The psychological benefits of protectionism

Free trade is good on average, but:

1. Protectionism declares production, which is at present condemned as fascist nazi sin against Gaia, to be righteous and good.  Protectionism strikes at the moral superiority of progs, who think that shutting down factories, mines, and sawmills is inherently virtuous.

2 .  International agreements like the Transpacific Partnership are not free trade, and impair people’s ability to form families and have children, which harms the kind of people that voted for Trump.

3.  Even genuine free trade, even though beneficial on average, hurts some people.  In particular free trade between China and the US tends to equalize worker’s wages between China and the US, which harms the kind of people that voted for Trump.  On the other hand, free trade between Britain and the US is fine for the kind of people who voted for Trump.

When Trump permitted two pipelines, conditional on them using US made steel in US made pipes, the delicious liberal tears flowed – for not only did they consider the pipelines sinful, but they considered US made steel and US made pipes sinful as well.  When Trump added those protectionist conditions to the pipelines, he used the bully pulpit to tell liberals that they were not holy, that producing stuff is right and good.  No matter what the detrimental effects of protectionism on efficiency, the effects of a moral climate that condemns work and production as sinful and illegitimate is a thousand times worse.  When Trump explained his permits to the American people, Trump told the people that a steel mill belching out carbon dioxide is a good thing.

Obviously free trade is good on average.  But international trade agreements that consist of thousands of pages of legalese like the Transpacific Partnership are not free trade.  Rather, they are arrangements to replace local regulation with regulation by “The International Community”.  But distant regulation is necessarily more rigid, inflexible, and out of contact with reality, than local regulation.

Local regulation is corrupt in that you have a beer with a friend, who has a beer with his friend, who arranges that the regulation will be overlooked for you.  Or one of your employees seduces the bureaucrat.  Distant regulation, international regulation, is corrupt in that you hire a team of Harvard lawyers and team of lobbyists, who occupy several towers in Washington and New York City and get to write the regulations that bugger your competitors more severely than they bugger you.  Thus distant regulation, the Transpacific Partnership, inevitably favors giant corporations in major cities, and crushes small businesses in small towns – favors the people who voted against Trump, and crushes the people who voted for Trump.  When Trump dumped the Transpacific Partnership, he took a boot off the throats of the people who voted for him.

Inevitably, international trade agreements like the Transpacific Partnership favor people in the big cities, and hurt people in flyover country, hurt the people who voted for Trump, benefit the people who voted against Trump. So people move from flyover country to the big cities.  And it is hard to marry in big cities, and there is nowhere for the kids.  Women in big cities, like women on international trips, are free from the watchful eyes of friends and family, and tend to fuck around, rendering them unmarriageable.  If you repeatedly reuse stickytape, it stops sticking, and women that fuck too many men become emotionally incapable of bonding to husband and children.  Also, in the big city, hard to know what your wife or girlfriend is doing.  In a small town, your wife will not misbehave, because she knows news will get back to her husband.  Because the big city makes it easier to cheat on your wife or husband, the big city makes it harder for men and women to cooperate to form families.  Notice that most of those women screaming in outrage about Trump grabbing women by the pussy are big city women who are old enough that they are quite safe from the likelihood that Trump might grab them by the pussy, are single, are too old to marry and have children, and are facing what they thoroughly deserve, a lonely and unloved old age.  Again, Trump benefits those who voted for him, and to hell with those who voted against him, to hell with those who are now screaming at him and weeping tasty tears.

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115 Responses to “The psychological benefits of protectionism”

  1. Art says:

    Jim:
    “Of course your point stands – protectionism is usually inefficient, and even in situations where it can theoretically be efficient, as for example the infant industry case, it is usually too hard for government to intervene in the economy competently.

    But rewarding friends and punishing enemies must take priority over efficiency, and to this end Trump must use whatever tools come to hand.

    And, as it happens, so far he has not used or sought tariffs. He will threaten tariffs, but probably negotiate bilateral trade agreements that largely avoid them.”

    Yes. And what I am arguing is that there have to be better ways to reward supporters, without restricting trade via tariffs or trade agreements. One example is Obama-style “green jobs”.

    • pdimov says:

      This works if your supporters are parasites, as Obama’s are. It doesn’t work if your supporters are the producers. They don’t want fake jobs.

    • jim says:

      what I am arguing is that there have to be better ways to reward supporters, without restricting trade via tariffs or trade agreements. One example is Obama-style “green jobs”.

      Obama style green jobs are war on capitalism, and are far worse for the economy than tariffs.

  2. Pseudo-chrysostom says:

    Arms races are better for the economy than free trade.

  3. viking says:

    Look the USA is in much worse shape than we realize I recently read we cant make our own silcone because not only do we not make the machines that do that but tuning these machines is an industry unto itself which applies to many high tech industries, I read we dont even have the infrastructure including pure enough water. The point is in some very big ways we are a third world country again but dont realize because we do fiat finance.besides economic warfare a WW3 scale war where we had to again crank out battleships and bomber daily would be a disaster under these circumstances.

    Ok wages differences are a problem but if you are the producer of the absolute best products you can set your price to match your labor.The problem does not sem to be our science but that we alow yellow niggers to steal it and jews and bankers and multinationals to sell it.non whites need to be shown the door and tech security taken seriously.

    But how to get capital to solve all of the problems of actually producing the best products? I would say a multifold approach.Offer to let them repatriate their offshore capital tax free if invested in targeted industries. Allow them to profit on those industries tax free for a period of time. We dont have those industries or capital we are losing nothing but will gain the industrial might and the jobs which payroll will be taxed.

    And the stick to go with the carrot is give corporations a choice to be treated as an American corporation or an International corporation and make American corporations a better deal. Also tarrifs are not a risk if they are applied to nations and products we have a trade deficit with.We have the best market to sell into we could in fact be quite insulated and still do fine but we can do better. We have allowed ourselves to be gutted by jew bankers and short sighted capitalists unfortunately capitalists will actually sell the ropes that hang them, they are planning to be extra national they are foolish the commies are planning to get to them later.

