You Can Quote Me, Part 4
My aphorisms and observations from April 2025
I write aphorisms. Each month, I gather and publish the new ones, along with longer comments I've posted online. The aphorisms will eventually become a book titled You Can Quote Me.
WARNING: I'm a libertarian. Some of what I write below may offend the Left, the Right, or both. But as Walt Whitman asked, "Who are you who only wants to be told what you've heard before?"
EXTRA WARNING: If you're an easily triggered Trump supporter, please know that I spent the first three months of his new term mostly praising his policies. I suffer from neither form of TDS. I both praise and criticise as warranted.
I criticise the tariffs quite a bit below. If you want to argue that they are really a negotiating tactic aimed at increasing free trade, I have two responses. 1) I hope so. 2) I liked it better when he was threatening tariffs to win quick concessions.
And now, on with the show...
*****
I used to have Walter Mitty fantasies about being a filibuster mercenary. I wanted my tombstone to read, "Conqueror of Baja." The thought of another thousand miles of bumper-to-bumper Southern California freeways with fast food joints clustered around the on-and-off ramps amused the hell out of me.
*****
Our biggest problem may be the human propensity to distort language to satisfy personal biases.
*****
Writing is a visual medium. Format your prose for easy reading.
*****
April 5: Trump promises to not cut entitlements. So no surplus is possible no matter how much DOGE cuts.
Trump is deporting young working-age people, so the demographic debt crisis and the labor shortage will both get worse.
The revenue from tariff increases are completely unpredictable. It would take years to know enough to budget based on them. Tariffs will NOT replace income taxes.
Trump is committing suicide, both for his administration and us.
Among other things, the Republicans will lose the midterms. A severe depression also seems likely. Businesses with slim margins will be wiped out by the tariffs or by the loss of deported labor in a country that already has a labor shortage.
I cannot imagine a pair of policies - tariffs and deportations - more likely to cause economic catastrophe. Except that renewed money creation will probably flow out of these policies. So that will make three poison pills. Bad times are coming.
*****
I see many people discounting the idea that the trade deficit equals a capital surplus. They dismiss this because the returning capital goes to fund debt. Well, let's examine that a bit.
The trade deficit is one trillion. The annual federal budget deficit is two trillion. So, at most, the capital surplus from the trade deficit covers only half the federal deficit. But even that is vital.
Are people saying that they would rather have that trillion as trade rather than capital to buy federal debt? Really? If you do that, where will the second trillion come from to cover the federal deficit? It will have to come from some other source, which gains you nothing because money is fungible. OR...
You simply stop paying huge chunks of Medicare and eventually Social Security too, because you can't borrow enough money to maintain current benefits.
Is that really what people want?
*****
Tariff apologists say exporters will lower their prices. Most companies have slim margins. I predict more bankruptcies than compensatory price reductions.
*****
Do you create a personal trade deficit when you buy groceries, or do you get something you value more than the money?
*****
The trade deficit concept only counts the money going out, not the goods and services coming in.
*****
Thomas Sowell and Paul Krugman agree about Trump's tariffs.Yikes!
*****
When we import we value the goods and services more than the money, and when we export we value the money more than the goods and services. You would never say you were in deficit because you made a deal that satisfied you. The whole concept of a trade deficit is nonsensical. But it's a great tool for con artists and demagogues.
*****
People who say we can't have mass immigration in a welfare state have things backward. Immigration props up Social Security and Medicare.
*****
It has become increasingly obvious to me that the name Shakespeare really was a pen name for the Earl of Oxford. Even more amazing is the realization that he had other pen names before that, and the total of what he wrote is vastly larger than we had realized. I find this huge subject invigorating and endlessly fascinating.
*****
I think this is a good summary of the situation...
Immigration "laws" are arbitrary. You could make "illegal" immigrants legal by changing the law. Doing so would abide by the Constitution (for a change).
The evidence is clear that illegal immigrants are net taxpayers, not net tax consumers. They also commit fewer crimes than natives.
You could outlaw tax-funded benefits for non-citizens and require IDs for voting. Both things would be better than outlawing freedom of movement and association.
We have a demographic debt crisis and a labor shortage. Deporting people makes both things worse. Letting more people in could end the debt crisis and forestall cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
My immigration proposals are better than Trumps.
*****
I have a solution to the danger that faces us. Trump should watch this video and then go to the Oval Office to sign an Executive Order deporting himself to Antarctica.
*****
I'm communing with various AIs to understand where the Trump tariffs rank in the history of U.S. tax increases. It looks like they may be near the top. More when I understand the data better.
*****
I love the irony that tax-cut-loving Republicans may end up being responsible for the most painful tax increase in history.
*****
If reading body language was really possible resting bitch face wouldn't be a thing.
