NAFTA Is Now Called the USMCA – October 1, 2018
Well, when it was all said and done, it appears that Donald Trump got about 75% of what he asked for and Canada was allowed to remain protectionist. I’ll give credit where credit is due, now I’m a pretty right leaning person but I’ll say this, Trudeau’s cabinet definitely fought for Canada’s big corporations, things got a little more competitive for them, but not enough that they can’t manage. Now, in regards to Diary, I’m not sure how Quebec is going to respond with Donald Trump gaining more access to the Canadian dairy markets?
Socialists and economics don’t really mix well, socialists or left-leaning people tend to be pessimistic with everything, I always make sure that I watch Right-leaning and Left-leaning news outlets I find Left-Leaning people to lack energy and to focus on the negative or depressing aspects to abundance. Also, with Left-Leaning news it’s as if they don’t read or they don’t care to read the specifics of the details. In the example below, the CNN person people interviewed Jeffrey Rosensweig whose a University professor, by the way, didn’t even get the details of NAFTA Steel and aluminum tariffs correct. Jeffrey Rosensweig assumed Steel and aluminum tariffs and NAFTA were one in the same, they’re not, and this was CNN’s expert
Furthermore, Jeffrey Rosensweig clearly has no compassion for minorities, in his interview he says American farmers are only 1/10 of America’s population, which I can assume is his way of saying why should Trump fight for this small insignificant minority of American worker. This, type of viewing the world is common amongst the Leftist elites, they prefer consolidating and minimizing details they deem as non-important; to what one would assume is their vision of the greater good? In business, in barter in life the specifics, the details are of the utmost importance.
Being that socialists and left-leaning people look to control the economy and economic outcomes, it’s hard for them to even fathom that small minute details in a trade agreement could have effects that the benefits humanity in a large scale. One of the reasons, I’m able to write this blog post is because a genius creates a concept called WordPress in the Freemarket. Now, let’s say there were evil bloggers and a government person said, you know what because of this evil portion of WordPress I’m going to restrict access to using WordPress, all of a sudden the price for owning or using a WordPress blog would skyrocket, overnight other big corporations would try to capitalize and monopolize on these Government created WordPress restrictions. Then because of this government action a whole new level thinking would emerge, a whole new level of risk would emerge.
I say this because Leftist, only pay attention to details that benefit them, they pay close attention to social details and completely ignore the economic details. Specifics are extremely important to human behavior, this is why there are so many books on human behavior, humans are complicated, you can not micro-manage a human being, that’s why people like me are fans of the FREE MARKET. When you leave people alone they tend to make decisions that benefit them. Just because you as an outside observer might assume that you know what’s best for them, doesn’t mean that your right. It’s hard for Leftist to get out of the prison of economic slavery, because they’re assumptions are rooted in assuming that they know what’s best for everyone.
NAFTA replacement raises duty-free shopping limits for Canadians
Trudeau’s Liberals Did a Great Job Protecting Canada’s Big Corporations, let’s again give credit where credit is due. Now, obviously this isn’t the route I would have taken personally, but I’m not in politics so I leave it to the professionals. As of October 1, 2018, the best mainstream media piece from the Canadian perspective that I could find regarding the U.S, Mexico, Canada Agreement was written on CTV News, you can read it for yourself by clicking the link below:
NAFTA replacement raises duty-free shopping limits for Canadians
Trump left that one alone because Canadian consumers have to pay those taxes and well it’s outside Trump’s jurisdiction for the most part. Tariff taxes or de minimis is, for the most part, a volunteer tax. The reason why I can’t call myself a true Libertarian is that I’m not against tariffs, I’ve often argued that I prefer to pay a higher tariff overpaying income taxes. I personally think income taxes are the most demonic, evil taxes ever created. An income tax is a tax on your Labour, a tax on your wealth, a tax on you individuality that the government can then use to pay to people or entities it deems worthy.
Income taxes should be abolished and if I ever heard a politician talk about replacing income taxes with higher tariff’s they’d have my ear intently. Tariffs are a voluntary tax, If I’m a Canadian that wants a European made Car I should be willing to pay to have that car inspected, I should also be understanding that if my country is having a trade dispute with the country I’m buying the car from that I might be subjugated to higher tariff than normal.