    • Cavalier says:

      Right now the reason we rule the world is because we can mobilize and invade any country which has the things we need before we run out of those things.

  4. pdimov says:

    The problem with free trade shows itself when the social contracts of the two trading countries differ. When

    – a specific occupation is high status and therefore wages and prices are artificially high;

    – people customarily don’t work for the first 25 and last 25 years of their lives;

    – half of the labor force doesn’t work and is on welfare;

    – half of the labor force is in fake paper-pushing jobs;

    – taxes are high;

    and so on, this creates artificial differences in productivity between the two countries even when the baseline productivity would have been the same absent those incompatibilities.

    “Protectionism” in this context does not protect the local economy, it protects the local structure of the society.

    • Reactionary Oriental Libertarian says:

      Ya so get rid of these conditions which are neither desirable or sustainable free trade or not. If US and China were both under the regulatory structure of 1900, a lot of manufacturing would be in the US (right now there’s about a 10% difference in costs after adjusting for taxes, electricity, etc) but that doesn’t mean that banning people from escaping the insane US regulatory system is a bad thing.

      • pdimov says:

        The general point is that free trade requires compatible social contracts in the trading countries; or rather, it does not require, but apply pressure towards same. Which leads to friction, enforced “harmonization”, and so on.

        If the people in both countries agreed with you about the optimal social structure, they would have no problem with free trade. But typically they don’t.

        Re insane regulatory systems, yes, it would be better if the regulatory systems were always sane; but if there’s an easy way to escape them, there’s no incentive to keep them sane as the people who pass the regulations do not pay the price.

        • Reactionary Oriental Libertarian says:

          What social contract? I think it is incorrect to attribute to the masses any independent opinions, the masses do not have any political opinions that are not instilled into them by the elite except under libertarianism, when they tend to have common sense but are still easily fooled (see: America 1790s).

          Tariffs will maintain domestic producers in business if the state has regulated and taxed them more than foreign competitors, but are injurious to consumers since the optimal outcome (assuming existing taxation and regulation) is to buy from foreign competitors not subject to these problems. Therefore it’s just a redistribution and increase of the loss in wealth arising from state activity from consumers to producers.

          Banning people from evading the bad regulations will not keep the regulators sane. They are not responsible to anyone except the Cathedral, which is systemically insane. In fact I doubt any regulatory bureaucracy can stay sane as time -> infinite assuming the government is not a right wing regime like Singapore (which also experiences decay into leftism over time).

          • pdimov says:

            The notion of retirement, for instance, is part of the social contract; and in some cases so is the artificially raised status of some occupations (when it’s not a result of regulatory capture, of course.)

            “Banning people from evading the bad regulations will not keep the regulators sane.”

            This is not obvious. Scandinavian countries for instance have demonstrated an ability to scale back regulations to a sane level on their own when they prove problematic in practice.

            In neither case do trade restrictions produce a theoretically optimal outcome. But it’s not clear that they do not produce a practically reachable outcome that is better than what we’re seeing now.

            • Reactionary Oriental Libertarian says:

              If you work for 40-50 years you should have enough savings to retire or kids to support your retirement. Otherwise it’s your own fault and private charity can deal with this, not the state. Old people are the least in need of any group.

              For Scandinavia, I’m only familiar with Sweden (Norway is an exception because of oil), and I know that it scaled back enough to avoid immediate collapse in the early 90s but not enough to avoid stagnation and below replacement fertility. Sweden hasn’t created any private sector jobs on net since 1950 so if this is your notion of regulatory restraint you need a better example. The fact that Sweden is stagnating and on verge of disappearing despite a mostly Aryan population is already a sign its rulers are insane. You can’t blame the Americans for this since plenty of US protectorates have above 2.0 fertility and non zero growth.

              • pdimov says:

                “If you work for 40-50 years you should have enough savings to retire or kids to support your retirement. Otherwise it’s your own fault and private charity can deal with this, not the state.”

                How is this relevant to the question of whether the arrangement is part of the social contract or not?

                As I already said, if all countries agree with you on that, no problem.

                “… stagnation…”

                The opposite of “stagnation” is “progress” and there’s nothing wrong with lack of “progress”.

  5. Art says:

    Jim,

    Trade (whether it is local or international) does have externalities. Some of them – negative. If you buy from me, you are not buying from my competitor.
    The benefits of trade restrictions to Trump supporters are small compared to the overall costs. There has to be a better way to re-distribute to them.
    Or perhaps you have changed your mind on capitalism altogether?

    • jim says:

      Capitalism is efficient, but incapable of defending itself. To defend capitalism, have to win against the enemies of capitalism. To win, must punish enemies and reward friends, without much regard for efficiency.

      • Art says:

        I do not necessarily disagree. My point is that if you believe in capitalism and if the objective is to re-distribute to supporters, there must be better ways to do it.
        For that purpose don’t have to abolish capitalism as a whole or even just the international trade.

        • jim says:

          Nobody is proposing to abolish international trade. Just play favorites a bit.

          • Reactionary Oriental Libertarian says:

            Much more efficient to revive US manufacturing and reward Trump supporters through regulatory relief rather than protectionism. I am hoping Trump’s rhetoric on this is mostly theater.

            • jim says:

              Economic efficiency is not winning. And losing to anticapitalists is likely to be extremely inefficient.

              If you are worried about efficiency, Trump’s protectionist measures are unlikely to make a big difference. His health plan is likely to make a huge difference, for better or worse.

              • Reactionary Oriental Libertarian says:

                I agree beating the left takes priority but I don’t see Trump could not reward his supporters through stuff like gutting the EPA, which unlike protectionism, would also screw the left. He is moving towards regulatory relief (gutted a part of Dodd-Frank today and declared that 2 regs must be repealed for every new reg) and not tariffs now which lead me to suspect that your thesis that his econ is sound is right, but point still stands.

