I’m going to be scathing in my critique because these people are both dishonest and incompetent and deserve to be called out on it.
Here’s their formula:
It’s a ridiculously simplistic formula.
First, a stylistic quibble. What is up with those asterisks in the denominator? I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wanted the formula to be understandable by people who aren’t familiar with standard math notation, in which the juxtaposition of variables indicates multiplication. But to see it written that way in an official document is just… weird.
The i subscripts in the formula just indicate that the formula is to be applied to one country at a time — country i. I’ll therefore omit the ‘i’s from the rest of the discussion.
∆𝜏 is the amount by which the tariff currently being placed on that particular country should change (according to the Trump administration bozos) in order to drive the bilateral trade deficit to zero. In other words, 𝜏 (the existing rate) + ∆𝜏 (the change in rate) would be the correct final rate (according to the formula) to achieve the dubious goal of a trade balance.
The inanity of insisting on bilateral trade balances
We’re off to a bad start already, because the notion that every bilateral trade deficit should be zero is ridiculous on its face. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose Malawi sells us only mangoes, and the US (henceforth ‘we’, since I’m American) sells them only air conditioners. In order for the trade deficit to be zero, we need to buy the same dollar amount in mangoes that they buy in air conditioners, and we should adjust the tariffs we impose on Malawi until that happens. Why is this desirable? Why should the amount of mangoes be linked to the amount of air conditioners? Who the hell knows? It’s just Trump’s idiotic obsession, and it makes no sense.
To make the stupidity even more obvious, think of an analogous situation. Ernesto sells tacos from a taco truck, and George runs a landscaping business. George occasionally buys tacos from Ernesto, and Ernesto hires George to mow his lawn. Suppose Ernesto pays more to George each month than George spends buying tacos from Ernesto. Is Ernesto being cheated? Is he subsidizing George? No and no. George gets every taco he pays for, and Ernesto gets his lawn mown on schedule. It would be ridiculous to say that either of them is being cheated, and ridiculous to say that the goal should be to make the amounts even.
Why is Trump obsessed with trade deficits? It’s because he is confused enough to believe that the existence of a bilateral trade deficit — a trading deficit with a particular country, Malawi in my example — means that they are cheating us and that we’re subsidizing them. He actually believes that we are just handing over the money, getting nothing in return. In reality, we get every frikkin’ mango we pay for, and they get every air conditioner they pay for. No one is being cheated, and to demand that the dollar amounts should match is idiotic and pointless.
Trump actually declares in his executive order that trade deficits are a “national emergency”. He does this because he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unless it’s a national emergency. Otherwise, the job falls to Congress, where it belongs. Trump is lying about the supposed national emergency.
The formula
According to the USTR statement, the x in the formula is the dollar value of what we export to a particular country, while m is the dollar value of what we import from them. The numerator, x – m, is therefore equal to the trade imbalance. If x is bigger than m, then the difference is positive, and we are running a trade surplus. If x is less than m, then x – m is negative, and we have a trade deficit. But note that they have it backwards in the formula: it should be m – x, not x – m. Why? Because the denominator is positive. If both the numerator and denominator are positive, as they would be in the case of a trade surplus, the formula would deliver a ∆𝜏 that is positive. In other words, the formula as written would actually increase the tariffs for the countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and it would decrease the tariffs for countries with whom we have a trade deficit. The formula therefore punishes the (supposedly) good guys and rewards the (supposedly) bad ones, which is opposite to the administration’s intentions. One more indication of their clown car incompetence.
They could easily have corrected the formula if they were aware of the error. Just put a negative sign in front of the formula, or swap x and m, or redefine x and m as the amounts exported and imported by the other country, instead of the amounts exported and imported by the US. Any one of those three would fix the problem, but no.
Let’s assume that we have corrected that mistake for them and that the numerator now equals the amount of the trade deficit, not the surplus. What about the denominator? Well, it just so happens that the values they chose for 𝜀 and 𝜓 are 4 and 0.25, respectively. Those multiply to 1, thus canceling each other. How convenient. These charlatans actually and blatantly chose the values so that they would cancel out, instead of using the most accurate numbers they could find in the literature. They cheated.