Now, I will say that I’m against tariffs where even 1% of the part was made in a country that’s outside of NAFTA/USMCA. As you all know I’m against Trilaterial agreements because of the complicated aspects of them. if there’s a bilateral agreement it should be up to the businesses themselves to investigate trade disputes of Countries they’re doing business in. This, of course, stimulates the economy and also raises the business IQ of all persons involved. It also gives more people jobs and raises awareness on global issues for populations of people.
My problem with Canada is that we’re so corporatist, the business IQ’s of so many Canadians is very low, the fact that an item over $40 is subject to de minimis is embarrassing to us. Even Mexico has a higher de minimis than Canada. It screams the amount of power the Canadian government has over the minds of Canadians. This low de minimis from Canada is ofcourse corporatist, a lot of Canada’s largest cities are close to America, so if the de minimis was raised guess what most Canadians would do? They’d shop in America.
Furthermore, if the Canadian dollar remained at parity with the United States, guess what most Canadians would do? They’d shop in America. If the de minimis were higher with e-commerce in Canada being where it is today, guess what most Canadians would do? They’d shop online at US stores. This stuff is common sense if you understand business, but because Canadians are so accustomed to big banks and large corporations being so dominant in our everyday lives we can’t see how stupid we look from a business person’s point of view.
All that aside, where did Canada win in this new NAFTA/USMCA agreement? We still have access to the U.S market. This is very important because our social justice and social safety net subsidies which are taken from the private sector wouldn’t survive without America being there as our number 1 trading partner.
Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell and his effect on Canada
But, now that the major trade dispute is over, Canada is again back where it was before, hopelessly in debt in a rising interest rate market. Now, I’ve talked about this before and I have to bring it up again. The U/S Federal Reserve chairperson Jerome Powell is hell-bent on doing his job. I laughed today when I noticed that the Loonie was up on all this Good news regarding NAFTA. The fact Trump got Canada to bend on even one issue should have had the opposite reaction, but that’s the market for you.
Jerome Powell is doing his job, he’s not Ben Bernanke, he’s not Janet Yellen, from my perspective he appears to be the type of individual that comes to work, does his job and then goes home, he does seem like a person that could be intimidated, but only if he was backed into a corner or severely compromised. He’s also going to be a hero of the Left if Trump’s economy crashes.
I know a lot of American’s love Donald Trump, he’s the bad boy of Politics, but I do think that an economic crash could happen on Donald Trumps watch. I’ve been writing for years that Donald Trump would probably be the best President to handle an economic crash. Donald Trump has been in bankruptcy courts before, Donald Trump has been over-leveraged before, Donald Trump has had his back up against the wall before, so in my personal opinion although when it happens some people will be full of glee I think that Donald Trump might be able to reshape the way we view economics.
There are obviously negative effects to an economic crash, but the positive effects are fantastic too because it gives people, it gives society the chance to start new, to remove the illusions and economic myths provided by governments. Sorry, Trump supporters but Trump hasn’t stopped spending, Trump hasn’t shrunk the government he’s grown it, now he’s grown while cutting taxes and regulations but it’s still big and if a Democrat every takes over the white house Trump created they’re going to have many government tools and their disposal to not only overly regulate, but to overly tax.
Trump has a lot of energy, but it’s unlikely his predecessor will have the same energy, the same passion or the same drive. During an economic crash, you’ll most likely get the same energy from Trump you have now, he’ll fight whereas a George Bush, a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama would most likely settle. This is why I’ve been saying Trump is probably the best U.S President or an economic crash. If you remember during the 2008 crash Obama bailed out a lot of different U.S companies and the Federal reserve printed a lot of money. That’s unlikely to happen with Jerome Powell and Donald Trump. Now I can imagine the two of them arguing back and forth, but I do think they’ll do the right thing.
I think Donald Trump will strike a deal with U.S creditors by threatening to default and do think Jerome Powell will react in the same manner as Ben Bernanke. why I say this as a Canadian is because Canadians should be warned that in 2008 our economy didn’t crash, however mortgage debt aside, there are a lot of other Canadian debts that exist today that didn’t exist in such abundance in 2008. Our day of reckoning for this debt is approaching fast and if you’re reading this I advise you to prepare yourself accordingly.
Interesting times ahead.