*****
Money is a tool of exchange. Money is not wealth. When we buy exports the sellers get the tool and we get the wealth.
*****
Trump may cure the labor shortage by killing the demand for labor, and the economy with it.
*****
Business margins are slim. The tariffs are larger than those margins. Expect bankruptcies.
*****
I much preferred praising Trump's actions to criticizing them. Our voters and leaders just can't seem to get things right.
*****
If I ran for president, it would be on a platform to make adulting easier.
*****
I'm not worried about the stock market. I'm worried about cost increases on key inputs to marginal businesses. Bankruptcies!
*****
April 8: After a 25-year gap, it appears I will work for the national Libertarian Party again. My role will be membership recruitment and fundraising.
My goal is to locate and mobilize the 30-60 million people who, according to many studies, either self-identify as libertarian or have mostly libertarian positions on the issues. Doing this would largely equalize libertarians with the Left and the Right.
The last time I worked for the LP, performing this same function, we had record levels of membership and fundraising. I think we can do that again, but at a much higher level.
*****
This one isn't mine. It's from a dude named Tarnell Brown. But it's so good and so correct, I want more people to see it...
FYI, underwriting global trade with the US as the global reserve currency, and acting as the consumer of last resort, thus spurring foreign investment was "America First."
*****
"He stuck his neck out on a limb didn't he?"
"Yep. And then he went down with the bandwagon."
*****
Buying products from foreign labor that earns less than you do lowers your cost of living. It's a raise you didn't have to earn.
*****
Politicians love to talk about jobs and wages. They use these subjects to manipulate people. What they don't discuss is the cost of living, and this is where - please excuse me but I must use some technical economic language - they fuck us in the ass.
I submit to you that, all things being equal, it's better to receive a lower cost of living than a higher wage. You usually have to work for the latter, while you can get the former almost for free. This happens through productivity gains or by buying products from low-wage foreigners (who are nevertheless earning more than they did before).
The next time you hear someone talk about jobs and wages please - and again, excuse me, I must use precise technical language here - tell the mother fucker to shut up and start talking about how to lower your cost of living.
*****
We send money to China in return for cheap goods that lower our cost of living. The money we give them then comes back to us as loans that fund Social Security and Medicare. That's a good deal. Only increased free trade could improve it.
*****
I hate the Chinese dictatorship, but I don't hate it enough to inflict harm on myself or you.
*****
Folk intuitions about trade are pure crap.
*****
Our need to account for things using abstract dollars confuses us about what wealth really is.
*****
I can no longer pretend that "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner is anything but a work of fiction.
*****
Bessant said a lot of smart things yesterday. He also said something stupid. He asked, "If tariffs are so bad why do so many countries have them?" The answer is, "For the same reason so many countries once practiced virgin sacrifice."
*****
April 9: When Elizabeth Warren is making more economic sense than a Republican president, you know you are in big trouble.
*****
If Trump signs liberalized trade deals with 70 countries but maintains a trade war with China, we're still in big trouble.
*****
Libertarian votes will come from achieving universal visibility.
Universal visibility will come from having vast amounts of money.
Vast amounts of money will come from having vast numbers of supporters.
Vast numbers of supporters can be recruited by first identifying the millions of people who already call themselves libertarians or who have mostly libertarian beliefs.
Most libertarians are still voting defensively between the two old parties because we are invisible.
This returns us to where I started above. Libertarian votes will come from achieving universal visibility.
*****
Some arsonists start fires so they can be the hero who stops the fire. That reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what.
*****
April 9: Trump had the Democrats pinned to the mat. Now he's given them life.
*****
I think we have fewer births because what we experience through our screens is better than going out and meeting people.
NOTE: This has been my theory about the birth dearth problem for a long time. It now turns out that it's also the theory that has the best scientific support.
*****
We should change the public discussion from jobs and wages to the cost of living.
*****
The demographic debt crisis has only one solution - selling green cards to millions of young immigrant workers.
*****
I didn't think the Soviet Union was really a superpower, and I don't think China is either.
Command-and-control dictatorships are weak at bottom, no matter how potent they may appear on the surface. So here's something you should know...
Xi's generals do not want to fight a war over Taiwan, They don't think they could win, despite their supposedly super-powerful navy. Now Xi is faced with potentially having to purge his officers, like Stalin, or accept their insubordination. Watch this video.
*****
I link to three valuable videos in the text below.
I remember the Cold War. I remember all the incorrect things the national security establishment told us about Soviet power. I think the same is true about Chinese power.
It's always good to assume that dictatorial societies don't work well. They may appear powerful on the surface, but they are usually rotten below. I hate the Chinese dictatorship and would like to see it fall, but I think it's far weaker than the handwringers claim. Here are three videos to support my assertion...
