Happy Liberation Day

Donald Trump proclaimed Liberation Day Wednesday, with tariffs one weapon of choice to reinvigorate the U.S. economy – particularly manufacturing.

Union workers in the White House Rose Garden for the ceremony cheered. Democrats and their lapdogs in the LameStream media, even some on supposedly business-oriented cable news channels, were horrified.

Understand, for these people on the business channels, the stock market is the economy and if it hits a rough patch, viewership goes down and they have a hard time spreading sunshine and lollipops to the masses; that the public might be more inclined to buy the stocks of the network’s advertisers.

If things get bad enough, some of these experts might even find themselves joining bureaucrats at the unemployment office, not that anyone need go to such a physical place any longer, sort of like those bureaucrats only had a fleeting relationship with their work stations.

They must have gotten the shakes tonight when Dow futures were indicating a 1,000-point drop tomorrow. My personal favorites, gold and silver, tanked in aftermarket trading and I had a standing order to buy some shares of a silver ETF execute. I have more buy orders at lower prices, but both metals have recovered much of their kneejerk panic drop as I write this at 10 p.m.-ish.

I don’t know if Trump’s bold action is going to work or not. I do know there has been a rush by some countries to reduce tariffs and companies are announcing trillions of dollars in investment in U.S.-based manufacturing plants to avoid tariffs.

I also know that the experts don’t know whether Trump’s plan will work overall. Remember, these naysayers are many of the same people who assured us for four years that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack, completely up to the job of president, and anyone who said otherwise was a ridiculous propagandist.

They also were wrong about small issues such as COVID, Hunter’s laptop and Russia, Russia, Russia.

They are wrong, too, in refusing to admit that our current fiscal path as a debt-burdened nation inhabited by too many debt-burdened residents is unsustainable.

As a young child, I recall being ingrained with the story of the boy who cried wolf, and how proven liars find their credibility lost. Yet, these LameStream media types shed their lies like a duck sheds water and continue to be believed by an uncomfortably large percentage of incredibly dull members of the populace.

In a likely futile attempt to help these intellectual lightweights, allow me to borrow from a popular education method: Explain it like you’re talking to a 5-year-old.

The stock market is not the economy: If someone gives you a few dollars and you spend it all on candy, eagerly devouring it in a short time, you will find yourself hyperactive and about to become sick. That’s the stock market. Pumped up on a sugar high from too much loose money chasing too little candy (stocks) now there is a growing fear of no more money, no more candy, no more fun. A tariff-related price purge might be just what is needed to clear the decks for a better future. But Nvidia remains a great company and isn’t likely to lay off tons of employees, even if its stock dips 20 percent.

Our national debt could be terminal: If mommy and daddy buy you thousands of dollars of toys each week, using their credit cards to pay for it, you are a happy child. But, when mommy and daddy can’t pay the credit card bills, and they can’t pay the mortgage, and they can’t buy food, life becomes very unhappy very quickly. Countries, despite in some cases being able to create money, still need to have strong credit and when that’s gone, so is the country.

Tariffs are a tax on consumers and will stoke inflation: If you have 10 cents, and a piece of candy you typically buy for five cents goes up to eight cents, it really doesn’t affect you until you buy that more-expensive piece of candy. You can find less expensive candy to purchase. You can just not buy any candy at all. Or you can decide to spend the extra money for instant gratification and use more of your available cash. But, you make the decision and it’s not carved in stone you will be spending more money. Also, candy manufacturers, if the high price results in lower sales and revenue, might lower the price closer to the five cents to increase demand.

The United States is being a bully by charging tariffs: Suppose your teacher at school decided to teach a lesson in free enterprise to a class of 20, with the student who makes and sells the most products to the other students getting first prize. All students are given the same amount of play money to purchase the products of others. You sketch five drawings and try to sell them, but the other people decide to add 50 percent extra on your price to slow your sales to them. But, when they try to sell their products to you, or to each other, no add-ons to price are allowed to balance the trades. Would you be surprised if you sold less and they sold more? Shockingly, Trump is the first modern U.S. president willing to address such unfair trade practices. This does not make him wrong.