I have been sketching out posts since January, in anticipation of launching this Substack… I would like to extend my thanks to Jeff Bezos, for helping me to choose this one to start with.
This is going to be so good. It's particularly important to discuss tariffs because no one in the media has learned anything about them since Adam Smith said mercantilism was bad.
In addition to typical media motivations / reasons, have to think the inability of people below a certain IQ to mentally model second order effects plays a role too.
Restoring entire supply chains will have to be a generational effort. Even so, globalism is dead. Great power regionalism is going to replace it. Which means the restoration is not optional if decline and fall are to be averted.
Nor is regional consolidation really optional. Hence the Canada-Greenland-Panama pressure.
It's clear that Trump's team sees the longer game, and the necessity of regional autarky in strategic items and systems. Everyone else in the West is way behind. Even playing catch-up will be challenging for most, infested as many of them are with Davos cultists in their power structures.
It's a tough road ahead, but you don't have to outrun the bear - just the guy next to you. America looks well positioned to do that.
Thanks for the comments! Restoring supply chains will be something I will watch closely and continue to post about. It will be interesting to see this Trumpian phase of Realpolitik. Trump is a master of the transactional, so I look forward to watching this play out in his 2nd term where he appears to have a better grasp of the rules.
I agree that this will be interesting. This is a Trumanesque inflection point, where the foundations of a different order are being laid down. We will hope and pray for a Fourth Turning to play out domestically.
Few people notice how well the Russian economy is doing after being sanctioned by the west. The sanctions effectively act as high tariffs for Russia, which induced the Russians to either manufacture what it could not get from the west or find alternate sources of supply. Now the Russian economy is thriving and even with high inflation, the wages are exceeding inflation and the country is becoming 1950s America all over.
The US/Europe sanctions on Russia just opened the door for them to go to China. And the sanctimonious posturing of the Biden admin finally pissed off the BRICs enough for them to make a real move against the USD and SWIFT. Russia has gotten stronger, the US spent money they didn't have and Europe showed how powerless they are. I hope to see Trump try to make an alliance with Putin, though Russia has no reason to believe anything coming from the West... even as Trump purges a lot of the NeoCons and Globalists from State and Intel. Meanwhile, Xi is having a laugh and saying, "May you live in interesting times."
Relying on overseas suppliers for pharmaceuticals has created a logistical nightmare should war break out. Over 10% of the U.S. population is effectively addicted to drugs produced overseas. Clearly this addiction problem must be addressed, but in the meantime the U.S. should at least ensure that all medications are domestically produced to avoid medical blackmail.
Tariffs will increase the general price level, which is another way to say that buying power decreases.
But the decrease is uneven, production workers will see their work in higher demand and should look forward to higher wages, allowing them to compensate for their loss in buying power.
The net effect is that tariffs shift buying power from those who do not produce to those who produce.
An additional component that I had not fully considered until reading this piece by Yanis Varoufakis -- most analysis assumes static exchange rates. But tariffs will likely put pressure on foreign central banks in ways that are favorable to US -- in an ideal world, mitigating the cost of the tariffs for US consumer https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/?=frlh
You hit on a major rhetorical factor that often flies under the radar. The frame of reference. The whole trade freedom discussion assumes a cloud elite and fungible masses as ultimate desired state, anything that moves in that direction is “good”. The actual impossibility of the dream doesn’t even have to be considered when the ideology is hideous.
Assume any sort of autarkic direction and the morality flips. With true added bonus of policy aligning with human nature.
"Does the US education system need to change massively to give young people the necessary skills to make this renaissance happen?"
Undoubtedly. The Usual Suspects in public education went and fixed something that wasn't broken. Shop class, Home economics, Vocational Education, Career and Tech Ed., Materials science ... all were sacrificed at the altar because of reasons.
The best explanation I got in NYC in grad school, mid 1990's, when I asked an older professor / former NYC teacher "what went wrong", she summed it up with one sentence: "they decided that everyone could be a surgeon."
There is a lot of work to be done in the world of education - not all of it in school. Luckily, we have the template from the past, and we know what works.
Too many economists simply are retarded lemmings, quoting half of Friedman's sentence about inflation being the supply of money. The others don't even know anything about it at all, and just repeat whatever everyone is saying, snatching quotes from the Fed, putting up charts, and just trying to look smart. Never talking about what money actually is (a unit of exchange representative of labor hours) or knowing any of the history of economics, the philosophy behind it, etc etc.
