128 Tariff Town: The Trade Wars (feat. Mark C.)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I almost forgot how to which buttons to hit, for
that it's been so long.
Uh, hey guys, fans, welcome tothe next installment of the
nailing history podcast.
Matt here along with the show'sresident amateur history
enthusiast, john n.
Thank you for having me back,happy to be well, no, you don't

(00:42):
say that when you're part of thehost.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, that introduction I couldn't be sure
I said you were the resident butresident can imply like I might
be here one day, gone tomorrowthat's not what that means at
all.
I'm happy to be here and I'mexcited for this topic, but I do
want to say I appreciate yourefforts and I'm excited for
another show is this a responseto our chat?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
g?
Gpt fueled argument over thepast weekend it got pretty
heated.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It was a doozy of an argument, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Just to give you a little bit of backstory for the
fans.
They get a little behind thecurtain view of what I deal with
.
John sent me an article forwhat we're going to talk about
today.
We won't get into that rightnow, but John sent me an article
for what we're going to talkabout today.
We won't get into that rightnow, but John sent me an article
to read on Friday and then Iread it.
Of course.
He sent it to me, so of courseI read it.
I read it on Saturday.

(01:37):
He sent it to me late on Friday.
I read it on Saturday and wewere supposed to record on
Sunday.
I prepared all day Saturday.
I was all ready to go.
Sunday morning.
John text me and says hey man,I'm going to be in town on
Wednesday.
Why don't we just do it inperson?
You want to just wait to do itin person?
And I said yeah, I guessthat'll work if you want.

(01:59):
He's like yeah, because Ireally want to read the article
that I sent you.
So he sends the article,doesn't read it.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I mean it is what it is.
I was running all over theplace on Saturday.
I didn't get a chance to sitdown for a second to myself.
I just felt like I was all over.
I didn't have a chance to sitdown and read like a academic
article on the subject whichwe're going to crack into today.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
So I took it upon myself to ask ChatGPT why do you
think my co-host of a historypodcast sends me articles to
read but then doesn't read themhimself?
Chatgpt responded ah, classicco-host dynamics.
There are a few possiblereasons Delegation genius number
one.
Number two.
Time optimism, number three.
The 990 effect, number fourstrategic chaos.

(02:44):
Now, the 990 effect.
I don't know if that is anactual thing or if that's just a
total shout out to your SATscores.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
First SAT scores.
I sat the exam multiple times.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
No, but is the 990 effect something real?
Or has ChatGPT learned aboutyour SATs?
I didn't put that in, I don'tknow when I I may have at one
point been like, hey, is it agood idea to start a podcast
with somebody who got a 990?
So does it remember that?

(03:20):
Maybe it's like self-learningand that's like they call the
990 effect, which for yourfiance, had she been have, maybe
she's listening, or any of yourfamily members or, you know,
maybe future in-laws or anything.
Maybe when john acts like abuffoon, maybe we just start
calling that the 990 effect.
I kind of like that idea.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I don't also know why they call it that.
It doesn't explain what it is.
What's's the 9-9?
I'm seeing 9-9-0, somethingthat must mean.
I don't know what that means.
You think it's just a play?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
I think it's making fun of.
Yeah, I think it was a joke onyour SAT scores.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I just want to keep it a little fluid.
We just have kind of thosebracket points, big bullet
points we want to hit.
I really think that's the 990effect talking right now.
Hey see students around theworld.
Let me tell you I wasn't astudent in school, I just ASATs,
just tripped me up a little bit.
But that goes back to my, youknow, cat exams in third grade.

(04:19):
I didn't do great on thebattery score.
I didn't do great on thoseeither, just never a good
standardized test taker.
That's the best number oneexcuse Thinking outside of the
box.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
That's the number one excuse of somebody who's just
whatever, Anyway.
So just doing a little bit ofWe'll clean out the junk drawer,
as we say for the podcast, wedid get a fan mail.
If you remember our lastepisode, we talked about Grover
Cleveland and his, his rise tofall and then re-rise in

(04:55):
presidency in the late 1800s asthe first president to do
non-consecutive terms.
That's right and in the in thewake of the current situation
that our country has ourselvesin, and we got a question which
is actually somewhat related towe're in November, we're around

(05:18):
Thanksgiving.
I'm not sure exactly when thisepisode is going to release
because of the delay from Johnnot reading his article that he
sent me, but I think it'sprobably going to be a little
bit after thanksgiving.
But the thanksgiving timeyou're always thinking about,
you know, the native americansobviously.
Then thanksgiving celebratessome made-up dinner that the
pilgrims had with the um, withthe native americans, and when

(05:42):
everything was cool, um, then it.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Whatever time, yeah so sit down dinner anyway.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
So the question that we got, john, maybe you'd be
curious.
I don't know if you had theanswer to this how did grover
cleveland's presidency slashpolicies affect native americans
?
Do you have any answers?

Speaker 2 (06:04):
oh, I would say uh, over much of the 19th century.
Well, probably since thePilgrims came and since the
Europeans descended on NorthAmerican shores, I think, native
American policy in its variousstages was fraught with some
difficulty.
We had a clash of civilizationsI don't think anyone can really
argue that by the 1880s, whenGrover Cleveland was president,

(06:31):
yeah, I think a lot of theNative Americans.
They were in a tough spot.
Some of them were more pacific,others were a little more
aggressive.
I think it wasn't a shiningspot uh at this time for for

(06:52):
people like grover um what areyou getting at?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
you're rambling, I'm trying to just.
How did his presidency affect,impact the?
How did his presidency orpolicies impact the native
america?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
on his first inaugural address, he said that
there's we owe it to the nativeamericans a guardianship, with
efforts to improve theircondition and enforcement of
their rights.
He wanted them to culturallyassimilate, which I think by
this time it was just thereality.
Like, all right, we're going towin, the land is basically ours

(07:31):
and you guys are still here,but, yeah, we're going to just.
This is our thing.
I don't know, this caught meoff guard.
I didn't read the fan mailbefore you tell me what you
think about old Grover Cleveland.
I know he's not perfect.
Is it better than AndrewJackson, though?

(07:51):
Did you do a better job thanAndrew Jackson, you think?
Trail of tears?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I truly don't know what you were getting at at all
with the last three minutes ofyou rambling about nonsense.
I'm trying to set it up.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
You're trying to paint a bot.
Paint a picture of a man ineight years as to how he his
policy towards something it'slike.
What's the background?
You don't need to know thebackground.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
The question was how does, how did his policy affect
native americans?
It wasn't.
Oh, what does grover clevelandthink about native Native
Americans and how does he feeland how do his feelings make him
think about things it was.
How did his presidency impactthe Native Americans?
The answer is in 1887, underPresident Grover Cleveland, the

(08:43):
federal government passed theDolls Act, which wasver
Cleveland.
The federal government passedthe Dahls Act, which was a way
for the federal government tocut up land that the government
stole from the Native Americansoriginally.
And they cut it up and gave acertain amount to the heads of
each Native American tribe forthem to farm and assimilate into
the rest of the country.
It was all about assimilation.

(09:03):
Right there you go now.
The native americans weren'tsuper juiced about it because it
was their land to begin with.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Their opinion was their land maybe not all of them
either.
Somewhere maybe four more forit than against it.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, I'm sure some of them were, but you know they
got 160 acres of farmland and320 acres of grazing land, but
only if they agreed to you knowthis bill.
And then they had to registerto the town or whatever the
government and they had thewhole thing.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So well, he also backed him up because I'm
reading here now now I'm sorry Ididn't read the fan mail, but
months before grover cleveland'sinauguration, 1885, president
arthur opened four million acresof winnebago and crow creek
indian lands in the dakota terrydakota territory to white
settlement by executive order.

(09:55):
Tens of thousands of settlersgathered at the border of these
lands, prepared to takepossession of them.
Cleveland believed thatrepublican arthur's order to be
in violation of treaties withthe tribes and rescinded it on
April 17th of that year,ordering the settlers out of the
territory.
He sent in 18 companies of armytroops to enforce the treaties

(10:15):
and ordered General PhilipSheridan, at the time commanding
general of the US Army, toinvestigate the matter.
So I would say, compared to hispredecessor he was better on
Native American policy and Ithink he saw them as people and
he wanted the enforcement of thetreaties that were on the books
.
So he's better than theRepublicans at the time, like a

(10:43):
lot of things he stood for.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
The question wasn't for you to defend Grover
Cleveland, which is what you'reautomatically doing.
He was like Well, it wasn't bad, it wasn't great either.
I don't think.
Well, it didn't ask for youropinion.
It didn't ask for your opinion.
It asked what was the effect?
What was the impact?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well, not great.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
You get so possessive of your weird takes of
presidents that you take anyquestion about even just what
they did during their presidencyas a personal attack on you.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's so weird dude.
I live with them in my heart,in my soul.
It's really weird.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
You're more loyal to these dead presidents that
you're obsessed with than mostpeople are to people that they
deal with on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
I feel like there's probably some truth to that.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
It's crazy.
So basically assimilation,assimilation, the short answer
basically assimilation,assimilation.
The shorthand would beassimilation, and a lot of it
had to do with the Dahl's Act,which explicitly wanted to
divide the nations so that therewasn't that cohesion between

(12:00):
tribes.
Divide and conquer, as they say.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
You think that was the?
It's the.
That was the implied goal ofthe act and not just the
consequence, because I'm sayinghere land tenures into
government private propertyrights and they wanted the
native americans to assume acapitalist and proprietary
relationship with property thatdid not previously exist in
their cultures.
Now, okay, yeah, assimilation,and they they kind of maybe

(12:24):
forced them, but might have beencoming from a halfway decent
place, they could have just saidwe need to exterminate these
people.
On a more proactive level Couldhave been worse.
Sure, now fast forward to thefounding of Oklahoma, when all
the Indian territory was settledand then we had, well, the
Sooners come in.

(12:44):
But who was president then?
When did the Sooners arrive inOklahoma?
1889.
Oops, I guess that was underCleveland's watch.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Whoops, I'm not asking you, no one has asked you
to defend this man, groverCleveland.
I think we can all agree thathe was a man of his own time.
So you can't really judge himfor his actions.
As Chris Harrison might say, abachelor fame, if anyone's
familiar with that interview.
You can't really judge him fornow with what you know, whatever
.
But in reality that was how heimpacted Native Americans.

