The US: the World as Real Estate
When "No" is not an answer
In assessing the leader of a country, one should look carefully at what he says. When such a person contradicts himself in the same speech, red lights should go on and sirens wail.
It’s a characteristic of American Presidents—and says something about the American public who enable them
It is amazing to me how many people ignore this basic axiom—listen to to what people say.
In his speech to Congress, Trump addressed the people of Greenland stressing their right to self-determination,
We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America
Moments later …
One way or the other, we’re going to get it.
“It”? Trump does not care about people - just real estate.That was two days ago.
Yesterday, Greenland responded.
Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland in the Greenlandic language) is ours.We don't want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland. Kalaallit Nunaat Prime Minister.
The Greenlanders are an Inuit people, related to the Inuit in Nunavit, an autonomous territory nominally under the control of Ottawa. So if they were going to join anybody, it should be their cousins in Canada, with whom they share a culture.
The US commitment to self determination is non-existent.
The concept hasn’t mattered to them since the founding of the Republic. Just ask the Indian peoples , the Mexicans in the Southwest and West, the Hawaiians in the Pacific.
More recently, ask the peoples of Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Donbas, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhie, and Odessa.
Ask the peoples of Gaza and the West Bank. And a host of Latin American countries.
What is the law? It is a fundamental right. The tenets are generally accepted among international lawyers - just not by the US.
When a people don’t do as they are told—the Americans try made to make them – “one way or another”. There is no saying “No” to the US of A.
This not just Trump—previous presidents, Biden and Obama and Bush and Clinton were arguably worse.
Freedom begins with “No!”
1929 article?
Where did I get my information? Apart from Hudson and Wolff, I used various sources but the best academic source is this one:
Tariffs the World Around 1870-1938
It is over 60 pages long, superbly documented and covers all the issues debated today.
Another good source is a 31 page 2010 monograph, also from Harvard.
The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth
Just sayin’.
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The most ludicrous event of the last week was seeing all those Republicrats give OrangeMan a standing ovation for his mentioning of DOGE's curtailing of wasteful government spending which they themselves have enacted! :)
And not a single word about this simple fact was written by the "western" commentariat...
Trump's chief import and export: The Shock Doctrine.
The Democrats need to do a bit more than essentially maintain, "although awash, with us in power you will circle the drain much more slowly!"
The Democratic Congressional leadership hectored Jasmine "I'd tell Musk to fuck off!" Crockett and the a too few fellow others to show more decorum and civility. ☹
My wife has stocked up on popcorn ...