Autarky is the economic concept of producing everything a nation consumes within its own borders. It's been tried numerous times, and inevitably leads at best to high prices and deprivation. At worst, it results in warfare.
Autarky was the official economic model of the Nazi Party after German economist Hjalmar Schacht joined the party in 1926 and after Gregor Strasser was ousted from party influence.* Nazi Germany provides a perfect example of how it doesn't work. Germany was a major industrial power leading up to, during and after World War Two (it still is), but it could never produce enough of anything for its own economy, even in peacetime. Moreover, it didn't have the raw materials to supply all it did produce. It imported 20% of its food supply in the early 1930s, and by the late 1930s the Nazis had only managed to boost that to 83%.
The solution was simple.
What the Germans did have, they could just seize from neighboring countries through war, and then either kill off the native population or subjugate it. That's exactly what it attempted to do. It pursued that murderously in Poland and the Soviet Union, and through vassal states in the form of France, Romania and Spain. Where that proved to be impossible. . . for the time being, it used bullying and threats, such as in regard to Sweden.
Even at that, it was never able to do it.
That seems to be to some extent what Donald Trump is advocating right now.
If we were playing hardball, all we'd do is say we're going to do no trading with Canada. If we did no trading with Canada would save $90 billion.
We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries.. We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. They have nothing that we have to have, I mean. Hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things
Trump seems to believe that by closing the economic border with Canada and Mexico, and everyone else, unless they essentially become vassal states, the US can simply go it alone and not be harmed. Where it's obvious that won't work, we'll force acquisition, as we have now done in Venezuela and keep threatening to do with Greenland.
This is immoral, and stupid.
You'd think that a guy who went to Wharton would have a basic grasp of economics. Open economic borders, truly open economic borders, make countries rich, not poor. That doesn't mean that there's never a place for tariffs, including for protectionism, but it's generally a bad idea.
What makes for more sense is for the United States, Mexico, and Canada, to have a seamless economy with no tariffs at all. The US and Canada had a nearly duty free relationship prior to Trump, save for the infamous very high ones on dairy, poultry, and egg products. Those latter tariffs were absurd, but the US also has absurd tariffs in the agricultural sector. The US relationship with Mexico is, right now, duty free.
An absolute lack of tariffs is how it should be between the three major North American economies. Only an an economic ignoramus would disrupt that.
And only an immoral person would advocate taking the oil of another nation that is providing it under the gun. The US has been an oil addict for a century, but was showing signs of getting off the stuff. Trump, with his "it's always the 1950s" mindset can't seem to get out of that.
Trump should really know better. Wharton has a reputation as one of the best, maybe the best, business school in the country. He owes us an explanation, which he seems to be incapable of articulating, for his idiotic economic views. Wharton, and I'm serious about this, does as well. I know one Wharton graduate personally, and he is brilliant. But the example of Donald Trump is to weird to explain. For that matter, the example of Wyoming's Chuck Gray, who is an absolute Trump sycophant, is as well.
We need a combination of supreme moral sensitivity and economic knowledge. Economically ignorant moralism is as objectionable as morally callous economism. Ethics and economics are two equally difficult subjects, and while the former needs discerning and expert reason, the latter cannot do without humane values.
Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market
September 8, 2026
Retaliatory Canadian tariffs took place today with duties ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of U.S. products worth a total CA$27.6 billion, including dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, household appliances and electronics.
This will hurt Canadian consumer through increased cost to them, and American producers due to decreased demand.
And as this wasn't enough, 5he United States is banning the import of some dairy products motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages from Canada.
This is rank stupidity. Peter Navarro ought to be sent to kindergarten and Wharton declared a clown college.
So, if you can, go out and buy a Can Am motorcycle and some Crown Royal.
Well, probably not. I'm too old to start riding a motorcycle (I'd much prefer a mule) and I can't stand Crown Royal. But if I liked Canadian whiskey, I'd go buy some for spite.