                • jim says:

                  Of course your point stands – protectionism is usually inefficient, and even in situations where it can theoretically be efficient, as for example the infant industry case, it is usually too hard for government to intervene in the economy competently.

                  But rewarding friends and punishing enemies must take priority over efficiency, and to this end Trump must use whatever tools come to hand.

                  And, as it happens, so far he has not used or sought tariffs. He will threaten tariffs, but probably negotiate bilateral trade agreements that largely avoid them.

  6. […] A. Donald: The psychological benefits of protectionism. Objectively, free(r) trade works best on average. But improving the average is not the entire game […]

  7. Steel T Post says:

    Liberal logic 101: the only way to atone for the sin of being white is to let non-whites belch carbon from a steel mill.

  8. thinkingabout it says:

    OT, but Jim, the latest NYT article reads as though it could have been written by you. The Redgov-Bluegov divide is becoming visible even in the leftwing press.

    “The speed with which the memo was assembled and the number of signers underscore the degree to which the State Department has become the center of the resistance to Mr. Trump’s new order. More broadly, it represents objections to his efforts to cut back on American participation in international organizations and to issue ultimatums to allies.”

    “Not surprisingly, the diplomats and Civil Service officers of the State Department are among the most internationally minded in the government; they have lived around the world and devoted their careers to building alliances and promoting American values abroad.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/trump-immigration-ban-memo.html

    • peppermint says:

      » State Department has become the center of the resistance to Mr. Trump’s new order

      was getting caught part of their plan?

  9. Jack Highlands says:

    Re pipelines and US steel: Trump needs to absorb Canada. Canschluss.

    (I thought I’d originated a great slogan there, but I opened up Chrome and niggled it and I see someone was there first: /pol/, of course.)

  10. reactionaryfuture says:

    “Obviously free trade is good on average.” meaningless sentence. Free trade is good to the dominant party, who already has all the factories, and all the production means. It is/was declaring neutrality exactly when you are/were sure to succeed. Of course, the nonsense vomited by the likes of Ricardo et al got enshrined as actually…true, when it isn’t.

    Picture a fight between Mike Tyson and a frail old woman. Then declare because there are no rules so that the fight is fair. That corresponds to the point of free trade.

    • pdimov says:

      Anticolonialist claptrap. It’s much easier for the weaker party to build its own factories under free trade. As China obviously did.

      That free trade is good on average is still not obvious, but not for the reason you state.

      • peppermint says:

        Yes, we should be anticolonialist, where colonialism means bureaucrats and missionaries. Settlers need to make things themselves.

      • reactionaryfuture says:

        ? “as china obviously did”? I don’t think that is what happened. My understanding is the Chinese imitated Japanese industrial policy which required significant protection of local industries prior to engaging in international trade. Basically mercantilism.

        It is quite clear the price of entry to economic discussion in the west is to 1) denounce basic observations and 2) agree to *only* argue over specific abstract holy axioms based on clear logical fallacies (see 1.)

        • pdimov says:

          Country A produces potatoes and Porsches. Country B produces potatoes. A is obviously the dominant party who already has all the factories.

          1. Would country B be better off under free trade?
          2. Would it be easier for country B to build its Porsche factories under free trade?

          But but but, you’re saying, it would have been EVEN BETTER for B to be able to sell potatoes to A unimpeded but tax Porsche imports at its discretion so as to support local industry!

          You don’t say.

          • Rreactionaryfuture says:

            This little thought experiments of economics are unspeakably stupid, they don’t correspond to reality, and are designed to rig the argument.

            Who is A, and who is B?
            What are the difficulties involved in setting up your own factories, with your own know how?
            How is B to enter a market where undoubtably they will be unable to compete?(this ability to compete is an example of an assumption baked into the little experiment.)
            We could go on forever adding the real world.back into the thought experiment, but why bother.

            • peppermint says:

              A is the British Empire and B is the United States and tariffs and refusal to recognize intellect property enabled B to build industries like A already had.

              • jim says:

                This is the infant industry argument. Of course in practice tariffs are usually applied to protect dying industries, rather than infant industries, but the US actually did use tariffs to protect infant industries.

                Indian efforts to grow infant industries were disastrously unsuccessful, because regulation strangled them, but Taiwan applied the infant industry tactic successfully.

                The justification for the infant industry argument is that a tech business has externalities that makes tech easier for other nearby businesses. Hence Silicon Valley, which arose from the Fairchildren.

                The obverse of the infant industry argument is that abandoning the making of one thing, because China can make it cheaper, makes it harder to make other things. But this argument, though undeniably true, tends to result in government getting involved in activities far beyond its competence.

                Tariffs can capture these externalities. Of course most tariffs are in practice corrupt favors for crony capitalists, and notoriously you can find that one business can import stuff that another business cannot, even though it is very much the same stuff.

                • Dave says:

                  Yeah, back in the 90’s when you needed e.g. Pentium sockets for a computer project, you could just drive over to Fry’s and get some — if you lived in Silicon Valley. Anywhere else you had to order them from a catalog and wait two weeks. It pays to be around other people doing the same things you’re doing.

                  Notice how venture capitalists clustered on Sand Hill Road boast of how the Internet makes physical location irrelevant, while insisting that all the start-ups they fund be located within an hour’s drive of Sand Hill Road!

                • jim says:

                  The problem is that techies, and people pretending to be techies (Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos) are always scamming venture capitalists, so the venture capitalists naturally want to hang around in person, get the techies drunk, and look into their eyes.

                  The people scammed by Elizabeth Holmes abandoned judgment and common sense because they wanted to fund a female techie and female CEO.

                • pdimov says:

                  The problem with the free trade debates today is that they imply the existence of free trade for everyone and in everything and then argue that protectionism just for us would benefit us. Well yes it would, parasitism is beneficial for the parasite.

                  In the past protectionism and reciprocity were the norm, so nobody made the mistake of thinking that. You pass a tariff, they immediately retaliate with a tariff. No leeching.