After that suspiciously convenient choice of parameters, the formula is now just ∆𝜏 = trade deficit divided by total imports:
Do they actually apply this formula? No. They massage its output even more. They divide ∆𝜏 by two, for no good reason. That means that for the formula to match the actual tariffs, they should multiply the denominator by 2. They fail to do that, as you’d expect. Why 2? My hypothesis is that even those dunces realized that the numbers they were getting from the formula were ridiculously large, and dividing by 2 was a way to get them down to a range that they considered reasonable. More number fudging with no theoretical justification.
Next problem: according to the corrected formula, ∆𝜏 should be negative in the case of trade surpluses. That is, we should decrease the tariffs on imports from those countries. If the existing tariff rate is small enough, it should even go negative, according to the formula, in order to balance our trade with that country. Trump doesn’t like that, so he has arbitrarily declared that everyone will pay a minimum of 10%, whether there’s a trade deficit or a trade surplus. In other words, the policy, which is already misguided, is also unfair — it says that it’s OK for the US to screw other countries by imposing high tariffs, even if they’re doing the “right” thing and allowing us to run a trade surplus with them.
The actual rates
Here are the charts spelling out the actual tariff rates.
The chart labels them “Reciprocal Tariffs”, but that is a lie, since the formula doesn’t take into account the tariff rate charged by the other countries on our exports to them. It’s completely missing from the formula. They aren’t reciprocal tariffs, they’re misguided tariffs in response to trade deficits, and they punish US importers instead of the countries selling us those goods and services.
The label on the middle column is wrong for the same reason, and it’s even further wrong because it depicts a bilateral trade deficit as a quantifier of “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, which it isn’t. We can run a bilateral trade deficit for no other reason than that Americans want more of what the other country is selling us than they want from us. That’s not “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, and the Trump administration is dishonest for trying to sell it that way.
The numbers in the middle column are apparently those that come straight out of the formula. You can tell, because the tariffs that are actually being imposed by the US are just the middle column divided by 2. That’s the arbitrary factor of 2 I mentioned above. The only exceptions are in those cases where dividing by 2 would leave a less than 10% tariff, in which case the tariff is set to 10%. Gotta make sure that everyone gets screwed at least that much.
The US Trade Representative’s explanation
Now some excerpts from the USTR statement. The very first paragraph:
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.
Well, duh. The phrase “tariff and non-tariff factors” covers literally every possible factor in the entire world. Yes, there are actual reasons that we buy more in mangoes from Malawi than they buy from us in air conditioners. Therefore we should conclude that we’re getting ripped off?
While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.
Not by any reasonable person. You need to do the homework before making policy decisions that will affect the entire world economy. If they want less of what we’re selling than we want of what they’re selling, that can lead to a trade deficit, independent of all the factors they list above.
This doesn’t mean that trade practices can’t be unfair, but it does mean that to assume something nefarious is going on merely because we’re running a bilateral trade deficit is stupid.
If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.
No. If we like Malawian mangoes more than the Malawians like our air conditioners, nothing is broken. Nothing is unfair. No reason to blindly punish the Malawians. It just means that American demand for Malawian mangoes is greater than Malawian demand for American air conditioners. No big deal.
A case could be made for nudging the US’s global trade deficit — which is the aggregate trade deficit we’re running with all of our trading partners put together — toward zero, but trying to eliminate every bilateral trade deficit is bonkers. These people are clueless.
Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices…
Right there they say that ε < 0, but a few sentences later they assign it a value of 4. The last time I checked, 4 was greater than 0, not less. Their sloppiness is consistent, at least. What is wrong with these folks?
let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:
As noted earlier, they have the numerator backwards. It should be positive for a trade deficit, not negative, in order for ∆𝜏 to be positive, which represents an increase in tariff rates.
To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.
Which inside the Trump administration is less than 0, lol. And how convenient that εφ multiplies to 1, as noted above.
Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25.
It wasn’t to be conservative. It was to fudge the numbers so that the product εφ came out to be 1. And picking a value of 4 for elasticity isn’t “being conservative” in the sense of “this value is more likely to be correct”. It’s conservative in the sense of “we’d better make this number big because otherwise the tariffs will be so outrageously huge that everyone will see that we’re idiots.”
Think about it. They want φ to be small (whether or not the evidence supports it), because they want to maintain the fiction that other countries will mostly absorb the tariffs and that importers and retail customers will shoulder less of the burden and therefore experience less inflation. On the other hand, a small φ balloons the value of ∆𝜏 to ridiculous levels. So they set 𝜀 to 4 to bring ∆𝜏 down, even while acknowledging that the true value of 𝜀 is closer to 2.
