My body reminds me

My body reminds me that I am my body,

My body is me, as a tree is a tree.

Should I, at times, have a mind to disagree,

My body reminds how it feels to be me.

My body speaks when a thought arises,

How and from where always surprises.

My thought says "move," and my body complies,

Or my body moves 'fore my thought apprises.

My body reminds me of entropy,

A law of nature, a stark decree.

Life is unique, yet nothing is free—

Disorder increases, degree by degree.

A threadbare coat frays at the seams,

A weathered barn sags with rotting beams.

An empire falls with failing regimes,

A dream is a dream—and only a dream.

My body reminds me that I am my body,

My body is me, as a tree is a tree.

Should I, at times, have a mind to disagree,

My body reminds how it feels to be me.

Trump Teaches a Lesson (in Economics, Geography and History)

There's so much to love 

about Trump,

but most of all it's the way he makes us laugh.

Today it was tariffs,

which some are calling a tax

we pay when we buy things,

but others are not so sure. Trump

says it'll teach those nasty Canadians

for taking advantage of our big

American hearts (and bank accounts).   

And then he shows this chart of import tariff rates

he's 'charging' to other countries,

and on it are a bunch of places

I've never heard of 

so I Googled them:

Heard and McDonald Islands,

off the coast of Antarctica with no inhabitants 

(except seals and penguins)

who get slapped with a 10% tariff;

Svalbard and Jan Mayen,

uninhabited volcanic islands in the Arctic Ocean

get slapped with a 5% tariff;

Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia,

population 2,000 -

those people must be especially mean to Americans -

gets hit with a 29% tariff; 

somewhere called Réunion,

which is what a family does when they miss each other, 

gets a 37% tariff.

And anyone know where Tokelau is?

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon? They get tariffs too.

Trump has to be a 'stable genius' like he says

to know so much about the world.

Switzerland gets a punishing 31% tariff,

mostly on watches and chocolates I suppose.

I know where Switzerland is

(I actually lived there for a year)

and can't argue with that one.

Switzerland deserves every punishment it gets

for hiding Nazi loot. They are politically neutral,

but everyone knows neutrality is a lie.

It's 'Liberation Day' Trump cheers!

Of course, I think of D-Day, WW2,

how the fascists fascinated us

with their big show of strength,

their tanks and pressed black uniforms,

their death camps and efficiency,

because they were really weak inside,

in their messy hearts,

and it eventually destroyed them.

Hitler was a funny little psychopath,

easy for Charlie Chaplin to parody

in The Great Dictator 

and make us laugh.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the best teachers make us laugh.

April is National Poetry Month - Floaters

I'm seeing floaters

tiny bubbles dancing 

across my vision field

that no amount of blinking 

will dispel

like dandelion seeds 

suspended permanently 

on a summer breeze.

 

It's the beginning of a new season

according to the web-doctor,

along with flashes of white light 

that I first interpreted 

as headlights reflected by the chrome 

of passing cars 

while I was driving,

but still flickered off and on

at home

in the corner of the bedroom

while my wife was out -

I was in a panic 

and had no one to ask 

if getting old 

is like a hallucination -

cars speeding by, bubbles 

always on the verge of bursting,  

or if it's a symptom of mortality 

settling down over you   

barely perceptible

as dusk,

a gradual blindness

mistaken for 

reality,

and then

I heard the sound of a key 

turning in the front door

I think.

The Connection Between Tariffs and Imperialism

A word about autarky. Autarky is a term related to autocracy, but instead of describing a form of iron-fisted political rule by one person, it relates to economic self-sufficiency. It's essentially a description of the policy that trump seems to be pursuing with the widespread imposition of import tariffs. As he puts it constantly, America has been economically 'ripped off' or 'treated really badly' or 'subsidizing other countries' - if there is one thing that trump has been completely consistent about it's believing he is always a victim. 

But the stated rationale seems to be to encourage international companies who sell product to American consumers to move their production facilities to the United States to create jobs. In theory that makes some sense, and historically tariffs have been used in a more surgical fashion to protect particularly vulnerable domestic industries by raising prices on cheaper goods coming into the market. One recent example is the 100% tariff imposed on imported Chinese electric cars designed to protect American electric car manufacturers. 

Import tariffs have two primary impacts: First they raise prices on imported product to make more expensive domestically produced merchandise more competitive, and second, they raise revenues for the government, like a federal sales tax would. The inflationary effect is why import tariffs have generally been used by government very sparingly. There is a lot of speculation that trump's blanket approach, which he says is aimed at protecting American industries and bringing manufacturing home, is actually meant to maximize government revenues (through his 'Exterior Revenue Service') to offset the cost of continuing his first-term income tax cuts which are scheduled to expire in 2025. One problem is that it's self-contradictory, the inflation generated by tariffs would produce a slowdown in the economy which would result in a drop in revenues from tariffs. Another problem is that an increase in unemployment would necessarily follow, so-called 'stag-flation'. These would be the short term impacts of tariffs felt very soon by Americans. In the medium term, if the policy did succeed in encouraging companies to move their manufacturing facilities to the US - a process that would take at least a half decade or more - the cost of producing domestically is inherently higher than producing overseas and consumers would pay that price.  

In other words, the plan is economically disastrous in both the short and medium term. But that's not the worst of it.

There's a political side to this terrible economic approach. Countries pursuing economic self-suffiency, even if they have established the factories and manpower, require natural resources. They need inputs from other places that have what they don't have. What to do? Can't trade with other countries because that goes against the goal of self-sufficiency. The only answer is to take them. Autarky and Imperialism go hand in glove, hence trump's interest in absorbing Canada and 'buying' Greenland, two places rich in minerals and energy, and why his threats need to be taken deadly seriously. It's not just rhetorical disrespect, or a distraction away from other disastrous headlines like Signalgate, although it's that too. If trump is serious about autarky then he's also serious about subjugating Canada and Greenland, and the sooner we acknowledge it the better.