I may just for spite.
September 10, 2026
Cont:
U.S. wholesale inflation hits 5.4% annually in August 2026.
More good news from the Trump administration.
September 11, 2026
Lame duck defeated state senator Bob Ide used the Hilltop disaster to say something monumentally stupid.
By Self-created photograph by Jonathunder - Own work, GFDL, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64543672
If this is a match of intellects, and it likely is, Canada has already won the trade war.
Carney is undoubtedly a genius and the only international leader currently in office, maybe ever in office, to have run the economies of two different countries. Trump is increasingly obvious of rather low intellect and a real estate developer with a very narrow understanding of the economy, who is in turn heavily influenced by Peter Navarro, a 77 year old economic theorist who uniquely champions tariffs. To make matters worse, Trump is suffering a rapid dementia related mental decline.
The US right now is destroying its own economy.
August 26, 2026
Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum, furniture and clothing (50%), cheese, appliances and some seafood, (25%) and on electronics and tools (15%), effective September 8.
It also pledged aid to Canadian workers.
It was a dollar per dollar match on US tariffs, which it basically offsets.
As a side effect of this, the price of household paper products, toilet paper and paper towels, is climbing.
Thanks Don.
On the contest of intellects, the petulant baby in the Oval Office threatened to rename Lake Ontario the Lake of America or something. Trump actually thinks he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, even though it remains the Gulf of Mexico in reality. The Lake Ontario thing is incredibly stupid. Nobody reacted positively to it, although I'm sure that administration flunkies will pretend it's a great idea. Curtis Hertel Jr., chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, stated:
Donald Trump has been America first in name only his entire presidency. He promised lower prices, higher wages, and no foreign wars … all of that is bull shit. Renaming th fourth best Great Lake isn’t going to change that.
Americans aren't impressed with the latest Trump stupidity.
On Trump dumping American cattlemen, John Barrasso, Senator from Trump, oh, um, Senator allegedly from Wyoming, posted this on Twitter:
Americans want US beef on the table – not foreign imports. Wyoming ranchers produce the highest quality beef in the world. Our ranchers don't ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace. It needs to be easier – not harder – for Wyoming ranchers to feed America. I will continue to fight for policies that strengthen Wyoming beef producers and invest in the American cattle herd.
Barrasso is a Trump suck up and hasn't really done much for Wyoming in years. During election cycles he's for whatever he thinks Wyomingites are for and is otherwise a rank cowards pretending he thinks Trump is brilliant when he knows that he's not. Last time he ran he became worried about gadfly candidate Reid Rasner and accordingly pulled to the hard right.
Barrasso must regard the Wyoming livestock industry as sufficiently powerful enough to actually hurt the GOP, or this an issue near enough to the hearts of Wyomingites, that he needs to speak up. He didn't do that when public lands were on the table. It's interesting in part because the Wyoming range cattle industry in particular, and agriculture in general, have been so pro Trump and pro GOP that it's quite literally actually stupid. We posted on this the other day.
Hageman, of course, has incentive not to. She's a Trump endorsee and is now running against James Byrd tof Lummis' seat. This makes her exposed on this issue. If she speaks up, and she's going to have to, it puts her between somebody that supports here that she probably thinks is a heaping bowl of stupid in reality, but then exposing her to voters who she probably figures are more heaping bowls of stupid. Byrd is perfectly suited to exploit this as Hageman comes from a farm/ranch and can't stay silent before she looks like a traitor.
Lummis, of course, comes from a ranch too, but as she's nto running, she doesn't have to say anything. She seems to be bucking for a Trump cabinet post, anticipating that people will jump the Trump ship post election.
On other economic fronts, the US came out with its "Economic D-Day" against Iran, which are really sanctions against Iranian trading partners, but not really. It delayed the imposition of them to January 1, 2027, which means they won't happen at all.
Mexico normally imports 1,000,000 head of cattle into the US every year.
