Author: VD

A major announcement

Then again, whenever a TV show claims “a major character” will be killed off, it’s always some tertiary character you barely realized was even on the show. We’ll see.

President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that South Korea will make a “major announcement” concerning North Korea at 7 p.m. ET.

It was not immediately clear what the South Korean announcement would entail, but it came after a South Korean delegation came to the White House to brief officials on its most recent talks with North Korea — the most significant talks between the two countries in more than a decade.

The South Korean officials visiting the White House on Thursday talked to Trump, a person familiar with the matter said. They delivered a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Trump, according to a foreign diplomatic source. A senior US official confirmed a message from the North Korean leader had been delivered.

But we’re still not tired of winning, so it should be interesting to see what’s shaking. It will certainly be amusing if the media is forced to admit, through gritted teeth, that the God-Emperor’s “bluster” has proved to be conclusively effective.

The actual announcement was more a prelude to a possible future major announcement, but I suppose in diplomatic terms this sort of thing is a massive deal. No actual change yet, but the prospects for positive change in the future are good.

President Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by May for high-level talks toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, a South Korean official said outside the White House Thursday.

The extraordinary and unexpected opening came through shuttle diplomacy by a South Korean delegation arriving in Washington Thursday. Trump heralded the development as a “major announcement” after speaking with the South Korean president.

“I told President Trump that in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he’s committed to denuclearization. He pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests,” South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong told reporters after meeting with Trump at the White House.

UPDATE: Q says Iran is next, and by the end of this year.

Iran next.

A tougher nut to crack, Q-Team. I hope your negotiations with Mahmoud are going well.

Resolved by 11-11.
Q

What we are witnessing may – MAY – indeed be greatness in the White House. But let us not forget that the two priorities are still BUILD THE WALL and DRAIN THE SWAMP.

Tactical proliferation and the decline of US military supremacy

Quick, form a UN Task Force! Clearly we need a global Anti-Proliferation Treaty to stop the spread of advanced infantry tactics.

Is there evidence that the bad guys are getting better at basic tactics? Yes. Consider Boko Haram. Having only launched its military campaign in 2009, it has already mastered the use of coordinated fire and maneuver elements at the tactical level to execute complex raids, ambushes, assaults, and even withdrawing by echelon when on the defensive. It even staged an amphibious assault that overran a Nigerien Army garrison on an island in Lake Chad. Another example is from much closer to the U.S. homeland. Utilizing tactics diffused through U.S. military training, drug cartels such as the infamous “Zetas” and “Jalisco New Generation” have institutionalized combat training that allows them to regularly wreak havoc on Mexican security forces. In the wake of a recent downing of a Mexican military helicopter through the employment of rocket-propelled grenades, the disturbing discovery was made of tactical gear emblazoned with “CJNG – High Command Special Forces” (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion).

Further evidence comes from the Iraqi campaign to defeat ISIL. Conventional forces struggled mightily to eject ISIL from Iraq’s territory, and only succeeded due to the heavy use of Iraqi special operations forces and liberal American airpower. The battle of Mosul, for example, lasted for nine months despite significant material U.S. support and a 20:1 force ratio against the ISIL defenders. Afghan conventional military forces are often defeated by an increasingly competent Taliban. On the other side of the world, Filipino forces had to destroy much of the town of Marawi to liberate it from jihadist insurgents during a five-month siege last year. Furthermore, these enemies seem to be gravitating towards operations in urban areas. These environments hinder the United States and its partners from utilizing their high-tech advantages, resulting in a playing field that could get ever more level. Finally, given the ease with which such groups can infiltrate poorly vetted partner forces, the U.S. military has probably provided tactical instruction to the enemy directly and indirectly for a long time. As one U.S. military advisor in Afghanistan told one of us: “Sometimes a trainee just doesn’t show up right before graduation, and then – sure enough – you are fighting him on the next objective.”

In summary, rather than celebrating the (shockingly slow) destruction of the ISIL caliphate, the U.S. military should realize that one of its enemies just learned a whole lot about combat: basic infantry tactics, urban operations, and the clever blending of emerging technologies. These lessons will spread globally, and faster than many expect.

This points out two more very good reasons not to engage in unnecessary foreign wars. First, you’re implicitly training your enemy. The longer you fight him, the more he will learn. Second, if you compound your error by engaging in “nation-building”, you will usually find yourself literally and explicitly training your enemy.

