Friday Night: A low Tariff Manhattan

This week Wall Street and its famous financial markets seem to be the centre of the world, don’t they? Just like in 1929 and 2008, for example. So where is Wall Street? We looked on the interweb and found it was in a place called Manhattan, which is in America, which is famous for having leaders of genius. So we thought we would celebrate this fact by bringing you a reprise of that famous drink, The Manhattan. Despite the connotations, how American is it really? Let’s assemble one and find out.

The real beauty of making a Manhattan is its simplicity : a child could do it, just like calculating tariffs. But as no responsible adult would ever let a child do either, we’ll accept you are making this yourself. And if you do, you will find it is divided into two parts. A good patriotic all-American part. And a bad part, which requires Foreigners.

Ice Generally speaking, 100% Made in America. Not only does this attract no tariffs, but its production supply and distribution are all by American workers, thus creating any number of well-paid posts of employment. No nasty foreigner can ever threaten American Ice. If all the stuff in the Rocky Mountains melts due to global warming, they can just invade Greenland to get some more. 4 or 5 cubes for the average Manhattan, by the way,

Bourbon As far as we know this too is made in America. Originally it was called whisky, which was made in somewhere evil and foreign called Scotland (although some of the golf courses are OK) And therefore quite rightly attracts a tariff . But if it is made in America there is no tariff at all, and the more Americans drink of it the more colossal will be the numbers of high paying jobs for American workers created thereby. Oh yeah, 3-4 measures will do.

Vermouth Now we come to the Bad Part. Because Vermouth (often branded with funny sounding names like Martini or Cinzano) come from Italy! Not only has nothing good, like science, art, literature, cooking or architecture ever come from that country: behind the smiling mask of friendship, they are ready to have their way with American trade, American pizza, who knows, maybe even American ladies, the lotharios! No wonder it now attracts huge tariffs! But since vermouth has been floating around Manhattans ever since that island became the financial capital of the world, you’ll just have to put up with it. One measure of the red stuff should not put too much pressure on US Treasuries,

Mixing Get an American Worker to put each of the above components one by one into an American cocktail glass, made from American glass, as they will taste better. Make the American Worker stir them. He/she/they may now add a tariff-free American Cocktail cherry, on a stick made from good American Sequoia trees, creating even more well paid secure American jobs. That done, you may drink your Manhattan. Only one, of course. And think of all the American jobs you have created thereby , which should compensate for those lost by the current slight adjustments in the Stock markets just over the road.

#donald trump #manhattan #stock market #bond market #economic crisis #Wall Street

Towards a World Government: Will Donald Trump be the First Emperor?

President Trump Postlaunch Remarks (NHQ202005300037) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

A few weeks ago we posted a series of blogs (LSS 8 1 25 et seq) wherein we speculated about the pros and cons of a hypothetical World Government. If you do things like that, you need to look seriously at the possible candidates. And it looks as if the first one has come along. It is Donald J Trump, erstwhile 45th President, and now 47th President of the United States of America, A man who according to his own lights is as antipathetical to the idea of international cooperation and world government as you can get. But read on gentle reader.

Because there’s a theory doing the rounds which suggests that, whatever his ostensible aims, this is what he will achieve. It goes something like this. The early weeks of the Trump administration have been marked by falling financial markets and wild swings of tariff policy that have engendered a widespread sense of chaos and unease. An angst which is entirely inimical to the interests of the United States and its wealthier classes. But really it is all part of a Cunning Plan. Eventually things get so bad that The Donald calls all interested parties to a huge meeting at his palace at Mar-a- Lago. There he makes the following offer. First all willing parties revalue their currencies upwards against the dollar. Secondly they cash in all current US Treasury bonds in return for 100 year securities, which yield no interest whatsoever. In return the willing receive military protection and no tariffs, Anyone else had better look out. The 1985 Plaza accords on steroids, you might say. Except this time, all financial power and military power accrues back to the USA which becomes, de facto, the world government. We have channelled the excellent Roge Karma of the Atlantic (via Apple News) for today’s link; [1] But many thinkers, including the learned Gillian Tett of the FT have been floating this since January (she gets namechecked in this one)