Great article. So hard to find anywhere that people discuss tariffs that doesn't reduce down to "Tariffs --> Inflation --> Bad" -- appreciate you doing this.
It offends me to my core to listen to the same drivel from the MSM. These so-called journalists have obviously never studied any economics, history or business beyond the most basic CliffsNotes!
Any short term price increases to commodities brought on- however indirectly by tariff implementation- will be used as a disinfo weapon by the MSN. Trump’s admin should counter this by a clear explanation on how tariffs actually work. This info could be pinned to white house . gov. It will take some time to deprogram the NAFTA/free trade/ armchair economist crowd.
Keep it short and clear, as in “Make ‘Made in America’ Great Again”.
If the 2008 bailouts went to 100,000 industry startups we would have been well on the way to rebuilding American manufacturing. It was impossible then but the future is now.
Internet: "Professor Deborah J. Lucas pegs the cost of the 2008-09 bailouts at $498 billion"
That would have been a cool 5 million per each of those 100,000 starters and the tariffs would have given all the winners that temporary advantage to be able to grow against their globalist-foreign competitors. I think America wouldn't need the current school system at all - everyone would be trained and learn on the job out of necessity like ye olden days because we'd be inventing the jobs as they go along.
@Dave - Interesting reframe on the 2008 bailouts! As White Bull is all about helping startups, to even dream about $498B being channeled to 100,000 businesses makes me giddy! What a Golden Age that would have led to...
"So let’s talk about business opportunities as the US moves to rebuild its non-service economy! There will be massive demand created for skilled workers to facilitate the repatriation of manufacturing back to the US."
The issue here is we will also have to very vigilant and proactive at preventing this from becoming just another opportunity for the sort of internal outsourcing financial "capitalists" like so bad.
This is going to be so good. It's particularly important to discuss tariffs because no one in the media has learned anything about them since Adam Smith said mercantilism was bad.
In addition to typical media motivations / reasons, have to think the inability of people below a certain IQ to mentally model second order effects plays a role too.
Recently read a couple good items on tarriffs -- one from Michael Pettis, who is generally quite good on trade (https://x.com/michaelxpettis/status/1889973451013976419), and another surprising take from Yanis Varoufakis, not exactly a known Trump fan: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/?=frlh
Interesting links! As you are responding to Vox, you probably already follow Steve Keen. Just last week on his Debunking podcast he focused on Trump's tariffs. https://www.patreon.com/posts/trade-war-has-122544641?l=es
Restoring entire supply chains will have to be a generational effort. Even so, globalism is dead. Great power regionalism is going to replace it. Which means the restoration is not optional if decline and fall are to be averted.
Nor is regional consolidation really optional. Hence the Canada-Greenland-Panama pressure.
It's clear that Trump's team sees the longer game, and the necessity of regional autarky in strategic items and systems. Everyone else in the West is way behind. Even playing catch-up will be challenging for most, infested as many of them are with Davos cultists in their power structures.
It's a tough road ahead, but you don't have to outrun the bear - just the guy next to you. America looks well positioned to do that.
Thanks for the comments! Restoring supply chains will be something I will watch closely and continue to post about. It will be interesting to see this Trumpian phase of Realpolitik. Trump is a master of the transactional, so I look forward to watching this play out in his 2nd term where he appears to have a better grasp of the rules.
I agree that this will be interesting. This is a Trumanesque inflection point, where the foundations of a different order are being laid down. We will hope and pray for a Fourth Turning to play out domestically.
https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/the-sci-fi-zeitgeist-has-shifted
Internationally? It's a classic case of the future already being here, just not evenly distributed yet.
Few people notice how well the Russian economy is doing after being sanctioned by the west. The sanctions effectively act as high tariffs for Russia, which induced the Russians to either manufacture what it could not get from the west or find alternate sources of supply. Now the Russian economy is thriving and even with high inflation, the wages are exceeding inflation and the country is becoming 1950s America all over.
The US/Europe sanctions on Russia just opened the door for them to go to China. And the sanctimonious posturing of the Biden admin finally pissed off the BRICs enough for them to make a real move against the USD and SWIFT. Russia has gotten stronger, the US spent money they didn't have and Europe showed how powerless they are. I hope to see Trump try to make an alliance with Putin, though Russia has no reason to believe anything coming from the West... even as Trump purges a lot of the NeoCons and Globalists from State and Intel. Meanwhile, Xi is having a laugh and saying, "May you live in interesting times."
