Economics and the Second Amendment - Redux 2025

I'm pulling a Grover Cleveland with one of my better G:TB posts because it's particularly relevant these days.  DJ Trump, who also pulled a Grover Cleveland, is not at all Gheorghe and does not read G:TB--if he did he would know that tariffs act as a tax and wouldn't have screwed up our 401(k)s.  I have Marls and Jamboni drafting a complaint right now, let us know if you want in.

DJ Trump recently announced that he will impose tariffs of 25% and 10% on imported steel and aluminum, respectively. The Dow dropped 350 points in response. Naturally, I plan to sue the President.

This isn't my idea--he had it first. Back in December 2017, Trump twat the following in response to a 350 point drop in the Dow:

People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

I'm not sure what the exact cause of action against the President would be. Surely not negligence. If the President can't be guilty of obstructing justice how should I expect to be made whole for acts of mere Executive stupidity?

I think my best claim is infringement of my Second Amendment rights. Let me explain.

I went to arguably the most conservative law school in the country. Before classes started I was encouraged to read "Principles of Economics" by N. Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush. I actually enjoyed the book and I dredged it up for this post.

Here's how Mankiw explains tariffs:

The increased price of foreign goods under the tariff allows domestic firms to increase their price, thus resulting in overproduction. The increased price also results in underconsumption. Consumers (i.e., everyone who isn't involved with the manufacture of steel and who isn't the government) loses the benefit of quandrangle C, D, E, and F. This because the government reaps rectangle E and manufacturers take trapezoid C. If your eyes haven't glazed over at this point, you realize that the entire market--everyone involved in this situation--loses the benefit of triangles D and F. Thus triangles D and F are a deadweight loss--absent the tariff, D and F would have been consumer surplus. Instead no one had D and F. Thus the tariff acts as a tax. And these triangles are the direct result of the aforementioned overproduction/underconsumption. This jumped out at me 15 years ago. Seriously, look at my notes in the margin.

This is important because conservatives abhor deadweight loss--when Kudlow, Laffer and Moore are against an economic policy you know it isn't conservative. And if that doesn't convince you, the fact that Democrats and unions support the tariffs should.

I personally dislike the tariffs because as Mankiw explains "When a country allows trade and becomes an importer of a good, domestic consumers of the good are better off, and domestic producers of the good are worse off. Trade raises the economic well-being of a nation in the sense that the gains of the winners exceed the losses of the losses of the losers."

Does that last sentence sound familiar? It probably does. Conservatives always say that the government shouldn't pick winners and losers. Here's what Paul Ryan has to say about this:

Elites in Washington should NOT be picking winners & losers—that’s a recipe for a closed economy—for cronyism.https://t.co/AcHJfVRwTE

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 28, 2016

Of course, Ryan also applauded Trump's move that helped keep Carrier's plant in Wisconsin. Cronyism indeed!

Anyway, the upshot of this tariff is that it will cost more to manufacture things that are made out of steel (and aluminum). This added cost will, of course, be passed along to the consumer. So expect to see an increase in the price of appliances, silverware, steel-belted radial tires, beer cans, cans of beer, cars and car parts, BBQ grills, BBQ grilling utensils, wire, pots and pans, foil, golf clubs, patio furniture, fencing, fencing swords, plumbing supplies, building supplies, nails, screws, brads, tacks, nuts, bolts, washers, garbage cans, bicycles, ladders, window frames, and mattress springs.

And things like guns and bullet shells. The President's steel tariff is really a tax on guns and bullets, making it more expensive for me to exercise my god-given Second Amendment right to bear arms. "Shall not be infringed" goddammit! I'm suing! And while I'm at it I'm going to claw back the money I lost in my 401(k) just like Trump said I should three months ago.

Huckleberry, Daisy, Genius

I learned this morning from the Dooger Val Kilmer had passed. And on Liberation Day of all days. 

Those that know me well are fully aware that Kilmer's Doc Holliday is my favorite cinematic portrayal, bar none. Just an absolute tour de force of charisma and confidence masking infirmity and belying the deepest of loyalties. I could go on. 

Kilmer's Chris Knight, on the other end of the thespian spectrum, is a brilliantly madcap performance, all big gestures and broad comedic glee. That role is well within my top 10 comedy performances. 

That one dude could give us both, in addition to so many other great on-screen efforts (with range from Top Gun's seething Iceman to Top Secret's giddy Nick Rivers to the brooding criminal Chris Shihirlis in Heat to melting into Jim Morrison's character in The Doors) was remarkable. In very meager tribute, here are a few of my favorite things:

Gheorghasbord

Been thinking a lot about what it'll take for us to climb out from the morass we slide deeper into with each passing day. It seem painfully obvious that so-called political elites are essentially useless, either because they stand to gain from others' pain or they lack the imagination to see how bad things might get. No, if we're getting out of this shit, it's gonna be normies hand in hand with privileged folks who take stands, sacrifice, and build movements in ways large and small. 

And, like it's often been, women are gonna sigh, roll up their sleeves, and start digging. So today we celebrate a couple of badass ladies who've made public points recently.

The first is former Skadden Arps associate Brenna Frey, who very publicly resigned from the prestigious firm after the partnership agreed to a settlement with the President* to avoid the consequences of a highly dubious Executive Order targeting it. Following in the footsteps of her colleague Rachel Cohen, Frey posted her resignation and reasons on LinkedIn, saying, 

Today the executive partner of my former firm sent us all an "update" that attempted to convince some of the best minds in the legal profession that he did us a solid by capitulating to the Trump administration's demands for fealty and protection money.  Fellow Skadden attorneys: If you agree with Jeremy London's position that the firm should not engage in "illegal DEI discrimination," should devote prestigious Skadden Fellows to the Trump administration's pet projects, and should help "politically disenfranchised groups who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms," (taking into account the robust pro bono work that major national law firms already do), then by all means continue working there. But if that email struck you as a craven attempt to sacrifice the rule of law for self-preservation, I hope you do some soul-searching over the weekend and join me in sending a message that this is unacceptable (in whatever way you can). As one of my more eloquent former colleagues put it: "Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn't."

There is only one acceptable response from attorneys to the Trump administration's demands: The rule of law matters. 

The rule of law matters. As an attorney, if my employer cannot stand up for the rule of law, then I cannot ethically continue to work for them.

A more prominent woman took a different sort of stand recently, quietly standing up to discrimination through the simple, decent act of making breakfast.

UCONN women's hoops redshirt freshman Jana El Alfy is a practicing Muslim, and observed Ramadan for the past month (it ended this weekend). During Ramadan, the devout cannot consume food or drink of any kind between dawn and sunset, making it particularly challenging for elite athletes. 

El Alfy's roommate is superstar senior Paige Bueckers. Each day during Ramadan, Bueckers woke up before dawn to make breakfast for her teammate. She told People Magazine, "So just anytime you can support somebody, especially when they're going through something. It's a lot better when you’re going through something with somebody."

Ain't that a novel concept. 

Finding somebodies to go through stuff with sounds like a recipe for positive outcomes. Let's get after it.