Op-Ed: Dunce level policy – Devalue the dollar + tariffs = massive increases in cost of living

This is why unemployable sycophantic nobody bozos shouldn’t do economics. The Morons Marathon of US politics has taken yet another IQ nosedive.

The constant tides of talk about proposed tariffs are bad enough. “Tariff” is code for total illiteracy in trade.

A minimum 10% tariff is the benchmark. They’ll add a lot to prices. That will cost you a lot of money you don’t have. It’ll also kill revenue by suffocating demand by volume, simply because things are more expensive.

“But, why?” you ask, clutching your non-existent but expensive ideology in your pseudopods?

It’s mainly because the idiots proposing the tariffs still haven’t got it through their thick heads that the importer pays tariffs, not the exporter.

Everything will cost so much more because you clowns put a tariff on it.

Got it, you ^&&(((&^* godforsaken³ $%&^(% half-witted brain dead fruit flies?

The stylish fruit fly analogy is because fruit fly brains work and yours don’t.  

Add to this impending cluster the imbecile idea of a devalued dollar, if you please, Your dollars will be instantly worth less, at a time when the cost of living is truly insane.

Let’s go through the devaluation myths from the last century to explain:

“Devaluing will make our products more competitive.” This particular myth has bankrupted countries many times before. Anyway -What products? You offshored them and a lot of American jobs decades ago. You think you can set up an entire manufacturing sector overnight? Ain’t gonna happen.

“Our foreign currency holdings will be worth more.” Not really. Any fool can play margins and pretend to win. Those currencies also aren’t the world’s default currency, and only a very few of them are stable. It’s a meaningless statement.

“Our dollar debts will cost less because the dollar is worth less.” The exact opposite is the case. You can pay with foreign currency to a point, but not on the global scale of US debts. People holding dollar debts don’t want to lose money. You’re more likely to increase interest rates on borrowing to make up for the decline in the value of currency holdings. Bond yields will also have to respond.

“Volatility will help supercharge the markets.” This one may seem a little obscure. The theory is that high turnover in anything is good for middlemen like brokers, hedge funds, termites, political skanks, etc. So it is, to a point, until constant stress destroys confidence in the market.

Given the other disasters on this list, no confidence will happen sooner rather than later. You and your money will quite rightly move to other markets and take your trillions with you. Any supercharging will be of the getting the hell out variety.

OK, now a bit of analysis.

Do you notice that the outcome of each of these loads of garbage is the exact opposite of what was stated? There’s a reason for that. All of these circus tricks have been tried and have failed consistently throughout the 20^th century.

One of the reasons South America and Africa are such happy carefree places that everyone is trying to escape is policies of this kind.

Bad management of trade, currencies, and a bizarre perspective on how the world does business are all you need.

There’s another, potentially fatal, issue for the US, though. America is locked in to global trade. Disadvantaging itself and its own trading position is stupid. Adding costs is suicidal.

What’s likely to happen is the “Russification” of America. This would be the collapse of corporate and private assets, not state assets. (A heavily devalued billion is not the same thing, Elon.)

Everything crashes. Everyone goes broke. Somebody walks in and buys all those depreciated assets at bargain bin prices. (Almost literally nothing, in the case of the USSR. It was one of the biggest systematic rip-offs in history.)

That’s worked out well, hasn’t it?

We could have another fragmented senile ex-superpower staggering around picking fights with everyone and losing.

Sound familiar?

America used to be truly great. It was the richest, healthiest, most prosperous society in history. You gave it all away to politics and your own insularity.

You’re doing it again, America.