(13:25):
The question was never if he wasa good or bad person.
It's to look at what.
If you want to judge whathappened as a good thing or a
bad thing, you can look at thatthrough your current mindset of
like that wasn't very fair tothe Native Americans.
But with your current mindsetyou can't say, oh, grover
Cleveland was a terrible personbecause he did that, because you

(13:46):
don't know, he could have stillbeen, but you don't know.
But you can look at it like,yeah, this was good, this was
good.
There's vetoes, blah, blah.
I'm a big fan of all that stuff, but yeah, that Native American
stuff was lame, not a goodthing.
Do you hold it against the man?
Probably not, but it's not agood thing.
You can't just defend everylittle thing that you don't

(14:10):
defend things just to makeyourself feel like you're wrong
by liking him.
Fair enough.
I think they called it the 990effect.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Oh boy, it comes in waves.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
It comes in waves, All right, Chris Harrison let's
change the subject here beforewe get canceled, before we even
get started here.
But yeah, so that's.
That's a good summary of how,grover Cleveland, I hope we
answered our fans question.
I probably you probably didn'tget the answer that you would
have expected a little, a little, uh, roundabout answer, but um

(14:50):
well, I just think okay.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
I'll stop.
Yeah, that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
So now that we're all caught up on our fan mail again
, every fans make sure that ifyou, if you have any questions
like that or any clarificationsor need anything for us to chat
about, you want us to chat aboutit and kind of dissect it on
air for you, just shoot us atext, hit that little link in
the button and don't delete whatauto-populates in the text.

(15:16):
Just hit the button.
A bunch of random numbers aregoing to come up.
Just start texting.
Right, just make sure that youdon't delete those numbers.
Don't delete it.
Don't do it.
It says do not delete, so don'tdelete it.
Just leave them there and moveon.
Start typing.

(15:37):
Don't worry about the numbers,just start typing.
We'll get your fan mail andwe'll get it on air.
Happy to get.
We don't miss a single message.
It all gets read by the host ofthe show.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Host and resident.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
So I guess I really want to preface this part of
this segment of the show, if youwant to call it.
I really want to preface thispart of this, this segment of
the show, if you want to call it.
I really want to preface thisas saying that, like John and I
don't really know a ton of whatwe're going to be talking about

(16:17):
coming up right.
Be upfront, we know the broad,we're going to hit on the broad
strokes of stuff.
We may miss some details, wemight get some details wrong,
but the overall generalstoryline here I think we have
it pretty nailed down.
So I mean, I don't have my, Ihave no background of business

(16:40):
economics.
I took one class in economics,skated through it.
The only thing I remember fromeconomics is opportunity costs.
It's the only thing I remember,maybe a little supply and
demand.
John has a degree from thegreat University of Syracuse,
the School of Business.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
You give that a shout out, what's?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
the name of it Shout out Whitman Celebrating 20 years
Whitman.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Where my Whitman's?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
at Just got a brochure celebrating 20 years,
where my Whitman's at got abrochure celebrating 20 that
Whitman sampler.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Love you, whitman.
You got a 20th anniversary whatlike brochure?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
apparently the building's 20 years old.
Oh, I don't know.
The business school is 20 yearsold.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I think it would be because, like that, some it was
that new?

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, I guess so some alumni.
Name must was that new, yeah, Iguess so Some alumni named
Whitman.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
That must have been tough to get into and out of,
but, John, I mean, I guess.
So basically, we're going to betalking about the history of
tariffs.
Tariffs have been a big deal inthe news and all this election
stuff, and my sister made apoint that maybe we should have
talked about this before theelection, which she probably has
somewhat of a point.
But whose votes were we goingto sway you?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
know and I didn't take an economic history course,
which is kind of more so whatthis is.
We're not going to try to hitit from like a this is what this
thing does Like.
We're looking at it more from ahistorical lens obviously, lens
, obviously.
And um, we're just going togive it a best, our best shot.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
I'm a popular amateur historian, the enthusiast a
popular like popular history,not popular people listen to me
um and yeah, we'll see where itgoes.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
I think we got a good one planned for you all right,
so yeah, so tariffs, tariffs,tariffs, tariffs, tariffs,
tariffs, tariffs, tariffs,tariffs.
It's all we're hearing aboutthe talk of the town, right,
tariff town, you might say, andI don't know, it's weird because
you never really hear abouttariffs.
It's a more, it's a scarierword than taxes, I think.

(18:40):
Definitely stronger.
I think if you say tariff,you're like this guy means
business.
When you say tax, yeah, okay,whatever, yeah, the two F's,
it's.
It's a little bit of a scary,scary phrase and it, but it
basically just means duties onimported goods, yeah, so like
when you get off of a cruiseship and you pay taxes on what

(19:03):
you're bringing into the, intothe country technically would be
a tariff, I guess what's more asmaller good, but we're talking
, we're tough, but we're talkingthat's like just in jet, but in
reality it's.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
It's a shipping, it's like big, big sneakers
electronics everything that webring into the country from
China.
Taxes on imports, usually withthe stated purpose of two handed
generating revenue for thegovernment imposing the tax or

(19:40):
using it as a way to protectdomestic industries from lower
cost foreign made goods.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Right.
So basically making importedgoods costs be less competitive
in the country of the tariffs Inthis case it's America, so that
it's more the generalpopulation we were able to
afford to take away thecompetition for domestic

(20:12):
industry and kind of effectivelyforce the hand of consumers in
that domestic market Domesticconsumers.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
That's what I was looking for In that market to
buy domestic.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
American-made goods.
Let's leave it, let's keep itto America, because it just
makes sense American goods.
But I mean, it's not liketariffs.
There's never really been likea zero.
There's always been some levelof tariffs on imported goods,
aside from there's a couplecountries where the US has free
trade agreements with.
But when you're not a part ofthat, there's some low tariffs

(20:41):
in general.
A trade-weighted average importtariff of 2% has pretty much
been the standard up untilrecent.
Just so you know the countriesthat the US does have free trade
agreements with.
We got Australia, bahrain,central America, chile, israel,
jordan, morocco, mexico, canada,not for long, oman, peru,

(21:06):
singapore, colombia, korea andPanama.
Now Mexico and Canada has beenback and forth, especially over
the 17, 18 years where you callthese.
So basically the most recently,which we'll get into Trump
started these tariffs, startingraising tariffs on China or
whatever, and you're the I thinkI don't know if economists are

(21:28):
calling this, but the generalconsensus call this the trade
wars, right, right.
So we're in the middle of atrade war and Mexico and Canada
have been like in and out andthen just recently, just a total
gift softball given to thegiven to our podcast is like
Trump just recently came out andsaid I'm going to tariff Mexico
and Canada 25%, yep.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
So it's very much in the news and very much a fluid
situation, it seems like, andstill to be seen, I believe he's
going to do it, but it makesgreat um like fodder for like
kind of forcing your notadversary but people to do

(22:10):
something you want, when youthreaten something like that
well, that's like.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
It's almost like well that to get into that.
It's really that's kind of whattrump is using it as he says
negotiation tactic culturaltariffs.
Right, it's really a good way toexplain it.
It's like an ethical tariff.
You know you're using it.
Trump thinks that using tariffsis a way to keep world peace,

(22:33):
which we'll get into.
Most economists think theopposite, where free trade is
the way to achieve world peace,which probably makes more sense.
But Trump thinks that I canstop every war by just
threatening with tariffs.
But that's really sweet,because we have enough clout to
do it.
We do, yeah, but like who'spaying that?
Okay, great.

(22:54):
So the american people?
Because you, because you don'twant to negotiate, or like play
their game, I don't know.
Anyway, we'll get into that,but just to get through, so just
to really talk about a littlebit more of the current tariff
situation that we're into.
I don't know if anybody reallyknows, I don't know a ton about
it, but just to give a littlebrief summary 2018, trump

(23:16):
started saying China,specifically, is conducting
unfair trade practicesEffectively dumping cheap
products into the US market.
Yeah, you think about Timu,basically things where they'll
sell stuff for prices that areeven less than the manufacturer
costs, just to screw the yeah,just to get the American

(23:38):
competition out of the way.
Total opposite, like just totalopposite of protectionism With
Chinese subsidies.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
So the biggest argument is that Trump would
argue that the Chinesegovernment is subsidizing their
local industry so that they canmake these goods at way below
what they would normally pay hadthey not had that government
support.
So then they can dump thoseproducts in the US market and
totally under.
Basically pull the bottom out,pull the carpet out from us
manufacturer.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Right.
So Trump in 2018, he starts a25% tariff on about $50 billion
worth of Chinese products andthen, between like 2018 and the
end of his presidency, it's kindof and actually until now it's
kind of been fluctuating 10 to25% of on, like I don't know.
It depends on.
I don't really understand howit changes, but every time they

(24:27):
pass a certain tariff act orwhatever, or it just changed, it
goes Sliding scale.
Flux series from 10% to 25%.
They're still in place now.
The Biden administration didn'treally do anything to get rid
of them.
They recently raised them on$18 billion worth of goods.
So they actually raised therates of tariffs in 2024 on $18

(24:52):
billion worth of goods.
But it's more of a where Trumpis more of a.
I'm just going to tariffeverything that comes in.
The Biden administration islooking at it as like.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, let's see what we really need to tariff scalpel
as opposed to yeah, sosemiconductors, steel and
aluminum, electric vehicles,batteries.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Those are the things that the Biden administration is
tariffing.
I don't really, didn't reallydive deep enough into why it's
that stuff.
I don't know if it's aprotectionism thing or if it's a
.
If it is something where theyfeel like China's unfairly
trading that stuff.
I don't really know why.
Annually, the tariffs on.

(25:28):
So there are other tariffs.
There's been tariffs increasedon aluminum and steel all
throughout this time.
There's some elevated Inaddition to the 2% average.
There's some higher ones.
Tariffs on China account for$77 billion of the $79 billion
annually of tariffs that we getRight.
And then China responded withretaliatory tariffs, as you

(25:53):
would say.
They have tariffed more than$106 billion worth of US goods
for nearly $11.6 billion oftariffs over the time as of
March 2024,.
The trade war tariffs, as youcall them, generated more than
$233 billion of higher taxescollected for the US government
since 2018.

(26:14):
38% of these tariffs werecollected under Trump.
The remainder have beencollected during the Biden's
administration.
I made a little note here.
I thought it was kind ofinteresting.
So $233 million was raised.
Billion, billion, did I saymillion?
$233 billion is raised and Iforget.
I get these from some tax thingonline.