                  And yes, under free trade countries whose productivity is low tend to specialize in potatoes instead of Porsches. That’s exactly what Ricardo predicts as the (economically) optimal outcome. But no, Ricardo has to be wrong because… something.

            • pdimov says:

              “Who is A, and who is B?”

              A is “the dominant party, who already has all the factories, and all the production means” from your original comment, and B is the non-dominant party who has no factories and no production means.

              You tell me who they are, as you came up with them.

              “What are the difficulties involved in setting up your own factories, with your own know how?”

              Acquiring the capital goods and the know how, obviously. So tell me which is easier, to acquire capital goods and know how when you can export and import freely, or when you can’t?

              “How is B to enter a market where undoubtably they will be unable to compete? (this ability to compete is an example of an assumption baked into the little experiment.)”

              It won’t be able to. But you’re deliberately avoiding the point. The ideal case for B is for it to develop its industry by unilaterally deciding what parts of “free trade” to adopt. It wants free trade in its exports to A, free trade in its capital and know-how imports from A, and non free trade in its Porsche imports from A. So yes, this kind of asymmetric “free trade” is in B’s favor at A’s expense. From which you derive the conclusion that symmetric free trade is in A’s favor at B’s expense. Well it doesn’t work like that.

  11. Oliver Cromwell says:

    Looks more like green-on-green.

  12. lalit says:

    Off Topic, but it seems the Forest-Dwelling Euros are not so keen to go gently into the black of the night. Seems to be some resistance against the Desert Hordes of Arabia

    https://www.thequint.com/world/2017/01/30/quebec-city-islamic-cultural-centre-gunmen-open-fire-on-people-at-quebec-city-mosque

  13. viking says:

    I think we all here are free traders austrians to a man. But things are not as the austrians were imagining they might be. when you triangulate third world misery caused by oligarchy and communism against first world labor thats not a free market, its certainly not free when you subsidize the third world niggers with welfare paod by those who still have jobs, that corporate and nigger welfare. Its not free when big corporations who play ball with the deep states play for one world order can get regulations that keep competitors out. Its not a sustainable economic system that relies on debt and jew bankers to keep it from imploding. Nor is it free to invite the worlds spies to pretend to be university students and intern so they can take all your science and technology then produce knockoffs of your fighter jets and smart phone and genetic work. Its certainly pretty stupid to allow yourself to become abjectly incapable of high tech manufacturing while relying on your military prowess, what do you do when ww3 rolls around ask china to ramp up your tank manufacturing and india to make you some microchips? We are running the nation on debt interest paid to international jew bankers, while all the entities that used to be our companies manufacture the things we invented oversees to see to us while operating tax free.We are a huge market we and europe huger still we would do fine just selling to ourselves. But and this is important if we again reclaimed the ability to make things besides loans and apps, if we made the best robots cars planes chips powerplants whatever we would sell for a price we could afford to sell because the absolute best sets the price. we can do it we still produce most of the raw science if we stopped the spying we wuld produce even more of the tech and could manufacture the best products. if we dont do this we will be conquerred already china thinks they can warn us and they know we are 10x bigger but they know we are still weak stupid and dying. Things collapse very very slowly then all at once

  14. Alrenous says:

    >equalize worker’s wages between China and the US, which harms the kind of people that voted for Trump

    …but simultaneously drives down the costs of things Trump voters buy, ameliorating or even reversing the effect. If you take a 20% pay cut but your car costs half as much, you end up with more disposable dollars. Given the wealth calculus – China trades steel for promises – it is likely reversed, though of course I don’t have the actual math.

    What’s the book that did the accounting on household expenses, found they had all gone up? But folk also own more house, more car(s), etc…except government, which had gone up not 20 or 50%, but 170%. Of course when ‘austerity’ means ‘the government grows, but slower than planned,’ these numbers show households are getting less wealthy over time because the government is growing faster than the economy in absolute dollar values.

    No further objections.

    • Alrenous says:

      Ah, only 140%. (Btw, since 1970.)

      http://volokh.com/2011/07/28/christopher-caldwell-falls-for-the-two-income-trap/

      “increased expenses for household “big necessities: mortgages (up 76 percent), cars (up 52 percent), taxes (up 25 percent), and health insurance (up 74 percent).”

      Are houses up in size? Yes. Cars per capita went from 48% to 80%, which is a 60% increase. You may note that 60 > 52.

      They fudged the tax number for sophistry reasons. Taxes went from on average 25% to one third of total income, whereas the other numbers were calculated based on real dollars spent.

      Repeating for clarity, 2010 government is getting, per capita, 240% of income/sales tax revenue compared to what the 1970 government was getting.

    • Orthodox says:

      The rise comes through wage increases. and the loss of paper wealth as the FIRE economy goes down the tubes.

      Trump will need to deal with US dollar as reserve currency. This is the achilles heel of the global and American economy. It requires a global reset of the financial system.

    • jim says:

      But folk also own more house, more car(s),

      Do they? What is the data for the floor area per person since 1972? Pretty sure cars per head have been falling in recent years.

      • Cavalier says:

        Falling cars per head would be fine if it were because the real small town were revived, public transport were cleared of the various species of nigger, and high-speed rail connected the towns and suchlike and so forth. It would be great if we could reduce the need for cars, which frankly are a heinous waste of time and money and energy. We could also do away with the tractor trailer truck and replace it with a fully automatic train car so that goods could be transported continuously with little acceleration and deceleration and no human intervention.

        Personal aircraft could be great again if Trump sees fit to slash and burn the Feds Against Aviation (FAA).

        Failing that, I’m looking forward to blasting my motorcycle through herds of unfailingly deferential self-driving cars.

        • balboa says:

          “I’m looking forward to blasting my motorcycle through herds of unfailingly deferential self-driving cars.”

          Das it, mane.

          Do you see motorcycles being effectively cucked out of existence via the regulatory state, increasing risk aversion, economic stagnation or decline, and maybe technological advances as a serious worry? Not under Trump, presumably, but say within the next 20-50 years.

