors such as Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations to debunk the system of regulations, taxes and subsidies that the British government imposed. Such economists, as did later schools of thought, most notably the Austrians, used economic thinking and its terms to expose the baneful effects of government intervention, fiat money, and the benefits of free trade.

Over time, however, most economists became corrupted and instead of acting as a check on state power, became champions of regulation, central banking, and all sorts of social engineering schemes. Economists were paid for their sell out with cushy positions and jobs in the state apparatus to manipulate language and doctrines.

Today, an inflation rate of 2% is regarded by Fed officials as good for the economy and something monetary policy should try to achieve. Previously, a rise in prices of 2% was seen for what it was – a loss of purchasing power hurting the middle and lower classes the worst while benefiting the wealthy.

For those who seek to rid economics or, for that matter, all the social sciences of deliberately misleading language and terms, George Orwell’s works are indispensable. It is, therefore, incumbent for truth seekers of all persuasions to do so not only for their own benefit, but to maintain the sage author’s legacy.

*https://libcom.org/files/Politics%20and%20the%20English%20Language%20-%20George%20Orwell.pdf

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Memo to The Donald: Cut Tariffs NOT Rates

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So far, President Trump’s economic response to a potential coronavirus outbreak and a further stock market sell off has been expected – calls for more interest rate cuts and an additional round of monetary stimulus. For the stock market, economy, and the virus itself, neither measure will have their desired effect and, in fact, may exacerbate things.

Further rate cuts and more money printing will not alleviate the situation since it has been the Federal Reserve’s recent “repo operations” which has pushed the market to its unsustainable highs. For President Trump’s re-election hopes, the current “correction” better be short lived since he has repeatedly boasted about the stock market and has tied its success with the supposed health of the economy. He will pay a political price if the market continues to tank and brings the economy down with it.

While President Trump and economic nationalists have bashed China for its trade practices, they are now going to see first hand how dependent the US and the West are on Chinese exports, as supply chains are disrupted over the coronavirus.

A Bloomberg article describes China’s weakest factory activity ever recorded:

The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index plunged to 35.7 in

February form 50 the previous month, according to data received by the

National bureau Statistics on Saturday, much lower than the median

estimate of economists. Both were well below 50, which denotes

contraction.*

The expected reduction of Chinese goods will mean higher US domestic prices, however, the increase in prices can be offset somewhat not by rate cuts, but by tariff reductions, or, better still, elimination of duties on imports. Increasing the money supply or cutting interest rates, which is what Trump, the market, and 95% of economists favor, will only mean higher prices for dwindling imports as greater amounts of money will chase fewer goods.

In the President’s comments on the coronavirus and the stock market plunge, he has repeatedly cited other nations’ (Japan, Germany) – lower interest rates as a policy that the Fed should pursue. Apparently, the President is not aware that recent data out of Japan has shown that the economy shrank at an annualized rate of 6.3% for the fourth quarter of 2019 while the German economy only grew at 0.6% last year.** Low rates have not helped either economy or anywhere else where they have been foolishly tried.

What President Trump, world policy makers, and central bankers do not understand, whether deliberately or from willful ignorance, is that the artificial suppression of interest rates and money printing does not lead to economic growth. Instead, prosperity can only come about by the arduous process of saving (abstention from consumption), which provides the means for capital formation, which leads to production. Employment, wage growth, and income are also ultimately tied to savings. For the creation of wealth, there is no way around this elementary economic principle – one that few profession economists comprehend.

For saving and investment to have their most efficacious impact and for individuals to engage in such sacrificial behavior, a sound monetary order must be in place. Unfortunately, ever since the US went off the gold standard internationally in 1971, its monetary system has grown increasingly unstable.

If the Trump Administration would eliminate, or at least reduce significantly, tariffs, it would more than likely induce China to do the same. The benefits of lower import prices for the millions of out of work Chinese due to the coronavirus shut downs would be a tremendous help and would also boost America’s export industries. Such action would show to those who elected him that Donald Trump was not a typical politician, but one who thought outside the box.

