Month: April 2025

• Tropical vanilla orchid grown in New England? Brilliant!

  April 6, 2025

  This is just cruel. A 47 percent tariff against Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. But a sharp Hub Blog reader senses opportunity:

  “There is now a 47 percent tariff on Madagascar, which has a per capita income of <$2/day and produces 80 % of the world’s vanilla. We can make millions! Let’s start growing the tropical vanilla orchid in New England and selling them Ford Broncos in Antananarivo! It’s so simple! $$$$$$$. I’m a financial genius!”

  Btw: Here’s the pathetic U.S. response to the onerous tariffs against Madagascar. …What are Malagasy officials expected to agree to? Import more American products that they can’t afford because 80 percent of the people in Madagascar live in poverty?

• The other big economic gamble: ‘The Nixon Shock’

  April 5, 2025

  

  .

  In the lead up to Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff action earlier this week, I cited Ronald Reagan’s tax-cuts of 1981 as the last time a sitting president, with a stroke of a pen, changed the economic course of the nation. The Globe’s Larry Edelman does that historical analogy one better, going back a decade earlier to the famous ‘Nixon Shock’ of 1971, when President Nixon severed the ties between the dollar and gold, ordered a nationwide wage-and-price freeze, and imposed a 10 percent surcharge tariff on imports. The ‘Nixon Shock’ was also a huge economic gamble – and, as Larry notes, it didn’t quite work out as planned. Read Larry’s piece. It’s great. …

  Re the ‘Nixon Shock,’ I did find this interview with Jeffrey Garten, author of “Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy.” And here’s a YouTube video of Nixon’s famous off-the-gold-standard speech in ’71.

  Update – Uh ho. A Hub Blog reader sent me this “friendly reminder” of what may yet still come: “Bannon: Trump May Return The U.S. To A Gold Standard, Get Rid Of The Federal Reserve.”

  Update II — From the NYT: “Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’”

• Life imitating art: Laura Loomer and Melisandre 

  April 4, 2025

  

  

  The resemblance between Laura Loomer and Melisandre of Asshai is eerie in more ways than one.

• Trading Joe Milton: ‘A meager return for a potentially valuable asset’

  April 4, 2025

  I don’t think the Patriots should have traded Joe Milton at all, let alone trade him for a fifth-round draft pittance, as the Globe’s Ben Volin notes. … From a Hub Blog reader, re the value of the trade for the Pats:

  “It’s a meager return for a potentially valuable asset. Why not a conditional trade that provides higher round draft picks based on certain metrics like playing time? While too expensive not to play, Prescott missed most of one season already.”

  Bryan DeArdo at CBS Sports gives the Cowboys an ‘A’ for the trade and the Pats an overly generous ‘B.’ … Reiterating what I wrote last month: I think the Pats will deeply regret this move.

• Confirmed: The Trump administration has declared ideological war on Harvard

  April 4, 2025

  As a centrist, I welcome a full-scale debate about, and actions to address, the left-wing’s oppressive stranglehold on many aspects of college life today. But not in the crude and authoritarian way the Trump administration is trying to force change. Via the Globe, following are some of the verbatim reform demands that the Trump administration has sent to Harvard University. As you can see, the demands go well beyond fighting campus antisemitism, extending to other long-held ideological complaints of the right: 

  — “Oversight and accountability for biased programs that fuel antisemitism. Programs and departments that fuel antisemitic harassment must be reviewed and necessary changes made to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture …”

  — “Merit-based admissions reform. Harvard must adopt and implement merit-based admissions policies; cease all preferences based on race, color, or national origin in admissions … “

  — “Merit-based hiring reform. Harvard must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies; cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in hiring throughout its teaching and research faculty, staff, and leadership … “

  — “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. DEI programs teach students, faculty, staff, and leadership to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes, which fuels division and hatred based on race, color, national origin, and other protected identity characteristics. All efforts should be made to shutter such programs. … “

  From the Globe’s Carine Hajjar, a conservative: “Americans want schools like Harvard to change. But Trump’s efforts could backfire.”

• Liberation Day Plus One

  April 3, 2025

  

  And we’re not even at the Drudge siren stage.