This is actually the resumption of importation that had been occurring until the screwworm outbreak. The Trump administration blamed that on the Biden administration, like it does everything else.
Closer to home, yet another Casper restaurant is biting the dust.
There's been a real rash of these recently. Something is going on. An article in Oil City notes that the list includes Little Shop of Burgers, Benny Montanaro’s Pizza (which I'd never even heard of), and Outback Steakhouse.
GiGi’s consignment store in Casper is also closing.
Next to House of Sushi it appears an entity called Jae's Place is opening in the old Wonder Bar space.
I don't really understand Jae's Place, but apparently its a wester wear store that supports a charitable mental health foundation. That's admirable but frankly opening in that location is desecrating a Casper landmark. The space had been the Wonder Bar more or less continually since 1937, having originally been located in another space. It became a steakhouse under the name C85 a decade or more ago that sold out to Wyoming Rib and Chop which became, you guessed it, another Casper restaurant that closed.
I understand that Jae's Place is a charity so I should not have a non charitable attitude about it, but there's a really old Western Wear store just a block away that I hope is not hurt by this multi state entity and for a long time Casperite seeing this converted into retail is disappointing. Workmen have been busy for weeks molesting the interior so the damage will likely be permanent.
This is the sort of thing that happens when a place has no sense of itself.
These photographs are of the "World Famous" Wonder Bar. The Wonder Bar has operated on Center Street for decades, although it has had short periods of time in recent years in which it operated under a different name (Tommy Knockers, Dillingers, and very briefly, "Sludge and Eddies"). Still, the bar has been around so long that even efforts to operate it under a different name do not deter the locals from continuing to refer to it as the Wonder Bar.
Downtown Casper once had a vast number of bars. This are of downtown had multiple bars on a single block. Only the Wonder Bar survives as a bar.
At some point in time, decades ago, Lee Riders paid to paint an advertisement on the side of the bar. The sign is still there, although an effort to paint over it was made at some point. This reflects the stockman heritage of central Wyoming, and indeed at one time quite a few cowboys and sheepherders spent time in the Wonder Bar.
As an aside, it's hard to see how a town that has a microbrewery every other door can't keep a legendary bar open.
September 2, 2026
The House passed another stopgap budget bill to keep the government running.
Frankly, I"m not a big fan, meaning not a fan at all, of the big expansion of data centers and I'm absolutely opposed to them being constructed on vacant agricultural land.
This was a hearing in front of the County Commissioners. It looked like each of the current sitting commissioners made some sort of comment at the end, as the Oil City News reports:
Of the five sitting commissioners, only Laird is on the ballot this election. Laird is correct on Donald Trump's position. Trump basically called communities that don't want data centers stupid as life is all about money and he loves money and you should love money because Trump loves money and you should love Trump, and money, but Trump most of all.
This must be a nightmare of Chuck Gray, who has been trying to hate things Wyomingite's claim to hate, and they seem to hate data farms, but Trump, who Gray loves, loves them.
On something Trump and Gray presently hate, wind farms:
Republicans are flocking to decry it, after having participated in causing it.
They didn't cause it on their own, but they sure helped. And Trump has spent money like a drunken sailor.
Part of the reason that Trump spends this way is that Trump drank deeply of Peter Navarro's economic kool aide.
Navarro believes heavily in tariffs and Trump, whose always liked the concept of tariffs, but who appears to no longer understand how they work, liked what Navarro had to say.
Tariffs have always existed as a means of boosting local businesses. What they really are, is a species of sales tax. The concept is to make stuff coming in expensive so that people won't buy it, and will buy something made locally instead. That's about it.
The problem is that when you do that, you have to actually be making the things locally. Tariffs might have made good economic sense if the US had started easing them in during the late 1960s when the post World War Two economy started to fade. But we didn't, as we saw no need to.
