Free Trade is Marching On

Here's a story for those who think Free Trade is a Western conspiracy forced on poor non-Western nations in order to exploit them. First, that 44 African nations are pursuing a free trade pact (in addition to many regional pacts that already exist) doesn't support that. Second, I don't see why Free Trade being "Western" matters. Either it's good or bad; who thought of it first is irrelevant. And I'm not even sure it is Western. Back in the day, the Middle East was a center of global trade when Europe was a peripheral backwater. I bet at least one non-European thought trade barriers were dumb before Adam Smith did; it's such an obvious conclusion. 

Also, the TPP, which includes many non-Western countries, lives on. All of its original members, minus the US, are continuing negotiations. They renamed the pact the CPTPP, probably so protectionists will have a harder time thinking up anti-CPTPP chants than they did with the TPP. The deal has gotten even better without the US, as the length of time intellectual property protections last has been reduced. Can't wait 'til we join it.

Intellectual Property, Tariffs, Trade, and History

     In addition to the recently announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from most of the world, today Trump put tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese imports. The justification is Chinese theft of intellectual property. Intellectual property is just a misleading framing in our legal system of ideas as property. Since ideas are non-rival (using an idea doesn't prevent anyone else from using it), the need for property right protections isn't readily apparent to me but I digress.

     The Industrial Revolution started in the US when some guy, Samuel Slater, stole "intellectual property" from the UK by memorizing the designs of textile mills. He built a mill in the Northeastern US; other industrialists took notice and built similar mills. It is to humanity's great benefit that Slater did this (out of self-interest btw). The spreading of new technology undermined the UK's monopoly power in this industry, increasing competition and delivering greater benefits more widely.

     Now China is doing the same, but we get mad about it. It does not harm the average worker that China is doing so, just the opposite. It harms would-be monopolist capital owners who want to be shielded from competition in order to reap un-earned economic rents at the expense of everyone else. 

In another moronic statement, Trump claimed:

"Our Nation was founded by farmers. Our independence was won by farmers. And our continent was tamed by farmers." 

     This fits in to the narrative about shielding capital owners from competition because farmers love that shit. But don't believe the hype. First, regarding our  founding farmers, I believe he means slave owners. To quote Hamilton (the musical), "we know who's really doing the planting." The instigators of the revolution were an alliance of Southern plantation owners and Northern merchants. Both groups resented the mercantilist trade restrictions the UK was placing on the colonies. 

     Now the last sentence about taming the continent, I guess maybe. Farmers were always right behind the soldiers and militias that carried out the genocidal land grab that formed our nation's boundaries (not that they're unique among Americans in benefiting from genocide). Sounds like we only care about property rights when its our own property.

Baltimore Brew Publishes Names of Cops Who Are (probably) Defrauding the City

     Baltimore Brew has published a list of 60 officers with high overtime pay from FY 2012 to 2017. Given what's already known, these cops probably lied on their timesheets in order to defraud the city out of millions of taxpayer dollars. In knee jerk defenses of the city's god-awful police force, people say we need the police, the thin blue line. Well, we do not need  criminals on that wall. We need a city free of parasites. The Brew published a profile on eight of the most egregious fraudsters, who all still work for (well, not really work, are employed by) the police department.

     Also, once again, the Baltimore Sun seems to be slacking. Here's an example, for a different story, of the Sun reporting a story the Brew first broke without crediting the Brew. Baltimore Brew is a better Baltimore news source.

The Trade Balance Doesn't Matter Anymore

In a world of fiat money and floating exchange rates trade deficits / surpluses are not macroeconomically relevant. They have no implications for employment or GDP growth. Bilateral trade balances are especially meaningless. A country with a trade surplus will still have some bilateral trade deficits (at least in practice, I don't quite remember if it is theoretically impossible, or just very unlikely to occur). Tariffs are a regressive tax paid by US consumers for the benefit of a select group of incumbent US capital owners.

Yes, being a Fascist Collaborator is Wrong

John Kelly, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, did such a good job keeping brown people out of the country that he was picked to be White House Chief of Staff. He recently joked about his promotion(?):

"The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from...being the secretary of homeland security, but I did something wrong and God punished me, I guess."

What could he have possibly done wrong? Oh yeah, that's right, collaborate with fascists and help implement their bigoted, idiotic policies. Burn in hell.

PS Speaking of which, peace out Gary Cohn, hope it was worth it asshole.

Free Trade Forever

Free trade is a net benefit. Exporters are more productive and pay higher wages on average. And imports are the whole point of trade (we can make the exports ourselves duh). Reducing barriers to imports increases competition, leading to lower real prices / higher real wages.

Even if the globalization of trade was a bad thing, nationalist trade barriers are a nonsensical solution. Some money spent on imports goes to domestic firms that sold the products. Some money spent on "made in the USA" products goes to foreign firms that produced intermediate inputs. Trade barriers decrease competition, and increase the cost of production and consumption, which harms the poor the most for the benefit of a minority of incumbent capital owners.

Follow up on Mayor Pugh

How did I miss the most important reason for being sick of Mayor Catherine Pugh? Namely, she supports "tough on crime" legislation that would increase prison sentences. Basically, she wants to go back in time and try an idea that did not work, and is not responsible for the vast majority of the decline in crime. What decline in crime increased incarceration was responsible for was temporary, as most incarcerated people eventually get out of jail.

This idea from 30 years ago is probably being advocated for because they are lazy, simplistic solutions that don't take a lot of effort to think up and don't have a direct up-front cost to the city, like after-school programs would.

This fresh new thinking could make Pugh a star of the Democratic party. Seriously, it'd be nice to have a mayor who didn't suck for a change.