While it did not cause the Great Depression, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 contributed to its severity. If the recent sell-off is indeed the beginning of the long anticipated bust, following a supposed decade long expansion, then policy makers should do all in their power to alleviate the coming suffering. The reduction of tariffs not only on Chinese goods, but those the world over would be a step in the right direction.

Let us hope that someone will convince Donald Trump that tariff reduction and not rate cuts will help Americans better deal with the troublesome and potentially economic and socially devastating coronavirus.

*China Posts Weakest Factory Activity on Record,” Bloomberg News, 29 February 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/china-feb-manufacturing-pmi-at-35-7-est-45-0

**Megumi Fujikawa, “Japan’s Economy Shrinks Faster Than Expected.” Market Watch. 16 February 2020. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-economy-shrinks-faster-than-expected-2020-02-16; “German Economy Stagnates as Eurozone Growth Hits Seven-Year-Low,” The Guardian, 14 February 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2020/feb/14/german-economy-stagnates-growth-eurozone-gdp-business-live

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The Ethics of a Gold Standard

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goldstandard

The efficacy of a metallic monetary system is beyond dispute at least among real economists which eliminates just about 95% of whom are now engaged in the “profession.” Money, which gold is, allows for specialization, the division of labor, and provides the means for mankind to escape from barter and, thus, a primitive existence. Like free trade, money naturally integrates mankind both among and between peoples.

A system of central banking with an unbacked paper currency is the antithesis of a gold standard. Manipulation of currencies by central banks, mostly through debasement, hinders trade, creates distortions, and ultimately leads to the dreaded business cycle. Murray Rothbard aptly describes the baneful results of state intervention in the monetary system:

. . . government meddling with money has

not only brought untold tyranny into the world;

it has also brought chaos and not order. It has

fragmented the peaceful, productive world

market and shattered it into a thousand pieces,

with trade and investment hobbled and hampered

by myriad restrictions, controls, artificial rates,

currency breakdowns, etc. It has helped bring

about wars by transforming a world of peaceful

intercourse into a jungle of warring currency blocs.*

Rothbard Money

While the economic efficiency of a gold standard is important, the ethical case for it is more compelling and was the reason why gold, as money, lasted as a medium of exchange for so long. Gold/money has to be created through honest-to-goodness production and exchange. The often dangerous mining of gold takes labor, capital goods, and land. Turning raw gold into coinage is another process which requires a high level of specialization and production techniques. Both are honest and morally sound activities which make for the betterment of life all around.

The ethical standing of central banking and its issuance of unbacked currency as money through the printing press, stroke of a computer key, or via the expansion of credit cannot stand similar scrutiny. By any appraisal, central banking is immoral. Through the creation of money, banks stealthy transfer wealth to those who control the money supply and those closely associated with it.

The ability of central banks to create unlimited amounts of money and credit has been the greatest redistribution scheme ever conceived. The process ultimately leads to class conflict as the wealth disparity between the politically well-connected and those outside that nexus invariably widen.

Under a gold standard, none of this would take place.

Because of their lack and often distain for economic doctrines, in particular, monetary theory, “economic nationalists” (really “economic ignoramuses”) have wrongly focused on trade as a factor in the continued decline of the middle and working classes. China’s supposed unfair trade practices was a staple of President Trump’s campaign rhetoric and has continued through much of his first term.

The focus on trade has deflected attention from the real cause of worsening economic conditions for American workers and the enrichment of Wall Street. Despite the blatant transfer of wealth via the Fed’s policies of suppressed interest rates and money printing since the 2008 Recession, economic nationalists continue to applaud President Trump’s tariff policies while the President continues to browbeat the Fed to do more of the same even calling for negative interest rates and more Quantitative Easing.

The Left rightly speaks out of the vast and growing inequality of wealth distribution, but like those who espouse economic nationalism, they fail to understand the reason for why the societal imbalance has occurred. One remedy they propose – a “wealth tax” – will not address the problem. Moreover, their “soak-the-rich” schemes would snare in their plunder (not that Leftists particularly care) many of the wealthy outside of the banking and financial sector of their legitimate, just gains.

