{"id":89506,"date":"2025-04-10T03:19:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T08:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89506"},"modified":"2025-04-10T06:49:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T11:49:25","slug":"89506","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=89506","title":{"rendered":"Calculated Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:<\/p>\n

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Scott Johnson from Powerline has a column explaining why Trump’s tariffs are calculated incorrectly and are therefore too high.\u00a0 He gives a formula from some academics showing that the inelasticity of trade was improperly factored into setting our new rates.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Missing the point, Scott.\u00a0 The point is foreign governments have been taking advantage of our generosity for years and it’s time to fix that. Yes, we’re a party to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) but renegotiations have been stalled for decades – too many rice bowls at stake – so Trump’s unilateral new tariffs are a way to break the stalemate.<\/div>\n
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The specifics of Trump’s tariffs don’t matter,\u00a010% on penguins or 90% on Vietnam, these\u00a0numbers are just the opening round of negotiation.\u00a0 It’s like the guy selling sombreros on the beach in Mazatlan, or the guy selling rugs in the souk in\u00a0Marrakech.\u00a0\u00a0His opening offer is ridiculous\u00a0because\u00a0you are expected to bargain with him. That’s the accepted practice in that culture.\u00a0 So, too, in every real estate deal,\u00a0which\u00a0is where Trump learned his lessons.\u00a0 You always set the listing price high to give yourself room to negotiate down.\u00a0 And now we’re seeing it’s also true in setting foreign trade policy, as more than four dozen countries have already lined up to renegotiate their trade policy with us.<\/div>\n
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Scott’s column is so typical for RINOs. The other side can state any lie and it’s accepted at face value while our facts are scrutinized and debated endlessly, with the result that the opposition’s policies get enacted but ours get nibbled to death by ducks quacking around our ankles.\u00a0 With friends like that . . . . . . .<\/div>\n
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Joe Doakes<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Gonna reject the premise that Scott’s a “RINO”.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/div>\n
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Might he be guilty of, as Selena Zito once said, “taking Trump literally but not seriously?”\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 It’s easy to do. <\/div>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails: Scott Johnson from Powerline has a column explaining why Trump’s tariffs are calculated incorrectly and are therefore too high.\u00a0 He gives a formula from some academics showing that the inelasticity of trade was improperly factored into setting our new rates. Missing the point, Scott.\u00a0 The point is foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,13,367,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-republicans","category-trump","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89510,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89506\/revisions\/89510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}