Are Trump’s tariffs a masterstroke of economic negotiation or a blunder with global consequences? Show host Gene Tunny and returning guest Darren Brady Nelson debate the rationale behind punitive tariffs, the backlash from markets, and whether this is all part of a broader deal-making strategy. They also discuss Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative and Darren’s run-in with a wild turkey on Wisconsin’s special elections campaign trail.
Please let Gene know your thoughts on Trump’s tariffs and any questions or comments regarding this episode by emailing Gene at contact@economicsexplored.com.
You can listen to the episode via the embedded player below or via podcasting apps including Apple Podcast and Spotify.
Timestamps
- Introduction and Market Reaction to Trump’s Tariffs (0:00)
- Darren Brady Nelson’s Run-In with a Wild Turkey (1:45)
- Assessment of Trump’s Tariffs (6:51)
- Formula for Calculating Tariffs (12:26)
- Impact on Consumers and Businesses (19:59)
- National Security Considerations (37:06)
- DOGE’s Role in Identifying Waste and Fraud (44:07)
- Wisconsin Special Election and Voter ID Law (55:14)
- Australian Election Predictions (1:00:42)
- Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks (1:05:44)
Links relevant to the conversation
Trump’s Executive Order “Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits”:
Statement by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva:
Darren’s 2018 article “Trumpʼs tariffs: free, fair or foul trade?”, in which he discusses Adam Smith and free trade:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xQEt4n1bJ-W3RN2-H7_0w3q6vcI3eBCc/view?usp=sharing
Dan Mitchell’s “Six Visuals to Understand Trump’s Suicidal Tax Increase on Trade”:
CNN reporting, “This is the dubious way Trump calculated his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs”:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/03/economy/reciprocal-tariff-math/index.html
Axios reporting, “Trump’s surprisingly simple tariff math”:
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/03/how-trump-calculated-tariffs-trade-deficit
CNBC reporting, “Trump open to tariff negotiations, contradicting White House aides”:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-live-updates-stock-market-trade-war.html
Note this reporting: ‘Top Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro denied that Trump’s new tariffs are being used as a tool to negotiate better trade terms with other countries.’
Great Reset discussion with Darren from 2020:
https://economics-explained.simplecast.com/episodes/the-great-reset
DOGE’s reported savings:
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Transcript: Trump’s Tariffs: Art of the Deal or Economic Disaster? w/ Darren Brady Nelson – Bonus Episode
N.B. This is a lightly edited version of a transcript originally created using the AI application otter.ai. It may not be 100 percent accurate, but should be pretty close. If you’d like to quote from it, please check the quoted segment in the recording.
Gene Tunny 00:00
Gene, welcome to the economics explored podcast, a frank and fearless exploration of important economic issues. I’m your host, Gene, Tunny, I’m a professional economist and former Australian Treasury official. The aim of this show is to help you better understand the big economic issues affecting all our lives. We do this by considering the theory evidence and by hearing a wide range of views. I’m delighted that you can join me for this episode. Please check out the show notes for relevant information. Now on to the show. Hello and welcome to the show. This is a special bonus episode of economics explored to talk about, among other things, what else but the new reciprocal tariffs that President Trump announced in the Rose Garden earlier this week. We’ve seen the S and p5 100. It’s fallen around 10% ASX 200 it’s down 4% over the week. So big impacts on global markets. The IMF Managing Director has called the tariffs a significant risk to the global outlook at a time of sluggish growth. Before we get into it, I should say this episode sponsored by Lumo coffee, they’re high quality, organic coffee from the highlands of Peru. It’s jam packed full of antioxidants. So economics explore. Listeners can get 10% off. So check out the show notes for that link. Now, back to the show. We’re going to be talking about the tariffs. We’re going to be talking about Doge, and also elections that we’ve had in recent, elections in the US, in Wisconsin, the upcoming Australian election. My guest who else? It’s my good friend, Darren Brady Nelson, who’s joining me from Milwaukee, and he’s just he’s had some recent run ins with Turkey, Turkeys on the campaign trail in Wisconsin. Darren, good to have you back on the show.
Darren Brady Nelson 02:06
Great. Yeah, good to see you too. Thank you. First, you got to
Gene Tunny 02:10
tell me what happened with that Turkey. I heard you had a run in with a turkey on the campaign trail.
Darren Brady Nelson 02:15
I did. I did. Yeah, I’ve been doing sort of, you know, you know, like you, well, a little bit similar to you. I mean, you, you actually set up your own firm, and all adept at economics and all that sort of things. You You certainly taken, you know, being, if you like, a freelancer, independent, to sort of higher levels than I have, I’d kind of just go fly solo. And that’s what I do, kind of economic stuff, mainly. But sometimes I get weird stuff, like elections. So, you know, I did the, obviously, the Trump election, I think we spoke about that, you know, last year at some stage, or in the wake of last year, and then more recently, I got, you know, kind of involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. So in the US, pretty much most of the courts, the judges run for office like, you know, politicians, the only exception being the US, you know, Supreme Court. So anyway, so there’s a big election for one, you know, one, one seat was up for contention in Wisconsin, and so, you know, I’ve been doing that for the past five weeks or so, you know, literally going out there and knocking on doors and speaking to people and, you know, handing out literature. So, you know, I’ve become, the past couple of years, the door knocking economist, but as you mentioned, I’ve also become the turkey fighting economist as well. So what happened is there’s a suburb called Wauwatosa in in Milwaukee County. So Milwaukee County’s got the City of Milwaukee, which is dominates, but it has a bunch of other kind of subsidiary cities or suburbs, including Wauwatosa. And just just one morning, when I meet on the second house, I went to Wauwatosa. You know, just after 9am I was walking up to go knock on the door, and I heard this hissing behind me, you know, you know, I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess. I thought maybe cat or something, I suppose. And then I turned around this really huge Turkey. I didn’t even know turkeys could get this big. Was kind of like chasing me. Essentially, I didn’t even know it was until I got up to, you know, nearly to knock on this, this person’s door. And, you know, it was a big male Turkey and all puffed up and all this sort of stuff was like, you know, like, about four feet tall. The thing was huge, you know, a meter. And obviously they puffed themselves up. So, you know, obviously it took me a little bit unawares. And, you know, I tried to shush it off and scare it off with loud noises, but it was not going down for that. And fortunately, there was like a, you know, winter is, you know, pretty much over. But, you know, they had, like a kind of a plastic shovel. Lot of Wisconsinites just keep their shovel just sitting outside. I say most people don’t just steal people’s shovels, I guess. But anyway, it was there. It was, it was, it was plastic, so it wasn’t like a big metal one. So I grabbed that ice, tried to, you know, like, you know, poke it and, you know, have it scare away. But I sat there for like, up to 10 minutes, literally fighting this turkey with a shovel, it would not it kept on coming. In fact, I hit it like several times. Usually when you hit something once it runs off, right? But this thing would not run off. And I actually got saved by just some retired lady and her rather large dog cut me going for a walk, and she sicced the dog on on the turkey, and it finally took off. So, yeah, there’s my weird story about, you know, getting attacked by a turkey, obviously, um, you know, I certainly wanted, um, you know, Brad Schimmel to win pretty badly, but I’m not sure about, you know, fighting a turkey for him, right?
