Saturday, March 03, 2018

What Wilbur Ross SHOULD Have Done

The Never-Trumpesque Beltway Confidential bunch is in mid-dudgeon over the tariffs.  Not as bad as Levin, who no longer needs a microphone to be heard in Peoria.  But dudgeon nonetheless.

They are critical of Wilbur Ross' demonstration-explanation of the costs resulting from the tariff.  At the end of this post, I'll have a question for Mr. Levin and Mr. Adams, by the way. 

...Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on CNBC Friday to dismiss criticisms that the president’s trade war would hurt middle- and working-class consumers.

“This is a can of Campbell’s Soup. In the can of Campbell’s Soup there’s about 2.6 cents, 2.6 pennies worth of steel, so if that goes up by 25 percent, that’s about six-tenths of one cent on the price of Campbell’s Soup,” he said Friday during an interview on CNBC. “Who in the world is going to be too bothered by six-tenths of one cent?”

If you can believe it, Ross actually showed up for his television interview with several props, including a Coca-Cola, a Budweiser tallboy and, yes, a can of Campbell’s soup.

He added, “There’s about one ton of steel in a car. The price of a ton of steel is $700 or so, so 25 percent on that would be one half of one percent increase on the typical $35,000 car. So it’s no big deal."...

The BC writer goes on to wring her (his???) hands over this enormous challenge to those who are living paycheck-to-paycheck.  (Yes, that sounds a lot like Pelosi, doesn't it??)

But I will criticize Mr. Ross' presentation, too.  Here's what he SHOULD have done.

He should have brought a steelworker and that steelworker's family onto the set and then told the steelworker (and the children) that they were going onto unemployment comp, and perhaps onto welfare.  He could then remove the children's toys, one by one, and remove (PARTS OF) their clothing, and show them their new home in a cold-water walkup flat.

Hell.  If you're going to go Pelosi, go all the way, Wilbur.

Repeat:  I'll pay six-tenths of one cent per can of soup to keep my neighbor employed, and I'll pay $280.00 per car for the same purpose.

That's something else Mr. Ross should have done:  look right at the camera and ask the audience  "Mark Levin and the Free Market Libertarians will NOT pay those prices to keep their neighbor employed.  Will you?"

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