(26:38):
I wish I had the source, Icould give it to you in a second
here.
So anyway, so $233 billionsince 2018, and we've sent $175
billion to Ukraine since 2022.
So we haven't gained anything.
That's $40 billion, right, yeah,but that's only in two years.

(27:00):
It took us 7 years to get it.
So I hey that's from near hereor there.
I just found that prettyinteresting that we've gotten
nowhere with these tariffs asfar as helping the general
government funding.
We may have ticked China off,which is stuff whatever.

(27:22):
I guess that's cool, but like,yeah, we haven't gotten anywhere
Financially, it's all gone backout.
See you, Bye-bye.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, unfortunately it only really pays.
It only works if you know howto cut your spending, but if
you've got a Taxfoundationorg,that's where.
I got those numbers fromTaxfoundation, yeah yeah.
So that's where I got thosenumbers from Taxfoundation, yeah
yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
So that's where we are right now.
And then to go to where we'reheaded, where we're worried
about being headed, where kindof all the talk is.
Trump has a quote unquote planfor new American industrialism
20% tariff across the board andthen a 60% tariff on Chinese

(28:08):
goods, plus punitive taxes on UScompanies that ship jobs
overseas.
He says tariffs are thegreatest thing ever invented.
He calls himself the tariff man.
Willie McKinley is his boy.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
William McKinley is his boy, willie mckinley.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
He went by the name of the napoleon of protection,
nice.
So this is what we're gettinginto.
And then on monday, like I said, he vowed a 25 tax on mexican
and canada exports as apunishment for the illegal
immigration.
And that's kind of where we'reat.
So that's kind of where we'reat.
So that's kind of from what Iunderstand.
Now, john, I don't know if Imissed anything.
Again, fans, it's probably nota full story of what's actually
happening, but that's what Igather.

(28:54):
It's an America first policy.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Certainly in how Trump's conveying it, how he's
selling it, how he's marketingit, it's America first.
But hey, we'll use thesetariffs also to end wars and not
be spending money overseas.
It definitely comes from a weneed to protect ourselves first,
we need to look after our ownfirst and I think there's a

(29:20):
continuity from his firstadministration with that
language and with that mindset.
I don't think he's changed.
You say what you want about theguy.
I think he's been consistent onsome things.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
I think he's taking it further.
That's fair.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
For sure.
Well, I was sold today, withhis tax cuts coming to an end in
2025.
This could be something elsethat he could step into like
massive.
That's either kind of near,either here nor there.
You know, we decided to talkabout tariffs.
I got excited about the idea oftalking about this subject
because I think it's giving alot of people one.
I'm finding that a lot morepeople are like googling well,

(29:59):
what is a tariff?
Um, and the interesting part ofJohn and including me at times.
I got some.
I got to be a bear, I can.
I could at least pass anelevator pitch on what it is and
what its purpose is.
But I like it because it's it'skind of opening a window back,
to call it the pre progressiveera, so like pre 20th century,

(30:24):
which I think so much of ouramerican collective mind is kind
of stuck in.
Everything post-war war ii, Imean, granted, because we none
of us were alive back then.
But I don't feel like any of uscan kind of really relate to
the history of what happenedbefore you know that time period
.
And so I feel like, just for me, I get not excited about the

(30:46):
idea of tariffs.
On a personal level, I don'tthink they'll be very effective.
That's just my take on it.
Yeah, you.
And 100% of economists 45 out of45 polled.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
There was some poll at first context.
There was some poll completedwhere 45, I believe it was 45
economists were asked if tariffsare a good idea, and they,
either 100% of them, were eitheron the strongly disagree or
just disagree side of it.
Not a single person was neutralor agreed.
Not a single economist.
Yeah, there's a lot of stats toback it up too, of course,

(31:23):
which we're kind of going to getinto.
We're not going to get into thenumbers, but just in general.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
From an economic historical perspective.
I'm excited to talk about itbecause it really was one of the
core issues in US politics andglobal politics really before
the invention of the income tax,during the progressive era.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I mean, you figure, people are always talking about
taxes, just in general.
So if you take taxes away, thisis what took its place.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, and there is a bit of.
Just before we get into thedeep of the history, there is a
double-sided thing to theargument that I don't think a
lot of the media is bringing upwhen they talk about the tariff,
and trump's tariff inparticular.
He's on record of saying hethought looking at waste, how
could we look at possibly endingdirect taxation, which is the

(32:11):
income tax?
So we all get a paycheck.
That money is withheld by thefederal government in a lot of
cases state governments as wellbefore it hits our bank account,
so they get their cut of ourincome before we get our money
that we worked for.
That's a direct tax.
We're being directly taxed onour labor.

(32:33):
A tariff, on the other hand,it's an indirect tax.
It's taxing the good which wepay in higher prices, but it's
indirect.
The tax isn't on me directly,on my labor or what I as an
individual am doing.
So Trump has been on record assaying why don't we bring
tariffs back?
And we can use the funding andthe money made from those

(32:56):
tariffs which is suspect forsure and, like Matt said,
there's numbers out there toback that up.
But with bringing that back,maybe we can start to reduce
direct taxation, start to moveaway from federal income tax and
effectively return to apre-progressive era, pre-20th
century kind of system.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
That's kind of how I'm yes, and we'll get into how.
That's a bunch of nonsense, sowe'll get into that.
It really doesn't make muchsense, but all right, let's.
Well, we'll get into it.
So let's just get into thehistory.
So we want to stick to thehistory.
I'm sure tariffs have beenaround since freaking.

(33:40):
You know the caveman?
My guess would be the Britishwere definitely big proponents
of it.
Yeah, big reason, Basically,big reason for the Declaration
of Independence was you canconsider some of that taxation
without representation being atariff.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Right, yeah, though they are being forced to pay a
tax on a good that they probablywould have been fine paying.
I don't.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
But there's more representation, but they, they
were, whatever they're, more fortheir free trade.
It was founded on free trade.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
But back then, direct taxation I think come tax
wasn't even a concept back right.
So the tax really could only belaid on someone or group
through indirect means, liketaxing sugar or cotton or
whatever goods were being madein the economy.
So yeah, the idea of an incometax, which we've all just
accepted at this point as partof our lives, uh, wasn't a thing

(34:38):
back then.
And so, yeah, at the very, atthe founding of the country we
had.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
So let's get back to it, let's get into it, let's
stick to the timeline all right,stick to the script, just calm
down, just calm down, youalready.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
I'm excited.
Stop it.
I listen to stuff all the time.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
No, you don't, I do.
You got to organize yourthoughts, john.
Just calm down.
Take a deep breath.
How do we want to present thisto these people?
All right, take a breath.
Do you need another drink?
Do you need a break?
I need one drink, all right,jeez, oh man, this guy's out of
control.
Are you good?

(35:17):
Are you relaxed?
I'm good, all right.
All right, I already went toofar into the current day.
We've got All right.
So we already laid down wherewe're at today and let's get
into the history.
So, like we said, the historyhas been.
Tariffs have probably beenaround forever, but let's go all

(35:39):
the way back to 1789.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
When was the Constitution signed yeah,
1787-88.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
So we're talking late 1780s.
We finally get this federalgovernment developed.
We get rid of the Articles ofConfederation, we get a little
bit of a stronger federalgovernment.
I think the federalgovernment's stuck thinking well
, who's going to pay for it?

Speaker 2 (36:06):
How are we going to live off of this?
We gave the federal governmentthe power to levy taxes and
tariffs.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Right.
So the constitution directlyprohibited direct taxing, as
John had mentioned, which is afederal, is a federal, income is
an income tax.
And the federal government orthe, so the government at the
time, 19, 1789, thinking how arewe going to get this?
They figure a 5% across theboard tax of imported goods

(36:35):
would be the way to do that.
Yes, that is called the tariffof 1789.
Aka, I will.
I do want to say I want to givea shout-out to one of my
founding father cards.
I believe he may have been aking or he might have been a
king.
He was probably a jack John Jay.

(36:57):
John Jay was a big free tradeguy.
He did not like the tariffs.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
As a Federalist, I'm a little shocked at that.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Well, I think he was kind of boys with England,
didn't he kind of like bend overfor them for the J Treaty?
I feel like he was more.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Well, I don't know how close he and Hamilton were.
Hamilton respected the British,so much so that he wanted to
mimic what they were doing,which was having a tariff led
government, you know, funded bythese tariffs.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I didn't know that about John J People be hating on
John J, Though that J treatyreally set him back a little bit
.
A little bit he kind of gaveinto the British huh, and that
would happen.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
That's what the Jeffers people that support
Jeffersonians would have said so.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
For sure, yeah, but they basically have.
This new government needed away to fund itself.
They couldn't.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
I said that already.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
But under the Articles of Confederation the
federal government that wasstill there you couldn't tax the
states directly.
They had to request the moneyfrom each state.
That was one of theinefficiencies of the articles.
Many of the proponents of theConstitution would say so.
They still had that mindset,though, even after the

(38:14):
Constitution was ratified.
It's like well, we need a wayto collect taxes from the states
that's easy to enforce and wasonly a nominal cost to the
average citizen.
That's another way of saying weneed an indirect tax, like a
tariff, and so that 5% that Mattsaid across the board, it was
purely from a revenue standpoint.
It was just we want to bring inenough money to fund this new

(38:36):
government and not much else.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yep, no, you've no wars in Ukraine um not funding
that funding wars?

Speaker 2 (38:49):
no, using that money as a way to protect local.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
There was no protectionism in this tariff,
even though I think alexanderhamilton would have been one who
is very pro-protectionism.
Alexander Hamilton was verypro-industrialism when I think a
lot of people were like we'rean agricultural country, we're
going to do agriculture, we'regoing to export agriculture,

(39:14):
we're not an industrial countryand that was kind of like the
back and forth between the, andwe'll get into that as the
protectionism and not is whatare we do?

Speaker 2 (39:25):
we have to force success of the industrial and
industrializing the country whenwe're an agricultural nation
yes, and you know, for some theargument, a lot of those in the
south in particular, theargument would have been we grow
crops.
England makes, makes lamps orwhatever they make, finished
goods, manufactured goods,clothes, clothes.