The trouble with Cunning Plans is that they don’t always work. There are several problems with this one, starting with the Plaza accords. When they were signed, it was by a small group of rich nations who held a common enemy(the Soviet Union) President Reagan had carefully nurtured good, respectful relations with his allies. The current administration, whatever its reasons, works by bullying, blustering and threats. Not ways to engender co-operation and consent. Secondly there are now large and proud players, such as India and China who are rapidly evolving their own interests. Why should they throw away these futures on a scheme designed to benefit the United States? But the final sinkers are the very nature of the United States and its 45th/47th President. Hisory shows that they are not a reliable military protector, as any South Vietnamese, Afghan or Ukrainian will tell you. And if Mr Trump is so keen to weaken the dollar, why does he come out so strongly in its defence as the world reserve currency, as Mr Karma so astutely points out? Someone in Washington clearly knows the value of this reserve status, and the mortal peril which its loss represents to US power. Such inconsistency invites no confidence whatsover.

Our verdict? America really did have the game in its hands between 1989 and 2003, when it was thrown away in the sands of Iraq. Trump is like the Byzantine Emperor Justinian,(527-565 CE) setting out re conquer lost dominions. Wishing ends without sufficiently weighing the means. If there is to be a World Government, it won’t be like this.

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/03/qanon-tariffs/682144/

#world government #donald trump #plaza accords #justinian #economics #politics #history

Why Capitalism held the moral advantage(until very recently)

At least the Left had moral purpose. For all the mass murders. inefficiencies and lies perpetrated under Socialist systems, we cared about the poor! Whereas you lot (the Capitalists, comrades) are nothing but selfish greedy amoral money grabbers, hooked on cocaine and fast sports cars. But Capitalism has one moral advantage wired into its very DNA. It foments truth and honest dealing.

Before you reel in disbelief, citing hoards of dodgy builders, corrupt bond traders and megalomaniac media moguls, consider this. If I buy a load of concrete from you to make a reliable bridge, I need to know it works. If I know I can sue you because the concrete is unreliable, and get good judgement in a court, you are much more likely to supply me with good concrete. The bridge stays up, and I am confident I may build another. If on the other hand you are a friend of the President, or a member of his party, you can buy the judgement of that court. You keep your money, I get no redress. The Party and The President get a kickback. But the long term consequences are dire. Bridges fall down. Less people undertake the risk of building them, as the chances of a total loss soar. Foreigners especially will suspend their investment. For if a native cannot get justice, what chance for evildoers like them in such a system? It was this truth we overlooked: and no educated progressive we know has been a socialist since about 1985. This idea of open, independent, and above all transparent justice was the real American Exceptionalism. And why they began to pull ahead even of relatively open societies like Britain, where the justice system was mired in class prejudice.

However it seems to us that President Trump and his administration may have started to reverse this process. As Giselle Ewing explains in Politico[1] the Trump government has embarked upon a highly partisan series of attacks on both individual lawyers lawyers and the firms that employ them. This barrage of measures include investigations, denials of security clearances, terminations of contracts, and even blacklists. All in effect dividing the legal system and its future promotions into two camps. One of the Government. The other: its opponents. Once again, we stress that in our view Mr Trump is acting rationally by his own lights, and above all those of his supporters. Who are for the most part poor labourers and struggling small businessmen. Whose everyday lives are harsh and insecure. To whom long term concepts like Justice and Equity will seem abstract and far away. But if this trend continues, then the USA may end like Russia or one of those African countries where justice is no more than the whim of the President. And economic forces like investment, property rights and and trust behave accordingly.

[1]tps://onlinescientias.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=11346&action=edit

#justice #equity #legal system #donald trump #law #economics #investment

Black Universities: a source of untapped potential

“The trouble with racism is that it means second-rate people in first rate jobs.” These words, once spoken casually to us, are the real basis of our opposition to discrimination of all kinds: It’s inefficient; it’s not in the long term interests of the oppressor. All societies suffer from hierarchy and ethnic hatreds, But was saddest of all to see the United States of America, born in such enlightenment, to be so disfigured by this most ancient weakness of the human mind. One attempt to counter this was the establishment of Historically Black Universities and Colleges, which aimed to provide some higher education for students who were excluded from white institutions. They have been around for a long time, and you would have thought by now that the penny would have dropped: “this is a fantastic source of underused potential which could benefit us all, especially now that China is treading on our cowboy heels”. Well, read this and think again: Unshackle Historically Black Universities in Nature Briefing

