Pam Peirce

What people want is a peaceful life, freedom from disruptions of their access to the goods they want (heat, cooling, a comfortable bed, plenty of food, etc.) and that their children should have the same. I had planned to analyze these desires carefully, and also to say that I don't think humans, as a species, know how to run an economy based on money such that all of its members have their basic needs met. I still plan to do this, but my plan is interrupted by a strong feeling that there is a target on my back for being an intellectual, a feminist, even for being in favor of following the U.S. Constitution.
      I have been led to undertake a history of tariffs, to try to predict the outcome of the federal administration's foray into these economic weapons. I turned to Chat GPT to find a summary of U.S. tariffs and their results. (Try it—it's free and easy. Ask your economic/ historical questions at chatgpt.com.)
     The U.S had tariffs against England following the War of 1812. Thos tariffs did strengthen U.S manufacturing and reduced reliance on imports. During the Civil War, tariffs helped the North pay for the War, but "hurt Southern farmers that depended on exporting cotton and tobacco."
      Trump claims to admire America's Gilded Age, when there were huge discrepancies between the rich and poor. Tariffs of that era strengthened industry, but retaliatory tariffs hurt farmers who were involved in international trade. In 1922, tariffs helped both industry and farmers, resulting in a booming economy in the 1920s, but strapping Europe, which was trying to pay war debts, and hurting world trade in general. (Many Europeans suffered great privation from WWI until some years after WWII.)
The Smoot-Hawley tariffs, set in 1930 on over 20,000 manufactured goods, resulted in "massive global retaliation" and are credited with worsening the Great Depression.
Trump declared tariffs in his first administration, with mixed results. While they did protect some industries, like steel and aluminum, there were retaliatory tariffs that especially harmed U.S. farmers, "some manufacturing job benefited but others (like auto and tech) suffered." Overall, there were "increased costs and trade disruptions." Also, they "did not significantly reduce the trade deficit with China."
When asked if steep tariffs would rebuild U.S. manufacturing, Chat GPT said while they can help certain industries and create some jobs, they also raise costs, invite retaliation, and do not guarantee large-scale job growth. It also said that tariffs used to work better than they do now. Why is that I asked? It said: the 19th century U.S. economy was largely self-contained, with international trade a much smaller share of the GDP, and had far less dependence on imports. However now, we are "deeply integrated into global trade" and "many nations have strong manufacturing sectors" where business can go. Tariffs may help specific industries, but often lead to "retaliation, supply chain disruption, and higher consumer prices."
The conclusion? Risky business, tariffs, these days, that are not likely to help most MAGA voters. I am back to my original thesis—that humans are not very good at dealing with money economies.

I am angered when I hear politicians cite the price of eggs as an index of inflation. Yes, eggs are very expensive. But they are an exception that has nothing to do with inflation in general. I do not know all of the reasons for general inflation, but I am sure they have to do, in large part, with the economy trying to recover from the Covid 19 crisis, The prices of eggs are high because a virus, bird flu, is leading to the killing of many egg laying hens. By law, if bird flu appears in a flock, it is "culled," a polite term for killing the whole flock.
     "Isn't there a vaccine?" you may ask. Well, yes, there is a vaccine. However, some markets will not buy chickens intended for meat if they have been vaccinated, so the vaccine goes unused. 
     The big fear is that the bird flu virus will mutate such that it can be transmitted human to human. So far, it has only infected humans who work with animals, such as chickens or cows, which can spread the virus to a human. (And domestic cate, which eat infected wild birds, leading to the irony that people may keep their cats inside, not to spare the wild birds, but to protect the cats.) It could happen that the bird flu virus could become transmissible between humans, and then the clamor for using the vaccine would probably outweigh the resistance to using it, however, by then the time would have passed that using the vaccine might prevent human deaths due to human-to-human transmission.
     Trump used the example of the price of eggs in his speech to Congress--blaming it on Biden. I also get fundraising emails from candidates representing the Democratic Party implying that egg prices are a part of a general inflation that the current president cannot bring down. I am equally outraged by both uses, because they depend, for their power, on an emotional response that is not influenced  by facts that explain why eggs are so expensive.
I don't know if the price of eggs went up because some producers, or wholesalers, would go out of business if they didn't raise prices, or if the problem is price gouging, but I do know that egg prices are a special case and that politicians are trying use them for political gain without educating the electorate about bird flu and helping people see the dilemmas it introduces.
(Details of the bird flu situation were recently reported on National Public Radio.)