The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).
I haven’t verified that, but either way I would sure like to see the actual number. Why didn’t they include it? Is it really 0.25? In any case, the question of pass-through to retail prices is irrelevant when you’re trying to determine which country is absorbing the cost of the tariffs. It’s the pass-through factor to importers that is relevant, and that is close to 1, even if the pass-though to retail customers is less. That means that US importers are bearing the cost of the tariffs and passing some of that cost on to consumers. It’s inflationary, and it’s a tax by the US government on US importers, not a tax on foreign countries. Which contradicts Trump’s whole rationale.
The reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero.
No, they were “left-censored” at 10, as you can see by looking at the charts. 10 is the minimum tariff you’ll see in the third column of the charts.
Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment.</p
No explanation of why “heterogeneity in rates” is to be avoided, and no comment on the fact that it isn’t avoided, given the large range of new tariff rates in the third column of the charts. That means there’s still plenty of incentive for transshipment. Take Vietnam, for instance, with a new rate of 46%. There’s a *lot* of incentive for them to transship through one of the countries with a 10% rate.
Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent.
There is no inherent limit. Tariffs could be 100%, 180%, or 2100%. 99% is an arbitrary limit. Tariffs could even be negative in a perverse world, in which case the government would be giving importers a bonus for importing more and nudging us toward a trade deficit. Obviously that wouldn’t happen in practice, but my point is that the 99% is arbitrary, and anyone who thinks tariffs are limited to being less than 100% doesn’t understand tariffs.
The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent.
It’s pointless to state the unweighted average. An unweighted average is really just a weighted average with all of the weights set to 1. That gives Liechtenstein equal weight with China, which is stupid. Our trade volume with China is some 1,770 times as great as our trade volume with Liechtenstein, but these geniuses are weighting them evenly and presenting the average as if it had some kind of significance. Morons.
Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.
Here, they tell us that the import-weighted average of tariffs is 41 percent. Combine that with their assumed pass-through rate of 0.25. meaning that exporters in other countries will shoulder 75% of the tariff burden. That’s unrealistic and it clashes with the actual data, but even if you take the Trumpers at their word and assume that only 25% of the additional cost due to tariffs is passed to importers, that’s still over 10%, because 0.25 * 41% is greater than 10%. 10% import inflation! So much for Trump’s campaign promise: “I’ll reduce prices on day one.” Idiot.
Good job, Trump supporters. By voting for him, you put power in the hands of these dishonest and incompetent economic doofuses.
Therefore…?
Allan Miller,
Even the Pharaohs
Had Hebrew braceros
Countries have always wanted to import cheap slave labor, and have always been ambivalent about the consequences.
Still not sure what point you are trying to make.
Sin of synecdoche?
Alan Fox,
To be clearer, slavery in Egyptian and Greek cultures was an extension of conflict arising from the change from pastoralism to farming. You either raided and robbed or put your stuff behind walls and defended to the death, at least enough deaths so one side gave up. Making slaves of defeated enemies who had strength or skills worked out more profitable than slaughter was. The Roman republican leaders, the patricians, acquired land by creating a legal framework that entrenched their position and then voted themselves an emperor, and continued to exploit enslaved groups as the motor of the Roman economy.
But I agree the fall of Rome augurs the fall of the Trumpian empire. I hope I live long enough to see it.
Allan:
What’s especially interesting about that clip is that Bessent was testifying before Congress, which means he was under oath. He couldn’t lie and say that other countries pay the tariffs, as Trump claims, but he knew that answering truthfully would piss Trump off. Being contradicted by his underlings is not something that Trump takes lightly.
The best that Bessent could come up with, under pressure, was to stammer about how “it’s complicated”.
In fairness, it is more complicated than Pocan was letting on. Importers don’t necessarily pass the full cost of the tariffs on to their customers, in which case they are shouldering some of the burden themselves. The real point, though, is that whether the tariffs are paid by importers, by consumers, by intermediaries, or a combination of all of those, they are not being paid by foreign countries. Americans are footing the bill. China hasn’t paid a dime of the ridiculous 145% tariffs that Trump has imposed on Chinese imports.
Bessent knows that, but he didn’t want to admit it.
