It’s way, way more than that. Specialization and comparative advantage underpins the entire globalized economy which is the only way to allow us to get more for the same amount of labor. Without it, we simply regress. US farmers grow soybeans so that Chinese manufactures can make the tractors to allow the US farmers to grow the soybeans, and that only works with free trade. And in this scenario there is no one else making a tractor for anywhere near the same cost, and no one else who can grow such a large volume of soybeans, otherwise the trade probably wouldn’t be happening in the first place. And so the alternative is that both countries have to make both independently. And that is more expensive without the efficiencies of economy of scale, more expensive because of lower supply because we don’t have the capacity to produce that many tractors and China can’t grow that many soybeans, and more expensive because of the infrastructure costs being duplicated and spread out over less units.

And so we both end up with less tractors and less food that are more expensive. Now add in petrochemical fertilizers imported from Canada, steel and coal for the metal used in the tractor imported from Australia, all the industries that support them also getting caught into this, and where every one of those companies is tied into their regional, national, and the global economy. And that is just for tractors and soybeans.

We trade for almost everything. And every single item that we trade, we do so because it is cheaper than making it ourselves. Tariffs are an artificial tax on efficiency, and we are literally less prosperous with them in place. Some things are a matter of national security, of not allowing a foreign government leverage over your society, but we’re talking about his genius plan to put tariffs on literally fucking everything - soybeans and tractors, but also clothing, toys, electronics, appliances, vehicles, on and on and on. And a tariff on it will increase the price, because that is just how economics works.

Thanks for the advice, Kristi Noem.

The sad part is that I would hesitate to even call it a social program either - it’s the bare fucking minimum. It’s just taking the money that you paid into it and paying it back out to you later in life. It provides some financial structure and stability to those who otherwise would not have it, and that’s important, sure. But considering that this is height of our vital government social programs, then the bar is already so pathetically low. This is fighting to keep the scraps when private industry is already milking us for healthcare, education, public transit, utilities, etc, etc, etc, and it’s pitiful that we have to fight to even keep this.

50 years ago during the Cold War the economic trajectory of the two wasn’t so different, and pakistan also included what would become Bangladesh. Nixon was opening relations with China after the sino Soviet split, and India probably wouldn’t agree to ally with someone who was in the process of economically integrating with a country that they were actively fighting a border war with (sino Indian border war 1962-present). Pre Iranian revolution Iran was also a major ally and shares a significant land border with Pakistan, and probably most importantly, Pakistan was an ideal country to serve as a funnel for military assistance to the mujahideen to help fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which would arguably lead to the economic drain and political quagmire that was a primary factor in its collapse.

Of course the mujahideen would then evolve to become Al Qaeda which Pakistan would harbor, Iran would have its revolution, Bangladesh would gain independence, and the Pakistani military dictatorship would squander the potential of their country on a nuclear program and trying to maintain an army of equal strength to a country 10x their population. But the choice had a lot more geopolitical merit way back then, and once it had been made it is not so easy as forgive and forget or to counter the logistical inertia just because the circumstances change.

Because heat pumps are popular now, and the government is helping people pay for them through inflation reduction act rebates. So they can jack up the price and price gouge the shit out of us, because they know they can and know that they will get away with it. And I bet they were never popular because the same people selling home AC units also sell gas powered furnaces for home heating. So they charge you for two appliances and two installations, with two maintenance calls every time something goes wrong and two upgrade cycles. But now that they come as one unit, they still have to find some way to return more money to shareholders than last quarter so the price goes up.

I just got whole home AC replaced with a heat pump with an integrated furnace backup because it can get very cold here, and also had all my baseboard heaters ripped out. Perfectly fine in the winter and it has freed up at least 1/4 of all my walls to have stuff right up against them if I so choose, but really annoyed that the whole thing costed $20k when it could and should have been built this way 60 years ago. Not to mention all the inefficiency of burning gas for heat when heat pumps move more energy than they consume, multiplied across decades for nearly every building on the planet.

Not only has it already been done, but it happened for most android phones pretty much the model year or two after apple did it. Enough time to get all their snarky ads in, let apple take the heat, and adjust their plans to follow the business model exactly - push people away from included headphones and towards their own +$100 Bluetooth headphones.

And the thing is, I love Bluetooth headphones. I used to love wired but the convenience is just too hard to beat. But everyone is price gouging the shit out of them compared to what it costs to produce. Granted I run mine very hard at probably an average of 10-12 hours a day split between two pairs at work and home, and I got around 10,000 hours out of my AirPods 2 before they died so I definitely got my moneys worth. But I refuse to pay $100 when I can get a knock-off pair for $4 that sound 95% as good with surprisingly similar battery life.

Flip flopping implies indecision regardless of validity of fact and switching without good reason. If there is good reason to switch, then it is simply making an informed decision. People who don’t change their stance when presented with convincing evidence to the contrary are cultists.

I see that as offering services that people clearly use and value, and that the bills have to be paid somehow. So as long as proton can deliver the privacy and security features it promises, I personally don’t see anything wrong with providing an alternative when the only other options are built on monetizing your data.

Power, water, internet, healthcare, education, transit, there’s a lot of things that should be public utilities or at least with a convincing public option because of the clear conflict of interest between private corporations and social benefit, but aren’t, because money controls politics.

The peak of irony considering the porn age ID verification laws and abortion bans they impose on people living in the states they control.