The Old Tariff Guy

 

by Bob Randall

(Editor's Note:  The following is the text of an email that I received a few days ago from my good friend, Ranger Bob.  I found it to be so interesting and informative that I asked him if he would share it in this blog.  It's a history lesson about what happened the last time a Republican Congress and a Republican President tried to fix the economy with hundreds of import tariffs - and well worth a read.  Thanks, Ranger Bob, for sharing your insights with us. - Pa Rock)

Back about 1976 or 77, I was assigned to "inspect" an old home that was on the National Register of Historic Places.  The National Park Service website describes the registry as "the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation."  That web site further describes the registry as a "part of the public effort to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America's historic and archeological resources."  That's a mouthful!  

The National Park Service maintains that registry (they don't maintain the property unless they own it), and the pride of being on that list is part of the encouragement for maintaining the properties in their historic state.  Every so often someone from the NPS inspects those properties just to verify that they haven't been modernized beyond their historic value.  I was a ranger at the nearest NPS asset at the time, the Timpanogos Cave National Monument.  I was guided through the home by Mrs. Smoot who was, I think, the granddaughter-in-law of the original owner himself.  It was indeed worthy of its place as a historic structure.

Now, that old house was built in 1892 in Provo, Utah, for the Senator and Mormon apostle Reed O. Smoot.  It was and still is a marvelous old home that you could call a museum piece.  It is still owned, maintained, and lived in by Reed's heirs.  (Sorry to go on so about the house, but the honor of getting to "officially inspect" such a grand old house is something I'll never forget.)

According to Wikipedia, "Senator Smoot is primarily remembered as the co-sponsor of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which increased almost 900 American import duties.  Criticized at the time as having 'intensified nationalism all over the world' by Thomas Lamont of J.P. Morgan & Co., Smoot-Hawley is widely regarded as one of the catalysts for the worsening Great Depression."  That same Wikipedia entry further states that "(President Herbert C.) Hoover signed the bill against the advice of many senior economists, yielding to pressure from his party and business leaders.  Intended to bolster domestic employment and manufacturing, the tariffs instead deepened the Depression because the U.S.'s trading partners retaliated with tariffs of their own, leading to US exports and global trade plummeting.  Economists and historians widely regard the act as a policy misstep, and it remains a cautionary example of protectionist policy in modern economic debates."

Let me refer back to the title of this post, "The Old Tariff Guy."   The value of that and all my palaver is to point out that Trump is now our New Tariff Guy.  Of course, he takes his prompts from Peter Navarro who takes his prompts from an economics expert, Ron Vara.  Vara says that tariffs are good.  So take that all of you naysayers.  Trump has an expert on his side.  I have one on my side, too. Arnold Blab.  That's my name with the letters jumbled.  Ron Vara is an anagram of Peter Navarro's last name.  I use my alter ego name as a dumb joke.  Peter uses his to bolster his dumb ideas from a nonexistent "expert."  Nevertheless, I take my cues from Arnold - and Pete takes his from Ron - and Trump takes his from Pete.  

Nothing to see here, folks.  We're in good hands with our New Tariff Guy.