Gene Tunny 05:58
Okay, so Turkey’s protected. I mean, you didn’t harm the turkey, did you? I mean, you just sort of
Darren Brady Nelson 06:05
harm that Turkey because it because they have these, these, you know, really, I mean, they’re not going to kill you, but they could, they have these spurs on their, on their, you know, their feet, so they could, you know, you know, cut you up pretty nicely. So they’re not harmless birds, right? They’re not like, you know, maybe not like an emu or something like that, which is obviously far bigger and, you know, can probably, you know, break your ribs or something if it kicks you. But they’re not, they’re not harmless. They’re not like, gonna kill you, but they’re not harmless, right? So, no, they’re not protected. In fact, while with toast, has had a problem with wild turkeys for quite some time. They need to probably call them actually,
Gene Tunny 06:45
okay, well, thanks to that old lady and a dog. So, yeah, the
Darren Brady Nelson 06:51
dog, the dog was great. So it was a really large sort of golden retriever or something. So, yeah, okay, so
Gene Tunny 06:57
you’re, you’re able to answer my questions regarding Trump’s tariffs, among among other things. So, Darren, first, what’s your assessment of the market reaction? I mean, the market reaction has been pretty bad. It’s it looks like a mark of disapproval for the tariffs. What’s your assessment of it, please?
Darren Brady Nelson 07:15
Um, yeah, that’s not, yeah, that’s a reasonable assessment. Do I think it’s going to be some sort of like even medium term thing for the markets. No, I think they’re going to bounce back fairly quickly. So, you know, my, you know, we’ll obviously get into a bit of, you know, I’ve been kind of like changing my views on tariffs in recent times, not to the point of being like pro tariffs or pro protection, or anything like that. But, you know, I mean, I think that the White House statement, the executive order, and the accompanying statement, you know, sets it out pretty well. I think, you know, the reasons for it, and the whole backdrop, I think it’s actually a and, you know, it’s actually one of the best written executive orders I’ve actually seen, you know. So I don’t know who actually wrote that, but you know it certainly, you know, doesn’t it’s not, you know. I mean, Trump talks in terms of, and sometimes he speaks and he and he trolls people talking about beautiful tariffs and, you know, that sort of stuff. And but you know, I know people have been in the Oval Office with him, and I don’t think he he is a protectionist, nor does he think tariffs actually, you know, ultimately, if that’s all you’re doing, it’s not going to, you know, really create wealth. It’ll help domestic industries, for a time, certain domestic industries, but you know, at the end of the day, it’s not going to, obviously, we’ve seen what happened to, you know, the the automobile industry in Australia, eventually, you know, tariffs and subsidies and all the right and regulations that all directed to help them, eventually they collapse and fail. But that’s what, what Trump’s trying to do is really more art of the deal, and I’ve kind of first started to get a feel for that. You know, that that’s what he was trying to do in, I guess, probably 2018 particularly talking to, you know, a a former Cato economist, who, obviously Cato is, you know, like kind of the libertarian think tank in Washington, DC. So if he was convinced that that Trump wasn’t a protectionist and was just doing it for Art of the Deal purposes. You know, that’s that’s pretty good evidence, on top of what I’ve also seen since then as well,
Gene Tunny 09:29
right? Okay. Now, who do you think drafted that order? Was it Peter Navarro? Is Peter Navarro still involved in in the White House?
Darren Brady Nelson 09:41
I understand he is, I don’t look it’s hard to say who actually, literally drafted that I’m sure was, you know, I’m sure if someone drafted it, and there was a team with input, but you know, it just like, you know, I’ve seen a lot of government stuff across multiple countries, and it just, you know, you know, particularly, I guess, you know, Trump has, you know, him. Self, obviously, what’s what the weave? You know, how? Obviously he does the weave when he’s actually speaking. You heard that term, the we, yes, yes, yes, yeah. You know, he kind of, you know, wanders around and goes kind of off on tangents and comes back and all that, you know, like, you know, I’m not sure how he writes, To be honest, I’m, you know, but I doubt he wrote that, but, so, you know that, I mean, in a nutshell, what I understand, and I remember this, you know, particularly after a g7 meeting, I think in 2018 and I wrote an article about it, which I sent to you. You know, we’re, you know, basically the the g7 leaders were complaining about, you know, some of the tariffs, obviously. And then Trump, you know, hit back with, like, you know, hey, Canada, you’re doing this, you know, these partners are doing these ones. Okay, fine, let’s all get in a room and let’s get rid of all our tariffs, or, you know, or at least significantly reduce them down to, you know, very small numbers. And of course, Trudeau and everybody else backed off from that idea, you know. So that tells me, you know, these criticisms aren’t really necessarily some big stance on principle about tariffs, and not even just simply, hey, you’re harming us with this tariff, which, of course, yes, you know, there’s, there’s that, but I think, I think there’s some broader stuff and bigger stuff going on we can get into later, but, but, you know, at a simple level, I think, again, it’s art of the deal. I think Trump’s doing this. And, you know, as Dan Mitchell, who’s, you know, and you know, essentially, I’ve seen ardent opponent of terrorists, but he’s kind of a little bit of an ardent opponent of Trump, no matter what he does. But he, you know, he says, you know, he points out rightly, these aren’t simply reciprocal at times, like, you know, not just the same level as, you know, China or Canada or the EU that’s true, as far as I understand. But they’re punitive. But they’re punitive with a point to get these people into a room, basically to do a deal, to ultimately, you know, sort of get better trade arrangements, lower tariffs, and not just tariffs, but other non tariff barriers to trade, which there’s plenty of. And because, you know, the US, you know, certainly seems like they’ve kind of allowed countries to kind of hit them harder with stuff over the years, and the US not sort of retaliating, and now they finally are, and they’re making up for lost time.
Gene Tunny 12:25
Yeah, look, Darren, I think you there’s some interesting points you made there. Now the issue about Yeah, you rightly acknowledge these tariffs aren’t genuinely reciprocal. They are. Some of them are punitive, and a lot of economists and market commentators have been shocked by the formula that was used to calculate them. So it’s it’s either 10% or it’s the if there’s any sort of restriction on any imports, then it’s a minimum of and that could be for biosecurity reasons, as in Australia. So one of the things they’re concerned about beef, and I mean, we’ve got very strict regulations on food that can be imported. And so that’s one of the points of contention. But it’s basically, what was it? It was the trade deficit with a country divided by the the exports of that country to the US. And that’s a that’s a percentage, and they divide that by two, and it’s, it’s either that or 10% whichever is greater. So an economist are just sort of scratching their head, how does this make any sense? So that’s one of the, one of the concerns. You mean, where’d you get this formula from? Well, that’s the formula. That’s how that’s basically what everyone’s what everyone’s reporting, how they figured out, how they
Darren Brady Nelson 13:39
actually I contend whether that’s actually in the executive order. But anyway,
Gene Tunny 13:43
that’s, you can work that out from the chart that, you know, the chart he held up on the, yeah, the Rose Garden. So that’s, that’s essentially how he’s come to this. There’s this bizarre formula that that no one can figure out. So that’s one of the concerns. But I think that’s good. You’ve acknowledged that these are punitive. You think this is about the the art of the deal. Now, this is what Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, was saying. He was trying to hint, oh, okay, this is, look, we want to have a negotiation with these countries. But then Caroline Levitt, or someone from the White House, has come out and said, Oh, no, this is final. So, I mean, what’s your so is your? Is your view that this is the start of a negotiation with different countries, and so we will have lower tariffs eventually. Or how long is this going to last? How do you see this playing out?