The case for honest money must be made on ethical grounds. The current system must be exposed and shown for the scam that it is: a massive redistribution scheme enriching the political elites and their closely aligned business and financial allies. While it is undeniable that a gold standard would lead to enormous prosperity, its reinstatement would remedy one of the great injustices that plague the world – central banking!

*Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done To Our Money? BN Publishing, 2012: 84.

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

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What President Trump and the West Can Learn from China

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Trump Trip China

Instead of a demonstration of its overwhelming military might intended to intimidate tiny North Korea and pressure China to lean on its defiant communist neighbor, President Trump and the West should try to learn a few things from China.

The President’s trip to the Far East came on the heels of the completion of China’s 19^th National Congress where the current president, Xi Jinping, has cunningly positioned himself as China’s unchallenged leader. In an address at the opening of the Congress, Xi cautioned that the country faced “challenges” that are “extremely grim” yet, despite these, the nation’s future is “extremely bright.”*

While Western politicos and pundits bemoan the lack of political pluralism that exists within China and President Trump complained about bad trade “deals,” they miss an important factor as to why China has transformed itself from a socialist basket case some three decades ago into an economic powerhouse which now boasts over a third of the world’s billionaires!

China’s economic ascendancy can be attributed not only to the implementation of market reforms in the 1990s, but also its lack of “political competition.” As a one-party state, resources, time, energy, and capital are not allowed to be channeled into wasteful political processes, but instead are used and “invested” in wealth-creation activities – construction, factories, plants, equipment, research, technology – all of which leads to more and cheaper consumer goods.

The US and the West spend too much on elections, campaigns, polling, political consultation, etc., which diverts scarce resources away from the private wealth sectors of society. For example, in her last failed presidential campaign run, the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua alone spent over a half of billion dollars.

Under Western democratic pluralism, public debt and state spending have increased to unsustainable levels. In the US alone – history’s greatest debtor nation – the national debt is in excess of $20 trillion, while its total debt officially is $68 billion with a federal deficit (GAAP) running yearly at $5 ½ trillion.

Such staggering numbers are the result, in part, from political parties seeking public office and once elected exploiting their position to enrich themselves, their constituents, and create dependent classes among the ever shrinking productive segments of society.

China’s foreign policy – an extension of politics – has also been conducive for wealth creation. Instead of wasteful spending on military hardware, the maintenance of a far-flung global empire, and involvement in incessant wars, China has a rather meek military compared to its national income and has conducted a pretty much non-interventionist foreign policy – witness its diplomacy with North Korea.

The US is almost the polar opposite. It spends more on “defense” than the next eight countries combined.** Instead of the production of useful consumer goods, billions are siphoned off into the military/security industrial complex. Not only does this impoverish Americans at home, but it leads to never ending involvement in wars, conflicts, and disputes, most of which are created or exacerbated by US spy organizations.

Def spending

After meeting with Chinese leadership, President Trump tweeted:

I don’t blame China, I blame the incompetence

of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage

of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the

U.S. is losing $100’s of billions. How can you blame

China for taking advantage of people that had no clue?

I would’ve done the same!

Making better trade deals will not revitalize the moribund US economy. Instead, there should be less politicization of society and adoption of market reforms as China has done. The most important plank of such a policy would be the encouragement of real savings – not the creation of bank credit – through the normalization of interest rates. This would begin the arduous process of capital accumulation, the basis upon which any economy can be built.

Another sign of the divergence between the two is China’s continued push to make the yuan the world’s reserve currency with apparently some sort of gold backing to it. Contrarily, the Trump Administration has continued the same disastrous policies of its predecessors and has chosen a Janet Yellen clone to head the Federal Reserve with a continuation, no doubt, of the suppression of interest rates. On the other hand, China continues to import massive quantities of gold and encourages its citizens to own the yellow metal while the West is in the midst of a crypto currency mania, another fraudulent monetary scheme.

China’s economic miracle, while certainly impressive, would not look as astounding if Western economies had not been in a state of stagnation and decline over the past half century. It was not political liberalization that led to China’s phenomenal growth, but economic freedom which used to be a staple of Western life. The lesson that should be taken from President Trump’s trip is less politics domestically and more free markets.