Over time, opposing forces tend to become more and more symmetrical. This is the process that we are beginning to see, both in terms of tactics and the demographics of the militaries themselves. US military supremacy was always bound to erode, because no military, not even the Roman legions have ever remained permanently superior. But this increasingly observed tactical symmetry is a clear indication that the erosion is picking up speed.

The rest of the show

From the last part of my appearance yesterday on Dialogue.

US TARIFFS A PRELUDE TO A TRADE WAR
President Trump seeks to renegotiate NAFTA

YANG: President Trump accused his predecessors of making stupid mistakes, as a result Americans have suffered $800 billion of trade deficits almost annually. So what do you think of his negotiation ploy to use the issue of a trade imbalance for renegotiating NAFTA with Canada and Mexico? The Minister of International Trade in Canada and politicians in Mexico both made it very clear that they would not allow the U.S. government to hurt their respective economies. What do you think of this war of attrition?

VOX: I think the Trump administration’s long term goal is to get rid of NAFTA altogether. NAFTA is extremely unpopular in the United States, the negative effects of it have actually been worse than its enemies predicted, and none of the benefits that were promised to Americans have been delivered to them. And so, I think that the threats and the posturing of the Mexican and Canadian governments is almost completely irrelevant. Trump has made it very clear that he understands. His focus is on the American working class and finding jobs, finding manufacturing jobs.

That’s why the services perspective that you mentioned with regards to China is really just a tactical measure. It wouldn’t solve… it may solve the issue from the economists’ point of view, but it doesn’t solve it from President Trump’s point of view or from the point of view of the American people. And so I agree with the gentleman who said that’s not a long-term solution. It’s not, because it doesn’t meet the goals that have been expressed by the President.

YANG: We’ll see what happens next. I thank you so much for being with us.

It appears to have been received rather well, so there is a reasonable chance that I will do this again. It’s rather fascinating to observe, as one reader noted, that the Chinese state-owned media is demonstrably more free and open to genuine discussion of the relevant issues than the US media that is owned by no one in particular and certainly isn’t owned by anyone who should be criticized or even identified.

Pedos at the EFF?

At first glance, one might assume that the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s opposition to sex trafficking laws is based on principle. But based on their actions, that clearly isn’t the case.

The EFF argues repeatedly that the existing law is “not broken” but they are wrong. In fact the EFF itself has used the existing law to argue that the most flagrant promoters of sex trafficking should not be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

In Government Pressure Shutters Backpage’s Adult Services Section the EFF acknowledges that “Backpage knew that its website was being used to post ads for illegal prostitution and child sex trafficking, and directly edited such ads to make their illegality less conspicuous” but argues that Backpage should not be held accountable for those actions.

The EFF goes on to congratulate themselves on having supported Backpage by filing a brief on their behalf when they were sued by child sex trafficking victims. The EFF published an article about that case entitled Court Finds That Section 230 Shields Website From Child Trafficking Claims.

The legislation that the EFF is fighting against is needed specifically because the existing law shields the most egregious child sex traffickers from liability for their crimes and prevents children who have been enslaved and raped from seeking damages against those who have made millions from their exploitation.

The EFF knows this all to well because they have been in court arguing on the behalf of criminal enterprises like Backpage that the existing law gives them immunity.

And, let’s face it, for all its merits, the EFF does have more than a few of those obese bearded weirdos who look as if they just might have a small body or two stashed in the cellar.

Voxiversity 002

The second Voxiversity video is now live! This is a short video of the kind we are calling A Lesson from History. This one is called Sink the Ships.

Episode Two: Sink the Ships

A few of the comments on YouTube, before they get disappeared like those on the first one.
  • First the production was excellent, better than the first.  Second, what a great lesson from history, wake-up America & European Nations!
  • Unbelievable!  I’ve never heard so much said in under 3 minutes.
  • Excellent follow up, even better than Voxiversity #1!
We will be holding the first Voxiversity Q&A tomorrow at 7 PM Eastern. Check your email if you’re a backer. If you are a backer and you didn’t receive one, please email me for the URL. And if you’re not yet, but you want to support Voxiversity and attend, you can do so here.

We already have that word

“I still think we need a word for cultural self-genocide.”
– Stephen Green, Instapundit

We have it. That word is “immigration”.