(39:49):
I guess in 1780s 90s I don'tknow, Eventually the argument is
we'll send X, we'll export foodand free trade, we'll give them
something, they'll give ussomething back.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
We buy back finished goods.
Isn't that way?
That isn't that?
Wouldn't that be nice?
Wouldn't that be nice how lifeis?
But uh-oh, here comes 1816, theDallas Tariff Fast forward a
couple years.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Fast forward a couple years.
We've just left the War of 1812.
So now we're hurting a littlebit.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
We also had the Embargo Act under Jefferson, so
we weren't bringing stuff in atall Dude for America to fight a
war with England when it wasonly 25 years old.
It's bold.
I mean, Matt, what were youdoing when you were 25?
Dressing up like Pinocchio,going to parties dressed like

(40:42):
Pinocchio.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Think about it Granted, we did fight them when
we were like not even born.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
So I mean to do it again, though I mean they were
hurting, us was hurting a littlebit, I think at this point at
post war might be my guess.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, well, they had the embargo under Jefferson.
They were probably beingembargoed in Europe, so goods
weren't coming in, so ourmanufacturing we weren't
exporting, weren't importing,and so you know it was.
Wars are generally alwaysdifficult for trade, protected
or otherwise, it was tough.
So, four years later, you havethe tariff of 1816, which goes

(41:32):
down in history as what is know.
Rather than just a tariff beingused and perceived as a revenue
generating tool for the federalgovernment to basically fund
itself, it shifted into….
This was basically corporatewelfare and the idea of using a
tariff to protect homegrownindustry.

(41:53):
That either would have happenedorganically or inorganically on
its own.
So a lot of this kind ofstarted this wave of
sectionalism, because some ofthe biggest beneficiaries, as
some might know, is northernfactories.
So the northeast were some ofthe biggest advocates of this

(42:16):
protectionism, because that'swhere the factories ended up In
1816, most of the urban class,would you say, was more in the
northeast.
The south was stilloverwhelmingly agrarian and the
west was also agrarian and theydidn't have any roads or canals
or um canals to be able to movetheir, their products to the

(42:37):
market.
So they were interested in thisthing called internal
improvements, you know the roadsand the and the riverways and
all that stuff, to be able toactually get their stuff to
Eastern markets to then ship outacross the world, you know from
the Eastern ports.
And uh, it had a lot ofdetractors and it kind of set

(42:58):
the ball in motion for the next40 years, I'd say almost right
up until the Civil War.
You know, is it constitutional?
First of all Did the?

Speaker 1 (43:09):
states get it.
Thomas Jefferson did not thinkso.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Like, everyone agreed that, okay, the government can
tariff, but only from a revenueposition to just collect revenue
to fund itself.
But can it pass tariffs withthe stated purpose of protecting
certain industries infantindustries, they would call them
, and that became a big argument.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Led by Hank Henry Clay, henry Clay.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Henry Clay was the tariff man himself, yep the
first iteration of the tariffman, big tariff man, he had a
big grand plans too, kind oflike our next president.
He came up and devised thisidea called the American system,
which he tried to.
He tried to ELE a little bit.
He tried a little ELE tactic,you know he had.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
You might remember Henry Henry Clay.
He was the guy who could neverwin president the presidency
right.
Did he lose the John Tyler?

Speaker 2 (44:10):
No, Tyler didn't run independently he oh yeah, Tyler.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Tyler was the vice president.
Henry Harrison but he was.
Henry.
Clay was running around thattime.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yes, henry Clay basically ran the wigs when
Tyler, who was awake himselfwhen he entered the vice
presidency, henry Clay basicallykicked Tyler out of the party.
That's it, john Tyler, who isalso Bill O'Reilly's fifth least
best president listed as yeah,yes, bill O'Reilly, the money
whore trying to sell books, um,yeah, so the big.

(44:47):
So Henry Clay came up with thisthing called the American
system.
He said, well, hey, look, let'sall.
How can we all win?
So you had three main groupsyou had the Northeast
industrialists, you had Westernfarmers and you had the South,
basically.
And he said, well, hey, let'scome up with a system.
We'll have protective tariffsso we'll throw a cookie to the

(45:08):
Northern industrialists so wecan start building our industry,
we can start making, you know,finished goods, clothing and
whatever.
We'll throw a bone Then, withthat money we take in, we'll
then fund federally fundedinternal improvements so that
farmers in the West they canfarm and then they can get their
goods sent on riverways androads to get them out to the

(45:31):
Eastern port so that we can shipthem abroad.
Now the south was kind of thethird leg in this.
That didn't really stand likethey didn't see what was really
in it for them.
To them they were like hey, wegrow our food.
I mean, granted, they, theypromoted a more free trade.
Granted, they had a laborsystem.
That was very at odds.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
It was pretty true it was pretty cheap, pretty pretty
cheap labor pretty cheap prettycheap.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
But you know, this was a time when it wasn't seen
as every state should supportthe other states because they're
american.
Well, we got to buy americanbecause they were producing
cotton or other cash crops.
They were able to just send itright off from the ocean.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
They didn't need those improvements.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Send it off to England.
Buy the goods from England, thelatest and greatest, whatever
it was at the time.
Bring it in and prove theirlife.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Say what you want.
I guess I feel like they shouldhave fell in line a little bit.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
I think they would have had the thing.
Not Because I think it allworks together.
It's all one machine.
If you think about it, I thinkit all would have kind of worked
together, but I think whatwe're getting to is the tariff
of 1828.
Machine, if you think about it,you know, I think it all would
have kind of worked together,but but then, but I think what
we're getting to is the tariffof 1828.
Right, it's kind of what led tothis tariff of 1828 was a

(47:05):
tariff that they were looking Idon't know where.
How, how did it start?
I know what happened was freetraders that were in the
government were able to work somuch nonsense into this tariff
bill to make it so that there'sno way this thing is going to
pass.
Right, it's like a 60% tariffacross the board and all these

(47:27):
other things you think abouttoday with these budget passes
or the Inflation Reduction Act,where you're fitting in, you
know, let's pay for six pandasat the San Diego Zoo or
something.
So all these random stuff addedinto there.
Like a bunch of that stuff, Ithink, was added into that, so

(47:50):
much so that I was like there'sno way this thing's going to
pass.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, it was just so egregious however, they wrote it
.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, this was just to update the tariff policy from
like to increase it yes so theywere looking to increase it
from 1816.
We're at 1828 now.
Henry clay is like gettingthese improvements in.
We need more money for this.
So they're trying to raise thatand everyone's like nah.
So led by by people like theSouth South Carolina or yeah, so

(48:15):
anyway so so they made it soterrible and then somehow,
through lobbying I don't knowwhat they were able to get it
past.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
It got passed it passed some time Talk about your
all time backfires.
It was a big backfire.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
So now they're stuck with.
Now these free traders arestuck with this nonsense bill
that like they're like shocked.
That would have ever happened,that would ever passed yeah, and
then they, instead of fightingfor fighting it and fighting for
something that everyone couldagree to, they went the other
way and it backfired but itstill led then to the what's
called the nullification crisis.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
So, even even though it passed, the South led by, in
particular, south Carolinabasically said oh okay, well,
we're going to basically use the10th Amendment and we're just
not going to collect this tariffin our state.
The rest of the states in theunion can collect it.
We're not going to collect itbecause we deem it
unconstitutional.
It's an unconstitutional law.

(49:11):
We only have to abide byconstitutional laws.
All other powers not delegatedto the general government are
reserved to the states.
A protectionist tariff, southCarolina argued, was not
constitutional.
They hence nullified the tariff, and that led to a whole other
issue almost civil war at thetime.
And that led to a whole otherissue almost civil war at the

(49:32):
time.
And so then you had what'scalled the force bill, which
then came on the scene, and thatwas basically a way of the
federal government forcing SouthCarolina to collect the tariff.
Andrew Jackson was basicallysaying you know, I'll march the

(49:52):
military in and we'll collectthe tariff from you.
John Tyler was the only oneactually to speak up in Congress
and speak against the forcebill, which took a lot of guts
back then Cause Andrew Jackson.
Basically, he was the heavyhitter of the times.
We call it the Jacksonian erafor a reason.
But John Tyler stood up againsthim and said you know that's
there's state sovereignty here,like this, if it's not
constitutional, you know that'sthere's state sovereignty here,

(50:13):
like this if it's notconstitutional, you know.
But Jackson didn't see it thatway.
So we got hairy and eventuallyboth sides back down and you
know it did not lead to civilwar at that moment, but it was,
uh, it was pretty hairy, youknow.
And so these, these tariffsbecame very politicized and led
to some pretty like intensedebates at the very least, and
almost led to some armedconflict.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
And then continued through the Civil War.
It's always contentious.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
I think all the way through.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
There's some people who may think that they were as
equal of a contributor to thestart of the Civil War as
slavery is.
I'll leave it at that.
I don't know, I don't think.
I think it certainly hadsomething to do with it.
I certainly think the two,North and South, didn't like
each other over tariffs.
I don't think it would have ledto Civil War, but it certainly

(51:05):
played a factor in their dislikeof each other For sure.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
I think, and after this time period, after the
tariff bondage after 1820, Ithink tariffs did take a
backseat to the slavery question.
For sure, and as more and morestates came into the union, when
we had Texas come in in the1840s and then you know, but it
would have been more of a reasonfor this.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
It would have been more of a reason for the
secession to happen more readilyand more easily.
It's like not that it was thereason, but it's like if they're
not going to let us have slavesand we got to deal with these
tariffs, let's get out of here.
If it was one and not the other, maybe it wouldn't have
happened.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Right.
Well, and the argument was alot of people like John C
Calhoun.
They would have argued thatwell, nullification is well one.
We want to stay in the union,we don't want to secede.
We just want the federalgovernment to play by the rules
that we set up.
We, as the state, set up forthem, and if nullification is a
way of doing that, that's whatwe got to do.

(52:02):
But we as the states, we're notsubservient to the federal
government, and if you dosomething unconstitutional we
don't have to abide by it.
That was their argument.
The slavery question wasobviously what you can argue.
It's like, okay, you don't wanttariffs, but then you're gonna.
It's very easy for you to saywhen you have basically free
labor, slave labor, yeah, makingyour crops to then sell
overseas.
So I mean, the north couldcertainly say that too, but they

(52:24):
had wage slavery.
I mean, to be a wage laborer ina northern manufacturer,
northern factory in the 1840sand 50s, I would think would be
pretty horrific.
Don't say it, it's horrific.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Not saying what it is Not good.
Don't say it's the same.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
It's not the same.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
You still have agency .