Relying on overseas suppliers for pharmaceuticals has created a logistical nightmare should war break out. Over 10% of the U.S. population is effectively addicted to drugs produced overseas. Clearly this addiction problem must be addressed, but in the meantime the U.S. should at least ensure that all medications are domestically produced to avoid medical blackmail.
Tariffs will increase the general price level, which is another way to say that buying power decreases.
But the decrease is uneven, production workers will see their work in higher demand and should look forward to higher wages, allowing them to compensate for their loss in buying power.
The net effect is that tariffs shift buying power from those who do not produce to those who produce.
An additional component that I had not fully considered until reading this piece by Yanis Varoufakis -- most analysis assumes static exchange rates. But tariffs will likely put pressure on foreign central banks in ways that are favorable to US -- in an ideal world, mitigating the cost of the tariffs for US consumer https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/?=frlh
Good to see this is off the ground.
You hit on a major rhetorical factor that often flies under the radar. The frame of reference. The whole trade freedom discussion assumes a cloud elite and fungible masses as ultimate desired state, anything that moves in that direction is “good”. The actual impossibility of the dream doesn’t even have to be considered when the ideology is hideous.
Assume any sort of autarkic direction and the morality flips. With true added bonus of policy aligning with human nature.
"Does the US education system need to change massively to give young people the necessary skills to make this renaissance happen?"
Undoubtedly. The Usual Suspects in public education went and fixed something that wasn't broken. Shop class, Home economics, Vocational Education, Career and Tech Ed., Materials science ... all were sacrificed at the altar because of reasons.
The best explanation I got in NYC in grad school, mid 1990's, when I asked an older professor / former NYC teacher "what went wrong", she summed it up with one sentence: "they decided that everyone could be a surgeon."
There is a lot of work to be done in the world of education - not all of it in school. Luckily, we have the template from the past, and we know what works.
Looking forward to the future articles.
Too many economists simply are retarded lemmings, quoting half of Friedman's sentence about inflation being the supply of money. The others don't even know anything about it at all, and just repeat whatever everyone is saying, snatching quotes from the Fed, putting up charts, and just trying to look smart. Never talking about what money actually is (a unit of exchange representative of labor hours) or knowing any of the history of economics, the philosophy behind it, etc etc.
I'm excited. Thanks for doing this!
This is exciting. Can't wait to see more articles!
This week and next, we will be releasing a lot of different types of posts to preview what is coming. Text, video, guest posters!
Farmers in Idaho end up hiring illegal Mexicans to compete against the Mexicans in Mexico. 70% of dairy workers are illegals
And it’s cheaper than automation.
Great article. So hard to find anywhere that people discuss tariffs that doesn't reduce down to "Tariffs --> Inflation --> Bad" -- appreciate you doing this.
It offends me to my core to listen to the same drivel from the MSM. These so-called journalists have obviously never studied any economics, history or business beyond the most basic CliffsNotes!
Any short term price increases to commodities brought on- however indirectly by tariff implementation- will be used as a disinfo weapon by the MSN. Trump’s admin should counter this by a clear explanation on how tariffs actually work. This info could be pinned to white house . gov. It will take some time to deprogram the NAFTA/free trade/ armchair economist crowd.
Keep it short and clear, as in “Make ‘Made in America’ Great Again”.
CPGen
I 100% agree that the White House should make a point of debunking certain MSM talking points.
If the 2008 bailouts went to 100,000 industry startups we would have been well on the way to rebuilding American manufacturing. It was impossible then but the future is now.
Internet: "Professor Deborah J. Lucas pegs the cost of the 2008-09 bailouts at $498 billion"
That would have been a cool 5 million per each of those 100,000 starters and the tariffs would have given all the winners that temporary advantage to be able to grow against their globalist-foreign competitors. I think America wouldn't need the current school system at all - everyone would be trained and learn on the job out of necessity like ye olden days because we'd be inventing the jobs as they go along.
@Dave - Interesting reframe on the 2008 bailouts! As White Bull is all about helping startups, to even dream about $498B being channeled to 100,000 businesses makes me giddy! What a Golden Age that would have led to...
Follow the gold (onshore).
"So let’s talk about business opportunities as the US moves to rebuild its non-service economy! There will be massive demand created for skilled workers to facilitate the repatriation of manufacturing back to the US."
The issue here is we will also have to very vigilant and proactive at preventing this from becoming just another opportunity for the sort of internal outsourcing financial "capitalists" like so bad.