Historically, it’s even more complicated than that, because exporting companies in other nations generally reduce their prices to partially offset the tariffs (and are subsidized by their governments for doing so). US farmers were subsidized to cover food tariffs, for example. So the tariffs impose on the exporting companies and governments as well as US importers, retailers, distributors, and consumers. Nobody benefits, everyone suffers.
Flint:
Agreed. Everyone is affected. If the exporting countries weren’t affected, they’d have no reason to object to the tariffs and no reason to retaliate. But they are affected because tariffs cause a drop in US demand and thus suppress those countries’ exports.
While everyone is affected by the tariffs, I think Pocan was asking about who pays them, which is a different question. If you follow the flow of tariff dollars from consumers through intermediaries to importers to the government, they all come from the American side. Foreign countries don’t contribute a dime to that flow, although they are affected in other ways, as you point out.
Pocan was trying to get Bessent to admit that, and Bessent was caught flat-footed. It was painful to watch. I’m surprised Bessent didn’t anticipate that question and didn’t have a prepared response.
Trump has been saying all along that the tariffs are paid by other countries. During the campaign, Trump said:
And:
And notoriously:
I wonder if behind the scenes, Bessent has tried to educate Trump on the fundamentals of tariffs, or whether he’s too scared to try.
And that makes it okay?
“‘Twas ever thus” is not, in fact, a justification.
You skipped the opening couplet of that verse:
Tom is attacking the blasé attitude politicians have towards cheap imported labor.
The US has bizarrely ordered companies to drop ‘DEI’ if they want to do business. Now, it has ordered the Swedish government to do so.
But the US is also big on freedom and free speech. Of course it is.
The anger over 'woke' is just weird. Our own proto-fascists have banned Pride flags from the buildings of councils they control. Next up: homosexuality itself.
Allan Miller,
Ban trans people from public toilets? Save money and solve non-existent problem in one fell swoop. Go Norfolk!
Trans people pissing in the streets. That’ll show ’em! They seem more bothered by hypothetical trans people than any real one. The few I know don’t strike me as interested in female toilets for predatory reasons. Meantime, ‘they’ want bearded trans men let in, presumably, who might be expected to be more interested, on balance. Or is it only 1-way?
No idea why people get so worked up about ‘woke’. I mean, even I wince a little at the overly self-conscious casting in adverts. But bothered? Angry? Want it banned? Nah.
Are you willing to entertain the possibility that some problems in life are not solved by belonging to the correct tribe and saluting the trendy talking points of the day?
There are two flows. When foreign nation X is subsidizing their exporters, that subsidy is paid by the taxpayers of nation X. So we have the flow you describe, and none of that is paid by the foreign country. And there is the subsidy flow within that foreign country, paid for by the taxpayers of that country. Not to even mention retaliatory tariffs, and who pays them. I mentioned the farm subsidies, paid for by Americans, due to food tariffs erected by other nations in retaliation.
So Pocan is asking who pays the American flow, and of course Bessant can’t answer honestly. But I would say that the most honest answer is that tariffs deliberately introduce inefficiencies into trade, to everyone’s detriment.
Flint:
Agreed — even third-party countries are affected by a bilateral trade war.
Reporter:
Trump:
I’m going to stop buying groceries. Think of all the money I’ll save as I slowly starve to death. There’s nothing worse than paying money to someone and getting what you paid for. Right, Donald?
Hey, Trump voters — you thought it was a good idea to put this guy in the Oval Office?
Now now, you’re just going with the herd with your crazy TDS…
Howard Lutnick knows exactly what it takes to get ahead in the Trump administration. He lays it on thick:
TDS on full display: Trump Deification Syndrome. Careful not to read it as ‘defecation’ on the autocue.
Tim Miller of The Bulwark has begun referring to Lutnick as “Nutlick”, an apt characterization in light of today’s servile display.
Trump, on Truth Social:
Yes, because we all know how much people on the left hate the idea of taxing the rich. WTF?
Also, gotta love the sentiment: “Poor people, we’d love to help you, but we probably shouldn’t because the Democrats might say something mean to us.”
A firm, decisive stand.
Go ahead, Republicans. If you do it, Americans will have your backs. From the Pew Research Center:
Reporter, on Wednesday:
Trump:
Trump, on Friday:
Pivoting back slightly to the original motivation of the site: Trump is gutting science and filling high-level posts in science and medicine with painfully underqualified contrarians. RFK wants unethical, unrecruitable retrospective vaccine trials against saline placebo. He want to investigate a conspiracy theory: chemtrails. Appoints a vaccines-cause-autism crank to announce whether vaccines cause autism (we wait with bated breath to see what his considered, objective opinion will be). Nominates a barely-qualified wellness influencer to Surgeon General.
