Donald and Melania Trump are eating breakfast together at Mar-a-Lago on the morning of January 21, 2029. At noon on the previous day, Gretchen Whitmer was sworn in as the forty-eighth president of the United States.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump to Melania: \u201cHow much did our family spend last year on food, clothing, furniture, and other stuff for Mar-a-Lago?\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania: \u201cAbout two million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald: \u201cHow much stuff \u2013 tangible stuff, stuff with mass, stuff you can touch \u2013 did our family sell?\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania: \u201cWell, we sold only that used golf cart for $5,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald: \u201cThis is bad. Very bad. It\u2019s a family emergency. The people we trade with are taking advantage of our kindness. I\u2019m so disappointed in them. They let me down. It ends now!\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania: \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald: \u201cSimple. From now on, we won\u2019t buy any stuff \u2013 no food, no clothes, no golf carts, no anything \u2013 from anyone who doesn\u2019t buy at least an equal amount of stuff from us. I\u2019m tired of being ripped off!\u201d<\/p>\n
Melania: \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald: \u201cNot much at the moment. I\u2019ll handle it. I\u2019m the<\/em> master artist of the deal, you know! Just bring me a list of the merchants that we\u2019ve been buying all this stuff from and the amount of money that we spent last year on what we bought from each of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that day, Melania brings the requested list to Donald, who studies it carefully.<\/p>\n After several minutes, Donald asks Melania to arrange a meeting first thing in the morning with the butcher from whom the Trumps have been purchasing their meat.<\/p>\n The next morning, the butcher \u2013 conveniently named \u201cButcher\u201d \u2013 is escorted into the former president\u2019s office at Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cHave a seat and take a look at this document.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher (studying the document): \u201cIt\u2019s a record of all the beef, pork, and lamb I sold to you last year.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump (handing another sheet of paper to Mr. Butcher): \u201cThat\u2019s right. Now look at this list.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cIt\u2019s a blank piece of paper.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cRight again. That blank piece of paper shows how much stuff you bought from us last year!\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher (looking confused): \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t follow. Was I supposed to buy something from you?\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cDon\u2019t play innocent with me. All last year, you knowingly ripped us off by selling stuff to us, taking our money week after week, but you never bought anything from us in return! Never intended to! You got our money, we got only your meat. A real trick!\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher (looking more confused): \u201cYou voluntarily bought all the meat I sold to you. How\u2019d I rip you off?\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cAnd don\u2019t play dumb with me either. You and I are businessmen. What\u2019s the mark of a good deal? Money rolling in! Money rolling out<\/em> more than rolling in means losses. Out of the goodness of our hearts we trusted you. And how did you treat us? You took our money and didn\u2019t return it by buying stuff from us. That\u2019s very bad behavior!\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cI have three kids in college. The single biggest chunk of my spending is on tuition. Do you have at Mar-a-Lago some college instructors who I can hire?\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cStuff. You gotta buy stuff<\/em> \u2013 things you can touch. College instruction is a service. It doesn\u2019t count.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cWhat stuff do you sell? I thought Mar-a-Lago is a residence, not a factory or a store.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter what you call it. Mar-a-Lago is an economic entity. My family is an economic entity. We can\u2019t survive if we keep getting ripped off like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher (glancing around the room): \u201cLook, Mr. President, let\u2019s say I want to buy those gold cherubs there on your mantel piece, I\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump (interrupting): \u201cThey\u2019re yours for 250 grand.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cThat\u2019s just about how much money you spent last year buying meat from my shop.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cRight! We\u2019d be even.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cBut if I bought those cherubs at that price, I\u2019d have to pull my kids out of college. I can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cYour problem; not mine. Here\u2019s the bottom line: We\u2019ll stop doing business with you until you start doing the same amount of business with us.