March 6, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
06:50
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Somebody wrote, so Trump is starting a 25% tariff on products from Canada. | |
| Remember, Canada currently imposes tariffs of up to 270% on products from the US. Funny how the media does not cover that. | |
| In the 1800s, writes James Al-Tucker, he wrote, in the 1800s, 97.5% of all US revenue came from tariffs. | |
| This is government revenue. | |
| Almost 100% of revenue came from tariffs. | |
| In the chart of inflation from 1800 until now, inflation was about zero for almost the entire 1800s. | |
| So they're going to say, oh my God, well, the tariffs are going to cause inflation. | |
| Well, maybe in a sort of pure free market, maybe. | |
| Maybe it would have an effect. | |
| I guess it wouldn't be a pure free market if it was tariffs. | |
| But the problem is, of course, if you're engaged in trade with China and China massively subsidize its industries and China, like, China used... | |
| In a recent three-year period, China used more concrete than America used in the entire 20th century, in a three-year period. | |
| Like, it's insane, right? | |
| So, if a foreign country is massively subsidizing an industry, that industry is going to destroy your local industry. | |
| Now, that's one thing if it's a relative free market. | |
| However, of course, if the government is now financially responsible for all the unemployed people, got unemployed insurance, they got a welfare, things like that, then... | |
| Subsidizing your own industry is now an act of aggression, if not downright economic warfare, against the other country's treasury. | |
| because you knock out their industries by subsidizing your own, and then the government gets hit with all the costs of the unemployed people. | |
| So, yeah, inflation was almost zero for almost the entire 1800s, even though Almost 100% of all U.S. government revenue came from tariffs. | |
| Just facts, right? | |
| So, Clint Russell writes, important stats to evaluate the trade war. | |
| Sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but it's kind of funny, right? | |
| So, Canada generates one-fifth of its GDP by selling into the U.S. Mexico generates more than a third of its GDP by selling into the U.S. The U.S. generates just one-fiftieth, two percent of its GDP by selling into both. | |
| Trade wars hurt everyone, but Trump has the cards and he knows it. | |
| This will increase consumer prices, no doubt, but it has the potential to drive both Mexico and Canada into a depression, which is why they're panicking. | |
| Trump intends to use this to negotiate border security and to bolster domestic industry. | |
| Will it work? | |
| To be determined. | |
| But don't let people lie about who has the leverage here. | |
| The U.S. economy is the golden goose and the whole world knows it. | |
| Yeah, I said this week, months ago, that access to the U.S. market is the biggest value in the world. | |
| So, yeah. | |
| 20% of Canada's GDP selling into the US, 33% Mexico selling into the US, US 2% selling into both. | |
| So it's not even close. | |
| And this is why I think it's been really frustrating for Trump, knowing that they've got all this leverage and people aren't doing it. | |
| They just aren't leveraging the leverage, aren't deploying the leverage, if you have leverage. | |
| Somebody wrote to Mike Madrid wrote, this is a very big tweet from a couple of days ago, I can't think of a better military investment than spending $175 billion to eliminate half of Russia's military capacity without a drop of U.S. blood. | |
| Oh, these hawks. | |
| These hawks. | |
| This to me is a fundamental test of empathy or understanding and processing the foundational existence of other human beings. | |
| I mean, these are real people who are being. | |
| Slaughtered on this barely moving front. | |
| It's a real human being. | |
| And if it's like, well, I can't think of a better military investment, right? | |
| Spending $175 billion to eliminate half of Russia's military capacity without a drop of U.S. blood. | |
| Oh, man. | |
| I mean, and this is also, I mean, this is another IQ test for me is, okay, let's say that half of Russia's military capacity Has been eliminated. | |
| Let's just say that. | |
| I don't think that's true, but let's just say that. | |
| Okay. | |
| So what will they do? | |
| Well, they'll go to robots. | |
| They'll go to drones. | |
| They've got a lot of great engineers in Russia. | |
| So if you eliminate half of Russia's current military capacity, they'll come back with a different military capacity that may, in fact, and probably will be better. | |
| So just this idea that you change a variable and they don't get to change a variable. | |
| Right? | |
| This is, again, to me, this is like selfishness, narcissism, sociopathy. | |
| Like, well, only I am in control of these variables. | |
| And I can change the variables, right? | |
| Spend $175 billion to eliminate half of Russia's military capacity. | |
| I can change a variable, but Russia can't change a variable. | |
| Russia can't adapt. | |
| Russia can't have its own response. | |
| That, to me, is just complete narcissism. | |
| Like, hey, so if I do this, What are other people going to do? | |
| Right? | |
| If I do this, how are other people going to react? | |
| This is basic sort of public choice theory, right? | |
| Which is okay. | |
| So let's say, well, there's a small number of poor people. | |
| We'll just give them a bunch of money and then we won't have any poor people. | |
| And it's like, okay, but how are the behavior of poor people going to change if money gets handed out? | |
| Like candy. | |
| So even if you could, like, eliminate half of Russia's military capacity, they will simply adapt. | |
| to be kind of different. | |
| Right. | |
| This is, Tyler says, Daryl Cooper made a great point on that. | |
| Russia is now the only battle-tested power in a peer-to-peer war. | |
| They can replace soldiers and equipment, and now they have modern warfare experience. | |
| Well, yeah, so they've got to adapt their strategies to real-world conditions, and that's going to be wild. | |
| I mean, it's sort of like, well... | |
| Because we have nuclear weapons, that means there will no longer be any war or social conflicts, but that's not how it works. | |
| War and social conflicts switches to fourth and fifth generation warfare, which is about degrading institutions and demoralizing the general population and then all of the other things that are going on as a result of that. | |
| Or the depopulation thing. | |
| So if you can't fight people with nuclear weapons, you simply infiltrate their culture and convince the women to forego having children. | |
| And you take them out that way. | |
| So, it's like, oh, nuclear weapons means the end of war. | |
| It's like, no, no, no. | |
| The end of war just means it shifts to a different thing. |
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