How long before the teaching of Intelligent Design alongside evolution is mandated?
Allan Miller,
Hi Allan
What do you know about Casey Means? I was given her book by my wife and what she is advocating about ultra processed foods seems reasonable. I have changed my diet especially reducing alcohol consumption and the results of my last physical were quite good.
Casey and Calley Means seem to be poster children for Trumpery
Encouraging good diet and reducing alcohol are perfectly OK. But in my experience there is a lot of pseudoscience as well, and a strong tendency for people on the nutritional side to be antivax, anti ‘mainstream’. The mainstream does not get away scot free either – there are real problems with pharmaceutical companies too.
Some people go so far as to see diet as the only factor in health. I just went many, many rounds with one such who denied the very existence of viruses, and germ theory in toto. That’s not Means’s fault, but I approach these people with great suspicion.
They are selling a lifestyle and investing in the production of stuff they promote and sell. Making money is the primary objective.
Allan Miller,
She seems to have a pretty good feel for cellular metabolism and how proper diet and exercise can help. I agree on Pharma especially their connection to the NIH. A good preventative strategy is what has been missing and that’s what she is advocating.
Trump has been on this weird “not my responsibility” jag lately. He picked Means “because Bobby thought she was fantastic”. Regarding the China tariff reductions, he said “Up to Scott B.” The stock market plunges, and he says “This is Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s”. Asked whether he’d be sending migrants to Libya, he said “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Homeland Security.” Bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back? “I’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I’ll leave that to the attorney general of the United States.” Raise taxes on the rich? “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!” Does everyone have a right to due process? “I don’t know. I’m not — I’m not a lawyer.” Does he need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as President? “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying again, I have brilliant lawyers working for me, and they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court said.”
The guy who took a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution. If you need a “brilliant lawyer” to tell you that you need to uphold the Constitution, then you are unfit to be President. That cop-out is not only stupid, it’s chilling.
There is always a grain of truth in what these people say. But they frequently lean into nonsense. My wife has no end of nutritional books; I can’t be bothered with it. I am in very good health despite this disinterest (we share the cooking).
If these people managed to stop Pharma advertising on TV, that would be a plus. But they would also need to strengthen protections against unscientific claims by providers of supplements. If they scare people off vaccines and increase the incidence of measles, polio and TB as a consequence, that would not be a good outcome.
keiths,
Talking of chilling, I see they are ‘looking into’ the suspension of Habeas Corpus, believing that the allowance in time of invasion applies now. And the ‘ICE agents’ terrorising the streets could be anybody; they won’t show ID or their faces, meaning any Proud Boy could claim to be them and abduct.
I don’t know why Trump fans are not experiencing even the slightest concern about this slide into outright fascism.
Oh, and I have to comment on Vance’s greasy little speech about how ‘everyone is welcome to the World Cup, but when the time comes, you have to go home or you’ll have to talk to Secretary Noem”.
“Please come to my birthday party. But when the time comes, you’ll have to go home or you’ll answer to my wife, and you know what a hardass she is.
Anyway, let’s par-tay!
RSVP”
Or how about
“The King would be delighted if you would honour us with a State Visit. But don’t stay too long, eh?”
Why would there be concern when things are going according to plan?
“If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I am the dictator.” — George W. Bush.
It deserves to be understood that, for Republicans, Trump is not just the president, but God-King and Second Coming of Christ. This is literally so, not metaphorically, and not just for some Republicans, but for all of them. Before you talk to any Trump-voter or Trump-defender about anything else, sort out how religiously crazy they are. Usually they are totally crazy and cannot be reasoned with. They will have to prove that they can be reasoned with before any meaningful discussion can be attempted.
Trump himself looks crazy, but Trump knows he is just a conman who has bullshitted his way to the presidency, and sometimes it shows that he is baffled about being worshipped the way he is. Trump’s worshippers who take him for the real deal are crazier than Trump himself.
Edit: In politological terms, there is the theory of unitary executive to justify all this. This theory entails that when the American founding fathers were framing the constitution trying to steer clear from a king, they drafted the position of a monarch with more absolute powers both secular and spiritual than the pope. The theory is exactly this crazy and it has been applied for more than three months now.