“Having spent some time perusing the genetic imprints of invaded populations, it is clear that if the warriors coming from the Eastern steppes left a cultural imprint, they certainly left their genes at home. Gene transfer between areas happens by group migrations, inclement climate, and unaccommodating soil rather than war.”
– NN Taleb, Skin in the Game

Immigration is not “good for the economy”. Immigration is the precise opposite of “who we are”. And as genetic science has conclusively proven, it is quite literally worse than war.

Judeo-Christian values

I look forward to seeing the evangelical Churchians twisting themselves into pretzels to somehow avoid criticizing this rabbi, lest they risk losing the many-fold blessings of Judeo Christ.

On Saturday, an openly gay Leftist rabbi twisted the Bible to support transgender identity, and in so doing he explicitly named eight Bible figures who he suggested were transgender or gender non-conforming.

Responding to a recent statement from the Kansas Republican Party rejecting transgenderism, Jay Michaelson disputed the idea that “God’s design for gender” involves accepting biological sex.

“[W]hat about those men and women who deviate from gender roles in the Bible?” Michaelson asked in a Daily Beast article. “The patriarch Jacob, for example, is clearly gendered female in comparison with his twin brother Esau. Esau is hairy, Jacob is smooth; Esau is a hunter, Jacob ‘stays in the tent’ (which is where women stay) and cooks; Esau is favored by his father, Jacob by his mom. And yet Jacob is the chosen one who becomes Israel, who fathers a nation” (emphasis added).

Yes, this rabbi suggested Jacob was “clearly gendered female.” Since Jacob was biologically a male, and even fathered children, this would necessarily make him transgender. Michaelson went on, “Of course, Jacob didn’t go on hormone therapy, but the way the Bible constructs his gender identity makes it very clear that, at least until his transformative nighttime wrestling match, he is gender non-conforming.”

The rabbi didn’t stop with Jacob, however. “Likewise, Deborah the Judge, who performed a male societal role. Likewise, the beautiful young David in his ‘armor-carrier’ relationships with Saul and Jonathan. (1 Sam. 16;12, 1 Sam. 18:1-3) Likewise the Apostle Paul, who rebelled against the most fundamental gender role of his time, fathering children, by becoming celibate,” Michaelson wrote.

So, what’s the plan? Declare he’s not a Jew? That’s straight-up Hitlerism! Declare he’s not a true rabbi? What sort of anti-semite polices another religion? They can’t, of course, simply declare that he is evil, because that would not be inclusive and welcoming.

Now, tell us more about these “shared Judeo-Christian values”.

US tariffs and trade war

As I mentioned yesterday, I was asked to pinch-hit for Steve Keen on a Chinese English-language business show this morning. They arranged for a trip up to the studio, which frankly struck me as more than a little overkill considering that they only asked me four questions. But it was a real learning experience, although unfortunately I was on a bit of an audio delay. Please keep in mind that I had no idea what the host was going to ask me, except that it would have something to do with China and President Trump’s recent comments about tariffs, because I wasn’t tuned in until about 10 seconds before the host addressed me.

The transcript follows. The sections in italics are the graphics that the producers popped up while we were talking.

YANG RUI: Let me cross over to Mr Vox Day, author of On the Question of Free Trade: An Economic Discourse, for his comments on the latest. What do you make of the impact on the European Union.

VOX DAY: Well, I think the threats from the European Union are essentially toothless. There is very, very little that the European Union can do when it comes to US trade policy. I think it’s a lot of political threat, but ultimately there is nothing they can do about it.

YANG: You mean there won’t be any reprisals from the European Union? Let’s look at such statistics. The exports as a percentage of each economy: Germany is 46 percent, South Korea 42 percent, Mexico 38 percent, and Canada 31 percent. China is just 20 percent, but we are still very much exposed compared to 12 percent (for the USA). So, all would suffer in a trade war if there would be a trade war. What do you think of the collective repercussions.

VOX: First of all, I think it’s important to understand that not everyone will suffer equally in a trade war, and some parties will benefit from it. For example, if you simply look at the United States alone and we take it to the most extreme, absurd example and suppose that the United States were to stop all imports and exports, that would immediately translate into a 3 percent annual boost to the US economy. If you look at how the GDP is calculated, it’s very simple. And so the fact that it might have a negative outcome on Europe, the fact that it would have a strong negative impact on South Korea, says nothing about what the impact on the United States is. And, of course, President Trump has made it very clear that with his America First policy, he is not as concerned about the economic state of the rest of the world.

US TARIFFS A PRELUDE TO A TRADE WAR
US has high domestic demand

YANG RUI: Vox, what do you think of the Chinese response? What would be the most likely response from China, which was accused by the US government of only paying lip service instead of turning to actions, to reciprocate in terms of deals that are not quite in favor of the US. According to President Donald Trump, the US suffers $800 billion of trade deficit, that’s quite a lot.

US TARIFFS A PRELUDE TO A TRADE WAR
How will China respond in a trade war?

VOX: I think China’s response is going to be very calm and measured. I don’t think there is any advantage to China in trying to engage in reprisals, simply because, you know, by definition, the reduction of imports into the US is going to boost their manufacturing and boost their GDP. And so the best thing for China to do is to simply play a long game, play a waiting game. It’s something they’re very good at. This main steel and aluminum tariff is not directed primarily at China and so there is no reason for China to overreact. Trump will do what he says he’s going to do; he’s pretty good about that.

YANG: But last year we enjoyed a trade surplus of $300 billion with the United States and John, the guest speaker here in the studio, says that China is likely to open up our capital market and to lay the groundwork for more American services to be provided here in the Chinese market. What do you think of the prospects?

US TARIFFS A PRELUDE TO A TRADE WAR
US “has an $800 billion yearly trade deficit”

VOX: I don’t think that is going to be effective because Trump is not that concerned about Wall Street. He’s not that concerned about what you call the services market. He’s much more concerned about the industrial base, he’s much more concerned about the working class who have lost so many jobs over the last few decades. I think the most important aspect of that development you’re talking about is that it indicates that China is not disposed to respond to Trump’s harsh rhetoric with harsh rhetoric or ill-considered actions of their own.

I’ll share some of my thoughts on the experience later. And somewhat to my surprise, I was informed that they liked my answers and would like to have me back again sometime.

Main Street First

This is a good sign of the God-Emperor’s America First economic agenda in action. And the Main Street of America at that.

White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn has resigned from President Donald Trump’s administration.

The former Goldman Sachs president and free trade advocate Cohn, whose departure date will come in a few weeks, decided to quit after Trump announced he would impose stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports…. Cohn clashed with Trump’s protectionist advisors on the issue of tariffs. At a meeting with steel and aluminum executives last Thursday where Trump announced the move, Cohn argued against it, warning about price increases for steel and aluminum products, according to a person in the room.

Free trade is not good for the US economy or the American public. But it is good for the financial elite that lives as a useless parasite off both as it plays the “heads I win, tails you bail me out” casino. And for those who missed my debate with economist Bob Murphy, the best thing about tariffs is the fact that they are an alternative to income taxes, a benefit that Bob even conceded during the debate.

VOX: My fourth argument against free trade is practical. Bob wrote that “the most obvious way to realize that tariffs make a country poorer is to realize that tariffs are taxes on domestic citizens, not on foreign producers”. That’s correct but that would only be true if the alternative was no taxes. That is obviously not the case now, it will never be the case, and it should be readily apparent that a nation with a government funded by tariffs will be wealthier and freer than a government funded by income taxes. Tariffs are considerably less intrusive and less economically disruptive than the personal and corporate income taxes that have replaced them. Free trade is unlikely to make a country wealthier if it replaces its tariffs with income taxes. (So to answer Bob’s question of how do politicians make a country wealthier, they do so by substituting tariffs for income taxes.)

BOB: One last thing here. Let’s see. He admitted, and I think it was very telling, that Vox admitted that tariffs are taxes on US citizens. So I wasn’t sure if he was going to go with me on that. He does. So again, Vox is now admitting that yes, the US government imposing taxes on US citizens make us better off and in some sense wealthier and he is just saying in comparison to income taxes. Well, fair enough, I do concede that. By the same token, Obamacare can make America richer if the alternative is socialized medicine. But, clearly, if we were debating if Obamacare makes us better off or not, I shouldn’t have to be forced to use the default option or the baseline case of an even bigger government policy. So, by the same token here, when I say tariffs don’t make Americans wealthier I am not saying the only other alternative is to say the income tax. So I do agree if we want to have some shared issues in the debate here, I do agree that tariffs are better than an income tax, dollar for dollar, but I still don’t think it is correct to therefore conclude tariffs make us wealthier.

