It’s somehow supposed to be a selling point for tariffs that the Treasury is taking in more money from them than ever before. Would we be as happy if they lifted tax rates and reaped the same amount of money? Most of us, concluding that government takes far too much already, would not be. From David Haggith at thedailydoom.com:
(Computer’s don’t draw the most accurate Diamond Head views … or spell all that well, but that was exactly the problem on the day the president came to town to discuss trade. You’ll see why below…)
Before we get into the topic, thank you, all, for your patience as I took ten days of vacation on O’ahu. Just a nice relaxed time with nothing planned, except to sample mai tais from different establishments, as we came across them, and enjoy some excellent food and one of the world’s most magical beaches, which I’ll reveal to paying subscribers if they ask via a reply to this emailed article. Though it is no guarded secret, and I’m sure many have likely already experienced it, I don’t want to do anything to help make that beach more popular than it already is by spreading the word too broadly … or it will someday not be one of the world’s nicest beaches.
(And, NO, we’re not talking Waikiki Beach, though that is nice and fun in its own way, too. I used to live in Waikiki, so it is a special place for me if you enjoy it for what it is. I think of it as the Rodeo Drive or Sunset Strip of Hawaii, which happens to also have a great tropical beach that the others don’t have.)
Today, we’re going to come up to date on the tariff situation, which appears finally to have stabilized some when Trump’s deadline for tariff negotiations passed while I was enjoying a hike to the top of Diamond Head. That, as a segue somewhat meaningful to the present topic, is where my wife once infamously almost texted that she was going to assassinate then-president Obama if she saw him. That happened during the middle of the big Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), which Obama was attending in order to discuss free trade.
She and I had just seen his entourage drive by about an hour or two before. Significant parts of the city of Honolulu were in lockdown already, with streets boarded off everywhere we turned in order to establish security. Even Diamond Head Crater, itself, was scheduled to be closed in another two hours for the rest of the week, as that is where security for the whole island was going to be headquartered (Diamond Head being the best sniping point in the natural landscape). As hiking the little but spectacularly popular moutain was our regular must-do when visiting the island, we rushed to get there ahead of the military lockdown of the crater.
To capture the full significance of my wife’s little text, bear in mind that meant 27 heads of state were already visiting the island. Now, here is how my wife almost brought Blackhawk helicopters over the Diamond Head crater wall in seconds. (Also, bear in mind that Hawaii is electronic-surveillance central for the entire Pacific Basin, with thousands of people working literally underground who monitor and translate radio messages, including cell-phone texts and conversations, from all around the Pacific.
These intercepted messages all get run through supercomputers that, on the fly, flag any message that merits immediate security attention. This I have been told, while living in Hawaii, by people with minimal security clearances who have been under those volcanic ridges, working in the miles of tunnel networks there, so I trust I am sharing no actual government secrets, as it seems somewhat common knowledge. With nearly all leaders from around the Pacific Basin attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference to meet with President Obama and each other, I’m fairly sure the underground spies were working overtime that day on tracking all local messaging.)
In that milieu, as we arrived at the very top of Diamond Head, huffing and puffing, my wife texted her sister an exclamatory, “We’re on top of Diamond Head! If we see Obama, we’ll say hi!” (Her sister is the fan of the man, which I am not.) We had, after all, just seen what looked to be his line of limo trucks drive past us awhile earlier down on the Kalakaua Avenue, the main Waikiki Strip right below Diamond Head, though we could not see through the tinted windows to know for sure it was him.
As she was about to hit “send,” I yelled “STOP! Look at what your auto-speller has changed that to.”
The text she was just going to hit the send button on read:
“We’re on top of Diamond Head! If we see Obama, it will be homicide!”
I kid you not. I don’t know how her phone got that out of “we’ll say hi,” or why it thought that particular revision would be helpful for its owner, but that was the day my wife’s cell phone may have gotten us arrested. Never trust your cell phone. It can create a world of misery in a nanosecond of poor cellular judgment. Fortunately, personal catastrophe was averted, as she carefully corrected the message and double-checked before hitting “send,” which turned out to be her actual most violent of act of the day.
Now, on to the topic du jour:
When will grocery prices come down?
Trumpstein will meet with Putin Friday, no wrestling chair?
Welfare states and redistribution ain’t cheap, comrade.
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