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I guess you still have more agency over yourself,
but anyway.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
So you have all these protective tariffs in place.
They are still high.
They've never gone down from Iassume they went somewhat down
from the tariff of abominationwith the nullification crisis,
but they never went down toanything really.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
they did come back down.
Not, they did come back down,but then, on the eve of the
civil war, you had the moraltariff, which became very
contentious.
I think just by that point thesouth was ready to kind of go a
lot.
And then, but just kind of adda fuel to the fire, but that new
Republican Party, theRepublicans, ran basically on
the ticket of, of, of endingslavery in the territories and a

(53:19):
high protective tariff.
So the Republicans, the GOP thatstill exists today and which
Trump is a member of, they wereprotectionist almost to a man
when they, when they cut, whenthe, when the party was founded
in the 1850s, and it wasn'tuntil basically recently, until
the mid to late 20th century.
When we start thinking of, whenwe think Republicans, we think

(53:40):
Ronald Reagan, we think morefree traders, we think of more
pro-business, but from, like, afree trade standpoint.
They loved protectionism, theyloved tariffs, and so, yeah, led
by people like William McKinley, who we know in a previous
episode got shot by our board,leon Colesgoys and yeah, so in a

(54:05):
lot of ways I think Trump istaking him back to the way that
he is McKinley at this point.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
after the, the war was very pro-protectionism.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Extremely.
He was called the emperor ofprotection.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Right.
So protectionism is the way togo.
But then always the argumentfor these tariffs and how, maybe
how a lot of the country couldhave been on board with these
tariffs and how they were ableto keep it going was, you know,
we need to develop the infant,infant, infant industry, but at

(54:39):
the turn of the 20th centurythese U S companies were
outpacing global competitorsbecause of these protectionist
tariffs.
Yeah, so was this a good thing?
Was it a bad thing?
Regardless, the U?
S started really blowing up theindustry.
I think at one point in 1901,the British journalists had
written the US has acquiredcontrol of almost every new

(55:00):
industry created during the past15 years.
So you figure, from the late1800s.
They were literally the leadingindustry of everything.
We're crushing it, so at thatpoint you're looking at like,
hey, if we're crushing it and wewere the best in the world, why
do we still need to pay thesetariffs?
Can't they compete with therest of the rest of the world

(55:21):
Right?
And that's where the thought ofincome taxes started coming in
with the Democratic Party.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Well, in part too, because a lot of corruption
began to surround these tariffstoo.
So by the 1880s, 1890s therewas so much corruption in the
Republican Party which youmentioned on a previous episode.
After the Civil War theRepublicans basically ran the
federal government.
With the exception of GroverCleveland's two non-consecutive
terms, they basically ran thegovernment for like 40 years.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
And if you had a boy who had a freaking stuffed
animal factory in New York andthey had the pocket of some
governor or senator in thefederal government in Congress,
they'll line their pockets withmoney to add protectionist

(56:10):
tariffs onto that specific good,and that's where you're talking
about the process of to addprotectionist tariffs onto that
specific good.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
That's where you're talking the process of renting,
kind of like rent-seeking, andbasically what would develop the
modern lobbying?
Yeah, and this is a lobbyingcongressman for well.
Okay, yeah, maybe you'll have ablanket tariff for these items,
but for our items can you giveus a.
So maybe you have a standard20% across the board, but for
our items can you give us 30%?
So very corrupt, and give us a.

(56:37):
So maybe you have a standard 20across the board, but for our
items can you give us 30?
So very corrupt.
And, as we know, grovercleveland was super.
He was made a point of beingagainst corruption and a lot of
this lobbying and protection,these protectionist lobbyists
column.
You know that was definitelysomeone that grover cleveland
would go after, but uh, so yeah,so it was all that going on
that it wasn't very necessary.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
a lot of corruption going all led to corruption, and
I think the direct tax was away to see it as less ability
for corruption.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
That and the populist at the time thought that the
billionaires, effectively,should be really paying their
fair share.
They saw it, I think, as a wayfor industrialists to get an
unfair advantage, and thepopulists kind of saw it as
corporate welfare for what itwas and they said, well, we need

(57:19):
to do away with these tariffsand we need to directly tax the
billionaires.
And that's what the first talksof an income tax were.
They were meant to be on a very, very small percentage of the
population, the richest tenth ofa percentage of the population,
the richest tenth of a percentof the population I don't know
the exact number, but a verysmall number, the billionaires,

(57:39):
effectively, to pay some verylow amount in today's terms in a
percentage of income tax.
So, yeah, definitely, theincome tax ran with a wave of
populist sentiment saying thesetariffs unnecessarily favor
industrialists and the wealthy.

(58:00):
We need to tax thoseindividuals with an income tax
directly and then we'll haveenough money to fund the
government with that money, thegeneral government with that
money, and then goods won't beas expensive for your average
Joe, because then the productswill be able to be more
competitive and we can pay forthem accordingly.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
So the Constitution of the United States didn't
allow for direct taxation, so anamendment and that's where the
16th Amendment came into play,correct, and we did probably
talk about that at the tax dayspecial that we talked about
back in the day, yep.
So you see, this trend of like,oh, industry doesn't need it

(58:41):
anymore, let's try to get to amore direct tax.
Everyone's kind of getting awayfrom the tariffs.
This is the turn of the 20thcentury, so we're talking like
the 16th Amendment was in likethe 1913, yeah, like kind of
right before world war one,which actually was perfect
timing because trade like shutdown big time during world war

(59:01):
one.
So the tariffs would havereally hurt.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Like losing the tariffs would have really hurt,
I think but I think, yeah, but Iwill say the devil in that
detail is that we had this newincome tax on the books and then
we go off to war three yearslater and the government
increased income tax rates tosome crazy highs.
And I think the government kindof, and that's when it's never
looked back and the governmentoh wow this we can do this we

(59:24):
should have been direct taxingpeople a lot earlier.
Why were we taking an indirectroute with tariffs?
We've just been directly taxedand then it's been that way.
Since it's been that way.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
That's a good point.
So all this thing, it's allgoing back away from tariffs.
Then disaster strikes 1929,stock market crash, great
Depression.
The United States is just inturmoil.
Everyone's freaking out.
People jumping out of windows,People losing money.
We don't know Gold.
Know gold, silver?

(59:52):
What does it?
Does it even matter?
Wizard of oz?
I don't understand any of it.
But in walks the one and onlyherbie hoover to save the day
yikes real swing and a miss byherbert hoover here.
What I'm talking about is thesmooth holly tariff that's
passed in 1930.
Basically, what are you goingto do?

(01:00:14):
Oh, the Great Depression?
Oh, we're struggling.
Well, let's raise tariffs totry to get more income.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
I guess was his thought Well, the West of the
world is dealing with theDepression as well, so then they
put up their own gates in theform of retaliatory tariffs, and
it just sends basically notonly so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Not only was the the american economy, domestic
economy, going poorly, but nowthere was no export business
because there were all theseretaliatory tariffs, because if
we're going to tariff englandfrom bringing stuff to sending
stuff here, then england's gonnasay, okay, fine, you, I'll pay
that, you have to pay this.
So then nobody was, there wasno trade going, and then just

(01:00:55):
not only was the economy inshambles, but then the
agricultural industry andeverything just had a freak year
.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yeah, with the planes and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives, in an effort toalleviate the effects of the
anyone Anyone, the GreatDepression, passed the anyone
Anyone, the Tariff Bill, theHolly Smoot Tariff Act, which

(01:01:27):
anyone raised or lowered, raisedtariffs in an effort to collect
more revenue for the federalgovernment.
Did it work?
Anyone Anyone know the effects?
It did not work and the UnitedStates sank deeper into the
Great Depression.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
It was a real swing and a miss.
World trade fell about 66%between 1929 and 1934 directly
attributed to this tariffDirectly.
I'm adding.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
that Didn't help.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
It's probably related , maybe not directly, maybe the
word directly shouldn't havebeen in there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
It was fuel on the fire.
I trumped it I trumped it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
I trumped it Big time .

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
But he was being a Republican now, so it's like you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Going back to what he thinks hey, yeah, it's like, oh
, I guess we'll just raisetariffs and like what we always
did, and I guess, yeah, it'sworth a shot, you know, and it
just really made the depressionworse, probably lasted longer
than it would have because ofthis, yeah, so what changed this

(01:02:37):
dude, cordell Hall, this guyfrom like from what I understand
about this guy, he's from likeNew Orleans or he's from like
some like.
He grew up like real modest andhe learned about trade just
from like trading logs up theriver, yeah, and he learned
about trade just from tradinglogs up the river, yeah, and he
realized that, wow, if everybodytrades freely, everyone's cool

(01:03:01):
with each other.
And his thought was which iswhat we talked about in the
beginning of the episode ifeveryone can trade, that's the
way to attain world peace.
Win-wins, win-wins, exactly.
Don't take advantage ofsomebody, you know, whatever.
So he was a big proponent ofthis.
He worked for your boy, woodrowWilson.
He was the Secretary of State,I think, for Woodrow Wilson at

(01:03:22):
this time and he basicallyworked with them to start the
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act,which what that did was allowed
the president.
It took the power of adjustingtariffs directly to the

(01:03:45):
president, the executive branchof government, and the thought
there was, that was a way toavoid the um influence of of
corruption, because the becausethe president has incorruptible
right.
I think the general of whichthis kind of makes sense to me

(01:04:06):
is like the the, the president,the executive branch has to
appease a way broader group ofpeople.
Okay, when, if you're inCongress you can get on a
smaller scale, you can get thatcorruption for specific
industries.
When putting it into theexecutive branch felt as though

(01:04:26):
it would be more of a lesscorruptible thing, eric, easily
corruptible.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Well, certainly unconstitutional.
I think that's fair, I thinkthat goes without question.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
But it led to shifting towards more open trade
policy.
That was the goal of it to goopen trade.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Well, that's a classic case of do the ends
justify the means, I would say.
But then.
So that's a classic case of dothe ends justify the means, I
would say.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
But then so that happened and that kind of
allowed for the tariffs to getlowered quickly.
Yeah, we kind of start bottom,start moving towards free trade,
going into World War Two andthen then World War II.