Darren Brady Nelson 14:32
Look, you know, it’s obviously hard to say how long, and it’ll probably be be on a country to country basis. I think some will kind of go all right, you know, like, let’s we’ll come to the table pretty quickly. I didn’t hear the comment by Levitt that you’re saying that doesn’t sound accurate. That doesn’t sound in keeping with, you know, not just Trump over, you know, his previous presidency in the start of this one, but obviously he’s famous for the art of the deal, his book. So. I don’t think Trump’s change on that that, you know, I think he’s changed in terms of the art of the deal, with dealing with Democrats and and the kind of the his ardent left opponents, I don’t think he’s given up that you can’t do a deal with them, right? But that’s not applying this. That doesn’t apply in this setting. I don’t think and, and, you know, in terms of, yes, I think you can do a deal with any country, you know, Canada, China, EU, all that, even though there’s obviously people there who you know, are reluctant to do any deal with with Trump, because they just don’t like him, right? They don’t like what he stands for. They don’t like his style, etc, etc. And then there’s kind of that long standing and growing kind of European disdain for the US anyway, that that’s a separate issue, I suppose, but so, yeah, I totally see it as art of the deal. You can find a statement or something, but that’s not I think that the weight of evidence suggests it’s art of the deal. It does get more complex, because Trump is a bit of a troller, and he and he’s, he’s loose with language. But, you know, I was thinking that too. And I was thinking, Wait a second, maybe not so much, because if you’re doing the art of the deal, if you make it explicit that, well, this is the art of the deal. I don’t actually believe in tariffs, and I don’t really want to keep them on, you know, people might balk and go, all right, we’ll just wait it out for a while, because, you know, you know, he doesn’t really believe in this, and he’ll eventually just get rid of him, right? He’ll, he’ll, he’ll bow to the, you know, the pressure, if the markets don’t recover quite the way we think they will, or, or of the political pressure, or, you know, Republicans in Congress, you know, get weak knees. So I think, you know, actually, to give him a little bit more credit, I think sometimes this trolling also does have a purpose besides the fact he may enjoy the trolling in the first place because you let your opponents note leaner, you know, or your negotiating partners, know, look, I’m not really serious about my position, then that that really undermines your art of the deal. Basically, does it not so. But I think ultimately, you know, he’s not a believer in protectionism, or, you know, like tariffs are somehow the long term path to even domestic growth of industry. So, you know, I think the way to the evidence is, you know, in that and you could certainly, you know, I, you know, I haven’t looked at their formula that you, that you suggest they’re using, and if maybe that is true, I didn’t see that in the executive order doesn’t say that it doesn’t exist, just because it’s not an executive order. But I didn’t get that impression from the executive order. And, you know, ultimately, you could certainly make a cost benefit analysis, you know, case, you know, like, obviously discounted over time, if Trump is doing an art of the deal and he gets a lot of these lower tariffs and other non tariff barriers to trade, putting side, obviously, we can talk about the defense argument too. I think you could certainly make a case, because I think that the world, the WTO and all these things, have just not been doing. They’ve been doing a very bad job, you know, over not just years, but probably decades. Actually, it just hasn’t been really particularly when it comes to non tariff barriers to trade in particular, that I think there’s a reason why Trump and some others are just starting to move to these bilateral trades, because the WTO is just kind of captured by dei and green stuff and all the rest. You know, it’s no it’s no longer devoted to free trade as such,
Gene Tunny 18:37
right? And so do you think that these the failure of the WTO, this is behind the large trade deficits that the US has with China and other countries. Is that the is that the contention definitely
Darren Brady Nelson 18:52
with China, I think, I think it’s huge. I think, I think these trade deals, you know, particularly when they’re like, 8000 pages long, etc, like the, you know, the Trans Pacific Partnership. It’s just a lot of just like, Yeah, you know, we’re gonna help my friends over here. We’ll help your friends over here. We’ll help my friends over here. Blah, blah, blah. They’re not free trade agreements. They’re not even vaguely like, free trade agreements used to be done, you know, once upon a time, I’d argue, you haven’t even had a free trade agreement. You know, maybe you could say, in the early days of these, of these multilateral, you know, gat and stuff, maybe there was some, you know, a period of time where you really were, you know, and probably were moving the in the direction, back in the direction towards free trade. And I say back, because really, since World War One onwards, you haven’t seen much in the way of actual free trade agreements, which used to be very small and didn’t have to say a whole lot, you know, as you’d expect, a free trade agreement too. You know, you’re not sitting there picking winners and losers, which is what they do now. And sadly, you know, they were so keen to get China into the WTO, they just threw all sorts of, you know. Unfair sort of advantages their way. There’s no way Communist China that could do nothing well, all Sun is this, you know, turns into this powerhouse of capitalism purely because they were really good at stuff, or even purely because they had cheap labor, because a lot of stuff that’s going over there is even capital intensive sort of manufacturing and other items, which you know, obviously, over time, China got better at this and that, no doubt, but you know, to suggest, all sudden, almost overnight, China is super awesome at all these things. I know I don’t think so well, what
Gene Tunny 20:37
are some of the unfair advantages you do? You think that China has had thrown its way that, you know, that the White House would be concerned about, what do you think? What is it specifically the Trump administration is concerned
Darren Brady Nelson 20:50
about? Well, clearly, they’ve bought off a lot of politicians. I mean, you know, over the years, you know, to get these sweet deals. They’ve been, you know, the Bidens, the Clintons, the Bucha, over the years, they’ve thrown a lot of money at these people to get kind of sweeter deals. And it’s not always, yeah, it’s not always the stuff you can just pick up the Trans Pacific Partnership and see the bias in there, although you can still see it in there too. But I think it’s, kind of, kind of, if you like, the shady stuff behind the scenes that have been done,
Gene Tunny 21:28
yeah, yeah. I mean, it’d be, I mean, I’m, no doubt there are. I mean, I’ve had guests on this show
Darren Brady Nelson 21:33
labor in Australia, too. I mean, it’s just like, there’s a lot of stuff that’s gone down that’s, you know, it’s been documented. Some people have actually been prosecuted for saying something. Some people have not. So, you know, some stuff, you know, obviously hasn’t gone to court or trial. So you could say, well, that’s just conspiratorial, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe not. You know, the world’s not sort of, you know, there’s a lot of nefarious things that happen this world, you know, I don’t know why people seem surprised as though, like, this is, you know, everything’s above board, you know. I mean, China’s clearly set out its strategy, and it’s not, oh, we just want to be, you know, just compete in free trade agreements with the world and just be a part of the international community. They fairly well documented their grand strategy in particular, you know, China, I’ve seen particular has so they’re not, you know, they’re not, sort of like, Oh, we’re not going to do shady deals, because, you know, that’s beneath us,
Gene Tunny 22:36
right? Okay, what I would, what I’m wondering about, Darren is, what does this mean for us, consumers and businesses? Because China has become the new workshop of the world. Our mutual friend Dan Mitchell, who you mentioned before, he’s pointed out the tariffs there are tax so you can argue about to what extent the the tax is borne by by foreigners, by by exporters, who might have to cut prices to be able to keep selling to the US or to sell elsewhere. But there’s no doubt that they are a tax, and us, consumers and and importing businesses, will pay more Dan quotes, some estimates that it could cost Americans 2000 to $4,000 reduction in disposable income. What do you think will be the impacts on consumers of the Trump tariffs, please? Darren,
Darren Brady Nelson 23:34
