I wanted first to touch on the fact that I’ve been making jokes for years about how in 1814 Canadians (really Mother England at this point) burned down the White House and most of the rest of Washington. Sorry aboot that… You’re probably however, good moving forward. It seems doubtful that zombie Tecumseh will be returning from the grave for a rematch. Just in case anyone was in need of reassurance…

I don’t really want to talk about economics today other than to say the benefits of free trade and in particular, the efficiencies achieved through specialization were made quite clear to me in an eleventh grade text-book. It is not complicated theory. Protectionist policies almost always achieve the inverse of their intentions. Unintended consequences. Fuck Keynes, that is the REAL “classical economics”.

Of course all of that said everyone knows the only way to get rid of a bully…