\u201d<\/p>\n Butcher: \u201cSir, I already do<\/em> the same amount of business with you as you do with me: I supply you every year with about $250,000 worth of meat and in exchange you pay that amount of money to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cI said don\u2019t play dumb! You know what I mean: We won\u2019t buy any meat from you unless you buy at least an equal amount of stuff from us. Now scram. I have to meet my tailor.\u201d<\/p>\n The tailor \u2013 conveniently named Taylor \u2013 is escorted into Trump\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cPlease be seated and look at this list.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor (studying the document): \u201cIt\u2019s a record of all the pants, shirts, and coats that I made for you and your sons last year. $50,000 worth.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump (handing another sheet of paper to Mr. Butcher): \u201cCorrect. Now look at this list.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor: \u201cIt\u2019s blank.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cAlso correct. It\u2019s a list of all the things you bought last year from my family. What\u2019s your excuse?\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor (befuddled): \u201cExcuse? I don\u2019t follow.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump: \u201cIt\u2019s simple: You\u2019re ripping us off. We kindly buy $50,000 worth of stuff from you and you buy nothing from us. What gives you the right to mistreat us this way?!\u201d<\/p>\n Trump then delivers to Taylor the same ultimatum that he delivered to Butcher.<\/p>\n Trump spends the rest of the day meeting with other merchants who supply Mar-a-Lago, from Melania\u2019s dressmaker to grocers to the owner of the lumberyard that supplied the wood for a new addition to the mansion.<\/p>\n At dinner, Trump proudly announces that he\u2019s tired of being a nice guy \u2013 that from this moment forward no one at Mar-a-Lago will buy anything from anyone who doesn\u2019t buy at least an equal amount of stuff \u2013 \u201cstuff you can actually touch!\u201d \u2013 from Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n Melania: \u201cUhm\u2026. We don\u2019t produce a lot of tangible things to sell. Your company pretty much sells only services. How do you expect the likes of Mr. Butcher and Mr. Taylor to buy stuff from us if what we produce is only services?\u201d<\/p>\n Donald: \u201cI offered Butcher those cherubs. He refused. I think he\u2019s trying to bargain the price down.\u201d<\/p>\n Melania: \u201cLook, sweetheart, if we stop buying food, clothing, and other stuff from merchants who don\u2019t buy stuff from us, we\u2019ll starve, and we\u2019ll never again wear a stitch of new clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald: \u201cI wrote The Art of the Deal<\/em>, right? And I\u2019m a rich businessman. I know what I\u2019m doing. Even better, our household has huge<\/em> spending power; those merchants will kill to access it. What sellers can resist buying access to it?! It\u2019s just a matter of time before they come begging to strike trade deals with Mar-a-Lago that bind each of them to buy as much from us as we buy from each of them. You\u2019ll see. We\u2019ll be even richer!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026.<\/p>\n Several months later, Mar-a-Lago\u2019s many cupboards, fridges, and freezers all run bare. And the water to the magnificent mansion is cut off because Trump\u2019s stopped paying the water company for water because that company refused to buy as much stuff from Mar-a-Lago as Mar-a-Lago bought water from that company.<\/p>\n One of the world\u2019s richest families is living in poverty.<\/p>\n \u2026.<\/p>\n If the above tale sounds fantastically unrealistic, that\u2019s because it is. No one \u2013 literally no one, rich or poor, not even Donald Trump \u2013 would even think about attempting to conduct his or her household\u2019s economic affairs as described above. And yet, Trump is actually trying to conduct America\u2019s economic affairs in a similar way. The economic \u2018logic,\u2019 such as it is, that motivates his invocation of emergency powers to impose tariffs rests on Trump\u2019s belief that U.S. goods trade deficits with individual countries is an economic emergency, and evidence that foreign exporters or governments have long gotten away with economically ripping America off.<\/p>\n If it would make economic sense for Trump to run Mar-a-Lago in the fantastical way portrayed above, then Trump\u2019s \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs might make economic sense for America. But if it makes no sense \u2013 if it is downright crazy \u2013 for Trump to run Mar-a-Lago as described above, then his \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs are the height of economic insanity. And they are.<\/p>\n The post How Not to Run a Household \u2014 or a Country<\/a> was first published by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)<\/a>, and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald and Melania Trump are eating breakfast together at Mar-a-Lago on the morning of January 21, 2029. At noon on the previous day, Gretchen Whitmer was sworn in as the forty-eighth president of the United States. 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