The reactions by some on the right to the tariffs are embarrassing in their mindlessness. Pure sophistry and non sequiturs that avoid actually putting forth a coherent economic argument. Probably because you can’t defend what actually happened. Trump unleashed “retaliatory tariffs” not even based on tariff rates but based on some formula regarding trade deficits which is nonsensical. Thus, the highest tariffs are against countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh and Lesotho, who apparently are the ones “ripping us off.”
There is no coherent strategy or economic view here. One day it’s “tariffs are necessary to rebuild the US economy” then they’re just 4d chess negotiating tactics, then when the markets plummet over the chaos that’s actually fine because (a la Bernie Sanders) the stock market isn’t the economy and who cares about people’s stock portfolios?! The only lodestar is tr ...
▪️The average person seeing this meme would assume the Trump Administration is removing safety regulations at the behest of big chicken, but that’s not at all what happened.
▪️There is no change in any rule, the poultry industry is still under the same regulations as they’ve been for decades. This was a proposed rule that has been withdrawn. There were over 7,000 public comments on the proposal, and the agency said:
🔹“the comments have raised several important issues that warrant further consideration. Therefore, FSIS is withdrawing the “Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products” proposed rule and proposed determination to allow the Agency to further assess its approach for addressing Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry products.”
▪️Indeed, Pilgrim’s Pride was among one of the comments, but they agreed with the rule proposal! They were a little more nuanced, saying certain aspects should be modified and the implementation dates changed. But they were overall ...
Because gang affiliation is not illegal, only criminal actions associated with gang activity are. For US citizens, police can’t just arrest someone because they think they’re a Blood or Crip, they need some other crime to charge them with.
With illegal immigrants, the govt can legally deport someone for any rationale they wish, as the person has no legal right to be here. In this case, gang affiliation is just a pretext, and not the legal reason for deportation (thus not required to prove it in trial).
Although I would argue this is limited to deportation only, and the US govt should not send illegal immigrants to foreign prisons without a standard of proof of real criminal activity. Sending people to prison with no due process is contrary to our founding principles, even if non-citizens.
But ironically, gang affiliation is illegal in El Salvador…
▪️It’s been an amazing week for the tariff defenders. They started off by backing the “reciprocal tariffs” which turned out not to be reciprocal at all but based on a nonsensical trade deficit formula, causing substantial tariffs to be put on many countries who had zero or extremely small tariffs on the US.
▪️Then, when the markets tanked we were told not to be “panicans.” The stock market wasn’t actually the economy, this time it’s Main St. over Wall St. The same people who wanted Covid lockdowns hate tariffs so screw them. It was time to finally stop the world from ripping us off, and tariffs were essential to bring back industry to the gutted US economy (even though US workers currently have the highest real wages in history).
▪️Then, Trump decided he didn’t like the markets tanking, backtracked and simply suspended most of the tariffs. Except for China, which he dramatically increased. This was the plan all along! It was 4D chess to play hardball with China.
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