yeah. I mean, I would say that analysis sounds fairly incomplete, because you have to take in in account the whole sort of, you know, gambit of taxes, like the ones that the people who are now paying more tariffs weren’t paying in terms of domestic taxes, you also have to take into effect, obviously, you know, Trump has a huge tax reduction package that’s that’s going to be coming up, so you have to factor that in as well. So to just suggest that it’s just purely tariffs, and there’s going to be no changes to other taxes. So Dan’s right, it is a tax, which means you have to look at the whole sort of like, what’s Trump doing on all the taxes, basically, that are obviously under his disposal at the federal level, of course, and includes, obviously international as well. So again, you could certainly make it a case. I think it’s not unreasonable to, you know, particularly if you’re going to have a trade off and you’re going to have lower income taxes, lower corporate taxes, maybe lower capital gains taxes and that sort of thing, and then you you know, I’m not going to talk about these particular punitive tariffs, but I can see, you know, you know, a sensible level, obviously much lower, once you get, hopefully, people in the room, and you start getting tariffs and non tariff barriers lowered, at least on a bilateral basis, bilateral, bilateral, bilateral, that you could end up with an actual lower tax burden on American consumers over time. Even though you putting aside, like the spike, obviously right now with tariffs. And also you have to throw in the fact the US, unlike a lot of countries, is less reliant on foreign trade than it has historically been. It’s got a huge domestic market, and there’s competition domestically now, again, like I’m saying, in principle, I don’t favor like, hey, we’ll just throw tariffs on because, you know, we want to help out industry a over industry b. Or, you know, domestic industry a versus its its foreign competitors. Like I said, I think in the context of this, I believe this is Art of the Deal. It’s not, they’re not going to keep these in place, they’re going to, you know, massively lower them when they get deals, you know, with each country, China and the EU will probably be the last to come to the table. In fact, I would argue EU will be the very last China will come to the table, much quicker than the EU will, actually, because I think China is so reliant on, you know, you know, sort of, according to the US, I think it’s, it’s, you know, G, G’s pride. At the moment, the EU is a bit different. They, like I said, there’s such a, weirdly enough, I don’t think G. And oddly enough, the Communist Chinese, even though they obviously want to ultimately be the number one power in the world that, weirdly enough, there’s not at the same time, there’s not this kind of decades grown up anti Americanism that you have the EU. So that’s kind of interesting kind of dynamic that’s going to make doing a deal with the EU probably the most difficult. I think, ultimately, weirdly enough, yeah, I know it’s weird. It’s kind of, in one sense, China should be the most difficult, because obviously they want, they want to, you know, supplant the US as the top strategic power. But then you have the EU, you know, with its long standing disdain for American culture, and particularly, obviously, for Trump and mega, Chinese probably don’t, you know, they kind of have, probably have a weird respect for Trump and mega that the EU does not. That’s interesting.
Gene Tunny 27:12
Who is it the Chinese blame for the century of humiliation? I mean, would that be primarily the British because of the Opium Wars? Probably is, I guess
Darren Brady Nelson 27:21
so, yeah, I guess so, yeah, you know. And look, let me put this all in the context of, you know, you know, I was straight up Dan liberty, Dan Mitchell, Libertarian, slash, classical liberal view of tariffs. But the thing is that what I’ve noticed is a lot of people like Dan, and he’s my friend. He’s, you know, he’s turned into a religion, as though, like, you know, like he won’t complain about other taxes so much, but tariffs are, like, sacrosanct, you know, like they’re not, they’re a tax, you know, like they’re not a super special tax, in some sense, you know. You know, they behave like a transaction tax for the most part. And as you mentioned, yes, they get shared between producers and consumers, whether they’re domestic, and in this case, obviously the producers will be the foreign ones. Whereas, you know, normal transaction tax analysis, you’re thinking in domestic context. But that’s fine. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty much the same thing. Well, it’s been on elasticities of supply and demand, obviously, you know, in particular markets, you know how much, which will depend, obviously, on competition versus, you know, how, how much of a cartel type of industry it is, etc. And what you mean, what are the substitutes and compliments, etc? But yeah, I’ve noticed this weird thing. And I think I also had this once about time, like, tariffs, oh, they’re the special tax that you can never, ever do, any ever put on for any reason whatsoever, even if you actually lower taxes elsewhere. You know. So, no, I think, I think that’s kind of ridiculous sort of stance. Well,
Gene Tunny 28:53
I think the point you make about you talked about elasticities. And I mean, if the Trump tariff formula actually had an elasticity or two in it, then you might think, oh, okay, there’s some logic to it. And there is that concept of the optimal tariff for a large country like the US, which can actually affect the terms of trade. So but, I mean, my concern is just how, just the formula that’s been applied, how wide ranging it is. It doesn’t seem I mean, I can’t understand it. I mean, I don’t think they’ll last either. I mean, I think we both agree this is, this is temporary. I have a different hypothesis to why it’s temporary. I think it’s it’s going to be temporary because the people on Wall Street, the people in Connecticut who had got the hedge funds, they’re going to be knocking on the door of the west the West week, saying you’ve got to stop this. This is, yeah, this is costly this week.
Darren Brady Nelson 29:48
Yeah. What’s the sorry, forget the name escapes the who’s the UK Prime Minister that these sort of people pushed out the door fairly? Liz truss, sorry, yeah. Let’s trust Trump is not. Liz truss. They’re not going to be able to to they can come knocking on the door as much as they like. First of all, Trump knows the game as well as they do, right? So he’s he, you know, I’m not sure Liz really understood it as much. And I’d say the US is a much bigger, more powerful country, etc. But also, Trump has almost been killed. I don’t think the hedge people are going to be able to pressure him like you know, maybe they could have in 2017, 1819, but they’re not going to be able to this time Trump. Trump’s sticking to his guns on all these things. Obviously, we’ll talk about Doge as well, but he’s sticking to his guns. I The hedge fund people in Connecticut? No, they got zero influence on Trump. Well, the
Gene Tunny 30:44
benefit, the the what Trump has in his favor is that there’s still a huge demand for US Treasuries, right? There’s still, you know, they talk about the safe asset shortage, so people want to hold US Treasury bonds, because they’re seen as safe. And even, like, if you have global turmoil, people still want to hold US Treasury bonds because they’re seen as safe. So whereas with the UK, I mean people, you know, the people in the markets, go, Oh, we’re, we’re concerned about their ability to repay all this debt, and yeah, we’ll punish them in the in the bond market. So yeah, that’s, that’s really what, what brought down Liz truss? So, yeah, I think he’s a lot in a lot firmer position than than trust. I think he can, yeah, I don’t see any threat to him. I mean, he can’t be kicked out, like Liz truss. I mean, he doesn’t have a he’s in for the next, next four years, isn’t he true?
Darren Brady Nelson 31:38
And it’s actually have said, or the, you know, like, you know, some of the stuff, you know, I mentioned, you know, the kind of the dirty deals and the that are done, you know, I never thought about these things much prior to the 2020s and I probably would have been like, you like, oh, you know, like, you know, kind of like, oh, I don’t know about that. But now here’s the other context, the West globalists. There’s a war against Trump and people like Trump. So this is also and a lot of these people are hedge managers, so there’s that. So they’re trying to make the markets look tanked and make Trump look bad as much as they can as well. So it’s not just purely, yes, there are people literally are scared and whatnot and but there’s also people because, you know, we have BlackRock. It’s not like these markets are. There’s sort of cartel elements to these markets. They’re not these purely competitive markets, and no one’s really influencing it. And this is purely just a sensible market reaction to stuff it. It’s partly that, but it’s also partly people trying to make this happen as well, the black rocks of this world as well. They who are just ardent opponents of Trump, right? And they’re opponents of Trump, they’re opponents of, you know, me lay their opponents of Orban. They’re opponents of all these, you know, these Trump like movements. I know Milo is a bit different, but he’s also, you know, he’s a strong ally of Trump as well, even though, obviously he takes kind of a more libertarian approach that Dan Mitchell would approve of in Argentina. But they’re both on board with fighting, sort of the globalists, right? The Black Rocks, the the weft and all that sort of stuff.