  Update — From the BBJ: “Wayfair, iRobot plunge as Mass. public companies lose $63B in value.”

• Remember Milwaukee Bucks star Junior Bridgeman? He died a billionaire

  April 3, 2025

  Here’s a blast from the past for all you ‘80s era Celts fans: Milwaukee Bucks star Junior Bridgeman. Don’t remember him? Neither did I till a friend emailed me this WSJ story about his death – and how Junior had made a fortune as a businessman after retiring from the NBA nearly 40 years ago. What a remarkable, inspiring post-basketball career. I had no idea. … More on Junior at the NYT.

  Trivia question: Can you name the Celts player guarding Junior in the photo that accompanies the WSJ article? For those with or without a WSJ sub, hint: he was the Celts’ first-round draft pick in ’81, one round and eight picks ahead of Danny Ainge. One more hint: He wore No. 35. … I didn’t remember him either till I looked it up.

• The political center loses a strong voice at a critical time

  April 3, 2025

  Pamela Paul has written her final column for the NYT. As a fellow left-of-center moderate, I’m going to miss her. She wasn’t afraid to stand up to ideological bullies, particularly those on the far left. … In particular, I liked this graf in Paul’s farewell column: 

  “In the memo I wrote three years ago when applying for this job after 11 years at The Times Book Review, I vowed ‘to write to Times readers rather than to Twitter or to Slack.’ I knew my positions, fundamentally liberal but often at odds with what had become illiberal progressive dogma, would ruffle feathers. But as I explained, ‘I want to write about that vast center/liberal space and to address what people really think and believe but are often too afraid to say.’”

  Naturally, the mind drifts to W.B. Yeats’s famous “the centre cannot hold” line in ‘The Second Coming.’ Well, it’s not clear if the center will indeed hold in today’s polarized America. But at least Paul helped bolster the political center over the years with her dignified, common-sense views on culture and politics. As mentioned, she’ll be missed. ….

• Looks like I’ll be hanging on to my Corolla for a while longer

  April 2, 2025

  As expected, President Trump went with the sweeping-tariffs option. And what was my first deep thought as a trusted, long-time business journalist? How I won’t be replacing my 2016 Toyota Corolla anytime soon. … Not surprisingly, Fox2 Detroit is all over the big imported-cars tariffs that take effect tonight. … The WSJ and Financial Times and NYT have more on the tariffs in general.

  Update — From the Globe’s Larry Edelman: “Ouch! Trump went much tougher on tariffs than expected. Consumers and businesses will feel the pain.”

  Update II –– From an ecstatic Hub Blog reader: “I feel liberated! No more cheap foreign stuff for me! I am free from low prices!”

  Update III — More from the NYT: “Auto Tariffs Take Effect, Putting Pressure on New Car Prices.” … And it’s going to drive up prices for used cars too, as consumers who can’t afford new cars flock to used cars. It’s all about supply and demand.

• The big economic gamble: ‘Liberation Day’

  April 2, 2025

  

  I’m trying to think of the last time a sitting president made history by implementing a controversial measure that most everyone knew at the time was taking the nation in a new economic direction. My mind drifts back to a misty day, in 1981, when Ronald Reagan, dressed in casual denim at Rancho Del Cielo in California, signed the historic tax-cut bill that launched “Reaganomics.”

  Donald Trump is first and foremost a showman, so you never know what exactly he’ll unveil today, on so-called “Liberation Day,” regarding new tariff policies. They may indeed be sweeping, triggering a major trade war and reshaping the U.S. and global economies. Then again, the new tariffs may also be pure bluster, a clownish mix of ham-handed political theater and bargaining tactics that the administration can always reverse when it’s politically prudent to do so, i.e. before a revolt by Main Street and Wall Street. 

  My hunch, based on the first tumultuous months of Trump’s second term, is that he’s going for a variation of the shock-and-awe option, the real-deal sweeping historic option. If so (and if he actually sticks with them), people will be remembering “Liberation Day,” for good or bad, for decades, just as many still remember the historic launch of Reaganomics so many years ago.

  Update — He went with the sweeping tariffs option. No surprise. Just disappointment.