Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Saturday, August 16, 2025
·
14 comments
OTB relies on its readers to support it. Please consider helping by becoming a monthly contributor through Patreon or making a one-time contribution via PayPal. Thanks for your consideration.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
Imagine an airport at a small city suddenly gets flights from a major airline. You’d think the management and officials would be happy about it, no?
Well, no.
Turns out in Republiqan Vero Beach, Florida, government grants are preferred to the increased economic activity JetBlue might bring in.
Thing is JetBlue will likely make the airport at Vero Beach pass 100,000 passengers per year, and that will result in a reduction of money from the state government.
By now, pointing out Republiqan hypocrisy is on a par with pointing out water is wet or El Taco is in the Epstein files.
I was browsing through Prime streaming service to see if there was anything new and interesting to watch when on came an ad for Speed Racer. I immediately experience a surge of joy go through me as the theme music started and a clip played. It was unexpected as I was transported back to my early pre teen days. It is interesting how nostalgia works at a deep level beyond the intellectual.
My wife and I decided to take a flyer and use a free 7 day trial period for BritBox. Her sister recommended Outrageous which was about the Mitford sisters in 1930s Britain. Another timely show about the rise of fascism especially in Great Britain. It seemed tonally all over the place alternating an almost goofy, jazzy feeling about the family with an increasing dread as some of the sisters dabbled in fascism, another in communism, and the continuing need of an aristocratic family to find funds to continue their lifestyle. Reinforced my opinion that income inequality leads to a bad end in societies.
While we know that “countries” don’t pay the Taco tariffs, it would make little difference if they did.
Say a widget made in China costs $10 wholesale and including shipping, and is resold in the US at $14. Next say “China” pays the 30% tariff. What would this mean?
To begin with, who is “China”? The Chinese government, the Communist Party, the distributor, or the manufacturer?
Either way, whoever pays $3 on each widget is either out $3, or will try to make up the money by charging it to someone else. So let’s say of the above entities, the distributor who exports Chinese products to the US is the one who pays the tariff (somehow).
What would they do? They could absorb the extra cost, which would effectively mean they get paid $7 instead of $10. They could ask the manufacturer for a discount, but then it’s the latter who has the problem. They could increase the widget price to $13, leaving the importer with the extra cost.
The first law of thermodynamics can be succinctly expressed as “everything goes somewhere.” So it is with adding costs: everything has to come from somewhere. Money won’t materialize as if by magic, no matter how much El Taco wishes it. It has to come from somewhere.
As per Kathy’s First Law, nothing is ever that simple. So rather than just passing on the tariff costs, we’ll see a mix of alternatives. Some manufacturers will offer discounts to partially offset them, some of the extra costs will be absorbed, and some will be passed on.
There may be some more of the latter than the other two for one obvious reason: the end consumer is at the end; they can’t directly pass on the cost to someone else. They can reduce or eliminate their consumption, though.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Leaked conversation from the Alaska summit.
Trump: Vlad, I love you, but you have to stop the war in Ukraine because I want a Nobel Prize. Like Obama. I’ve been a good friend, and now you owe me this.
Putin: Friend? Bitch, shut the fuck up, I have the video.
On rather irrelevant matters, I’ve found a way to kind of game two rewards programs. in a very small way.
One, I managed to finally get the Starbucks app working, using a Proton mail account. So now I can get points from their rewards program, chintzy as it is.
Two, my debit card offers a 2% rebate on purchases at restaurants. This includes any money paid to Starbucks for some reason (it’s not a real restaurant or even a fast food joint).
I wonder why I bother, Starbucks hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, it’s worse than ti was pre-pandemic. Their one virtue was the ground cinnamon shaker at the condiment bar, and that’s absent most of the time now.
Apparently the new White House ballroom won’t be ready by then.
@Rob1:
Any chance of getting Donald in the cage?
Two men enter, one man leaves!
lol
Well, all things considered, my birthday could have been full of better news.
On the plus side, I did get a new (well, second hand new) car.
On the minus, little speedy Ibiza goes to the great scrapyard in the sky.
“A farm upstate where he can play, and run, and piss off BMW’s”
@JohnSF:
Well, happy birthday anyway.
@CSK:
Thank you!
Hope you are feeling better, and out and about soon.
@JohnSF:
The cowardly Taco in a cage match?
Never.
It would take someone smarter, richer, with a much hotter daughter, and not on the Epstein files to dare something that brave.
@Kathy:
Let me dream!
“Next up: El Taco vs Mad Max!
Place yer bets, ladies and gents!”
@JohnSF:
If you’re going to dream, then dream yourself beating El Taco to an orange pulp.
@Kathy:
Are weaponized walking sticks permitted?
If so, I winz.