          • Cavalier says:

            I’ll never underestimate the capriciousness of USG, though if we do in fact get the Trumpenreich we’re seeing shaping up before our eyes, the answer is that motorcycles are probably safe indefinitely.

            Besides that, the vast majority of the risk to motorcyclists is idiot drivers, which risk would be eliminated by self-driving or even just decent self-collision-avoiding cars, motorcycles are less expensive to buy and maintain, more efficient and thus less expensive to drive (ride), and significantly easier to store, than cars. If technological advance, what would be the replacement? Highways going to hell, I guess, if everybody takes bullet trains everywhere. But then if everything goes electric, well, there are already electric motorcycles than can go a couple hundred miles, on one charge, for around 2 dollars.

            Who knows, but you can pry mine from my cold dead fingers.

            • balboa says:

              Yeah.

              I think it’s worth worrying (if you care about this sort of thing in the first place) that we’ll have EVs that have a great 0-60 time but have worse real-world performance b/c of range issues (e.g. Teslas overheating on the track, the Lightning LS218 not completing a lap at the IOM TT) foisted upon us for regulatory reasons, but maybe improved battery technology will render the question moot. I certainly hope so.

            • peppermint says:

              Motorcycles are for queers, real men have to take stuff home with them and their children to the doctor.

              • Cavalier says:

                A real man can have his wife drive the soccer mom van, or a real man can hire someone to drive the soccer mom van, but a real man never drives the soccer mom van.

                I’ll never drive a car with four doors, either.

        • viking says:

          most trucks will be driverless in a few years, and most people will only own a car plan for a driverless car service. eventually driverless cars will be integrated into smart freeways that are more like trains than highways

          • Cavalier says:

            There are benefits to having real tracks for long distances, and the reason trains are so efficient is that each train-car-thing is in the slipstream of the one ahead of it. Car plans also don’t solve the suburb problem.

          • jim says:

            I don’t think truly driverless cars are viable without true AI. And we do not have true AI, and are not likely to get true AI any time soon.

            • Cavalier says:

              I think you’re too skeptical on this point, but even if you aren’t, the roads already exist, all one needs to do is paint them with some sort of special paint or implant them with some sort of special computer-guideline equivalent things like reflectors are implanted in the road.

              The technology to do it affordably, one way or the other, is available today.

            • viking says:

              I too have been very skeptical and kept getting blown out of the water on this one Im starting to think i dont get it i read the trucks are the easiest because highway driving, you realize they actually have all of these things already in operation and every tech and car manufacturer investing billions ramping up, that said Im not riding in one particularly at highway speed, or city traffic

          • peppermint says:

            Smart freeways are on the way, but the most important reason right now is increasing the upfront cost of transportation. Currently the government gives niggers free train and bus rides and niggers treat those trains and buses like they’re free. Will be considerably more difficult to give niggers free 2000$ cars than even free 400$ sail foams.

            In the very near future, thanks to Trump, self-driving slow vehicles that drive carefully designated routes will replace a lot of truck drivers.

      • Alrenous says:

        http://www.aei.org/publication/todays-new-homes-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-the-living-space-per-person-has-doubled-over-last-40-years/

        But it depends on what you mean by ‘recent years.’ Wages are stagnant and price per car/house isn’t going down a huge amount, so. And as I keep saying ‘wages’ are stagnant, but government wages are not stagnant, so real wages for real work must be starting to decline, as per the big mac index.

    • Michael Rothblatt says:

      > a 20% pay cut

      Well, because of comparative advantages that isn’t what tends to happen. What happens with genuine free trade ceteris paribus is that wages get relative increase in both countries at the expense of people getting fired thus effectively reducing their wage to 0 (until they can find another job). Yes, the total gain for any country involved is greater than the losses, and in the long run it even increases the amount jobs in existence in a given country, but depending on the culture of people in question, psychological effects of job loss can be catastrophic for individuals (even if beneficial for the country). Automation acts in the similar fashion, which is why Moldbug, for example, in dealing with a problem of how to create a permanent employment for niggers, one that isn’t subject to technological changes, or changes of conditions in the world at large, proposed what he proposed (unfortunately, nowadays some take it as an wholesale endorsement of mercantilism and archeofuturism, which is just plain stupid – stability at the price of high time preference and eternal technological stagnation is no stability at all, it is Malthusian catastrophe waiting to happen).

      • Alrenous says:

        It’s about robots, but functionally robots and trade are identical. http://polymatharchives.blogspot.com/2015/03/sorting-out-technological-unemployment.html

        • peppermint says:

          Functionally you’re retarded and need to take a break from reading echonomics. One of the Matrix sequels expressed a key difference, we control our robots and don’t control foreigners or foreign robots, and beyond that in the long term the only way to have a technological economy is to have manufacturing and thus the knowledge of how to manufacture.

          The Boomers and GenXers will be enslaved and cut off from social security for trading our birthright for a mess of cadmium earrings.

          • jim says:

            If we do not make steel and pipes, we will not make robots. If we do not make robots, and all this wonderful technological progress happens, the robots will conquer us, for themselves or for their masters.

          • Alrenous says:

            You seem to have me confused with someone who gives a shit what you think.

        • peppermint says:

          》 I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

          Today, scientists have to answer to retarded intersectionality majors posing as ethicists or whatever the hell, artists are required by censors to make degeneracy and be degenerates, and in general the great are constrained by the small committee men. Thus are the entrepreneurs on the same side as the soldiers.

          But there is ultimately a legitimate disagreement between soldiers and entrepreneurs over whether a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow. And from a long-term perspective, by which individuals are irrelevant except that they form families, the soldiers are right. We want entrepreneurs to be wealthy, but not too wealthy that they forget they are mortal and belong to the nation.

          • Cavalier says:

            Capitalists produce, soldiers confiscate.

            • jim says:

              That is true, and it is a point that libertarians, objectivists, and anarcho capitalists frequently make. But if our soldiers don’t confiscate, someone else’s soldiers certainly will.