    Someone has initiated a weeklong boycott of Amazon (which includes Whole Foods.), starting today. I don't use Amazon anyway, but my husband buys eggs at Whole Foods, which seems to be using them as a "loss leader," a product they are selling at a loss to attract customers. I go with him and have bought an occasional sale item myself. I have told him to go alone this week, so I won't be tempted to buy anything.

     I was interested to read some of the comments on "FaceBook" about the boycott of Amazon. One person wrote that their son worked for Amazon so they couldn't boycott it. A number of people agreed, saying they had relatives employed by Amazon. How sad that money is so powerful. My personal opinion is that they can boycott. Sadly, there is not a likelihood that someone will lose a job because of a weeklong boycott. And it is a statement of preference. We are saying we prefer not to have one massive source for every object we desire, and one extremely rich, powerful person making money off of us. 

     Bezos changed the editorial policy of the Washington Post last week to make the op eds only conservative. Now that he owns the paper, he can change its direction. 

     A friend who was inspired by my recent post on Amazon said she found that a short period of searching on the web quickly and easily found another source for the item. 

I have been paused in my posts on this blog by the shocking beginning of the current presidential administration. I have to keep reminding myself that the president did not win with a majority, that there are many, many people as disturbed as I am. I believe that this man won with a coalition of those who do not pay any attention to politics (so they have no idea whether a governmental action is consistent with the Constitution or the law), those who are not rich but hope to be rich soon (so they vote with the truly rich), and a minority of Americans who are rich enough to actually gain by current national political actions, and know they will. Oh, and the fundamentalist Christians who, for reasons not clear to those looking at it from the outside, think the new president represents the Second Coming. And the racists, oh my, there is probably considerable overlap among them with those who do not pay any attention.
How does one convince such an electorate that this is not the administration they want? One way is to educate those who do not know when the President is ordering something that is not in keeping with the Constitution or that is advocating breaking a law. There is some effort in this direction, and more is better.
Another avenue is to address the voters who think they will become rich in the face of strong evidence that they will not. This is a major difficulty in the U.S. Many people vote with the wealthy because they hope to be wealthy themselves. They don't want to tax the rich, for fear that they too will be rich one day. This is despite the fact that bills intended to "tax the rich" are generally talking about a level of income these people will never see. People with good jobs that make a comfortable income often think they are just a promotion, or an enterprise scheme, or an invention away from true wealth. People with a lower income may think they are only a lottery ticket, an invention, or an inheritance away. all of these are unlikely possibilities, and if they happened, they are not likely to result in the kind of income or wealth to which congressional moves to tax the rich are aimed. It is hard for the average person to wrap their head around how much money a multi-billionaire makes. I think there is a chance of showing people who think they will be rich, and so reject taxing the very rich, that they are not rational, but it is difficult, because people will think they are giving up on a dream of riches, no matter how unlikely it is that such a dream will occur.  
The fundamentalist Christian voters are probably unreachable, dedicated as they are to a nonrational belief system, and the racists are likely to go on being racist.
A group that opponents of the current administration should also consider reachable is those who didn't vote because they are cynical. The point to make is that cynicism that leads to inaction has the same political outcome as complacency. If a person opposes racism, homophobia, and climate complacency, they should vote for the party that opposes racism and homophobia and embraces ways to fight the climate crisis, and go on being cynical about other issues all they want.

You probably haven't thought about what you want nearly as hard as advertisers have thought about it. They have studied the statistics to decide if you are in the demographic that might be interested in what they sell, classified the type of consumer you represent, figured out where you might look to see advertising, and chosen the type of ad that would especially appeal to you. In the video cartoon Futurama, written by Mat t Groening, ads appear in dreams. The character who has woken up after being frozen for a thousand years objects. Other characters ask him "Didn't ads follow you around in your days? This is just an extension of the same principle." And yes, we are followed around by ads.
I once met a man whose business was to sell wholesale goods for a company that made stuff for babies. "Then," I said to him, "Your fortune is dependent on the birthrate."  "Yes, it is," he replied. His company probably didn't have enough clout to encourage people to have babies, but it would sure be in his interest to do so. Just as it was in the interest of cigarette companies to deny a link between cigarettes and lung cancer, or in the interest of oil and gas companies to scoff at wind farms or water-saving toilets (ours is a one-flush wonder, by the way) or in the interest of weapons manufacturers that there be wars.
Ads are more strident when the goods for sale are less needs than wants. We will get what we need if we can afford it, but to get what we don't need—special features, something that meets an emotional desire, something that lets us imagine ourselves rich or on the leading edge of innovation—that takes encouragement. It takes skillful ads, maybe a low price. Still, it has to meet a want—or seem to.