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States “are producing world-class research and record numbers of Black scientists with one hand tied behind our backs and shackles on our ankles” because of “consistent, drastic underfunding” compared to institutions established to educate white students, writes evolutionary biologist Joseph Graves Jr. “For example, my research group alone has produced more Black women with PhDs in microbial evolution in the past five years than the rest of the country has in the past five decades.” Graves calls on industry, philanthropists and individuals to shore up weakening government support for HBCUs, minority-serving institutions and tribal colleges and universities.Nature | 10 min read

It’s not that we especially like black people ,or white people, or any ethnic, religious or social group . Quite the opposite, most of the time, for most of them. Nor are we especially compassionate or just, as far as we know. But we do regard all forms of generalised prejudice as a debility of the human mind, like the propensities to gamble, drink to excess, or indulge in concupiscent and promiscuous sexual practices. (that’s a polite way to put it!-ed) All of these errors waste time and money which in the long run would make us wiser, happier and safer. Let’s see if anyone does anything about these colleges.

#HBUCs #education #prejudice #racism #supercilious #economics #USA

You are now living in a completely new world-but don’t let that spoil the weekend

The English Wars of the Roses (1450-1485) were savage bloody affairs. Forget all the costumes and Shakespearean poetry: the dynastic struggles of York and Lancaster really mattered at the time, and as late as Elizabeth 1 , the succeeding Tudor Dynasty lived in constant fear that a Plantagenet claimant might reignite the struggle. Now fast forward 80 years or so to the English Civil War, an even more sanguinary and passionate affair. No one cared in the slightest who was a Yorkist or a Tudor. You might as well have talked about Romans and Carthaginians for all the relevance it had at Marston Moor. Over, gone, forgotten.

Here’s another thought. Growing out of that civil war came a rivalry between Crown and Parliament that lasted for well over a hundred years, and twice exploded into violent war in the Jacobite rebellions (1715 and 1745) The leader of the second rebellion, called Bonnie Prince Charlie by some, lingered in exile until 1788. Read that last date carefully. Because the next year was the start of the French Revolution, unleashing a series of global changes so far reaching and dramatic that the world would never be the same again. Would anyone at Trafalgar, Waterloo or even in the British House of Commons, have tried to map their experiences onto a template provided by the Bonny Prince?

Our present age lasted from the Second World War until the second election of Donald Trump. It’s founding myth was 1940: gallant Britain battled alone until the mighty United States arrived to tip the scales decisively for the forces of freedom and goodness. After the war the benefits of Anglo-Saxon order were spread to places like Europe and Japan. It was good while it lasted. People kept gardens, obsessed with sport, brought hundreds of bright new shiny things and believed themselves to be clever and happy and free. Many thought it ws the natural order of things and would last forever.

We believe that the fundamental order of that world cracked after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. It was shattered by the financial crisis of 2008. Technological developments such as social media and fossil fuels produced profound and unmanageable instabilities in the environments of even very rich countries, rendering their political and economic settlements obsolete.

It is easy to mourn the passing of the old order, easy to rail against its destroyers like Trump and Putin. Such nostalgia is dangerous, for it will lead to attempts to live in the vanished past and even recreate it. Far better to first recognise this is a new age, and all old assumptions, all old patterns have been shattered irrevocably. There were good things in the old order. They must be preserved. There will be good things in the new, however remote and distant they seem. You have the weekend, ladies and gentlemen to consider what those might be. Enjoy it profitably, and we will see you on Monday.

#history #politics #economics #donald trump #vladimir putin #united states #NATO

Go Back to where you came from: if this isn’t the best TV in ten years, we don’t know what is

“But why do they all come here?” is the agonised cry of Dave Watford and his mates in every pub from Truro to Thurso. Dunno, Dave. The English language? Because of our free market, low regulation economy, where the reward is for taking risks? Because we’re still relatively prosperous? But Dave and the boys are right: Immigration and its discontents are the number one driving force in all our lives here in the third decade of what may prove to be our very last century.

Or are there deeper forces at work? People have always moved from bad conditions to try to find better ones. Such movements are always deeply resented by the native populations in the host lands. It is the achievement of Channel 4‘s Go Back to Where you Came From [1] to cast the question in terms of the way people really are, not the way they ought to be. Six ordinary, but essentially decent British people complete a typical migrant’s journey from the ravaged lands of their origin to their final landing under the White Cliffs of Dover. The producers chose Syria and Sudan as the “GO” points. Wow. We get it.

