America: Phoenix Rising From the Ashes

From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here, not in the least because our own energy supplies and manufacturing are coming back, on top of all this:

The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble.

Yet America retains a pack of trump cards, and not just in sixteen of the world’s top twenty universities.

It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Europe's EMU soap opera has shown why it matters that America is a genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memory over two centuries, with institutions that ultimately work and a real central bank able to back-stop the system.

The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.

Tariffs on Imports at 100 Percent Wouldn't Be Enough to Cover Federal Spending

Here are the import numbers (rounded) for the last three years for all goods and services, according to the latest revision from the US Census Bureau, here:

2008 = $2.5 trillion

2009 = $2.0 trillion

2010 = $2.3 trillion.

Federal revenues in 2008 equaled $2.5 trillion, coming mostly from income and social insurance taxes, as well as a more modest contribution from corporate and excise taxes.

To completely replace that income from tariffs would imply a 100 percent tariff, which is unimaginable.

Presumably at least some of our trade with the world is reciprocally fair, excluding it from such a punishing rate.

At some point along the tariff scale as you rise toward that extreme level, otherwise off-setting import revenues will fall as retaliatory tariffs are imposed by the global marketplace.

A 25 percent tariff on Chinese imports, as The Donald recommends, in 2010 could have generated only in our dreams something around $91 billion in revenues.

At a minimum, a vigorous reliance on tariffs for federal revenues today implies a much reduced size of the federal state.

It Ain't Free Trade:Peter Navarro Rips China's Infractions of WTO Rules

Here:

The most potent of China's "weapons of job destruction" are an elaborate web of export subsidies; the blatant piracy of America's technologies and trade secrets; the counterfeiting of valuable brand names like Nike and Chevy; a cleverly manipulated and grossly undervalued currency; and the forced transfer of the technology of any American company wishing to operate on Chinese soil or sell into the Chinese market.

Each of these unfair trade practices is expressly prohibited both by World Trade Organization rules as well as rules established by the U.S. government, e.g., the Treasury Department has sanctions against currency manipulation (which, alas, the Obama administration refuses to use against China despite campaign promises to do so).

The only "candidate" who understood this was Trump. Navarro doesn't point to a replacement, but knows we need one.

I Can Even Go Mohawk Just By Thinking About It