This guy has forgotten more about modern China than any of us will ever know, and he doesn't even think China is a superpower. I agree with him.
Chinese leaders have probably lied about their population size.
Finally...China's generals don't want war over Taiwan because they think they would lose
*****
Israel isn't libertarian, but it's vastly closer than Palestine would be. That's why Israel should rule Judea-Samaria-Gaza.
*****
April 12; Comedy is easy; keeping up with the news is hard. Only the reciprocal tariffs have been paused. The baseline increase to 10% for nearly all countries remains in effect. The media has not covered this very well.
*****
I thought the Iranian theocracy would moderate over time. It's been nearly fifty years, and they haven't improved at all.
I thought Hamas would moderate once they had governmental responsibilities, but they are just as bad as ever.
I thought Hamas might surrender as they neared extermination, but they continue to fight, and use their civilians as human shields. The Palestinians remind me of the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail. He lost his arms and legs, but he still wouldn't surrender.
When Sinwar was imprisoned in Israel, the doctors there cured his brain cancer. Rather than show gratitude he promised to come back and murder them. He attempted to keep his promise on October 7th.
On that terrible day, what the Hamas killers did was bad enough, but the worst atrocities were committed by the civilians who followed behind them. Even worse, many of the murderers were people who, for a decade or more, had worked with and pretended to be friends with the Israelis they were now butchering.
Do the Palestinians behave this way because they want to erect a government and society that respects human rights, and they see the Israelis as preventing that? Almost the exact opposite is true. Palestinians elected Hamas, and most of them still support Hamas, though the dissenters have finally tried to protest and have been killed for doing so.
We cannot understand the Palestinian mind until we realize that Hamas is Palestine and Palestine is Hamas. The Palestinians do not want a government that respects human rights. They want a government that violates human rights.
We should take the Palestinians seriously when they say they love death more than the Israelis love life. The Palestinians are a Death Cult. Their so-called culture is the greatest locus of human evil since the Nazis and the communists terrorized the world.
Educate yourself about who the Palestinians really are.
*****
When I explore a new issue I'm amazed by how much I didn't know. Then I become amazed by how much everyone else doesn't know.
*****
I like creating dog names. My most recently assigned name was Hasbro. My current unused list is...
Wiggle
Twidget
Fussbudget
Splotch
Morsel
Pill
I once had a dog I named Scrotum. That may not have been one of my best moments. In somewhat the same vein, I am tempted by the name Ailment.
*****
I keep pondering what I would do if I ran a business with major exposure to Chinese trade. It makes my head hurt.
*****
Dogs can be very smart, which can be very funny. They can also be very stupid, which is also funny. They're kind of like humans that way, only a lot better.
*****
Both sides benefit from trading, so not trading will harm both sides. There has to be a better way to undermine the CCP.
*****
If you like breasts, beauty, brains, and truth, this is your girl.
*****
Someone asserted to me that the Palestinians don't have a home. My response offered information most people don't know. I want to share that information here as a public service.
The Palestinians do have a home. They just don't have the sovereign ability to impose sharia in the area where they live.
Oops. That's not even true. Israel gave that sovereignty to Gaza and the Gazans imposed sharia and kleptocracy, just like the Palestinian Authority did in Judea and Samaria after the Oslo Accords.
Here's something else most people don't know. When Israel took Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Judea-Samaria in 1967, they didn’t impose their own laws on the people who lived in those places. They kept Syrian law in Golan, Jordanian law in Judea-Samaria, and Egyptian law in Gaza. They then added decrees on top of that as needed, but they did not impose their own laws and sovereignty. I wish they had. Things would be much better for the Palestinians had Israel done so.
Oh yeah, Israel offered to build Gaza a port for free, but Gaza turned it down. Israel left Gaza a thriving flower industry but the Palestinians destroyed it. The world gives the Palestinians billions in aid but they turn it into tunnels and missiles they fire at civilians.
I could go on.
There is zero case to be made for Palestinian sovereignty. A Palestinian state would oppress its own people and wage constant war on Israel. No thank you. I prefer to give the Palestinians what the Arab citizens of Israel have - protected rights, due process, and the rule of law. That can only happen if Israel rules from the river to the sea.
*****
We used to abhor manufacturing jobs, but now we fetishize them. The human mind is a terrible thing.
*****
The official global COVID response, Trump's trade war, and Trump's deportations, which will greatly worsen the demographic debt crisis, represent one of the most astounding sequences of self-harm in human history.
*****
Prediction: Tariff supporters will end in the same place as Iraq war and COVID policy supporters. Chagrined.
*****
The Left & the Right, still ignorant, arrogant, and evil after all these years.