And we stress: ordinary, decent people. So the producers deliberately chose the reality show format to highlight their odyssey; for no one in 2025 would have watched a documentary. And what an odyssey for the 21st century it is! They run the gauntlet of squalid refugee camps, freezing and burning temperatures, lousy food, unmentionable lavatory facilities, major league armed criminals and deadly waters in the course of their journeys. All the while in dialogue themselves, and with the locals. All six displayed levels of courage and endurance which we could ever endure, we confess.

Like the heroes of any epic road movie, they are transformed, so that they are not the same people they were when they started it. One man in particular stood out: a haulage contractor from Yorkshire who though sheer hard work has built up a small lorry business. It lets him feed his family, of whom he is fiercely protective, with out any help from the state. And get this: if you are fined £10 000 every time an illegal immigrant jumps on your lorry, wouldn’t you be just a little resentful? But it is to the immense credit of this man, and the film makers, that they slowly uncover the causes of his plight. War; ecological collapse; deep inequality and the paid apologists who defend it at every turn. He comes, he sees, he thinks, he changes. His deep reserves of emotional intelligence finally process the better angels of his nature.

Yet we at LSS do not advocate opening England’s doors to every migrant, however desperate their plight. Emotion and pity are bad guides to policy. A Nation state is not the same thing as the Social Services department of a London Borough. But the lesson is clear: a substantial, though not crippling transfer of funds from richer to poorer countries would eliminate most human migration quite quickly.

Go Back to Where you came from at last shows the true causes of this problem, And most people learned the lesson. That is a mighty achievement indeed.

[1]https://www.channel4.com/programmes/go-back-to-where-you-came-from#:~:text=Six%20opinionated%20Brits%20experience%20refugee%20life%20up%20close

#go back to where you came from #immigration #migration #emigration #climate change #war #poverty #inequality

Declining Life Expectancy: a sure sign of a declining civilisation

You , your children and your grandchildren are going to live a lot less than you should have done. That’s the stark message from Andrew Gregory of the Guardian,[1] who has been busy reviewing a major study of life expectancies across 20 European nations. It’s a topic which has concerned us before here(LSS 21 12 21) and not only is it not going away but we think it is a sign of something deeply general going wrong.

The first signs that the old Soviet Union was in real trouble came in the 1970s when astute researches suddenly realised they weren’t returning their annual health figures to the WHO and other bodies. Their economy was no longer delivering, people were going hungry: and you just can’t spin health statistics over the long term. Within a few years the system had fallen in on itself. According to a study by the University of East Anglia the long rise in life expectancy which we have taken for granted for centuries has now stalled. Worried? You should be.

Greece(lashed by cataclysmic economic woes 15 years ago) is second worse. But it is the countries of the UK, one of the most unequal societies in the western world, which are doing worst of all. And we think we know why. Our old friends Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett [2] long pointed to inequality as the root causes of many evils such as obesity poor health bad diets over work and chronic illness[2] And -surprise, surprise! These are exactly the factors which the authors cite to be dragging UK statistics so drastically backwards. But can you forgive us one more observation, gentle readers? One country bucking the trend is Norway. Which some readers will recall set up a sovereign wealth fund with their share of North Sea Oil back in the 1980s of the last century.(LSS 6 7 20) While the British in the same years splurged theirs on new cars, shopping, time share villas and an utterly botched programme of de-industrialisation. Here are the consequences.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/18/european-countries-experience-life-expectancy-slowdown-research-shows

[2] R Wilkinson K Pickett The Spirit Level Penguin 2010

#inequality #life expectancy #sovereign wealth fund #public health

We’re up to our necks in Smoot Hawley here

God knows, we don’t like to blow our own trumpet here. The pictures of the Conceited Ape and the Man Blowing His Own Trumpet (both generated with AI) are entirely coincidental. But attentive readers may have noticed how we have been pushing the dangers of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 and its parallels to the policies of Mr Donald Trump (at the time of writing his title is still Mr) .

Now the admirable Larry Elliott of the Guardian has got in on the act [1] We’ve often repeated his thoughts on these pages. And this time he goes further, suggesting it is a sign of American weakness, not strength. Well worth a read over your morning latte, we think As for us, we hope that is the last we see of Messrs Smoot and Hawley and their execrable tariff.