(01:05:14):
And then World War II happened.
Business was a booming, allthis industry money that we're
making from.
I think the best thing tostimulate an economy has always
been war.
A lot of people say that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
The military-industrial complex Yep
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
So after World War II , what are we going to do?
They developed the world kindworld got together and said what
are we going to do about thistrade market?
So we don't go back topre-World War II, because a lot
of people also would argue thatpart of the rise of fascism
could be attributed to tariffsand and on free trade,

(01:05:54):
retaliatory retaliation, ismnationalism.
You can kind of argue thatmight be like let's part of the
case being bullied in this stuff, germany yeah, just the idea of
retaliatory behavior.
Yeah, to people that start warsso they get together with a

(01:06:15):
group of nations and they Idon't know how many nations were
a part of this, but they startthe GATT.
It's the General Agreements andTariffs and Trade in 1947,
which later evolved into theWorld Trade Organization, which

(01:06:38):
basically agreed to treat everycountry fairly.
So if you lower tariffs for allthese countries that were in
this agreement, if you lowertariffs for one country, every
country that's in this agreementof the trade gets that same
reduction right and justbasically opened up free trade
moving forward from 1947 onright and it was part of a

(01:07:02):
strategy, us strategy, yeah,post war.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
It's also a cold war motive too, I think to it.
The soviets obviously weren'tpart of that from the cold.
Don't think they were played amajor part in kind of a way to
keep our part of the world Westin the, you know, in the pocket
of the West by promoting morecapitalist venture.
You know we had capitalismversus communism.
I definitely think that playeda part of it.
Um, but yeah, definitelystepped away from tariffs, for

(01:07:29):
sure.
But I'm looking at this graphhere.
It kind of looks like,especially from the 50s and 60s
into the 70s, as we stepped awayfrom tariffs, as tariffs
plummeted, marginal income taxrates went up and peaked in 19,
looks like 1949, at like 90%.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
I don't know about you, I just wouldn't get out of
bed, I wouldn't get out of bedif I was being taxed 90% of my
earnings Now it didn't staythere forever, they would
eventually start going down too,but it's like I suppose it's
all relative, I don't know itkind of went up and down.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
As one went down, the government didn't stop spending
money.
I think, as we all know, we hadthe military industrial complex
.
We go into the great societyand modern welfare state.
In the 60s we had Vietnam, soit's like we didn't stop.
We went off the gold standardbecause of all these expenses,
guns and butter.
So I mean, we kept spendingmoney and I think that we just

(01:08:25):
never looked back from deficitspending.
Okay, we won't tax you, butwe'll just spend money we don't
have.
And we've been in a deficitspending cycle for 40 years.
It's pretty sweet Just be ableto do that and now we're doing
both.
No household would do that, beable to do that long enough.
Well, now it's both.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
That's both.
Now we're tariffed and taxedand income taxed.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
So that's sweet.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Pay more for what I get, Take money take less money
home from work and pay more forwhat I buy.
So it's pretty sweet.
It's women for the old UncleSam, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Yeah, I love getting shafted.
So yeah, here we are.
We got tariffs back on the newsand, yeah, I think I do find
the most interesting partwhether I'm you know what being

(01:09:26):
what, whether one's for oragainst the tariff, I like I my
hope is that it just brings somesmall historical lesson back.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
I know that the left will.
All right, we're going to get aresident expert.
Hello Hi, is this Mark C?
This is Mark C, the biggovernment man himself.

Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
That's right.
Yeah, thanks for yourtimeliness on calling me.
I really appreciate the.
Your planner did a great job.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
I had him take care of it.
I don't know what he had beensaying.
I've been running the show thiswhole time.

Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
Yeah, you have a great booker.
Make sure you get him a raiseTop dollar, the tariffs?

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Please.
So, Mark, what do you thinkabout these tariffs going on?
Right now it's talking to town.
It's a really, really greatintro to a really complicated
subject.
We just went through thehistory of tariffs, going all
the way back to the tariff of1789, and kind of how we were
able to go through the 1800shigh tariffs, beginning of the

(01:10:31):
1900s, getting away from thetariffs and going more into the
income tax realm till kind ofjust recently.

Speaker 5 (01:10:42):
That's right, yep, and I mean honestly, this has
been something that I mean ifwe're talking about I know, john
and you can talk about more ofthe 1700s, but it's changed a
lot of the last 30 or 40 years,where tariffs were really a big
thing for Democrats in the late90s and early 2000s and they
talked about it as fair trade,which is kind of what they used.
And since the Trump years it'sreally changed around, where the

(01:11:02):
Democrats are against anythinghe's for, so they've kind of
become free market in a weirdway.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Yeah, Now is this like related anyway industry and
union backing.

Speaker 5 (01:11:15):
I feel like the Democrats were more pro-union
back in the day than they havebeen so much now example,
agricultural unions do not liketariffs at all, because it
actually hurts them more thanalmost anything Correct Some of

(01:11:36):
the exports and some of thesteel and some of these other
industries where they're tryingto.
Basically, they care aboutkeeping jobs in America more
than actually making sureAmericans can live and afford it
.
This is something they lovebecause ultimately, you know,
this takes away competition andthey can charge higher prices.
You know we can pay a $50 orwhatever the minimum wage is and
it allows us to not have tocompete with as many people.
So you know, some people saythat's good, but those people

(01:11:58):
don't quite understand theimpact it has on average
American families who are nowpaying, you know, twice as much
for the same thing they werebuying anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Yeah, and getting taxed on income.
I just got to love it.
It's a win-win yeah on that one, a little bit of double dipping
by the government, I think,don't you?
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
Yeah, but the problem is I don't understand how
people don't realize that theseare taxes.
I mean, I think that's thehardest part.
You know, we can talk aboutTrump and all that stuff.
But I mean, Biden just kind ofquietly did a lot of the same
things Trump did with tariffs,Just didn't really talk about it
as much because he had topretend like he hated everything
Trump did.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
But it is interesting .

Speaker 5 (01:12:37):
Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
I think the big thing is like it seems like the way
that Trump is using tariffs issomething that really hasn't
been done before, as far as likethey're more like cultural
tariffs, where Trump will say,all right, well, mexico you're
sending Recently obviouslyMexico is sending all these
illegal immigrants into ourcountry, we'll just tariff them

(01:13:03):
so they stop doing it.
Or Trump sees tariffs as a wayto avoid war by saying like if
you're going to threaten war,we're just going to tariff you,
so then you don't do that.
And it's like that's not reallycool.

Speaker 5 (01:13:19):
Well, he uses a bargaining chip, which I mean.
There's somebody people likeyou know, for example my dad who
would say you know, he's okaywith terrorists because he's
using it as a bargaining chip tomake these people play fair or
do whatever, like you said nextyear to stop sending people.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
It's like a different way to word it, where people
won't see it as a tax, but thegovernment's still making that
money.
Trump taxing, raising tariffson China China's not going to
stop sending stuff over here, sothe government's still making
that money on it, as much asTrump makes it seem like it's
for the people.
I don't really see it as that.
The government's still gettingthe money and I don't think that

(01:13:54):
.
I don't see that helping.

Speaker 5 (01:13:56):
It's not really the government making the money,
because these are not.
It's not like Americangovernments paying these people,
it's individual businessespaying these people.
So it's, yeah, like they'regetting their tax dollars but
ultimately China or whoever youwant to talk about they're
either going to raise the priceon what they're sending over
here because they have to makethe same amount of money, or
they're going to do retaliatorytariffs and tax something else
that we get a lot where theyimport a lot to America or

(01:14:19):
export a lot to America andwe're going to be paying there.
So it's kind of a perfectwinners and losers thing too,
because there is some industrythat benefit from tariffs, but
then there's a lot that areactually hurt by it and the
supply chain that creates a hugeissue with that.
If Trump was to use the issuewith this as a negotiation
tactic is if he uses it and hesaid okay, I'm going to do this

(01:14:42):
you actually have to followthrough with it.
If they don't follow your rulesand that's been the issue
You've got to follow through,and a lot of people have been
hurt by that, especially in theMidwest Right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
That's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
But I do feel like maybe I don't know, this is what
I've been thinking and kind ofjust hearing the media.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
I think John's very pro-tariff, by the way, so I'll
leave it at that.
Well, he's a big Trumper, so Iget it.
You can tell by the sweetballot that he submitted for the
presidential election.

Speaker 5 (01:15:10):
He told me he's America's greatest president
ever.
I think I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
On record.
On record Well, you know, BillO'Reilly put John Tyler as the
fifth worst president of alltime.
That put John's panties in abunch.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
Yeah well he's a really classy guy.
He ate 10 foreign stars, sohe's a real gentleman.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
John or Bill O'Reilly , bill O'Reilly.

Speaker 5 (01:15:32):
Bill O'Reilly.
Bill O'Reilly, jenna Jameson,that's a good story.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Maybe we'll do that on this day in history this week
in history coming up.
John, go ahead.
Sorry, I interrupted you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
You were about to say how great tariffs are.
I have ADHD.
No, I was going to ask you,mark.
What I'm seeing on the media islike everyone's like well,
tariffs don't work, and I wouldhave to agree with that.
There's a history to it.
There's plenty of statistics toback it up.
100% of economists.
I believe, say they don't work,but you don't get the flip side
of what Trump said during thecampaign, which was well, hey,
why can't we increase tariffsand lower direct taxation?

(01:16:09):
Why can't we look at findingways to slowly move off of an
income tax?
What are your thoughts with theidea of how could it would you?
What do you think of if webrought tariffs back on some
level or some scale, but wedropped income taxes across the
board for every bracket?
Do you see that as a win-win, anet benefit, or do you see it

(01:16:31):
as a moot point?
Because he kind of does mentionthat.

Speaker 5 (01:16:35):
Yeah, it could be a net benefit.
I think you have to get rid ofthe income tax altogether for it
to make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
You also would have to Go ahead.
Sorry, I shouldn't haveinterrupted you.
Mark, see my bad.

Speaker 5 (01:16:44):
No, no, go ahead.
No, no, you're great, go.
We call him for the answer.
But you go ahead, go ahead,mark.
Well, I'm going to say that youstill had the even with the
tariffs.
You still have the winners andlosers part.
So it's like are you going to?
What are you going to do theindustries that are hurt the
most with tariffs?
Right, are you going to propthem up?
Because then you have to putsome kind of corporate welfare
program into those.
And then there is the, theindustries that benefit from

(01:17:07):
tariffs in america.
So I still think that when youtalk about tariffs, it's still
an unequal taxation of people,because some industries get hit
hard and others don't.
I mean, yeah, the prices mightaffect everybody, but people's
livelihoods could be different.
So I guess I would have tofigure out how that would work.
But I'm much more open totariffs as a replacement for an
income tax, not in addition toand I think we could all agree

(01:17:30):
with that, as we.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Well, I think there'd be more fluctuation.
If you get completely rid ofthat, you have to deal with the
retaliatory tariffs coming back,right?
I think that's kind of whatMark's getting at.

Speaker 5 (01:17:43):
You never know what you're going to be paying every
year because if China decides,oh, I'm going to raise it to 70%
, it's like, okay, well, are wegoing to raise ours?
And either way, people arepaying more and you can be taxed
more.
But again that happens.
Now, right?
I mean, you don't knownecessarily exactly what tax
rate you'll be in, how manywrite-offs you can use, and if
the government changes the taxrate, which they can while

(01:18:03):
they're in session.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Plus, everyone's going to hate each other.
That's not happening now.

Speaker 5 (01:18:10):
Things are good.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Well.

Speaker 5 (01:18:14):
Mark, what do you think about?
America is really united atthis point.
What do you think about these?

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
numbers.
I talked about this at thebeginning of the episode.
I find this interesting.
Maybe I'm just looking at itdifferently, maybe I'm not
looking at it right.
So what I gather from myfriends over at taxfoundationorg
which is a org, so you knowit's legit, not a com as of
March 2024, these trade wartariffs have generated $233

(01:18:41):
billion of higher taxescollected for the US government,
right, yep, so say that's since2018.
So six years, we got $233billion.
Well, I was looking just tofigure out where we're at
money-wise internationally andwhat kind of implications that
$233 billion has.
We've sent $175 billion over toUkraine since 2022.

(01:19:06):
So have we gained anything fromthese tariffs?

Speaker 5 (01:19:11):
We've lost $400 million.
You just showed us what we'velost.
The thing is, the governmentdoesn't actually collect.
I mean, we're the ones payingit.
The government doesn't havemoney and in fact, the $233
billion that's just, if anything, helping to pay off debt, but
you're charging higher prices todo it.
It's not like we have somesurplus where we're just getting
the money, but I guess we'renot gaining any ground.

(01:19:33):
We're losing ground and itreally is important to always
remember when you talk aboutthis.
It's not the government.
The government never gets money.
The government is taxed.
The government doesn't havemoney.
That's how you say, oh, they'regiving away free.
Oh, we get free health care.
Oh, free this.
The government doesn't havemoney.
Those are our money that isgoing to the government that
they're spending poorly.
They money.
There's our money that is goingto the government that they're

(01:19:53):
spending poorly.
They don't have a dime of money.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
It's all our money.
So then, wouldn't tariffs be abetter check?
Still, though, than incometaxes.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
I told you he loves tariffs, Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
No than income taxes, because I feel like when you
have income taxes, I'm like,well then you have to give the
individual health care.
When you start taxingindividuals with an income tax,
you're going to basically bringup all these other programs like
social security.
Everyone thinks in terms ofindividual, not in terms of
indirect.
Okay, yeah, your milk's goingto cost more, your steel is
going to cost more, but thoseare still discretionary
purchases you can make you knowlike, yeah, but why?

Speaker 5 (01:20:24):
why would a flat tax not be a better option than both
of those?
Because, at that pointeveryone's being taxed at an
equal rate.
They're not being taxed in theequal rate Tariffs they're not
being taxed at an equal rate.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
What if you don't work?
Well, yeah, you should.

Speaker 5 (01:20:35):
I mean a flat tax, you're paying.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
It's a national, you're paying sales tax wherever
you buy 20, 22%.

Speaker 5 (01:20:41):
Yeah, but it's the same for everything and anything
you buy, then everybody's beingtaxed at the exact same rate
and you know whatever you buy ordecide you spend your money on.
That's seemingly a more fairway to do it Because, like we
said, tariffs do impact certainindustries more than others and
that doesn't seem fair that oneindustry is getting these net
benefits and the other industryis getting these huge net

(01:21:02):
negatives where they're going tohave to lay off people.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
When you say that, you're saying more.
It hurts export-heavy industryand helps domestic industry.

Speaker 5 (01:21:14):
Well, yeah, yeah, exactly Right.
And unless it's the industrythat's getting a lot of parts
from overseas, then it hurtsthem too.
I mean, that's what peopledon't realize You're talking
about.
Oh, a car, even anAmerican-made car, you're still
getting a lot of parts fromoverseas.
So it's still increasing thecost of you doing that when you
have to pay more money for that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
Yeah, I was seeing something where Trump was going
to.
I mean, I don't know if this isnecessarily a tariff, but John
Deere was threatening to leaveand go to Mexico.
And then Trump's like well, ifyou leave for Mexico, I'm going
to tax the hell out of JohnDeere stuff and I'm like that's
just going to hurt the farmers.

Speaker 5 (01:21:48):
Yeah, fun fact, he also made that story up.
The CEO of John Deere is likeyeah, that never happened.
I don't know what he's talkingabout.
Really, we're probably stillgoing.
Yeah, I mean, he makes upwhatever he wants.
Yeah, the John Deere guy saidwe've never had that discussion
and I think, like at this point,we're still probably going to
Mexico.
So, thank you, I give himcredit.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
It's pretty awesome and just held it as fact and
like doesn't matter, like it'sso easily fact-checked.

Speaker 5 (01:22:16):
He's like no, no, I'm just going to say it regardless
.
That's kind of like what we dohere on the podcast Pretty much.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
Yeah.
No, dante Colbert for PeytonManning is a good deal.

Speaker 5 (01:22:20):
It's very fair for both sides.
They can say whatever they want.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
It wasn't a deal.

Speaker 5 (01:22:30):
It was for Derek.
It doesn't need to be correct.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
That's true, I believe them, I sure believe
them.
I believe me not makingplayoffs in fantasy for 10
straight years.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Well, Mark, thanks for taking the time to really
give us the idea of just thetypical political leanings of
our ideologies of today's,Because we kind of went through
where we're at with what thetariffs are.

Speaker 5 (01:22:56):
but really didn't have an idea of what the general
climate is looking like.
Well, I'm impressed with yoursourcing too.
Tax Foundation is fantastic.
Their stuff is really good.
So if you use Tax Foundation,that's really good.
It's kind of a center-righteconomic thing that gives really
good numbers but even iscritical of the right when they
do stuff, so that's a greatsource.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Not using the Young Turks or something critical of
the right when they do stuff.
So that's a great source.
Not using the Young Turks orsomething, or ChatGPT, which
John tends to use all the time.
What about the Cato Institute?
What do you think about them?
I?

Speaker 5 (01:23:21):
love Cato.
They're kind of a little tooweird and libertarian on some
stuff, but they're a very goodthink tank.
They're just not useful.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Is it true that that was founded by Cato Kaelin?

Speaker 5 (01:23:32):
Yes, it's little known but yes it's absolutely
true.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
Well, thanks for taking your time, Mark.
We don't want to take too muchof your time, but we appreciate
it.

Speaker 5 (01:23:44):
Hey, since Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
Hey, what are you thankful for?

Speaker 5 (01:23:48):
I'm thankful for two of the best friends that I'm
going to ask for that host thispodcast.
We're thankful for two of thebest friends that I'm going to
ask for that host this podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
We're thankful for you, Mark.

Speaker 5 (01:23:57):
I'm saying that seriously, man.
What's wrong with you?
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
You're the best.

Speaker 5 (01:24:01):
Well, have a good Thanksgiving.
I'll talk to you guys later.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
Hey, mark, take care, Mark C, mark C, everybody.
Well, there you go.
That was a pretty good.
You love tariffs no, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
Yeah, you do.
I love governments that spendless for things, that spend less
money, but we didn't reallyeven get into that, which I
should have.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Well, I would have, but you guys were bantering.
I felt a bit.
I felt a bit, bro, I didn'tfeel rushed, but I didn't want
to keep him on for too long,okay but I just, I, I uh, I
don't like tariffs, I thinkit's's stupid, it's not going to
work.
But, like I said you got tolove it, you were defending them
to the.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
I'm defending a conversation.
I want to return back to GroverCleveland's economic policies.

Speaker 4 (01:24:51):
Low tariffs low taxes for everybody, everything.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Who would you rather have a beer with Grover
Cleveland or John Tyler?
That's tough.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
That's tough.
They both were ostracizedized,one by his own party, the other
one was dude.
They fought, they were fighters, man, and they believed in
classically liberal principlesof less limited government and

(01:25:20):
anti-corruption.
Call it like they saw it.
And I just think the biggestthing is whether you tariff
something.
Why do we have to keep fundingthe federal government with the
way in which we're funding it?
Is it to pay Social Security?
Is it to pay for our military?
Is it to pay for all theseother transfer programs, all
these other things under the sun?
The government does too much,and until you decide, what

(01:25:42):
should your government be doingfor you?
If anything it doesn't, thetaxes will find their way into
their pockets.
They'll tax whatever they can.
Tariffs aren't great If youhave income tax.
If you don't, if you gettariffs in exchange for income
tax, it's worth a conversation.
Yeah, I don't want tariffseither, because I want the

(01:26:05):
government to not even needenough money to have to have
tariffs, because they shouldn'tbe doing that much.
They're responsible forensuring free trade amongst the
states and common defense.
So that 5% tariff?
I don't understand why.
For 5%, alexander Hamilton tohis credit, he would say we need
enough money to at least buildour national defense, a shared

(01:26:26):
common defense.
That's why we have thisconstitution and we want to
maintain free trade amongst thestates.
You can't have one state likeAlabama throwing up tariffs
against Massachusetts Last thingyou want.
So the federal governmentshouldn't need that much money
to do what it wasconstitutionally authorized.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
Well, who's going to set up the pardoning of the
turkeys at Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
Share it amongst the governors.
Governor can do it.
Why can't a governor pardonthem?

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
You think there should be 50 turkeys pardoned
every Thanksgiving?
There won't be any for us toeat.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
What were the names of the ones that just got
pardoned, Like Lacey and Trixieor something?
So that's terrorist man.
So that's terrorist.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
And one thing that we really.
I really just want to touch onone last thing for a treat for
the fans, one thing that couldreally happen here and you never
know if we raise these taxesenough, where we stop exporting
goods or the prices just get upto, or no, I guess it would be

(01:27:29):
if we get rid of tariffs or no.
So one of the things thathappened in the 70s, you figure
after.
So, after these, after thesetariffs got reduced, industries
booming.
I think there was a big changein just the american attitude,

(01:27:50):
is my opinion.
the economy of america changedinto bringing in technology
japanese cars coming yeah likenot, it wasn't so much hard work
.
America made steel, all thisstuff.
It kind of started China.
Obviously, all these othercountries started getting more
efficient with lower wages andall this stuff to be able to

(01:28:11):
compete with America.
I think we were on sugar hightoo.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
What do you mean?
I think too much too fast.
World War II we turned on theaccelerators, went to the moon,
went to the moon A lot of fast,maybe.