Gene Tunny 33:19
Darren wasn’t Wall Street, weren’t BlackRock and Ray Dalio and all the hedge funders. I mean, maybe not Dali. I can’t speak about him specifically, but my impression was that they were all in favor of Trump, and the didn’t the stock market have a bit of a boost when he got elected. So, I mean, people, people that you’re talking about, were actually excited about Trump, but now they’re not, because they see that the diet, the adverse consequences these tariffs. Did you see Jim Craver Cramer was on with Aaron Burnett on CNN the other day, just saying, What madness it is. I mean, the I just can’t understand that argument. I mean, wasn’t
Darren Brady Nelson 33:54
Wait a second. When were they on board? I don’t I never heard them release statements Well,
Gene Tunny 33:59
I mean, well, the markets were, the markets got a boost when Trump was elected, and when he and he is Trump, was actually claiming that. Well, he was claiming credit for the markets going up when they were starting to think that he could get elected. So, yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 34:13
look, he does, you’re right. I mean, all politicians start doing that. They claim, you know, markets go up purely because of them, and then when they go down, that’s not to do anything with them. Obviously, it’s a mix of both. But no, there’s the black rocks. And people have never been on they didn’t also turn to Trump, you know, this time around, he has, you know, this is like a drop dead war to the death, almost, you know, actually, literally, maybe also death, you know, between sort of globalists and the kind of, like the nationalist sort of movements of Trump and Orban and Milo and people like that. I don’t know why you’re smirking at me. This is fairly
Gene Tunny 34:53
honestly, Darren, I don’t, I don’t understand. And I mean, most of these people just want to make money, don’t they? I mean, I don’t know about this. Whether you how you can call them. Maybe they they’re more, yeah, definitely, they’re going to be more in favor of, you know, free or globalization, than, say, the people in the current White House. But I just, I just can’t understand this well, I think deliberately crashes the market. That doesn’t make any sense to me. We’re talking
Darren Brady Nelson 35:19
about Soros did the exact same. Soros, back in the day, did the same thing, not for some market driven purposes, for his political agenda. Soros did this, you know, once upon a time. So these people, I mean, Bill Gates, is long removed from like, Oh, I’m just trying to make a profit at Microsoft. I mean, they’ve moved on from this. They have other agendas that they’re using their wealth for. This stuff’s pretty well documented, and it’s not documented on fringe websites. It’s documented fairly well, you know, maybe not on CNN, but it is documented on Fox Business and plenty of other sort of websites like that.
Gene Tunny 35:59
I think if you can send me some links to that. Darren, I’d appreciate it. Yeah, honestly, I’m, I’m skeptical. But look, it just doesn’t, it just doesn’t appear that. It just doesn’t make any sense to me that they would want to crash the market in that way. There are a lot of people who, from what my impression is that there are a lot of people on Wall Street who are mad at Trump at the moment because of what’s happened in the markets due to his tariff announcement. So these
Darren Brady Nelson 36:27
people support, you know, the COVID restrictions that I mean, this little mini crash from Trump and his tariffs is nothing compared to what happened, you know, under the very end of Trump and, you know, for another, you know, the first year or so, Biden and these people were very supportive, yet they were getting smashed in the pocketbook. Were they not? So people aren’t just motivated purely by profit, and even people in Wall Street and et cetera, aren’t just purely profit, particularly if they have kind of, you know, obviously, if they’re not in a position where, if they lose right now, they’re gone. You know, as long as they can recover and they have other purposes, and they can have other influences and and hopefully make a buck, obviously, as well as, you know, pursuing, you know, what are their sort of broader goals they have, like a Bill Gates or, or George Soros or, you know, Larry Fink, because they all have broader goals and, and, you Know, weff in particular, you know, their website sets out those goals, and they’re not just to, oh, let’s we want more free trade. That’s not their goal,
Gene Tunny 37:29
right? It’s the great reset you’re talking about. We had an episode on the the great reset a while back. People
Darren Brady Nelson 37:34
always go like, they go like, Oh, I’m skeptical. And then I immediately send them the link to their actual website that talks about the great reset. It’s like, it’s that it’s not like a crazy conspiracy theory. They set it out quite clearly. What they’re trying to do,
Gene Tunny 37:46
what I’ll do is, I’ll put a link in the show notes to our chat about the great reset, and because I think we had a good conversation about that a few years ago. So just finally, on the tariffs, Darren, you you mentioned, you know, other considerations, or other considerations, I presume you’re talking about national security. What do you see a national security aspect to these tariffs?
Darren Brady Nelson 38:12
Yeah, I think there is. I don’t think that’s the main one. Obviously, if you go through the big list, you know, there will be for China, without a doubt that that’s actually with China. It’s, that’s, that’s actually maybe the number one reason, actually with China. I think you can probably, you know the notes, you know where Adam Smith sets out the three exceptions defense is not before he tried to free trade. Yes, yeah, where he sets out the exceptions to free trade, you know, where it is legitimate to do, you know, tariffs or whatever else, right? So defense is number one, and then the next two are almost kind of the same thing, a little bit different. The second one’s the reciprocal, you know, straight up reciprocal. And the third one is the punitive one. And he sets out for a goal, though not punitive, just to be punitive, obviously punitive to then get them back to the negotiation table, and then, you know, open up both markets, if you like. Are, you know, more than just two markets, perhaps. So Adam Smith sets out the himself, sets out the reason for the punitive tariffs, right? So, you know, which we obviously spent a lot of time on previously. So you know, Adam Smith himself, who is obviously against mercantilism, if you like mercantilism, obviously thought like this was a good long term strategy, right? You know, mixed in with the concept of, like, we want lots of gold and all that sort of stuff. But that’s obviously not an issue nowadays. So, yeah, defense definitely it. You know, I’ve surprised in recent years to learn that just the amount of stuff that, you know, the US military relies on China for, you know, inputs, it’s that’s just like, No, it’s like, it’s one thing to rely on Canada or Australia, obviously, or even like countries that may not be your allies, but aren’t literally. Your rivals and could be your enemies overnight, you know, if something went, you know, you know, in Taiwan, if something happened, for instance, which, of course, the US doesn’t rely on Russia in any way, for, for, you know, defense related inputs, but it does for from China,
Gene Tunny 40:17
right? Okay, so national security. I mean, this is interesting that you think that’s, I mean, that’s part of it. But the the biggest story is you think that you agree with Trump, that you think America is getting ripped off. I mean, I’m just trying to understand what the what is it? How are they getting ripped off? I mean, what’s, what are the consequences of that, that jobs and factories have gone overseas, and the idea is to reassure those jobs and factories, is that the idea? Well, look,
Darren Brady Nelson 40:43
you know, I think it’s partly that. I mean, I’ve just purely as an, you know, you know, the evidence I’ve seen, you know, has looked like the US has done a lot of bad deals that that have, if you’ve like, skewed things in favor of Mexico, in favor of Canada, even in their, you know, their overall North American agreement. But more importantly, obviously, you know, through the WTO, things skewing towards China and other agreements. So, you know. So I think they are trying to rebalance, you know, basically, in a nutshell, to others like, you know, look, I can’t speak for Navarro. And all his views, I think you seem to know a lot more about you know him, and you know where he comes from than I do. Maybe he’s got something, a grand strategy that’s beyond just, hey, let’s kind of, you know, level the playing field, you know. I think this is ultimately just kind of aimed at that, because I don’t think you know Trump, or you know, a lot of Americans don’t feel as though they can’t compete if the fields you know more level than it has been in recent decades you know, particularly from you know, probably Clinton onwards, perhaps longer, but at least since then. So you know, that’s, that’s my take on it, that, you know, ultimately these punitive tariffs and putting again, defense to the side for the moment, defense is a different issue, and I think you’ll have to treat it separately. But of course, you know, you can get, you know, obviously the there’s a danger the military industrial complex claiming things are skewed. You know, you know that things are important to them when maybe it’s not. So there’ll be a lot of you know that obviously this will have to be looked at closely to make sure that it’s not just you end up just protect, if you like, really end up just protecting industries over a longer period of time, rather than, you know, having really good, you know, national security reasons for, for, you know, sort of like taking, you know, so making it hard for China to have an input into, you know, this or that particular, you know, crucial security or defense aspect,