Allan:
My hope is that the courts will quash that. The administration has made the same ‘invasion’ argument in support of their deportations, but multiple district courts have ruled against them. The Trumpers cite the Alien Enemies Act as justification for the deportations, but the text makes it absolutely clear that the Act does not apply, and the courts are affirming that.
Here’s the relevant text from the Act:
Declared war? Nope. Invasion by a foreign nation or government? Nope. By any rational standard, they don’t have a legal leg to stand on, and I would hope that even the conservative SCOTUS justices can see that.
The Supreme Court did rule that the Trump administration could continue its deportations, but that was on jurisdictional grounds and not on the merits. They’ll get a chance to rule on the merits if the administration appeals the lower court decisions.
Bill, they are deliberately breaking the law and violating the Constitution. You should be ashamed of yourself for supporting them.
keiths,
The chilling part is that they should even think to try. The ‘Disappeared’ in some South American countries attest to the evils of a rogue regime. And this looks, from the outside, like a rogue regime. That it should happen, with the assent of a significant % of voters, enforcement officers and legislators, in a country that prides itself on fairness and the rule of law, is frankly gobsmacking.
Kristi Noem dodging questions about the Fifth Amendment right to due process for citizens and non-citizens alike.
We outside USA do not have the same idea of fairness and rule of law as those inside USA. For example, it was perfectly legal of Kyle Rittenhouse to arm himself with *not* his own gun while being underaged, seek confrontation with black people on the streets and shoot them to death. There was plenty of scrutiny of this incident to determine that this is exactly how rule of law works in USA. In USA “walking while black” is a crime that legally justifies immediate vigilante reaction. This was not fixed by the civil liberties movement in the 1960s. It is still here in the 21st century and it is regaining ground.
From Forbes:
ALMOST UNWATCHABLE: Hearing Goes Silent After Goldman Grills GOP About Deporting Kids With Cancer
Goldman:
None of the Republicans raised their hands. All of the Democrats did.
Erik,
Like free speech, the commitment to fairness and law is honoured more in the breach than the observance. They fetishise the Constitution and founding principles while going to great pains to avoid them.
Are you willing to entertain the possibility that a position is not devalued by being also held by others?
Allan Miller,
There are some supplements that are important like Vitamin D for instance. I agree the real issue is having solid molecular and epidemiological data behind them. Her stance on Vitamin D showed me she had done her homework.
Vitamin D is a good example of faddism. Absent clinical deficiency, in light-skinned people south of about 55° it is often unnecessary, unless they spend their entire lives indoors. It can lead to calcification in excess. People don’t need to buy someone’s book, then buy their supplements (made by Pharma!). They just need to get their fat asses outside!
The ‘wellness’ industry is 5x as big as the much-more-regulated pharmaceutical industry (with many of the same players).
So you needed a MAGA quack to tell you that avoiding processed foods and drinking moderately was healthy? I guess prior to this you thought that stuff was some leftist soy-boy fad, right? You’re such an NPC, Bill.
Oh and “cellular metabolism”?
Indeed. I could bore anyone with the Krebs cycle (may need to consult lecture notes or a textbook) but would not presume to say how health could be improved, beyond a few simple (and free) principles.
eg People go on about antioxidants, even quite respectable ones, but I’m not seeing how a gobful of blueberries mops up free radicals. Eat blueberries. They’re tasty.
My wife loves this stuff…
It is a bone of contention here, too. I say Marmite and sunshine is all I need.
Allan Miller,
Most the population is vitamin d deficient due to wearing clothes and living north or south of the equator area. Supplements can easily compensate and they are not from big Pharma. The cost of vitamin D supplements is very low and they can keep most the population away from serious health problems like many forms of cancer. In the paper below you will see the blood range is 40 to 60 ng/ml which is very hard to get with the Sun alone especially where you live.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2009.03.021
What evidence supports this claim? I’m guessing there is none.
Alan Fox,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110222140546.htm
About 10% of the population has adequate levels.
I live at 54.3°N – about level with Churchill, Canada, the polar bear capital. I wear clothes, you’ll be relieved to hear. I take no supplements, and am absolutely fine.
Pfizer and Bayer both make Vitamin D. Supplements are great business for Pharma, if they can persuade people to take them for life it beats a short course prescription.