              Spandrel has a story on this topic.

              So that’s what free trade does to you. If the Uriankhai had grabbed this Bodonchar kid, cut his head off and got his hawk for themselves, they’d still be alive, and would have a game-hunting hawk as well. Because they didn’t, and let a stranger into their midst, they were all killed, their women raped, and their children enslaved for eternity.

              Trade is mutually beneficial. But some things are much more beneficial.

              • Cavalier says:

                The soldiers are to be free to conquer and confiscate that which is outside the nation, but not that which is inside the nation. Soldiers are to be supported from the outside by the proceeds of their conquests and from the inside by their patrons, their patrons having acquired their fortunes by their capitalistic patrons as soldiers were once supported by their aristocratic patrons. You once called this a lost military technology.

              • Cavalier says:

                REVISED: The soldiers are to be free to conquer and confiscate that which is outside the nation, but not that which is inside the nation. Soldiers are to be supported from the outside by the proceeds of their conquests and from the inside by their patrons, their patrons necessarily being capitalistic, having acquired their fortunes through their productive prowess, as soldiers were once supported by their aristocratic patrons, having acquired their fortunes through land title.

                You once called this a lost military technology.

            • viking says:

              Soldier also create a space for capitalism and are the force behind property rights contract enforcement anti piracy etc.no soldiers no capitalism, no prole breeding no capitalism,no civilization no point to capitalism. So the capitalists have to pay for the infrastructure that supports them or eventually the infrastructure turns on them.This isnt mobs demanding free shit as land and his GATTA crew would have it, its understanding no one will do business with someone who offers nothing in return, the very first step to capitalism is the business of contracting for peace then order then law.No idaho farm boys many nuclear submarine no container ships , no irish cops figurng out how to legally crack nigger skulls no cities.No blue collar guys building your skyscraper good luck with that tech business.No new blood of high cogelites entering harvard hello degenerate aristocracy again.
              Soldiers mobs of white variety dont confiscate if they are paid fairly, we make good citizens, we get hierarchy, capitalism,but we also get while individually are potential violence is worth maybe only a blue collar income as a group we own the nation not elon musk he is someone we pay really well, elon may tell himself that he could do what he does anywhere but we know he is bluffing, in rhodesia is just some white buy needs vicking,without the infrastructure of the white world there are no white geniuses.This doesnt imply socialism its simply a fact the nations that nurture white genius for that matter all genius have taken centuries to build and fortunes to keep up its a holistic effort that no one man transcends.
              I keep trying to make this point and am always misunderstood as always i will say I am as hardcore capitalism as you can get i have no moral qualms about letting the useless mouth be ground up into soylent green etc but the point is the reality of violence as the foundation of civilization and intelligence as its multiplier, The entire people need to be taken into account for their contributions even if very small and yes the sytem needs to prevent socialism at the same time

    • peppermint says:

      Steel and manufacturing knowhow for promises is a terrible trade. It’s great for Boomers and GenXers, which is why they will be enslaved in the future to pay for their treason.

  15. Oliver Cromwell says:

    All points I agree with, but let us be careful not to follow a social movement into error.

    TPP etc. are bad because their goal is to produce a single regulatory regime for the world, which really means a single, socialistic, country, existing above the nominal countries of which it is composed, and invisible to and therefore untouchable by their populations. To get more free trade everywhere, you need more independent regulatory regimes, not fewer.

    But free trade across borders in non-strategic items is also good for the nation. Exporting hotel rooms in NYC for cars from Munich (which results in a “trade deficit”) is good for the US. Trump seemingly doesn’t realise that.

    • TheBigH says:

      >But free trade across borders in non-strategic items is also good for the nation. Exporting hotel rooms in NYC for cars from Munich (which results in a “trade deficit”) is good for the US. Trump seemingly doesn’t realise that.

      How so? The wealth of a nation lies in what it produces, not what it owns. The Spanish Empire learned this the hard way as all that very valuable gold and silver debased their economy and left them poor.

    • jim says:

      You will notice that Trump’s protectionism is mostly spectacle rather than actual substance. I think his economics is perfectly sound. Remember he said he would replace “free trade” agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership with bilateral free trade agreements. Bilateral agreements are more likely to provide actual free trade, rather than a regulatory super state.

      So he will with much sound and fury threaten forty percent tariffs, maybe actually impose forty percent tariffs for a little while to show he is not kidding, and then negotiate a bunch of genuine bilateral free trade agreements. And he will then tell the people that these free trade agreements, unlike the ones he dumped, represent Americans winning. Which will be an over simplification of the more complex truth, but nonetheless substantially true.

      • viking says:

        Jim manufacturing are jobs for men men with good jobs get wives and children
        countries that cant make shit get shit on no matter how many jew bankers used to call that country home

        • Cavalier says:

          I can’t buy a wife and children no matter how much money I make. In fact, not only can I not buy a wife, I cannot find a suitable candidate. It is not only difficult to meet suitable candidates, it is difficult to find even potential suitable candidates from afar. I’m currently bumming it through middle- to upper-middle-class suburbia and there is a stunning and pervasive lack of talent. In short order I will move to a university town, and I will pan the river for a golden pony unicorn, but knowing girls, I am not hopeful. I am skeptical of my likelihood of success, but I at least have a pan and a plan. The man who might get one of your manufacturing jobs is up shit creek without a paddle, surrounded by alligators.