By the 2020s, it's really a little bit late. In fact, it's way late. The world's economy is now highly integrated, surpassing the level that had only previously been obtained prior to World War One. We don't have what people complained about, for example, in the late 60s and early 70s of cheap Japanese products taking the market (something that wasn't anywhere near the threat it was imagined to be). What we have instead is an economy where anything serious has parts made all over the globe. Nothing you are using, if has multiple parts, was "made in America". It was made all over.
Given that, what tariffs really do is simply make everything more expensive. It'd take at least a decade for high tariffs to "bring back manufacturing", if it can do that at all.
Whether it can ever bring in jobs is questionable at this point. Since January 2025 the US has in fact lost manufacturing job, with about 75,000 departing . Trump likes to claim that new factories are springin gup all over the place. In fact, a factory construction boom peaked in 2024, under Joe Biden, and has been crashing since.
It may just be that it isn't the late 1890s any more.
So all the Trump administration has really done is ineffectively switched income tax for a national sales tax. It's hurting everyone, and it is largely illegal, resulting in a lot of the money being collected, having to be sent back out.
Congress can fix this, if it has the will. Republicans right now are pretending that they do, but with few exceptions, like Thomas Massie, they're rank cowards and voted for Trump's economic fantasies. It may take a Constitutional Amendment to force the matter, which at a bare minimum should provide that save in the time of war and bona fide emergency, the budget must balance and retire a portion of any built up debt, with taxes to automatically rise to balance any budget that isn't balanced.
What needs to be done first of all is to get the budget under control. That would technically be easy to do. And part of that needs to be a sincere effort to eliminate the debt. It's now completely impossible to do so rapidly, so it'll have to be done slowly.
On expenditures themselves, the Federal budget breaks out this way:
Social Security: 22%
Medicare: 15%
Net Interest (on the national debt): 15%
Health (including Medicaid): 13%
National Defense: 13%
Income Security: 10%
Veterans Benefits and Services: 6%
Social Security is in trouble due to slow down in population growth. Nothing can be done about that or should be. Medicare is in the same boat.
National Defense should be cut by 2/3s. That can be done by eliminating the insane level of weapons expenditures and by going to a reserve based defense. That'd help, but that won't accomplish everything, obvious. Military retirement age should be changed so that thirty years rather than 20 are the qualifying number. That'd help a bit.
Indeed, there are actually a fair number of Federal jobs that require twenty years in order to retire at some level. Save for policing roles and military ones,. Fed retirement should require thirty years and only be capable of being drawn when you reach 60 years of age.
And yes, this is a crisis.
So, you might perhaps note, you are a Distributist. Does this square with Distributism?
Overall it does. At one time I would have considered tariffs a policy option to address foreign manufacturing, but nothing fails like failure and its obvious that isn't the solution to that. Boosting U.S. manufacturing has to come some other way, and frankly technology is probably what would do it. Technological revolutions tend to bring industry to where they occur. Our problem here is that this is entirely in the hands of the super wealthy right now, who don't have your interest or that of the country's in mind.
Additionally, our current President is addled and looks back with romanticism on the past . He's actively working to destroy American industry as a result. Electricity is the future of transportation, not petroleum. Wind, solar and nuclear are the future of power generation, not coal (Trump does support nuclear). We need to really get with the program and we can do that through regulation. Phasing out fossil fuels should be an economic priority for obvious reasons, and an environmental one for obvious reasons, and a defense one for obvious reasons.
Trade talks between the US and Canada ended and the countries are now in a trade war. Canada has made it clear that the US is about to suffer through energy imports.
August 24, 2026
From the CST:
Well boo hoo, cry me a river.
I'm a cattleman and frankly we're amongst the most reliably stupid voters for the GOP there is.
An old friend of mine who is a rancher has been somewhat active in this year's election cycle. He is, of course, a far right Republican.
I say of course as just about every rancher and farmer in Wyoming over the age of 40, and quite a few over the age of 35, are diehard right wing full blown MAGA Republicans. Below the age of 40 things start to change a lot. Most are Republicans, but a lot aren't diehard. They're Republicans the same way everyone in Wyoming is a Republican, pretty much. Generally conservative.