*****
I'm somewhat illiterate, but all these words rhyme to me: Iraq war, COVID policies, huge tariffs, deportations.
*****
April 16: Bessant says Europe will align with the U.S. against China, but the Europeans are planning a summer summit with Xi. Oops!
*****
I want a good strategy against Xi, not a bad one. We always seem to do exactly the wrong thing for the best of reasons. (Yes, I'm talking about tariffs.)
*****
General price inflation is caused by currency creation. Product price increases can be caused by tariffs.
*****
The U.S. has too few young workers and too many retirees. That causes the debt crisis. Each deportation makes the problem worse.
*****
Bankruptcies may not matter to President Trump, he's filed so many of them.
*****
April 16: I heard a man and woman discussing Chinese tariffs. My jaw dropped.
*****
Degrees of separation...
I knew multiple people who knew a man named Kerry Thornley.
Kerry Thornley knew Lee Harvey Oswald when they were in the Marines together.
Lee Harvey Oswald knew George de Mohrenschildt.
George de Mohrenschildt knew both George H.W. Bush and Jackie Bouvier.
Jackie Bouvier married John F. Kennedy.
John F. Kennedy was supposedly assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.
*****
This is the ethos of online debates: What I actually said doesn't matter if someone experienced a completely unrelated emotion because of it.
*****
April 18: In terms of public opinion...
Trump started in positive territory on all issues. He is now in negative territory on all issues, except for immigration, and even there he is down from his peak.
Is this the wisdom of crowds or the madness of mobs?
I think it's a bit of both. Trump's immigration policies are going to worsen the demographic debt crisis, making Social Security and Medicare cuts inevitable. The crowd is wise to distrust the tariffs but mad to trust the deportations.
*****
The immigration issue is really about Social Security and Medicare. Less immigration means deeper cuts to both.
*****
When I say that deporting millions of productive and peaceful people will make the current labor shortage and demographic debt crises vastly worse, please don't tell me about fucking gang members. That excuse doesn't justify the rest of it and has no relevance to the central issue.
*****
The more I think about it the more I think that tariffs and deportations are the worst possible policies for this moment in human history. We humans excel at finding the exact wrong things to do.
*****
You think you have it hard...dogs have to find the perfect place to pee.
*****
April 21: Trump's tariffs and deportations are harming millions of people. The worst he will suffer is personal embarrassment if his policies crash the economy. That means authority and responsibility are out of balance. He cannot be held fully accountable for the harm he causes. The same is true of all politicians. This is a strong argument against unlimited political government in general, and Trump's current actions in particular.
*****
I am pro-Israel. I think most allegations against them are unfair. But no one should be deported for making such criticisms.
*****
Do ants rebuild a destroyed nest based on a central plan and top-down commands? I highly doubt it.
*****
April 23: It's possible Trump thought his tariffs would drive people into treasuries, lowering interest costs. It backfired.
*****
If we really want to reduce crime, we should legalize immigration and start deporting natives instead (see below).
Immigrants, legal and illegal, commit fewer crimes than natives
*****
MAGA is a wimpy ambition.
This is better.
*****
April 25: Am I expecting empty store shelves? Yes, I am.
*****
Trade deficits pay for your Social Security. Or they did.
Someone responded with curiosity about how I would explain my, as he put it, pretzel logic. I offered this...
When businesses in foreign countries, such as China, sell goods to the US, they get dollars in return. If they do not use those dollars to buy goods and services from other US companies, that creates a trade deficit for the US and a pile of dollars for the foreign companies that they then need to invest in the US. Much of that money is used to buy US treasuries, most of which go to fund Social Security and Medicare, the two primary drivers of annual deficits and the national debt.
He replied, "Okay, now I see."
Nice.
*****
Denver rents have decreased in response to increased housing construction. To which I sarcastically responded...
That is not possible. That kind of positive change can only happen if large amounts of heavily regulated tax funding are applied to a problem. This must be fake news. My ideology tells me so. All that supply and demand crap is just a neo-liberal scam.
*****
Is the legal system a Palestinian state would erect worth the violence committed to bring it about?
*****
Manufacturing jobs peaked 80 years ago. That is deep in the past, and way before the rise of China. We are also vastly richer in quantity and quality of goods and services enjoyed than we were back then. This strongly suggests that the current (tariff) policy is misguided.
*****
If elected President, I will do this...
Make American super-great using immigration
*****
JFK was murdered by his nominal employees over whom he had no real control.
*****
If you like my work or just want to keep an eye on me because you hate me, please subscribe. It's free. If you want to encourage me, do a paid subscription. If you have "subversive" or "heretical" tendencies, please like it and comment so the algorithm shows this article to more people. Share it on social networks.
Copyright © Perry Willis 2025
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.