          • viking says:

            Youre struggling with the class issue SWPLs dont marry much anymore. Suburbia is where those that do are, so youre in a town full of married women, I have been there unless youre young enough to be courting the children of said SWPLs you out of luck.Frankly if youre over 30 youre in trouble the oldest age women marry on avg is NY at 28 and the youngest is Utah at 23.The days where we grew up watching movies of 60 year old men courting 22 year starlets are over, women are looking to marry fairly close to their age.So I spend part of my year in Idaho everyone gets married and they are good women but they are married off really young and are too sane to get involved with a man decades older.I would have to pick through the divorcees most have children, and of course emotional baggage,and theres not a lot of divorce and people like being married so they go quick if worthwhile and they want a “good Christian man” church is a good place to look if youre in a community where most are churchgoers.
            My point is good guy jobs in places like the rust belt are good for blue collar guys who marry out of highschool more or less.those areas are cheap enough real estate and nigger free public schools they can afford to have a stay home mom. If you want a urban suburban life you have to make a lot more money In NYC where i live part time I rent one bedroom apartments to 23 year old kids making 100k, they hope to make 250 and marry another close to the same so they can stay in the city most dont make it they waste their best year as rent slaves to me some wise up in time and lower expectations, some do phenomenally. I lot of suburban commubities were once blue collar small towns but close to big cities, those that were smart or lucky got real estate some end up white niggers competing with mexicans for yard and handyman work. There sisters might make good wives daughter of plumbers etc but a lot of kids today cant relate to a blue collar person you hate the SWPLs but are actually the same. Blue collar woman are great in many ways, but they are attracted to manly men,

            • Cavalier says:

              I must be in a nether zone. These people aren’t Brahmins and they aren’t really Vaisyas either. Christianity is present, but barely, and only really Unitarian-flavored even among the average churchgoer, which are few. Maybe I’m flitting through the remnants of the Optimates.

              Frankly, my primary concern with mate selection is regression to the mean. My lineal family for the past four generations, at least, has been 90th-95th+ percentile, and I got all the good genes and a bit more, and I’m not about to waste that on some plumber’s daughter. Culture is transient; genes are forever.

              • peppermint says:

                Oh come on. It is the nature of successful men to marry beautiful women. Doing okay is better than saying you’re the best and not doing anything.

                • peppermint says:

                  I know a ton of 26-32 year old women who have had a few “serious” relationships, talk vaguely about slut pride or whatever because that’s what mom says they should say, and really, really want a husband and children. I also know a bunch of guys who should be their husbands.

                  And I think that, with Trump, they’re going to get married soon.

                • peppermint says:

                  By the way, the quickest way to make White men murderously angry is to threaten or insult their marriages. So we can make the White youth murderously angry by realistically offering them marriage, and afterwards all the niggers and queers their women used to hang out with will be forced to go away or act decent and never mention ever having been otherwise because they are living insults.

                • Cavalier says:

                  Under the current social order my hedonism quotient is thoroughly satisfied, and I have another decade to scour the back of beyond and the far side of nowhere for the prime-time-bloodline golden-pony-unicorn who hasn’t already been fucked by enough men to fill a small room.

              • viking says:

                my family reliably throw 130s for generations while mostly being steam fitters, fairly often we end up rising on to something else like businessmen, engineers politicians military, but we seem to have gotten in steam when it was invented and followed it to railways to heating and its become a theme it always pays a respectable salary as a union fitter i made about 200k a year with benefits included for a 35 hour week plus overtime. I used that to get into aviation and real estate etc. but i still carry a card and draw a pension.My father was the black sheep of his generation and went to georgetown worked at state then for standard oil then becaome a moderately famous actor,my grandfather went back to school and became a mechanical engineer which many of us have done theres a math streak that pops up gramps had rainman type math talents.
                My point I was trying to make but its a bit large a point for a comment is despite murrays bell curve thesis not all cogelites are sucked into the University,they can form stable pockets of cogelites outside that system. One reason is places far enough from either geographically or culturally dont feel drawn to that world, some places like my town in north idaho and ive found the entire NW are so awesome young people would rather earn less and stay home. anti social genes like caveliers have or even something like alcoholism can act as barriers to the university elite pool. Asa murray also pointed out we tend to marry and befriend within a few points of our IQs so its doubtful you will marry a dumb plumbers daughter she will likely be a nurse with a high IQ or running dads books, or even going to harvard.but she will have dads values. you still should choose wisely make sure this plumber family is indeed one of the above average blue collar families, that they are not alcoholic, or leftists.but if you can find these communities there is good stock still you dont have to be a plumber although as i said you probably will be shit tested for manliness by both her and the men in her life, these days the bar is probably pretty low.But once in you can move to NYC if you want. I think you understand that its good to marry a high iq person it increases chances of high iq kids but will wear off with mean reversion unless both are a stabilized high IQ meaning they have been marrying into high iq for generations so their mean is higher their high IQ is stabilized and consistent this is whats happening at universities, however i had JMAN calculate for me a theory and he agreed the noncogelites contribute at least half of the new high IQ classes every year. My guess is half of these are already stabilized and half are not but all will marry from the university class, which means on average its great but not a guarantor you will get a stable IQ mate without ascertaining family history.
                You are correct its harder to make broad generalization about what kind of people are where because theres been a lot of social upheaval in my lifetime if your about 50-60 though you watched it, if like me you were able to move between all castes you really got to understand what you were seeing. so I had a wealth artist dad and grew up in new york city but at same time am from a blue collar background which i to some extent ended up in I also had a mother from london and went to school at times on the upper east side with the kennedys and lower east side in a slum where my parents decided to gentrify, i could go on point is i was an insider in a dozen different classes and bright enough to notice what was happening.These saly of the earths can be found in lots of places even in parts of NYC you can still find families that held on to their real estate and union jobs and like me did well you could go out to the hamptons and find people still who were the farmers and whalers in that town for hundreds of years go during the winter or in many old small towns some now fashionable some in the rust belt or north west or south and not fashionable you will find there are groups of families that have done well for generations.and yeah some even go to college I did but left, my youngest brosther was in the union till 38 then dropped out went to school and became a biologist, first he met a secretary in a drs office married her, she went to school and ended up going all the way to nurse practitioner while having four kids., I married a ner do well girl i met in AA she was smart as a whip though and it turned out her and my dad had gone to school together very similar irish catholic background he became the ceo of one of the biggest US NGOS for decades, My middle went to state university in VT and met a nice italian american very stereotypical in a good way girl drop dead gorgeous working as a waitress through school guess what she had tens of millions in the bank because grandpa had divided his fortune after selling the famous family business to a multinational.So all of married smart girls from stabilized high IQ families that were only occasionally connected with a university system.PS dont marry an addict it is a genetic disease you want to lose not weaponize

            • jim says:

              The days where we grew up watching movies of 60 year old men courting 22 year starlets are over, women are looking to marry fairly close to their age

              That is what their brains are thinking, but their pussies are thinking something different.

              Yes, gets tougher as I get older. But not that much tougher.

              • viking says:

                Jim my number over 200 and I have had a lot of long term relationships, including marriage. So youre right its not too much trouble bedding them if you have the chops but I have found those are not usually the girls you want to marry and when they are they know they better off marrying a guy closer to their age maybe 5 years older unless they are a retread or over 35.anythings possible but i would be wary of marrying a 25 year old at 55 even if she was perfect you may end up in a divorce in your 60s who want that. although i have been considering it lol

            • peppermint says:

              Women prefer men 2-7 years older than them, and prefer competence as proxied by confidence and ability to protect as proxied by displayed aggression even more. In the future Nazi state, it will take a lot for a man who isn’t about four years older than a woman to convince her to drop her panties, but right now, it’s literally child’s play.

    • peppermint says:

      》 Exporting hotel rooms in NYC for cars from Munich (which results in a “trade deficit”) is good for the US.

      You’re a faggot and I hope you work as a receptionist and linen washer for the rest of your days alongside flip chicks you try hitting on because no decent woman will touch a man with no prospects.

  16. EuropeanForTrump says:

    Jim, I love your blog and read it weekly, especially the comments.

    I hate what is happening to my Northern European heritage and culture. I want out. I am considering my options for moving to a more free country.

    Anyone on here have any advice? I love the US and have lived there for about a year as a student. Would love to go back but it’s near impossible to get into USA as a productive member of society.

    Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are my other options. Thoughts?

    • EuropeanForTrump says:

      I should add that I am 22 years old and 1 years away from getting my B.S. in business administration and marketing.

      • Horace says:

        Fly into Las Vegas and pay an 18 year old UNLV freshman 5-10k to marry you until you get your citizenship. Pre nup the thing and mutual divorce when it’s time.

      • viking says:

        yeah I have some advice if youre not man enough to fight for your country then at least have the decency to shoot yourself coward

        • EuropeanForTrump says:

          I refuse to fight for a socialist state or a pussified king. If our king declared the government illegitimate and took back his kingdom from the socialists, I would fight for him. But he is cheering the fuckers on congratulating the state church for allowing gay marriage to happen and lesbian bishops and priests be a normal thing.

    • jim says:

      Switzerland is wonderful, but hard to get in, hard to make a living there, you kind of have to be Swiss.

      Australia and New Zealand were turning brown, still are, but they are less brown than most, and the rate of browning has abruptly dropped since Australia stopped the boats. The cities have large areas with lots of high IQ and law abiding, but nonetheless disturbingly different and alien, brown people, not to mention smaller areas with lots of violent, criminal, low IQ, and thuggish brown people. Lots of beautiful whiteopian exurbs and semi rural areas, but again, hard to make a living and make friends in the whiteopian exurbs unless you are a local.

      If you want to operate a business in Australia, you have to get used to the Australian way of corruption, which is less expensive but more time consuming than the American way of corruption. In America you pay off “consultants” (bagmen) with actual cash, which is simple and relatively quick, but expensive.

      • Shezus says:

        Maybe that’s why my business had trouble, I have no idea what the Australian way of corruption is.

        Can you explain?

        • jim says:

          In India you simply hand the bureaucrat cash in a bag. Or since demonetization, gold in a bag.

          In America you contact a lawyer, and the lawyer gives you the phone number of a “consultant”. You pay the consultant an alarmingly large fee, and the “consultant” gives you a superficial ritual of compliance with the regulations – and presumably gives a substantial part of his fee to the bureaucrat, because if you did not hire the “consultant”, no compliance with regulation, however thorough, would be good enough.

          The Australian way of corruption is tough on outsiders. You need a friend of a friend. Fortunately senior officials seem to have a great many friends. I don’t see money changing hands directly as such, but regulation is a chain for some people, and a cobweb for other people.

      • EuropeanForTrump says:

        Thanks for the reply Jim. The American way seems much simpler. i can’t wait to see what Trump is bringing back to America in the next year or so.

  17. Hattori says:

    Jim, it seems you were right. Agents are disobeying the courts

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3Xk_jxWEAEdAha.jpg:large

    • jim says:

      “Chu and Barragan asked to meet with CPB managers about Iranian migrants”

      “CPB refused. Asked who they were reporting to they said ‘Donald J. Trump'”

      “Then CPB told two US congressmembers they were not getting anywhere … and hung up”

      Oh, that is just so great. I love it, I love it, I love it all.

      Suddenly, shockingly, leftists find they have lost status, that people are laughing at them.

      • R7_Rocket says:

        You were right, Jim!

        America’s Prætorians despise limpwrists like Mathew Yglesias.

      • Alrenous says:

        Of course this is illegal. But, ironically, if the Cathedral suddenly pushes respect for the law too hard, it will delegitimize not Trump per se, but POTUS per se…which as you might expect is an ideological keystone.

        • pdimov says:

          “Of course this is illegal.”

          So is the judge’s order, most likely.

          • peppermint says:

            * Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or *in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.*

            * The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and *shall protect each of them against Invasion;*

        • viking says:

          Not really the fact is these are only temporary stays and the president has pretty much complete legal power to decide who can and cant enter the USA. The left is hoping to make such a big deal that he gives up on all immigration issues

      • Hattori says:

        Also check this one out.

        Academics starting to figure out they are on the line to get purged.
        https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5#.1yazkeatw

    • Oliver Cromwell says:

      Vivat Rex.

  18. Daniel says:

    Nothing like cutting off your nose to spite your face, eh ?

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