But above 40, they're in lockstep with Donald Trump.
My friend, this cycle, had a big Chuck Gray up near the DOT fence. This wasn't too surprising as his grandson works for Gray.* **
Well, now, all of a sudden the noted friend is posting on the disaster of letting foreign beef into the country. So are a bunch of other ranchers I know.
The Republican Party has been pretty much screwing ranchers and farmers since 1929. It was the Democrats who save farmers and ranchers during the Great Depression. Most small and mid sized ranches would have been utterly destroyed but for the Taylor Grazing Act.
The Trump Administration, for its part, looks at farmers and ranchers the way the Democrats once looked at African Americans, people who could reliably be counted on to vote for the party no matter what. In recent election cycles African Americans proved they were no longer reliable. So far, people in Agriculture aren't showing any thought at all.
Indeed, they're showing cognitive disconnected.
This morning I've seen all sorts of complaints from ranchers about how they're getting killed in this economy, as noted.
And now Trump's bringing in below market cost foreign beef.
No shit. YOU VOTED FOR IT.
Inflation, particularly of fuel, caused by Donald Trump's pet illegal war. The same with fertilizer costs.
WAKE THE CRAP UP.
The GOP is not coming to save you. It's coming to screw you.
Indeed, trade talks just broke off with Canada.
Double digit inflation, caused by a massive rise in energy costs, is about to occur.
Footnotes:
Gray has more affection for Trump than Natalie Harp and Melanija Knavs combined.
The grandson is an interesting case in and of himself. He's undoubtedly the first member of his extended family to go to university. He's in law school right now. He's also a diehard MAGA, and indeed, maybe even beyond that. Now the question of how that happens is another matter.
The common myth, and it is a myth, about young people in conservative homes is that they go to college, where they lose all of their values, and their faith, emerging hardcore screaming liberals if not Bolsheviks. This is, it is believed, because they're indoctrinated in college by leftist professors.
It's largely bull and in the scientific disciplines definitely bull. Majors in geology, for example, aren't going to have time for liberal indoctrination.
For that matter, majors in English probably don't either.
So what's going on here.
Well, a person from a really conservative Protestant background may in fact find a lot of what they learn in college shocking. The Earth isn't 5,000 years old. Evolution isn't a fib. Conquering the West wasn't bringing enlightenment to an oppressed people and, in fact, some of those being conquered where already Christian. The US isn't bestowed by God with a new Israelite like mission, and for that matter, the modern state of Israel does some outright horrible things.
Faced with that onslaught, young people are in fact faced with the choice of accepting that Pastor Jim back at his own do it yourself Evangelical Church is flat out wrong on a lot of stuff, and Mom and Dad are ignorant, or concluding that everything they're being taught is a fib.
Most will conclude, to some degree, that Pastor Jim is wrong on a lot, and that Mom and Dad are ignorant on a lot of stuff.
Now, I'll note, this shouldn't impact member of the Apostolic faiths at all, but in the US some Apostolic Christians are heavily Protestantized and have bought in, through ignorance, to a lot of what the Evangelical far right believes.
Anyhow, a lot of this is about to collapse on an enormous scale, as we'll soon see.
**There was a good Republican candidate running against Gray, Christensen. He had worked for the BLM.
Well, we're getting instead a Californian who worked for his daddy's radio station.
He's completely correct.
Cattlemen and farmers will sit around in gatherings and support Trump on every other horrible thing he does, and then they're surprised when he turns on them.
Now they can share the pain they helped bring about.
On Canada, the Canadian government is absolutely furious over demands that were made of the country, including that Canada abandon the use of French and that it agree to mirror the US's trade polcies.
One Canadian figure called the demands "insane".
This administration at this point is so stupid on these matters its indescribable.
August 25, 2026
It's pretty clear that the Trump administration has no idea whatsoever as to what it's doing.
