Note: Behind the green door, there is a post about an old post I did on Vladimir Putin as the antidote to Peter the Great, a post about the Amazon series The Bondsman, and the Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.
Last week, Trump stunned the world by following through on what he has been promising since he came down the escalator in 2015. He imposed across-the-board tariffs on every country in the world—except Russia. The reason Russia was excluded is that they are already sanctioned to the maximum. The tariff knob does not go past one hundred, so they were not on the list. Every other country was hit with a tariff, even Israel, which should cause some people to rethink things.
This set off the Great Trump Stock Market Crash, which promises to continue this week as the rest of the world responds to the new world order. The old trading models no longer work, so the default fallback in these conditions is cash. The quants were working feverishly last week to update their models in order to find the bargains that will inevitably be sitting there, waiting for the lucky. The smart money thinks the floor is a twenty percent correction, followed by stability.
The yesterday men and the crazies are sure this is the Great Depression, because their history of the world starts in the 1930s. It is a stylized history, such that every modern event can be jammed into the 1930s, the 1960s, or the 1980s. Since they are sure Trump is secretly Hitler, this must be the 1930s—even though we have witnessed many stock market corrections in the last thirty years. The COVID crash, the mortgage bubble, and the dot-com bubble are easy examples.
In reality, what we are seeing is the long-overdue return to normalcy, where American economic policy is aimed at benefiting the American people, rather than abstract concepts from economics departments. If Canada has tariffs on American goods, then the United States should have tariffs on Canadian goods—unless it can be shown that the American people benefit in some way from the imbalance. The same is true for every other country in the world.
One of the weird things about decades of American trade policy is that it has created the same sense of entitlement as government racial policy. Just as nonwhites think they are entitled to be near white people without conditions, the world thinks it has a right to access the American market without conditions. This is most obvious in Europe, which has taken this lopsided arrangement for granted. They have also assumed they are entitled to American defense, while doing nothing in return.
The logic behind this arrangement has always been nonsense—but people love to believe in nonsense, especially their own. We see this with the free trade crowd, who are claiming tariffs will only harm the American people. If that were true, then the rest of the world should have been miserable for the last thirty years. Further, if that were true, then the rest of the world now has a chance to usher in a golden age for their people by eliminating their tariffs instead of raising them.
The truth of the matter is that all economic policy is about trade-offs—especially in global trade. This is why it is called trade, rather than “free.” Having a tariff-free relationship with Canada could make sense if the Canadian government could be trusted, as the American and Canadian economies are so similar. The same is not true for Mexico or Bangladesh. Trade is never just about money—it is also about culture and the national interests of the trading countries.
Of course, what we are seeing is not really about trade so much as it is about getting the American financial house in order. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary and architect of the Trump economic policy, has made this clear. Normalizing American trade relations is just one arrow. Another is the mass reorganization of government that kicked off in January. For the first time in the life of anyone reading this, the size and scope of government will be reduced.
Another arrow is the changes in the tax code that are slowly working their way through both houses of Congress. The Senate passed its version of spending and tax cuts, so now it is on to the House. What is shaping up is a two-pronged approach: one is to put into law the cuts made by the DOGE boys, and the other is a radical revamping of the tax code to reflect the new economic approach. Removing taxes on tips and overtime, for example, is part of the Senate model.
What we are seeing is the most radical alteration to the American economic model since the 1980s. The reason for it is that the old model is unsustainable. As Bessent pointed out, there is a limit to borrowing. For a long time, the American model relied on creating unlimited credit money in the banking system and massive federal borrowing. We have reached the limits of this model. Now, that model threatens the integrity of the American economy, so changes must be made.
More important are the changes in how we think and talk about the economy. For the longest time, the economy has been treated as a god. Americans were expected to tolerate anything to please it. If the economy demanded Haitian cannibals in your town, you had to accept it. If the economy demanded that the quality of your hand tools decline, you just lived with it. If the economy required you to work two jobs to make ends meet, then you did it. The economy was a remorseless god.
This sort of thinking makes sense to an alien overclass that sees the United States as an opportunity to be exploited. It does not make sense if the ruling elite feels a connection and obligation to the people. Shifting from the old transactional model of economics to a nationalistic model requires a new language. Simply pointing at a graph that trends upward is no longer enough. The political class will now have to possess some economic literacy.
It is too soon to know if these changes can make it through Congress. The winners under the old exploitative model will not go quietly. No one knows if the American public will tolerate the pain that must come with the transition. It is not all bad news, though, so the pain may be limited. Energy costs are falling—crude is under sixty dollars a barrel. This could tame inflation enough for the Fed to cut rates. Low taxes and cheap energy will go a long way toward cushioning the transition.
In the end, Bessent is correct. America cannot continue to create credit in the financial system and borrow trillions to hire government workers. We either have an orderly transition back to a normal economy, or we have a disorderly transition. The name for that is collapse—and that is vastly worse than a stock market correction. This is the reason the economic elites are backing this move. They know that the people who suffer the most from failure are the elites.