Gene Tunny 42:50
yeah, okay, okay, Darren, I think we’ve chatted plenty about tariffs for the time being. Let me it is totally out of the deal. Yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 43:04
go ahead, yeah. Look, I think this is, you know, something about this tells me I’m right when, when people get, like, just overly emotional about it, like, particularly economists. I kind of kind of not saying you but, you know, but I’ve been talking to libertarian and classical liberal economists, and they don’t even want to consider that. You know, that maybe these trade deals have not been very good and skewed. They don’t want to consider that. They don’t even want to consider that this is Art of the Deal. They don’t want to even consider that the Trump is anything but a protectionist. They don’t want to consider that tariffs, oh, yeah, their taxes. Remember, their taxes, you know. Thus, let’s look at the overall tax mix, including tariffs. They just have, like, this is like a sacred cow. You can’t ever put a tariff up for any reason or put a tariff on even if you can actually say, you know, these Adam Smith reasons, defense, reciprocal, punitive, to then recapture a more free trade arrangement. I’m surprised at the amount of people who they have such emotive responses to it. And they’re not. They don’t go, oh yeah, okay, let me consider this, you know, or you know. Okay, fine, show me some of the evidence for that, etc. No, there. It’s usually a very visceral reaction right away. Perhaps 10 years ago, I might have had the same or maybe seven years ago, I might have had the same reaction too. Well,
Gene Tunny 44:29
that’s what I’d like to see. I’d like to see what is that evidence that that is being claimed, that of these skewed trade agreements, I think it would be good for for the White House to put that out and then have more targeted. I mean, if the genuine reciprocal tariffs, or if they’ve got a beef with a specific country, then then actually, you know, provide the evidence for that, and rather than just what they’ve done. But look, if you’re saying, look, I mean, maybe it is out of the deal, well, I don’t. Know what’s going on in Trump’s head? Yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 45:02
look, I would, I think, I think, I think you may have relied too much on reporting and what they’ve done. I think, look at that, go, go to the source, and I sent you the link to the White House, their whole, you know, the executive order, plus their whole rationale for that order. And then, you know, judge that alongside of the commentary of whoever else.
Gene Tunny 45:24
Okay, right? Oh, Darren. I think we’ve chatted plenty about tariffs before we better get on to Doge. Elon Musk is, I think he’s finishing up his what was it 130 days as a special government consultant. And I mean, what’s your assessment of how Doge has performed? It’s been controversial. There was a whole, I mean, USA ID was shut down. There are concerns about what that means for Well, for the countries that it used to support, there are concerns about what it means for us soft power around the world. What’s your assessment of how Doge has performed,
Darren Brady Nelson 46:03
they’ve actually opened my eyes. They’ve actually performed better, you know, even though they don’t, you know, it’s not like, you know, typically, you know, if they, if the White House would have asked us, you know, hey, you know, you know, let’s see. We probably would have got a team of economists or whatever. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Of course, that’s typically how it would be done. But it’s interesting in this, you know, given, yeah, it’s interesting that they’re the tech people, the tech gurus that they got, and they AI wizards, I’ve been, you know, and I’m not a, you know, I’m a skeptic of AI like, you know, and this kind of tech in general, you know, like, I’m kind of like, you know, sure, I have to use tech, and I’m not like, against AI or anything like that, but, you know, I’m skeptical. And I’ve been like, they’ve kind of opened my eyes, like, wow, the stuff they found and how quickly they found it, and how broadly they found it. And then, you know, I was also like, you know, when the first thing they went after it was us a ID, and I’m glad you pronounce it that way, because I used to go USAID, and because it gives it, it gives it a sound of because it isn’t really a foreign aid organization. That’s the thing. I thought it was too It isn’t that, you said soft power. That’s being kind, that’s being very kind to what they do, you know, the, you know, Clinton Foundation and all the other stuff that they fund. I’m not sure. You know, it’s not quite the foreign aid organization that people kind of thought it was, including me, the the amount of Basic Black Ops, political black ops that this thing funds is like that surprises me, too. I didn’t realize that’s what it largely does. You know, for every mosquito net that it may provide in Africa, it’s that’s like, that’s mini skill for what it actually really does. So it’s not just that it’s inefficient and waste, if you like, wasting taxpayers money. It’s, again, it’s far more nefarious than even I kind of thought it might be, to be honest. So now understand why they went after it first. It wasn’t purely like, yeah, you’re wasting taxpayers money on this or that, including, you know, political donations and all these things. And of course, to only one side, it’s far worse than this. So I’m impressed by that, and also things like, you know, finding even though, obviously, social security isn’t really something that you know was going to be a reform target for the Trump administration, in fact, they kind of said the opposite. And obviously, pretty much Republicans and Democrats have said this for decades. We can get onto this, and I think they should just copy the Australian reforms in the 1990s they’re not perfect, but, boy, they’re pretty darn good by comparison. But anyway,
Gene Tunny 48:53
this is, you mean, the individual retirement accounts, superannuation, superannuation, yeah, it’s not
Darren Brady Nelson 48:59
perfect, you know? And then there’s the labor unions and all the, okay, it’s not perfect, obviously, but, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, the US Social Security Systems, clearly, the worst system in the Western world, it seems, as far as I can understand, but, but, you know, Doge is just targeting the the weird stuff, like, Why do you have people on the rolls that are 160 years Old? Clearly, no one is 160 years old, right? So, you know, all that sort of stuff, you know. And as if we went in there, we probably it would have taken us forever to get to that sort of stuff, right? You know. No, no, I think you know, over time, you know, Doge, if they keep it around, I think they need to, obviously, bring in economists and you know, and hopefully they’ll work closely with OMB, which they probably are, I’m not, you know, I don’t know, in Treasury, although the US Treasury doesn’t quite have the same broad role that the Australian Treasury does. You know, it’s very much focused on tax and debt, not so much spending, which is weird. I kind of was surprised to find that the US Treasury doesn’t. Even though they dole out money, they they leave it to OMB to do that, right? So that’s kind of what OMB kind of focuses on, spending and stuff like that. Well,
Gene Tunny 50:10
yeah, I’ll have to look at the specifics. I thought, how they how Doge has been so successful, is that they actually, no, I’m saying that it’s part of Treasury.
Darren Brady Nelson 50:18
Your Treasury doesn’t focus on, they have the data, but they’re not like the way that you’ve worked in the Australian treasury, yes, and state treasuries, you know, they’re heavily involved in what gets spent, right? You know,
Gene Tunny 50:33
yeah, to an extent. I mean, you
Darren Brady Nelson 50:35
know, by agency, by agency, there’s a, there’s a negotiation process, yes, yes. They don’t do Treasury doesn’t do that. It’s they kind of leave it to OMB to kind of do that in along with the Congressional Budget Office. And, you know, it’s kind of a, it’s a, kind of a different sort of system. But yeah,
Gene Tunny 50:52
from what I saw, that they were able to tap into some Treasury system that gave them really amazing data on all of the payments going out from US government. It’s quite extraordinary, and that’s how they’ve been able to be, you know, do as much as they’ve done.