*Chris Buckley, “Xi Jinping Opens China’s Party Congress, His Hold Tighter Than Ever.” The New York Times, 17 October 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/world/asia/xi-jinping-communist-party-china.html

**Peter G. Peterson Foundation. “US Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries.” 1 June 2017. https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Donald Trump is an Economic Ignoramus!

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Trump & Trade II

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump has followed in the infamous footsteps of his presidential predecessors in the transition from candidate to chief executive. Invariably, every candidate for the presidency makes a whole host of promises, the vast majority of which are horrible and typically only exacerbate the problems they attempt to resolve. Among the proposals, however, there is an occasional bright spot. Yet, once elected the stupid polices are eagerly pursued while the good ones are quickly discarded.

What was somewhat unique about Donald Trump was that he was the first candidate in a long while who had a number of refreshing and much needed proposals – border wall, “drain the swamp,” criticism of Ma Yellen and the Fed, rapprochement with Vladimir Putin and Russia, a deescalation of U.S. imperialism. There were bad ones, too, but the good ones were enough to lead him to a smashing win over the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua.

Even before being sworn in, however, the president-elect began to downplay his most positive positions and emphasize the worst. At the top of this list, and what Trump has been consistently wrong about since the inception of his political career, and even prior to it, has been “trade.”

Trump considers himself an “economic nationalist” in the mold of Patrick Buchanan. Both, however, are simply wrong in this regard demonstrating that they do not have a grasp of the most basic of economic principles.

The latest Trump tirade on trade was reported during his recent trip to Europe and a meeting with high-ranking officials. Trump is reported to have lashed out at German auto makers who the President accused of being “very bad” because of the “millions of cars that they sell in the U.S.” The Donald bemoaned, “Terrible, we’re going to stop that” and added “I don’t have a problem [with] Germany, I have a problem with German trade.”*

Such talk makes Trump sound like a fool. What is “bad” about providing American consumers with first-class automobiles that they apparently want in large quantities and are voluntarily willing to pay for? And what of American workers employed with Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen? What is so horrible about the jobs and income that is provided by German firms to these workers?

Instead of berating German car manufactures, Trump should direct his ire at the immigration policies of psychopathic politicians like Frau Merkel. Candidate Trump was very vocal about this and criticized European leaders for allowing their countries to be turned into multicultural cesspools.

The benefits of free trade and the baneful consequences of protectionism have long ago been elucidated by right-thinking economists, while the historical record has shown that lands which engage in “free trade” are decidedly richer than those that do not. That Trump could spout off such nonsense about the evils of German trade shows how far the level of economic understanding has fallen.

Not only does free trade allow for the extension of the division of labor and specialization, but it has very important non-economic fruits. When trade is unregulated, there is less of a tendency of trading partners to engage in bellicose actions toward each other. Free trade and peaceful coexistence among nations are synonymous. It is when trade is prohibited, skewed by governments to “protect” favored industries, which creates tensions among peoples.

Free trade does not require measures such as NAFTA or negotiated deals by politicians. Instead, producers of one region are free to sell their goods at whatever prices or quantities to consumers of other areas that agree to buy them. Ultimately, trade is up to individual producers and consumers in what they contractually agree to exchange, there is no need for political involvement.

Trump’s lambasting of the German auto makers, however, underscores a more fundamental problem with the U.S. economy. America no longer produces goods that the world’s consumers desire, but instead, produces military hardware that it sells to despotic regimes which enables them to remain in power and wreck havoc on their enemies. Predictably, this escalates tensions abroad while, domestically, the standard of living of Americans fall as scarce resources that could have been used in the production of useful consumer goods are diverted to the creation of murderous military armaments.

Trump has repeatedly boasted about his and his appointees’ abilities to negotiate great trade “deals.” His bashing of the German auto makers right after his multi-billion dollar arms sales to the Saudis show not only that he is clueless in regard to the immense benefits of free trade, but that he is just another adherent, like his predecessors, to the ideals of crony capitalism.

*Tyler Durden, “Trump Slams ‘Very Bad’ Germans for Selling Millions of Cars in US: ‘We Will Stop This.'” Zero Hedge 26 May 2017. http://www.zerohedge.com/print/596683

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com