Child Safety

This was your car seat. 

Glad you made it...

 

A Risky Bet

What they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things, in the United States, in which case they will have no tariffs. 

- Donald Trump

President Trump has said that there is a simple way to avoid his tariffs - move everything back to the US.  His thinking is that this will single-handedly restore the manufacturing sector and create jobs. 

Where to start?  Visit a modern automobile assembly plant and you won't find a worker hefting and bolting a left rear wheel on a car with an impact wrench.  Robots outnumber workers and the remaining jobs require a higher skill set and oftentimes a two year degree from a community college. 

Domestic manufacturing reached its apex in 1979 at 19.6 million jobs.  In the following couple of decades 2 million jobs were lost to automation.  With China's entry into the global trading system another 6 million manufacturing jobs were displaced from 1998 thru 2010.  Today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 8 percent of America's work force sees the inside of a factory.

Complicating this picture are tax policies that Increase the cost of raw materials such as steel and aluminum.  And with an economy running at full employment we do not yet have a comprehensive immigration policy.  Machines, software advances, and AI technology will continue to revolutionize manufacturing efficiencies.  Wage support and employee benefits have been on the decline for decades - largely a consequence of a decline in union membership.

In his first term Trump tariffs on cheap Chinese goods made limited progress with a surge of 411,000 jobs before the COVID shitshow.  Biden used a mix of subsidies and tax incentives surging manufacturing jobs to a peak of 12.9 million in 2023, only 110,000 above Trump's peak.

Reversing four decades of industrial policy overnight is a heavy lift - corporate America has seen global integration as the most efficient mechanism for producing what the American consumer wants. 

Are CEOs ready to change their business model?  Lower wage overseas labor has left domestic companies with extra cash; that has gone to shareholders in the form of dividends and the repurchase of shares - boosting share prices.

Trump's tariffs would amount to one percent of US gross domestic product (GDP); amounting to the largest tax increase ever.  Imagine the impact on household finances and the ripple effect on the economy.  No doubt tariffs are a mechanism to make it costlier to do business beyond our shores; nevertheless, it is a very blunt instrument and exceedingly difficult to reverse decades  of complex assembly and supply chains between the US and our largest trading partners.

It costs $ billions and takes years to construct and populate any substantive manufacturing facility.  It takes years to recoup those investments.  Tariffs and presidents are much too transient for business to make that kind of risky bet.  Stable long-term policy-making hasn't been the realm of American politics.

Meanwhile the markets are sending a clear signal they don't like the uncertainty.  It will be interesting to watch this play out..... 

Collage

Nice AI-generated collage of songbirds captured last summer on the Oriole Cam situated on the west side of the porch.

The orioles are the last to arrive and the first to depart.

Thanks Google Photos..... 

DOGE - American Style

If you think giving DOGE access to all your tax records is no big deal, you are suffering from a lack of imagination.

Friday Music

Composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney this song was the title song for the 1965 film and soundtrack album.  Released as a single the summer of 1965 it occupied the number one spot on the British and US Charts for three weeks.  

This is a live performance from the August 1st 1965 broadcast of Blackpool Night Out.

Help!

The King's Speech

On Tuesday, March 4th President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress.  I do not begrudge our President the opportunity to take a victory lap; particularly on the heels of six busy weeks of cabinet hearings, executive orders, reductions in force, court hearings, spending freezes, tariffs followed by pauses, starts and follow-up pauses of the the latter.

The speech was exceedingly long however; meaning the volume of dubious claims or lies was target-rich.  Nothing new under the sun; nevertheless, worthy of truthful daylight.  Consequently, from time to time one of more of the King's gems will be featured here.

Enjoy. 

“We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”  

Nonsense.  I have covered the subject of the economy more times than I can count.  All you have to do is click on the the subject Economics Label on the left side of the page or in the bottom margin of this post.  Recent detailed coverage here.  Only weeks before the election, the Economist newspaper published a cover story declaring that the U.S. economy was The Envy of the World.

Blood Moon

March’s full moon is frequently called the Full Worm Moon.  The backstory is because of the earthworms that wriggle out of the ground as the earth begins to thaw in March.  As a consequence some Native American Tribes referred to it as the Worm Moon and the return of robins to feast on the emerging worms.

The fact of the matter is that Northern tribes would not have embraced this name for the March moon as there were no earthworms. A Southern tribe maybe – but certainly not a Northern tribe.

Historically, earthworms did not exist in the northern reaches of continental North America. The ice sheets of the last glaciation wiped them out. All of the earthworms and night crawlers we see nowadays were introduced by European colonists – brought here in plant root balls and soil used as ship ballast. That’s right – earthworms are an invasive species.  But I digress.

Northern American tribes such as the Shawnee tribe know this as the Sap Moon - a reminder for the tribes that they can begin tapping maple trees for the making of syrup.

In general, March’s full moon is known as a herald for the beginning of spring and new agricultural cycles. The European settlers referred to this as the Lenten Moon and as a way to measure the progress of their crops. They called it the Storm Moon if the weather was inclement – an indicator their crops might fail. Under ideal growing conditions they called it the Rugged Moon – a sign of a successful harvest that year.

One of its other names is the Chaste Moon, symbolizing the purity of early spring. The Pueblo tribe named it the Moon When the Leaves Break Forth, The Cree called it the Goose Moon, while in Shoshone culture it was known as the Warming Moon. The Ojibwa called it the the Crows Come Back Moon, after the crows and other birds that appear as winter draws to a close.  It is also called the Crust Moon, because of the snow that becomes crusty when it thaws in the sun and freezes in the moonlight.

The moon will be at its fullest tomorrow evening although to the casual observer it will appear full this evening.

There's a bonus this year; a total lunar eclipse.  This full moon will pass directly through the Earth's umbral shadow producing a total lunar eclipse visible across the Americas and a partial eclipse in the Pacific, Western Europe and Africa.  At my latitude the action will unfold around 10:30 tonight with the first "bite" out of the moon beginning around midnight.  At maximum eclipse, 2 AM, it will appear reddened - a Blood Moon.