Darren Brady Nelson 51:07
Yeah, Treasury has got data, but it’s weird. It’s like they have it, but they’re not like, they don’t actively use it, and they’re not involved in the process of spending like an Australian Treasury is, or even the Queensland treasury. So, but you’re right, yeah, they, yeah, I understand, you know, I’ve seen some of their data, which is public, obviously, and obviously, Doge has got access to much deeper, and I’ve data than, than what we can get at the public level. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I’m impressed by just, you know, just the way they get, you know, even when, when, when, you know, the the Republicans in Congress were going to go along with this ridiculous, you know, spending budget. And, you know, Doge got onto it really quickly and went, Wait a second. They found all this stuff really quickly, you know, like the speed and the depth and this, you know, scale and scope. It’s like, it’s fairly impressive. Now, ultimately, when they kind of do the report, you know, by the Fourth of July next year, maybe it’ll probably come out on the Fourth of July, I suppose, you know, it’ll be a grant, you know, kind of a ribbon cutting exercise, maybe, type of thing, you know, if they continue to carry on, or whatever, however they hand us over, maybe to OMB. Then, obviously, OMB has got plenty of economists, you know, but I’m impressed by the tech people, and I still think they should be involved and rolled into an OMB and a Treasury or whatever CBO, because, you know, they’re, you know, quite impressive. What they can do so quickly, just on going
Gene Tunny 52:43
back to us a ID, what evidence is that they is there that they are running Black Ops? Is that just a Is that for real, or is that just a talking point from the doge folk?
Darren Brady Nelson 52:53
No, they said it out. They said they put out a great detail. They give you the numbers and stuff. You know, you mentioned the Treasury data stuff. They weren’t, yeah, they’re not. Such as a talking point. Obviously, it gets turned to a talking point for both sides, you know. You know, one side who says, yeah, and then the other side goes, no, that’s not the case. No. Doge, I found that, you know, they don’t just talk they they provide data, you know. And yeah, like I said, I didn’t, you know, like, six months ago, I didn’t, you know, I didn’t have a particularly strong view one way or the other, towards USAID, to be honest, you know, you know, except for, like, just the broader argument that a lot of economists have made, how foreign aid just doesn’t really work. It’s not, you know, East Asia and other places. You know, using market reforms has done way better than Africa, South America, etc, through this, this, this foreign aid. You know, plenty of economists have documented that, you know, conceptually. So, you know, I guess I had that view of it. But, you know, I was surprised that it really wasn’t really much of a foreign aid, you know, outfit, which is why it’s officially called a ID and not actually aid. You know that lot of people are careful not to call it US aid, to make it sound like a straight up foreign aid organization, which I didn’t know really, to be honest, I was kind of surprised too, you know. So they kind of opened my eyes at the, you know, corruption, which is beyond just inefficiency and waste, you know. I think you know, when it comes to corruption, that should certainly be the number one target. Then, you know, waste, and then you know, just kind of efficiencies, if you like, third. And I kind of miss that. I missed that kind of the corruption element of things, I suppose, I guess I realize that there’ll be elements of government that are corrupt to whatever extent, and fraud too. Obviously, that’s what they’ve been highlighting at the Social Security Administration, not suggesting the Social Security, you know, the SSA are fraudulent in them. Cells, but they’re being taken for a ride at times, I think, is what Doge was suggesting, right? It might
Gene Tunny 55:08
have to come back to Doge and have do a bit of a deep dive on some of these, yeah, some of these issues. Just, just so, yeah, I better do, sounds like, I better have a closer look at some, you know, some of what it’s found, and just try and figure out what’s going on. All right, just before we go, Darren, I gotta ask you about the Wisconsin special election. So the Democrats won is the US falling out of love with Maga
Darren Brady Nelson 55:32
no Wisconsin’s kind of Wisconsin’s always weird, but it’s a purple state. It does these weird little swings. It’s not a referendum on Trump. I mean, two things, it’s certainly, I guess it’s a silly referendum on some of Trump’s supporters of Wisconsin who couldn’t be bothered to get out to vote. And I think it’s also a referendum. The weird thing, because I was involved, you know, I did the Trump sort of campaigning stuff last year, and it was all hands on deck by, you know, all sorts of organizations. It wasn’t all hands on deck this time for the Supreme Court, even though it’s very important, because it has national consequences. Basically, the Republicans could maybe lose two seats in the house because of this? Right? Yeah, right. Two seats in the house, in the House of Representatives, not talking about the state legislature. Talk about the in Washington, DC, right? So, and some other stuff too. There’s other things, important things that you know, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide on that that have, obviously, state significance, but they also will have, you know, some federal significance too,
Gene Tunny 56:42
because of the boundaries. Is it the electoral Yeah,
Darren Brady Nelson 56:45
you know, gerrymandering? Yeah, both parties do it, but you know, that’s Australia did the same thing. It’s not like no one’s clean on the gerrymandering thing, but so, yeah, gerrymandering, essentially,
Gene Tunny 56:59
we turned it into an art here in in Queensland, I think we were the best at it for a while. Some of those large, all of those regional like we had these huge electorates in the cities, but the these electorates in the in the regions with far fewer people, and so, yeah, there are many more regional members that are the city. It’s
Darren Brady Nelson 57:19
exactly the same thing Wisconsin. That’s the Democrats complain that that that’s the case. The Republicans are, you know, making it a bit too suburban or rural and not urban enough. And, you know, so, yeah, so, yeah. So, so, basically, so, two things, you know, the trump the mega supporters, they didn’t take the election seriously enough. They didn’t come out. And also the various groups, even the one I was involved with, we didn’t get started till the end of February. This is something that should have jumped in by the bare minimum, the beginning of January, probably really mid November, you know, like once Trump won, get stuck into it, because this was such an important election, I’m not gonna, you know, I won’t blame the Schimmel campaign, because, you know, they only have, you know, they certainly attracted a decent amount of money, you know. And obviously more money was poured into Schimmel and Crawford. These were the two opponents, Brad Schimmel and Susan Crawford. So Brad Schimmel was the Republican, Susan Crawford was the Democrat, with the weird caveat of, they don’t actually officially run as Republican and Democrat. You know, kind of how they do at, you know, like City Council like Brisbane, yeah, and in the US, they had the same convention that council level, they don’t officially run as Democrat or Republican. But you kind of figure them out fairly quickly. Although you do get at council level here, you do get some people literally aren’t either party, you know. They’re just people who’ve been in the community, like I mentioned, wabatosa. There was this guy I kept on seeing his sign up, and he was the only person I saw his sign up next to Schimmel and next to Crawford. At times it’s like, Who is this person? Like both sides, like him, you know. So he’s got to win. He was just kind of a local guy sort of thing, you know. So, so anyway, so it was combination of, yeah, they didn’t get out the vote early enough. They didn’t make, you know, an effort. They poured a lot of money into stupid TV ads. I think that everybody on both sides complained. Were just awful. You know, from both sides, everybody, like that was the feedback I was getting. It’s like, no one liked anybody’s TV commercials. They just weren’t very good. So, anyways, yeah, but, but what did get up is the voter ID constitutional referendum, the Wisconsin State Constitution. So that will be in the Wisconsin State Constitution that you will have to have voter ID. Now it’s also in the context of there already are voter ID laws here, right? Yeah, you can change laws, right? So, and the Democrats were looking to change those laws to not have voter ID. Basically, um. Which, you know, does seem weird, because, you know, even labor, I don’t think has ever suggested that you shouldn’t have voter ID, have the greens. I wonder if the Greens have ever suggested that.
