When Conservative Theory Collides With
Unconservative Reality
Townhall,
by
Kurt Schlichter
Original Article
Posted By: Mercedes44,
5/15/2025 5:16:10 AM
It’s always amusing when someone who has not been an active conservative and free marketer for over 40 years and did not run his own small business for nearly 30 years, as I have, gets accused of being a socialist because he refuses to pretend that the world is not as it is. I like free enterprise. It’s in my blood – everyone in my nuclear family had his/her own business. And while I am not sure that Donald Trump‘s latest heresies to the Cult of Milton Friedman (and I’m definitely a Friedman believer) will ultimately prove efficacious, I know the current system certainly isn’t doing the job for us.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 5/15/2025 6:45:06 AM (No. 1950094)
FTA: "There are plenty of people out there predicting/hoping that we’re going to have an economic convulsion that they can pin on Trump – remember, a lot of the uproar is pure politics from people who hate him. But the fact is that the free marketers who are mad at Trump’s refusal to pretend the old tariff regime was a free-market regime have not seen their dire predictions come true. Nor have they offered any alternative to the old regime that has caused us so much non-economic damage. Their only suggestion is to keep unilaterally free marketing even harder in the face of foreigners who aren’t free marketing at all."
Kurt covers many topics in this piece, but the unifying factor is the "old regime's" refusal to take President Trump seriously and then being surprised when he wins. PDJT is operating at a level that is light-years ahead of the "old regime". They are being out-played and out-maneuvered on every issue. All their arguments and hysteria turn to dust in their hands, yet they cannot break their old patterns. I predict that historians will write more books about Trump than they have about Lincoln.
God bless President Trump and keep him safe. MAGA.
59 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
TCloud 5/15/2025 7:34:32 AM (No. 1950118)
Simply put: MAGA Supercedes Fubar!
22 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
bpl40 5/15/2025 8:05:50 AM (No. 1950137)
Tariff free entry into the American markets will work long term ONLY if it comes from a tariff free country. The few years after WW II our allies needed help to quickly rebuild their economies in face of a Communist threat. That help was extended in form of opening the US market to them on advantageous terms. There is no way to justify it for say Canada (who deliberately ruined their economy with foolish liberal policies) or for West European nations or Japan, eighty years after the crisis has passed or for a rapidly industrializing China or India. This is common sense. Which only PDT seems to possess around here. I am sure Prof. Friedman would have agreed.
19 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
jimincalif 5/15/2025 8:51:09 AM (No. 1950165)
My undergrad degree is in economics, so I understand the theory, which demonstrates that overall a country is better off - in overall wealth- with zero tariffs, even when trading with other countries with tariffs. But the theory and the graphs don’t consider other factors such as national security, the hollowing out of the middle class, the theft of intellectual property, etc.
14 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 5/15/2025 8:51:39 AM (No. 1950167)
An alternate title for this article could be "When conservative Theory Collides with Human Nature". Face it, people want something for nothing. Doesn't matter if they are rich or poor. Gender, race, etc. don't matter either. We have a government that's happy to give away freebies in any form. Free money, free healthcare, you name it. Reality is nothing is free.
15 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
stablemoney 5/15/2025 9:09:28 AM (No. 1950176)
The US has been subsidizing the national healthcare systems of Canada, EU, and Great Britain, as those governments set the prices for what they will pay for prescription drugs, which are below US pricing. Medicare prices are also set, with the working population subsidizing that system. Trump's initiative appears to be directed at stopping the US from subsidizing nationalized healthcare in socialized countries. The US is already subsidizing their defense.
16 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Zigrid 5/15/2025 10:07:22 AM (No. 1950237)
Hello fellow MAGA folks...I'm continually amazed at the stupidity of the democrats on television....even newmax has a few election denyers on the conservative programs....just to make it fair...after all...WE conservatives play fair....I know who they are...so if one pops up on the screen...I plug them out and watch a movie...or fold some laundry...I've even taken to cooking a lot from scratch...thank you Bobby...and I haven't had "one" piece of M&M candy because of the dye....MAHA....
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 5/15/2025 10:29:09 AM (No. 1950257)
FTA:
"in so many areas, we don’t have a free market. The problem is that many of our co-conservatives demand that we pretend we do. They wish to govern based on that fantasy."
Yes, exactly. There are currently NO actual free markets. Our markets are ENDLESSLY distorted by EPA, OSHA and a million other safety, "fairness (BS mostly), and environmental regulations which distort the hell out of these supposedly "free markets" which ARE NOT FREE.
So insisting on using nice, pat economic theory of free markets on a markets which are easily shown to NOT be free markets gets you nutball, counterproductive results.
Looking at the results......we need to change things. THAT'S what Trump is doing. Living in the REAL world and dealing with the world as it is, not some theoretical world which DOES NOT EXIST.
Schlichter is 100% right on this.....and I, too, am a big fan of Milton Friedman. But his 'free markets' cannot be actually found anywhere on the planet. So, some of his excellent theories have to be modified in the face of inconvenient reality.
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
crashnburn 5/15/2025 11:19:52 AM (No. 1950283)
Well said everyone. This must be a must read.
If we can't have free trade, it must be fair trade - equal reciprocal tariffs. All those who oppose fair trade can go pound sand!
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
crashnburn 5/15/2025 11:22:00 AM (No. 1950286)
Oh, sorry. It already is. Never Mind!
1 person likes this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
franco 5/15/2025 6:38:42 PM (No. 1950500)
Said it before, but I'll say it again: Reciprocity works. It was proven by the Cold War era Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), also known as West Germany before unification with the former East Germany in 1990 and then having its policies watered down by EU in the following years. That FRG had two unbreakable economic principles: Reciprocal trade and a rock-hard currency. And after WWII, West Germans had the highest living standards in Europe, and they didn't sacrifice any of their own to get that. Neither should we. One of the most odious tenets of the increasingly discredited globalism is the notion that "hollowing out" of entire sectors of industrialized nations is somehow a societal good. The economic devastation we've seen in the rust belt -- followed shortly afterward by a breakdown in societal cohesion -- suggests otherwise.
0 people like this.
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