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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   37923 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I noticed there is a slow drible of talk about some of Trumps Executive Orders. I kinda wanted to talk about all of them as a package, and some of them more specifically. I would advise everyone to just go ahead and read all of the executive orders (there are about 50):

https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/

They are generally short, about a page long. The titles are descriptive of the goals, so you can even skip reading many of them. And you don't need to hear about them via a second hand source.

I got the general gist of all of them within an hour or two on Inauguration day (when they were posted).

My general impressions:

  1. I like the visibility and ease of reading these. Its nothing like most legislation that goes through congress that often require a law degree, and an in depth knowledge of regulations just to sort of understand them.
  2. I don't like this continuing tradition of using executive orders to run the government. From what I remember this started in earnest under Bush 2. But its also pretty clear that congress is increasingly non-functional and uninterested in their assigned role in the constitution. Congress has delegated away its power for almost 100 years at this point, granting law-making powers to bureaucracies that are run under the executive branch. So I don't like the executive order - ocracy, but it seems there is no alternative.
  3. I care less about the culture war type orders, like renaming things. I think it is probably good to have them in there from a strategy perspective. Let your enemies exhaust themselves on silly issues.
  4. My favorite Executive order: Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce. Basically people in the bureaucracy are supposed to carry out the will and directive of the president / executive branch. If they sandbag or fail to do this, then that is grounds for dismissal. They don't have to agree with the president or be loyal, but none of this "resist" stuff. It was a little ridiculous that this EO needed to be issued in the first place.
  5. The one that I think will actually personally impact me the most: Return to In-Person Work. I live close enough to DC. Traffic is going to get worse.
  6. Two executive orders have me worried. One is about cost of living: Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis. The actual text mostly talks about getting rid of barriers and harmful regulations. I hope that is where it stops. But populist politicians have often resorted to price controls to "fight" inflation. I strongly hope they avoid that pitfall.
  7. The other EO that worries me is related to trade America First Trade Policy. The basic economics case against tariffs seems air tight to me. Tariffs seem like a classic policy failure to me. The costs are distributed among all US consumers, but the benefits are often concentrated within certain sectors, or even specific companies. I was also hoping to see an end to the Jones Act, but this EO seems like it thinks that legislation is great.

The basic economics case against tariffs seems air tight to me.

Me, too, but I still prefer tariffs.

What about the complicated economics case?

Other countries need the American market more than Americans need foreign production. Or, that should be the case if it is not already.

What about the sovereignty case?

Across the border is a foreign land with foreign people and foreign laws. Some goods can come across the border, but in a country as big as the USA, there is nothing that must be acquired abroad.

What about the warfighting case?

DJI drones will kill so many people this century, of that I'm sure. What happens when your geopolitical rival is the one supplying all of your military?

What about anything other than simply maximizing currency?

I'm talking again about self-sufficiency. America should be self-sufficient both because it is virtuous and because it better ensures her long-term safety.

I haven't even gotten to the real reason I prefer tariffs: how else are you funding the government? Right now, it's income taxes, which is taking resources away from the most productive people in order to reallocate them. I suggest that it is not the most productive people that we should be taxing. Trump has floated getting rid of the income tax, and if he replaces it with tariffs then I'll faint with joy.

What is the basic economic case for confiscating 25% or more from every person in the country?

To reiterate the basic case:

Specialization and trade is the engine of ALL economic growth. There is a theoretical maximum point for any economy where everyone is as specialized as possible and trading away for everything else they want. International trade extends this theoretical maximum point. We might already be living beyond the point of maximum wealth if the US was only going to trade with itself.

I'm not entirely sure what point is being made for the "complicated economic case" or the "sovereignty case".

And how much are you willing to pay in average cost of living for these things? Should we be 20% poorer, 50% poorer, 90% poorer to support these things? Or is anything shy of 100% poorer acceptable? And like most economic issues its not just a one time payment, its an ongoing payment. So even being 2% poorer a year means that in about 30 years you are 50% poorer than you would have been.

Tariffs supported government revenue back in the day when alcohol taxes were enough to be about 25% of government revenue. I would love if goverment was that small. Tariffs are currently a rounding error as a revenue source. And I don't think there is a realistic way to get that number high enough.

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