Gene Tunny 1:00:10
I’m unsure. I honestly don’t know. I mean, the greens are more I mean, they’re, yeah, they’re focused on the big issues for them are obviously the environment, but also housing affordability. I mean, housing affordability is pretty dire here in Australia at the moment. And I mean, the Greens have a lot of policies on that. I don’t think they’re the right policies, but at least they’re, you know, they’re concerned about it, and they’re and they’re, you know, they’re making a lot of noise about it. So, yeah, I mean, we’re having an election that’s coming up on third of, think it’s the Third of May. It’s early May. So, yeah, I don’t know if you’re keeping an eye on that, Darren, if you have any thoughts on what we’re in for over here.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:00:50
Yeah, look, I don’t have strong thoughts on it. I have, you know, kind of fairly shallow thought because it, you know, it’s like, I mean, obviously, even in the internet age, obviously, I have access to all the same information as you do sitting in Australia as you do with the US. But it’s funny, when you’re not sitting in the country, you just, there’s kind of you just don’t soak the stuff as much. So, you know, look, I obviously listen to, you know what? You know friends like you or or mutual friend, Alex Robson has to say about, you know, what he thinks about the election and others. So I understand it’s, well, I don’t know. It’s kind of going back and forth, is it not? My feeling is Dutton will win, or, you know, Dutton, it’s not like Dutton literally wins, obviously, but the Dutton government will win. But, you know, maybe scraping it in, I guess it will be a landslide mandate sort of thing. Anyway, it’s
Gene Tunny 1:01:43
actually swung back to the government, to the Labor government, being returned, at least as a, probably as a minority government with support of TEALS, those, you know, those independents.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:01:57
I think dun will still win. That’s all I’m saying. Yeah. Okay, interesting. I think you’ll still win, because the poll, the polls, they’re always a little bit biased against conservatives. Right now, that’s on steroids in the US, right particularly when Trump’s on the ballot. You know, the polls are just like they were wrong. They were dead wrong. They were, they weren’t even close in the US right now, I’m not saying they’re like that in Australia there, but they are skewed and biased a little bit away from conservatives in Australia as they are, I believe, in UK, Canada. So I think you need to factor that in a bit. It was scomo. I mean, like scomo the other he’s got, you know, really not much of a chance. You know, now,
Gene Tunny 1:02:42
was seen as a bit of a disappointment in the end, I think so. Oh no, no,
Darren Brady Nelson 1:02:47
I agree. I mean, I’m not depending scomo How he performed, what he actually won, yeah, but he was, he was not, he was not, you know, favored in the polls very often, right in the lead up to that election.
Gene Tunny 1:02:59
Oh, not to for 2019 That’s right. He, that was a, that was a real surprise. He, he had a good campaign in 2019 but in 2022 I think
Darren Brady Nelson 1:03:08
everyone, well, I’m talking 2019 sorry, yeah, early 2019 Yeah, yeah, just Yeah. I mean, the mainstream media is left leaning. It just is, you know. And their biases, you know, come through, you know Murdoch? Yeah, Murdoch’s in the middle. He’s not right wing, he’s not left wing. He’s murdered Rupert Murdoch, that is, I’m not. His kids are left wing, lock Lachlan and all the rest. But, you know, give Rupert credit, you know, he’s a, you know, he talked about, you know, he said, Oh, Wall Street, you know, these people just want to make a profit. But that’s Rupert Murdoch, to be honest, you know, like he’s backed left and right over the years. I don’t see him as an ideologue. He owns more left wing publications than he does right wing ones, you know. And it was Roger Ailes, you know that, you know, kind of was the brainchild behind Fox News. Murdoch just saw an opportunity. Like, wait a second. I mean, he’s not blind. Freddie, you can see all the mainstream media was all left, left wing, right in the US at the time, and the new cable. Well, CNN wasn’t all that left wing back then. To be honest, they were. They kind of did actually have a decent mix back in the day CNN, but he certainly saw a market for a rate leaning cable TV, Fox News, you know. So I’m not
Gene Tunny 1:04:27
sure what left wing publications you think Murdoch owns, unless you’re claiming the Times and the Wall Street Journal are left wing. Oh,
Darren Brady Nelson 1:04:36
he owns lots of stuff around the world. He still own a lot of stuff that lean left. You know, I’m not sure if he, if he’s divested of some of that stuff over the years, the times, sorry, what did in London? Yeah, he owns the times. That’s, that’s that leans left. Yeah, definitely. And the Wall Street Journal is, at best, a neocon sort of Reg, um. Of it’s basically a combination of neocons and Neo Neo liberals. So whether you call that left or not, I don’t know, but it’s certainly there hardly free marketeers at the Wall Street Journal.
Gene Tunny 1:05:13
Certainly everything’s nothing’s like it once was Darren. I mean, it’s we live in, live in interesting times, don’t we? Right? I think we’ve, we’ve had a we’ve had a good chat of, I think it’s, it’s good to catch up with you on tariffs, and what’s been happening with with Doge, and your experience in Wisconsin, your your story about the turkey, I’ll have to look out for them. I mean, we have those little bush turkeys in here, scrub turkeys in Brisbane, you’d be aware of, but you wouldn’t get cornered by one of them for 10 minutes.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:05:49
I’ve seen, you know, my, my, my niece’s cat chases those things around. So no, you know. Do you have any, you have any views on the the Canadian election?
Gene Tunny 1:06:00
No, I think it’s extraordinary. Mark Carney was it was parachuted in. I did, didn’t see that coming. I don’t follow Canada closely enough. I know that he could get a benefit from the spat with the dispute with the US. I mean, that could actually help him out, couldn’t it? I mean, that could help the liberals in in Canada, yeah, yeah.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:06:22
Actually, the person who saw that, apparently, and probably not the only one, but, you know, some years back, was a Tucker Carlson, how’s that, right? Yeah, yeah. He saw that, yeah. He saw that, that he’d probably be parachuted in for Trudeau at some stage. Yeah. But interesting enough, it seems that the, you know, the opposition leader there is, he’s, he’s doing an uncomfortable game of, you know, trying to be, I’ve seen the conservative alternative a little bit Trump, like on certain issues, but on tariffs, not like Trump, you know. So it’s, it’s not going to be an easy balance for him to do, I imagine. Yeah, well,
Gene Tunny 1:07:00
lots of fascinating, fascinating things to always talk about with you, Darren. I really enjoyed the conversation. Anything you want to say before we wrap up, you can have the final word.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:07:11
Okay, well, look, you know, I predicted shimmel And I didn’t get that right, you know, hopefully I’ll be better on Dutton and the Canadian election. Because, you know, yeah, I hope, I hope those two governments win, but we’ll see what happens.
Gene Tunny 1:07:26
Well, I hope you’re right about the art of the deal, that’s all. I just hope this is part of his negotiated strategy.
Darren Brady Nelson 1:07:32
Well, yeah, I am too. I’m no supportive, like you have tariffs for tariffs sake. No,
Gene Tunny 1:07:38
yeah. Okay. Very good. Darren Brady Nelson, thanks for joining me. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
Credits
Thanks to the show’s sponsor, Gene’s consultancy business, www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms.