An Eye for an Eye...

An eye for an eye makes the world blind, but when it comes to retaliatory tariffs, things are different.

Not actually, but that's the modus operandi of the Canadian government.

Donald Trump's presidency has officially put tariffs on Canadian products and so how did "we" respond?

By taking the moral high ground? By saying, listen President Doofus, we're not playing your game. Slap all the tariffs you want on us, you're really just hurting your own economy and raising prices for consumers. We will not play ball. We will turn the other cheek.

The Next Financial Crisis

Some days I wish Hillary Clinton won just so when the economy collapses, people can get mad at her.

But Trump is too hilarious (and Trump Derangement Syndrome so interesting) that I'm fine people will blame the bad economy on his tariffs and tax cuts.

After all, with Clinton at the helm, I'm sure those evil Ruskies would have been to blame for the downturn economy.

But who's really at fault? Why the Fed of course!

Canadian Dairy & Trump's Tariffs

NAFTA isn't free trade.

Amazon is free trade. If I sell something to an American through a platform like Amazon and there are no extra fees or taxes from the government because I am a Canadian trading with an American, then we have free trade.

The regulatory legalism of NAFTA is a far cry from a natural progression of liberal values. Somewhere in the 19th or 20th century, liberal ideas unglued and merged with untested theories of social democracy and socialism.

Ergo, the state of the world in 2018.

So let's break down what Trump's tariffs mean in this world where central banks and governments "float" fiat currencies against one another.

The Trite of Trump, Trudeau and Tariffs

The problem with blogging about Canadian politics is that you have to be a political news junkie.

Once upon a time that was me. Especially when I first started getting into "Austrian" economics. But, as time went on, I wanted to know whether praxeology was really telling me something true about the world.

So, I got into philosophy, particularly epistemology. It's a journey that is far from completion. But there's been one nasty side effect.

The daily nitty-gritty of politics and current events has never been so annoying.

Imagine a discipline so far removed from philosophy yet shaped by unconscious assumptions determining fundamental worldviews -- that's politics.

So when all the countries get together for the G7, when Trump has a "meltdown," none of this means anything to me. And it shouldn't to you either.

Nevertheless, I'm sure there's some lesson behind Trump's advisors referring to Trudeau's "special place in hell."

Let's see...

Blame Trump for the Bad Economy?

To what extent will Trump be blamed for the bad economy? 

What will be the reasons? Deregulation? Tariffs?

At no point do I expect major news networks to scrutinize the Fed. To ignore Trump for one second and do some real investigation of the economy. 

Here's a good starting point: what do you mean by science? For, if there is something to be said about an objective economy, an economic science, economic knowledge rooted in facts and reason - then to what extent will Trump be blamed for the bad economy?