Speaker 4 (01:28:23):
Too fast.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
Why can't you have slow and steady 2% a year?
Every year we all get used toit.

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
Hey, that's not a bad point, we get the sugar highs.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
We got the sugar high .
World War II where our parents,when we were in war we cranked
out 10 aircraft carriers in aweek or whatever.
We made so many you knowaircraft or whatever it was
during world war two, the crazyyou know armaments they were
pumping out.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
For the rest, for the allied forces, it's hard to
keep up with and I think theirkids had a lot of those baby
boomers during the seventies hada lot of like little pp envy
and one of those baby boomers isa man but then grew up on long
island, named sir william joel,and he wrote a song that pretty
well reflected the times of whenthe industry started going away

(01:29:10):
from the these towns, thesesteel towns, these coal towns
any of these towns really andreally wrote a song that kind of
put into perspective what itwas like to grow up in those
areas.
Right, and we would like tosing that for our fans as a sign

(01:29:35):
off to our tariff talk.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):
I'm excited for it All right.

Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
Well, we're living here in Allentown and they're
closing all the factories.
Down Out in Bethlehem they'rekilling time Filling out forms
standing in line.
Well, our fathers fought theSecond World War, spent their

(01:30:22):
weekends off the Jersey Shore,met our mothers at the USO,
asked them to dance.
Dance with them blue and we'reliving here in Allentown, but
the restless disc was handeddown and it's getting very hard

(01:30:47):
to say Well, we're waiting herein Allentown For the

(01:31:10):
Pennsylvania we never found Forthe promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard, if we behaved.
So the graduations hang on thewall, but they never really
helped us at all.

(01:31:32):
No, they never taught us whatwas real Iron and coke Chromium
steel.
And we're living here inAllentown, but they're taking
all the coal from the ground.
And the union people crawledaway.

(01:32:12):
That's all I know.
I don't know how that part goes.
Every child had a pretty goodshot.
Well, I'm living here inAllentown and it's hard to keep

(01:32:43):
a good man down, but I won't begetting up today.

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
Do you think there's anybody in the country who
thinks that the governmentshould spend more money?

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
Yes, Do you For welfare programs and relief
programs at bare minimum?

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
Like your average.
If you just pay, why can't?
Well the government should bepaying more money for yeah, I
guess but like overall.
But I think, do we need to spendmore money on our military?
I think no.
The only person who before thatis like someone in the military
industrial complex.
I don't think anyone could saywith a straight face we need
more military spending for ourcomp, for our defense, to defend
our nation's borders.

(01:33:39):
I don't think that's true.
I mean we could defend theborder in a minute if we said as
much military to the southernborder like all of it could be
defended.
But I don't think they'rearguing that why have the
military?

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
I don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
Founding fathers would ask the same question,
like we should just do that.
Standing armies, what do you?
Well, the devil will find workfor idle hands, I guess I don't
know.
You have money, you get theseprograms come in place.
They come and go.
You build structures out.
I'm wrapping up the fall of theroman empire in my podcast

(01:34:19):
right now and yeah, it just kindof goes to, kind of just
collapses on itself eventuallyif you don't, you know, have a
wayward arrow for your culture,your society, like just people
expect too much from theirgovernment now yeah what are you

(01:34:40):
thankful for, now that it's?
a podcast.
People expect too much fromtheir government.
Now, yeah, what are youthankful for Now that it's a
podcast?
Me too.
It's equipment that we wereable to do the podcast on.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
I wonder if this was made in China.
I wonder how many tariffs thiswent through to get here Last
bottle of table.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
we're sitting on Bottlehead of John Tyler staring
at us.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
Yeah, I'm happy for that.
I'm happy for being able tohelp Ukraine with their war.
Russia that we have should havenothing to do with.
I appreciate I'm being thankfulfor that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
It was a ceasefire in Israel, sure.

Speaker 4 (01:35:17):
I'm grateful for history in Israel.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
Sure.
I'm grateful for history.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
This Smoot-Hawley act has got me on tilt.
It sounds like exactly whatthey did, like the inflation
tariffs.
Just like in the GreatDepression, the economy stinks
tariffs.
What else do we do it?

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
seems like almost.
It's like spending less moneyis not an option.
I'll never get that either.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
We're spending the money to pay for our interest,
but then Trump has this DOGE,this D-O-G-E, the Department of
Government Efficiency, creatinganother.

Speaker 4 (01:35:55):
Department of.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
Government.
I mean on that level, Even ifyou agree with it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
I like the intent but create something, unless it's
like a, unless it's like oneperson that volunteers to do it.
Like is Elon getting paid?
Like maybe he's not, I don'teven know and I'm sure he's
going to cut things.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
You know that is government, his business
interests, I mean yeah, well,it's a sub is.
Mark His business interests.
I mean he got tons of subsidies.
Mark C knows all about that.
All the subsidies he got.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
I don't really like somebody in private business
being that far into it, as longas he can keep his business out
of it.
But you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
It should be a tax on yourself.
George Washington went awayfrom his estate, went away from
Mount Vernon to serve for eightyears.
He came back.
The thing was in shamblesbecause it was a public duty and
a service to the country it wasduty.
Like I'm not going to makemoney from this, I'm going to
personally lose out by servingmy country.

(01:36:52):
Like it will be a tax on myselfto be a public servant.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
Well, maybe we make money from it's.
Yet the it's a tariff, Well,maybe we make money from it.
It's yet to be heard.
If that's what's going tohappen with Elon, maybe he'll
show up, and you know space,sending rockets to Mars.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
I can't be, I can't be a top 20 list of most
important things this world'sfacing right now.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
I can't be sending rockets to Mars, well, market.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Well, sending things to Mars reentry of catching
rockets on reentry.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
Cool.
I like cool technology.
In my opinion, spaceexploration is the biggest waste
of money.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
People had the argument when we went to the
moon.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
I don't think the arguments changed.
What did we get from going tothe moon Tang?
It's so absurd.
Why?
Why do we have a wholedepartment exploring what's so
absurd?
Why?
Why do we have a wholedepartment exploring what's
going to happen?

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
Unless I thought, the moon, if we put something on
there that could be a satellitethat could be used as a weapon
of war against either the SovietUnion or the Soviet Union
against us, like I don't reallyknow, I think it was just like a
.
We can do it if we set ourminds.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
But like safety, okay know, I think it was just like
a, we can do it if we set ourminds like but like safety, okay
, say, we see it, we see anasteroid hurdling towards Earth
and NASA sees it, or I guessNASA is not a thing anymore, or
is it?
I don't know.
I don't really understand thateither space force, whatever but
they see it, they're like, well, okay, the asteroids come in,
asteroids come in.
Okay, what are we going to doabout that?

(01:38:18):
There's nothing we really cando for cool except for
Armageddon, that was a goodmovie.
The probably the best thing tocome out of space exploration
and science was the movieArmageddon.
In my opinion, my favorite partof it Teflon on pot or tax.
They always say, like duct tapeand stuff which I get, like
it's about all this byproduct.

(01:38:39):
All these, all these likeresearch things are byproducts
of that same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
You'll come up with new advances in weapon
technology and even even medicaltechnology from the Civil War.
We learned a ton about, youknow, met.
We made tons of medical eventseven in the four years of the
Civil War.
But do you have to fight thewars and yeah, go to space to
get those inventions.
Can we just have smart peopletry to figure this stuff out
without doing those things?

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
I mean, I guess there will be things that there will
always be things that youunintentionally discover.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
Maybe this planet is beyond replete, it's beyond
saving at this point, and maybeit has been for a while.
The billionaires know that wehave to leave.
Oh, why else would they bedoing it?
They're trying to colonizeother places, are they?

Speaker 1 (01:39:31):
I haven't done that good of a job.
They make movies about it.
They got those two astronautsstuck up in the space station.

Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
Maybe we've just breached the fifth wall or the
fifth age.
We're in another age of.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
It seems like we're going back to the third age?

Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
I mean to go back to what we were doing in like 1830
is like insane 1894.
Do you think that the harriscampaign could have maybe gotten

(01:40:12):
their point across abouttariffs a little bit better had
they talked about the history oftariffs like we just went over,
yes, like if they would havebeen like listen, listen, guys,
what he's talking about doingwas what happened right before
the Great, or like during theGreat Depression.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Like make yeah and stick with Smoot-Hawley.
Like definitely stick withrunning with Smoot-Hawley.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
But the problem is they can't do that because
they're pro-tariff too.

Speaker 2 (01:40:33):
Yeah.
Well, they already jettison atthat point, so they probably
should have leaned into it evenharder.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
But they have those tariffs in place.
So Trump was able to say, liketariffs, what's wrong with my
tariffs?
They kept them in place.
So they kind of couldn't reallydo that.
But they could say like Trump'sjust going to raise them and
look what happens when you raisethem.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
All the left has is raising taxes on billionaires to
pay their fair share.
That's literally all they could.
That's their only economicpolicy.
What's kind of what you want to, though?
No, I'm not saying I want totax anyone anything beyond.
I don't think I need to tax.
Why tax?

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
You can't single out people.
Flat sales tax would be kind ofcool.

Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
But that only is cool .
Again, I think you can onlycharge a realistic amount that
people can afford if thegovernment doesn't need that
much to fund itself.
That's the issue.
We spend too much money.
The tax would only have to be asmall amount because the
government shouldn't be doingthat much, but it does.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
All right fans.
Well, on that note, I hopeeveryone had a safe and healthy
Thanksgiving.
Make sure you tell everyone inyour life that you're thankful
for them and we're thankful forevery one of you all 10 of you.
We're as thankful as equally aswe're equally as thankful for

(01:41:59):
each and every one of you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
ELE on this podcast.
You guys know that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
Yeah, anything else to leave them with, john, you
good.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
Good, you guys know it.
Say it with me, stay curious.

Speaker 1 (01:42:16):
Alright, fans, we'll catch you on the next one.

Speaker 5 (01:42:46):
Come on, man, I got hairy legs.

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128 Tariff Town: The Trade Wars (feat. Mark C.)

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