When politics triumphs over common sense, chaos reigns.

American politics is defined as the exchange of money for the power to influence the use of government force.

Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines free trade as “trade carried on without governmental regulations; especially, international trade conducted without protective tariffs, customs duties, etc.” There is a lot of blathering by politicians, economic pundits and analysts about how important free trade is to the American economy.  While trade is important to all of us, it appears that most free traders ignore or do not have a clue what free trade is and that many if not all of our trading partners do not abide by free trade. With government export subsidies and currency manipulation, those international traders are not practicing free trade.  Sadly our free trade advocates ignore these deviations—which is not very intelligent.  But when you consider that many of these free traders are Wall Street members, it makes sense.  Wall Street only worries about company profit and loss and doesn’t give a damn where that money is generated, so they don’t care who loses their jobs as long as it is not theirs.  By all appearances, many to maybe most of the American international company CEOs share the Wall Street attitude.

The more the TV experts talk about this issue, the less knowledgeable they appear to be. What good does so-called free trade do for someone who does not have a job and cannot afford to buy much beyond food and shelter?  Would it not be better to be employed to be able to afford those imports?  These TV experts appear to be bagmen for Wall Street and it is becoming hard if not impossible to continue to watch them when they are on air.

Now a border tax is being discussed to level the economic trade playing field. It would seem that while it is being promoted to provide fairer trade, it is still a tax that will increase consumer cost.  How does it address international currency manipulation if at all?  If anything like that is passed into law, should it not be passed with a sunset provision which expires three to four months before the next mid-term elections?  It will be great if it benefits the country and helps increase domestic employment, and if it does not, let the politicians defend it at the ballot box.

Oh yes, if you think that our trading partners will willingly give up their competitive advantage, may I suggest that you grab your left ear in your right hand, your right ear in your left hand and pull your head from your rectum. Have a good day.

Your professional politician Member of Congress is counting on you forgetting what you dislike about him or her before the next election so that member can get re-elected. If you truly want to have input into how we are governed, the country needs The Accountability Amendment (August 4, 2016 post) and The Federal Judiciary Amendment (March 31, 2016 post).  All politicians will vigorously oppose both amendments because it makes all government immediately accountable to the public with serious consequences for lying and actions that damage our citizens and country.