It’s fine to hypothesize about a world with no taxes, no debt, and no government spending, but back here in the real world, we have a choice between a) income taxes, b) government debt, and c) tariffs. And tariffs are by far the economically preferable option that does the least harm to the citizenry.

Free traders freak out

It’s not hard to know who doesn’t have a real case when you see free traders going full-retard over two tariffs.

Trump needs to be impeached immediately to head off the trade war he has declared. His appointees who support that trade war, namely Commerce Secretary Ross and Trade Representative Lighthizer, should be fired immediately.

I am not trying to punish him, I am trying to stop the trade war. He has turned himself into a colossal mistake made by American voters in 2016. I don’t care whether he goes to the Leavenworth Penitentiary or Mar-a-Lago. I voted for Gary Johnson.

Let me give you a list of pertinent facts that cannot be denied:

• U.S. GDP has never been as high as now
• The number of U.S. jobs has never been higher than now
• Trumps claims he wants to increase the number of jobs. For whom? There are no U.S. residents left to hire. The Fed chair said we are at full employment and maybe have more people employed than full employment (you need a certain amount of unemployed because people quit, get fired, go to college or grad school, take vacations between jobs, etc.)
• The Smoot-Hawley Tariff bill (Smoot and Hawley were Republicans) was a large campaign issue in the 1928 presidential race. Republican Hoover said he would sign it. He won and took office in March 1929. He did sign it.
• The stock market crashed repeatedly starting on Black Tuesday October 29, 1929. “…by 1932 stocks were worth only about 20 percent of their value in the summer of 1929.”
(http://www.history.com/topics/1929-stock-market-crash) A similar thing happened to real estate, although there were few statistics on real estate back then. They used a study of real estate prices in the New York Times during the Depression to retroactively create the stats.
• Before the 1929 crash, the stock market was booming with shoe-shine-boy/taxi-driver speculative mania fueled by high-loan-to-value-ratio margin loans. There are lower loan-to-value-ratio margin loans now. But they contributed to the recent drop in stocks forcing some to sell to meet margin calls.
• In 1932, when FDR was elected, the U.S. national debt-to-GDP ratio was 17{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed}. Today it is 105{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed} meaning the U.S, government is in no position to provide the sort of government financial help it did during the New Deal.
• In 1929, international trade was 7{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed} of world GDP. Today, it is 25{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed}. Furthermore, about 40{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed} to 60{a298dadb698b5d9f7b1e1aa14f0e41ed4811cd67f55ba9a1b19c355a24d2c8ed} of all imports coming to the U.S. now were, in turn, imported into the exporting country to make the product in question—including raw material and manufactured components from the U.S.
• “Buying American” today is near impossible. Virtually all manufactured products are a sort of international all-star team as depicted in the essay “I, pencil.” 

Let’s address those arguments in order.

  1. US debt has never been higher. US population has never been higher. That’s why US GDP is at record highs, not semi-free trade.
  2. There have never been more Americans out of the work force. The record employment is an artifact of the record population. The employment/population ratio is not anywhere near its record highs and is nearly as low as it was prior to the second wave of women entering the work force.
  3. There are currently 94.6 million Americans not in the workforce. The fact that they are not looking for jobs offered at lower average wages than 1973 does not mean that they are entirely uninterested in ever working at any wage.
  4. Smoot-Hawley had nothing to do with the Great Depression. First, the annual decline in exports from 1929 to 1933 was less than the decline from 1920 to 1922. Second, the net effect of the change in the balance of trade amounted to less than 0.3 percent of GDP.
  5. None of this garblefarbling about the stock market is relevant.
  6. The government will be in a much better position to help manufacturers when it has $500 billion in tariff income at its disposal.
  7. This is an argument for why less semi-free trade, not more, is needed.
  8. Buying American is not “near impossible” and it will get considerably easier and more cost-effective when imported goods are taxed.
In other news, I was very flattered when Steve Keen suggested that I serve as his substitute in a live interview tomorrow concerning on US tariffs, their global implications, and the concerns of a trade war. Of course, I agreed. So, I will be on Dialogue with Yang Rui tomorrow, which can be seen live here.