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Canada IS Bangladesh. As for the people weeping about the stock market, I learned to stop caring about that stuff long ago. I don’t care about my 401K. It’s money I’ll never see. If you think I’m wrong, look at what Greece did with their austerity measures over a decade ago. First they robbed pensions, then they went after private retirement investment. What’s my retirement investment? My kids. They’ll be there to spoon-feed me tapioca pudding and wheel my chair into a good spot to watch the sunset. Why? Because I did it for them. I can’t offer them much… Read more »
It’s certainly trending in that direction with all of these Indians moving here. All of a sudden we’ve started seeing ads referencing Diwali and the like over the past couple of years.
I like reading this fellow site but he points this out:
https://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2025/03/31/%d1%80aje%d0%b5ti-%d1%80%d0%b5tey/
At the same time he insults Trump and the US. Hey, clean up the mess in your own back yard.
I am in my mid-50s and penurious with two major life disabilities. I’m not on any public assistance. I work 3-4 hours daily at a machine shop. I have a PhD, taught at two Tier 2 universities for a decade, and once worked for Pat Buchanan. I own nothing. I take care of my 91-year-old mother, who is penniless and cannot walk (although she can still talk, a lot) in a rented home while my three sisters live in West Hollywood and the Upper East Side of New York. The one in NYC owns a $3 million apartment. They give… Read more »
Arthur, You have my support, for what it is worth here on the internets. I was fortunate as I have a loyal spouse by my side — when relatives abandoned an elderly man and his handicapped adult son. Not wanting to run a whiff of doxing self, but we cared for both for decades without help from anyone. The others were affluent, so as they went on their merry way, with occasional outbursts of maudlin ‘guilt’ and promises to ‘start helping’ … we went out own way and did so without rancor …. a mutual decision. It was soldiering, something… Read more »
To add some more of my reply, the folks that were outside the loop also, what a surprise —- were 1000% in for the masks, jab — they sent around photos of one another getting needles in arms (no shit) on socialist media … one old biddy aunt sent my kids these stupid, thick polyester MASKS as Christmas gifts ….. and pestered me ‘did you give my gifts to the kids?’ … until I simply said the truth: “I threw them out.”
Thank God they stole the election from Trump in 2020.
Free trade made sense in the Cold War as a bribe to keep countries from adopting socialism and siding with the Soviets. The Cold War ended in 1991.
Even Pat Buchanan was for free trade then and for that reason. He later pushed protectionism.
“if the Canadian government could be trusted” yep indeed and not beholden to China
Or India, as I keep reading about Canadians bashing Trump and the US as they also decry the vast increase in Chinese and Indian immigrants in places like Toronto buying up all the houses and businesses.
Absent any crying from the tech lords and such who were seated behind the Trump family on inauguration day (and I haven’t heard any yet), I assume this is all just part of the plan. Which I also assume is their agenda, not our agenda. Which is also my assumption about DOGE, that it has an unseen agenda beyond its public facing one. I guess it’s a fair question how much Trump is in on that plan and how much he’s just the puppet face of it. Anyhow, as long as the price of basic goods doesn’t soar through the… Read more »
Rational discussion is impossible if “left” and “right” are reduced to synonyms for good and evil. The essence of civility is the acknowledgment that even your enemy may have something to teach you.
ole Joe
It’s always depicted as Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, the cartoonish view of the world.
tho loathe the Left’s comic book “good guys vs bad guys” routine, I can say this: the Leftists are the bad guys! f’em
“In the end, Bessent is correct. America cannot continue to create credit in the financial system and borrow trillions to hire government workers.” Agreed. And also agreed that the present system is unsustainable. I also want to say that a tariff wall is one of the instruments every industrialising country has used in the past, as it has carefully nurtured its fledgling industries from foreign competition. But it is just one of the instruments. One can’t expect a punitive tariff policy to single-handedly bring about re-industrialisation. And the figure that Trump is touting of $5 trillion dollars chomping at the… Read more »
The uninhabited South Antarctica Island do not have a 20% tariff on US goods
They are juridical territories and thus can be exploited as favorable economic zones and tax havens. Trump Admin foreclosed an obvious loophole. Smart.
There was no way that we were going to make this transition in a slow and thoughtful way. It had to be a revolution. The managerial class wouldn’t have allowed the former, so it got the latter.
You argue for a plan that could never have worked.
I’m guessing the point is to stop liquidation. That’s our current economic model. You can’t heal until you’ve stopped the bleeding.
We’ll probably go back into debt to rebuild once we’re living within our means again.
Having spent the last 35 adult working years saving 15-30% annually investing solely using “A random walk down Wall Street” as my guide (Index funds), this “correction” brings me no joy. Still, when the statistics of who owns most of it (very few, highly concentrated in very wealthy families and/or institutional investors), it’s impossible not to see why the bottom 50% of Americans who owe none of it just don’t give a flying fig. Something had to give. Hopefully this punctures the balloon and sets the US up for 5-10 years of pain followed by prosperity reborn like the “Vockler… Read more »
Nationalism is back, and the managerial elite can’t make the switch. They have no concept nor feel for nationalism – outside of the usual suspects who only feel it for their people. We are all interchangeable widgets.
This mentality applies to economics as much as immigration. The idea of asking whether a policy – any policy – helps all of the American people simply doesn’t compute. They only ask whether it will increase GDP. What is an “American” anyway, they ask. These people can’t move forward.