But before we go here are a few final thoughts

1 You read it here first

2 Most historians and economists think Smoot Hawley was a major step in the road to World War 2

3 Despite what nostalgists tell you, wars aren’t all chirpy cockneys singing jolly songs in Underground Stations. Ask them in Ukraine if you don’t believe us.

4 A nation may claim the right to act entirely in its own interest, without regard to others. Fair enough. But by the same logic does an individual have the right to sell Class A drugs such as heroin, if he can make money thereby?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/13/donald-trump-trade-war-president-china#

#tariffs #trade #world war #smoot hawley #larry elliott #donald trump

Smoot-Hawley for the 21st Century: Why The Conversation agrees with this blog

Tariffs: here we go again. We understand that Mr Donald Trump may have his own reasons for imposing them. As the ruler of a proud and independent nation he has the right to do so. But, for the moment, we still have the right to comment on his action. Which we did in two blogs (LSS 19 5 20, 12 11 24) Being of a historical turn of mind we drew parallels with the famous Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. Which in the view of most economists and historians not only deepened the gathering recession, but also lead more or less directly to World War Two.

In such circumstances it is questionable whether it is “nice” to find that minds far better educated and profound than ours agree with our insights. For today The Conversation publishes an article by Thomas Giffe and Micheal Pouffle which agrees with us in almost every detail [1] In fact it does the whole job rather better; and you must read it, gentle reader.

Because the article brings out the key psychological reasons for the decisions. And psychological they are, not economic. Here are three killer quotes from Trumps most earnest supporters

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney of New York told Fox News that she’s glad the US is “projecting strength for once on the world stage”. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri insisted that tariffs were “not a surprise,” emphasising that Trump had relentlessly campaigned on “improving our standing in the world.”

former adviser and populist nationalist Steve Bannon warned that America would no longer be “abused” by “unbalanced trade deals.” “Yes, tariffs are coming,” he said. “You will have to pay to have access to the US market. ………… the free market is over.”

Now these are proud and intelligent people. But their priorities lie in fields other than economics. They may be right. They may not. But we do remember a passage from our Gibbon about the declining years of the Empire. Wherein a particularly tyrannous but insecure Emperor, having arranged the murder of his best general. asked an ordinary Roman Citizen for his opinion of the deed:

“I am ignorant, sir, of your motives and intentions” replied the honest man “I only know you have acted like a man who cuts off his right arm with his left”

[1]https://theconversation.com/the-us-tried-high-tariffs-and-america-first-policies-in-the-1930s-trump-should-note-what-happened-next-249079?utm_medium=email&utm_campaig

#smoot hawley #tariff #trade war #world war #USA #China #economics

World Government #2: the end of mass migrations

The world heats, driving waves of refugees in search of survival. Nationalism, religious identitarianism, ethnic exclusion grow. The resulting conflicts throw more waves of refugees onto the shores of societies with neither the psychological nor economic means to cope. Those societies in turn experience fear and destabilisation, as people understandably try to cling to the mental assurances of the past, leading to more nationalism, identity politics………… This spiral downwards will require big thinking indeed if we are to survive at all as a species.[1]

The problems we have identified-(climate change and mass migration) are closely connected. They are rooted in deep inequality. People migrate along economic lines from poor to rich, just like ions in an electric field. They always have done. The solution is a mass transference of sufficient wealth from richer countries to poorer ones to build up their economies. This would not only reduce the incentive to migrate. It would also slow the endless production of status goods like luxury cars and fashionable clothes in the rich countries. The ending of such frivolous production, distribution and consumption would enable an enormous reduction in carbon emissions.

Yet how can a world constructed on hundreds of lines of sovereign and religious identities ever achieve this transfer? There is too much incentive to cheat. To let other nations make the transfers, while guarding local advantage. To allow funds to be hidden in “sovereign” jurisdictions. To allow quick fossil fuel booms to grab short boosts of wealth. To think short term, to think parochially. Perhaps future generations will even decide it was criminally, like the Slave-owning Planters of the US South in the nineteenth century. Whereas a single world Government would cut through all these problems at once. And we haven’t begun to mention the advantages in things like health, space exploration and cleansing pollution, which would follow easily. Once again, the situation is now so desperate, that it’s time to consider something utterly different. We begin to suspect that something to be a World Government, however bizarre that sounds.

In the next post in this series we shall look at the history of the idea of world government, and find it’s not such a new idea after all.

[1] Is the world ready for mass migration due to climate change? – BBC Future

#world government #migration #climate change #pollution #inequality